John McCain was responsible for the deaths of countless civilians in Vietnam. That is a fact that must not be “disappeared.” Information Clearinghouse presents this report and I urge you to visit their site and if possible, give financial support to this independent news service.
McCain and Rolling Thunder
War Hero or War Criminal?
By Robert Richter
October 16, 2008 "Information Clearinghouse" 
As character assassination attacks on Sen. Barack Obama have now taken over Sen. John McCain's campaign, and because McCain cites his military experience as of prime importance, now is the time to focus closer attention on a facet of the Arizona Senator's own character. This is related to his 23 combat missions for Operation Rolling Thunder - the Pentagon's name for U.S. bombing of North Vietnam.
I will never forget how stunned I was when Gen. Telford Taylor, a chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War Two, told me that he strongly supported the idea of trying the U.S. pilots captured in North Vietnam as war criminals - and that he would be proud to lead in their prosecution.
An ardent opponent of the Vietnam conflict, Taylor spoke with me in the fall of 1966 when I was looking into producing a documentary on this controversy for CBS News, where I was their National Political Editor. While he did not mention any pilot's name, then U.S. Navy Lieut. Commander John McCain who was captured a year later, would have been among the group Taylor wanted to prosecute.
Why would anyone have wanted to prosecute McCain and the other captured pilots? Taylor's argument was that their actions were in violation of the Geneva conventions that specifically forbid indiscriminate bombing that could cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects. Adding to the Geneva code, he noted, was the decision at the Nuremberg trials after World War Two: military personnel cannot defend themselves against such a charge with a claim that they were simply following orders.
There were questions raised about whether the Geneva conventions applied to the pilots, since there had been no formal declaration of war by the U.S. against the Hanoi regime - and the Geneva rules presumably are only in force in a “declared” war.
Anti-war critics at the time claimed that despite the Pentagon's assertion that only military targets were bombed, U.S. pilots also had bombed hospitals and other civilian targets, a charge that turned out to be correct and was confirmed by the New York Times' chief foreign correspondent, Harrison Salisbury.
In late 1966 Salisbury described the widespread devastation of civilian neighborhoods around Hanoi by American bombs: "Bomb damage...extends over an area of probably a mile or so on both sides of the highway...small villages and hamlets along the route [were] almost obliterated." U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara conceded some years later that more than a million deaths and injuries occurred in northern Vietnam each year from 1965 to 1968, as a result of the 800 tons of bombs a day dropped by our pilots. [The deaths and other problems continue in Vietnam and with our soldiers due to the poison, Agent Orange. Please visit my blog post of October 9, 2008, The Continuing Devestation of Agent Orange or click on the tag below for all posts on that subject.]
In one of his autobiographies McCain wrote that he was going to bomb a power station in “a heavily populated part of Hanoi” when he was shot down.
If Gen. Taylor tried McCain, would he have defended himself as “just following orders” despite the Geneva conventions barring that kind of bombing and the Nuremberg principles negating “just following orders?“
The targets McCain and his fellow pilots actually bombed in Vietnam and his justification then or now for the actions that led to his capture, are no longer simply old news. They are part of what must be taken into account today, as voters weigh support for him or Obama to be the next President of the United States.
This is not about the hugely unpopular war in Vietnam. It is about the character of a man who seeks to be U.S. President, who perhaps was not simply a brave warrior, but a warrior who by his own admission, bombed and was ready to bomb targets in violation of the Geneva conventions and Nuremberg principles.
When I passed along Gen. Taylor's comments to my network superiors the program was scrapped: too hot to handle. Instead Air War Over the North was telecast, about “precision bombing” North Vietnam military targets by U.S. pilots. A few years after that broadcast, a Pentagon public information executive gleefully told Roger Mudd in The Selling of the Pentagon that he, the Pentagon official, not only had persuaded CBS to produce Air War Over the North, he even chose those to be interviewed and coached them about what they should say. This unethical collaboration and intercession by the Pentagon in the news media is sadly all too familiar a tactic repeated in the Bush-Cheney years.
