Dismembering The Truth in a Fashion Reminiscent of Genghis Khan

On the cover of this week's National Review promoted an article "The senator's other vietnam war record". The cover consisted of a picture of John Kerry testifying to the Senate as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the following quote from Kerry:

"American soldiers 'raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, ... cut off limbs, ... randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside...'"

Through the magic of ellipses, the National Review makes it seem like Kerry was coming out and making these accusastions on his own, which would make it seem like John Kerry was slandering everyone else who had fought in Vietnam. As The New Republic points out, this is not the case. Kerry is basing his comments on the unofficial "Winter Soldier Investigation", which collected the testimony of other veterans. Even the National Review essentially recognizes the dishonesty of the quote used on the cover. In his article "Kerry vs. Vietnam Vets", Rich Lowry (Editor & UberHack) includes the full quote and then attacks Kerry for relying on the Winter Soldier Investigation (which turned out to be grossly inaccurate), rather than for his actual comments. This is pretty unfair of Lowry, because it is pretty clear that in this case Kerry was A VICTIM OF BAD INTELLIGENCE, much like another man running for President, except no one died from Kerry's faulty intel. For Kerry to really have "dishonored" the Vets, he would have to have known that Winter Solider report was trash, something Lowry does not even attempt verify in his piece.

This isn't really related to the above discussion about Kerry's testimony before congress, but it still irks me. In the article, Lowry proves that the Vietnam War was a good idea with this aside:

Kerry wasn't just wrong about the vets, he was wrong about the big picture, too. He called Vietnam a "mystical war against communism." Given the massive aid to the North Vietnamese from the Soviets and Chinese, it was clearly a very real war against communism. "We cannot fight communism all over the world," Kerry declared. But in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan fought communism in hot spots all over the globe and won the Cold War.

I am astounded that this clown could even write something like this. He mentions Soviet aid to Vietnam like it is some sort of silver bullet, like it is an often ignored fact that completely obliterates any and all arguments against the Vietnam war. The Russians gave lots of different countries lots of money. I believe India and Egypt also recieved Soviet assistance, so perhaps we should have fought a fruitless war against them as well, because by Lowry's logic, WE'D BE FIGHTING COMMUNISM ALL OVER THE GLOBE! or something like that. The next time Lowry wants to take a posistion on an issue that is wrong...er...stupid...I mean, not the same as mine, he ought to have an argument slightly better than that.

Anyhow, I thought it would be worthwile to knock down this whole Kerry "betrayed" the Vets foolishness right from the start. There is no doubt we'll hear it from now untill the election.