Robert Richter was political director for CBS News from 1965 to 1968.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21028.htm
October 17, 2008
McCain's Collateral Damage
October 9, 2008
The Continuing Devestation of Agent Orange
We still have unfinished business with the people of Vietnam who continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange. Children born to children of the war have birth defects and no one knows how long the chemicals will infect future generations. THIS WAS/IS GENOCIDE. Helping Americans to understand their problems will also shed light on our Vietnam Veterans, also burdened by the sickness of the deadly dioxins and other chemicals they inhaled while strafing the country. The only redemption is our determination to help the victims. Please visit this site to learn more from Vietnamese Women who are touring the USA to educate us:
Agent Orange Victims Visit
10 US Cities, Sept 28–Oct 31, 2008
Organizing groups for the delegation have formed & are planning events in
9/28 - 10/5: New York City, New Jersey & New Haven, see below 10/6 - 10/8: Washington DC, press conference at the Supreme Court, meetings with Congress representatives, contact us 10/9 - 10/12: Birmingham AL, meetings with lawyers, contact us 10/12 - 10/14: Pittsburgh PA, Reconciliation & Healing: Remembering Vietnam, La Roche College, contact us 10/15 - 10/18: Detroit MI, National Lawyers Guild, Law for the People Convention, Friday 10/17 10/19 - 10/21: Chicago IL, NPR Worldview, Roosevelt University, Hull House, U of Illinois at Chicago 10/22 - 10/25: Portland & Eugene OR, 10/22 Knight Law School, 7pm (Eugene). contact us 10/26 - 10/28: Los Angeles CA, Reception by CHEER, UCLA Labor Center, Strategy Center & SoCA for Youth, contact us 10/28 - 10/31: Bay Area CA, events in Laney College (10/28, 4pm, Oakland), Eastside Arts Alliance (10/28, 7pm 2277 International Blvd at 23d Ave, Oakland), Glaser Center (10/29, 7pm 547 Mendocino Ave. at 10th St, Santa Rosa), and at Veterans Bldg (10/30, 7pm, Rm 223, 401 Van Ness at Golden Gate, San Francisco), contact ushttp://www.vn-agentorange.org/
August 7, 2008
Help War Resister Robin Long
On July 15, 2008 U.S. Army PFC Robin Long became the first war resister since the Vietnam War forced to leave Canada and to be turned over to the U.S. military. Robin is currently being held in the El Paso County Jail, in Colorado, awaiting his Courts Martial. He will be present for his Courts Martial at Fort Carson, Co. He will likely be charged for AWOL, desertion, and possibly speech-related violations of military discipline; he is facing a General Courts Martial, the maximum penalty of such a trial is 20 years confinement. Support Robin Long and all troops with the courage to resist!
1. Donate to Robin’s legal expenses
2. Send Robin letters of support
3. Send Robin commissary money
4. Send Robin a book
5. Sign the public statement of support – coming soon
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
June 7, 2008
Vietnam Veteran Will Finally Get US Citizenship
Thanks to Denis Hamill of NY Daily News. Well done! Mr. Thomas' story is too amazing to edit, so here is the whole story:
No way to treat a hero: Vet earned three Purple Hearts but still no citizenship
Thursday, June 5
th 2008, 4:00 AM
This one looks like it might have a happy ending - but for the moment this disabled Vietnam veteran with three Purple Hearts is a man without a country.
In 1960, at 16, Rudolph Thomas Sr. came to America with his grandmother from Trinidad. He lived in his grandfather's house on Decatur St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant and, after graduating Franklin K. Lane High, he was drafted into the United States Army on March 8, 1965.
He did basic training in Fort Gordon, Ga., advanced individual training at Fort Dix, and then volunteered for the Army Airborne jump school at Fort Benning, Ga.
"In 1967, I was stationed in Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne when I got my orders to go to Vietnam," says Thomas, who lives in Flatbush. "When I reported to leave they said they couldn't send me because I was not a United States citizen."
He remained at Fort Bragg and three months later they issued new Vietnam orders. "They said, ‘Congratulations, we've naturalized you as a U.S. citizen and you're going to Vietnam,'" he says. "They checked yes on the papers where it asked if I was a U.S. citizen."
Thomas went to Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne and saw heavy action in places with names like Bon Song, An Khe, Bar Tuey.
"The first time I got shot it was in the right ankle," he says. "I got sent to Cam Ranh Bay to recuperate. Then I went back into the bush and was shot in my left foot. I got laid up in the hospital again. I got my third Purple Heart from a landmine, taking shrapnel in my right knee, left buttock and left shoulder. It burned the pants off me."
After the third injury he was sent back to the States.
Rudy Thomas reenlisted, spent six years in the army and received honorable discharge papers that clearly indicate he was an American citizen.
He returned to Brooklyn where he receives a 40% disability pension for post traumatic stress disorder.
His son from his first marriage, Rudy Thomas Jr., became a New York City police officer.
"In 1980 I was hired by New York State Department of Labor under the veteran's readjustment program," the father says. "I have been working there since as a disabled veteran's outreach specialist."
On July 4, 1993, his police officer son was off duty, waiting for his fiancée to come out of a deli on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn when a gunman demanded his motorcycle. When he identified himself as a cop, the armed man shot Rudy Thomas Jr. dead.
In 2005, when his grandfather died in Trinidad - in his late 90s - Thomas applied for his first American passport.
"The people at the passport office looked at my army papers and told me that I could not have a passport because I was not a United States citizen," Thomas says. "I was shocked. They told me to go to 26 Federal Plaza to apply for citizenship."
In December of 2005 Thomas went and applied for citizenship to the country for which he'd fought in a foreign war.
"The woman there said the information on my military papers was inaccurate and that I was never naturalized," he says. "They opened a case and told me to go home and wait."
He's still waiting - and he never got to attend his grandfather's funeral.
Last week, he sent me an e-mail: "I am writing to you with the hope that this matter can be taken care of as soon as possible since it didn't take this long to send me to Vietnam and fight and shed blood for this country when so many others were running away and dodging service ..."
I called Shawn Saucier, a spokesman at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of Homeland Security.
"There is a provision of U.S. immigration law that enables us to move forward on Mr. Thomas' citizenship application pending a criminal background check," he said after doing some research.
"Typically someone has to be a Green Card holder for five years before being eligible to apply for citizenship, but there is a provision ... for certain military veterans who served in active duty during a time of war ... It could possibly happen in the next few weeks."
"If the background check goes well," says Saucier, "we're glad to help someone who put his life on the line to defend the United States to become a citizen."
"That's great news," Thomas says. "Especially since I thought I was a U.S. citizen for the last 40 years since I went to Vietnam."
April 4, 2008
Words of Truth are Words of Power
Posted on Apr 2, 2008
By Amy GoodmanIt has been 40 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel. King was there to support striking sanitation workers, African-American men who endured horrible working conditions for poverty wages. While King’s staff was opposed to him going, as they were scrambling to organize King’s new initiative, the Poor People’s Campaign, King himself knew that the sanitation workers were at the front lines of fighting poverty.
I went to Memphis on Dr. King’s birthday. There I interviewed Taylor Rogers, one of the striking sanitation workers who marched with King. He told me:
“Back in 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers—we were tired of being mistreated, overworked and underpaid. We decided that we were just going to stand up and be men and do something about our condition. And that’s what we did. We stood up, and we told [Mayor] Henry Loeb in the city of Memphis that ‘I am a man.’ ”
While he was organizing against poverty, King also came out forcefully against the Vietnam War, alienating his erstwhile ally, President Lyndon Johnson. Exactly one year before his assassination, on April 4, 1967, King gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church in New York City. He said: “A few years ago, there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.” [my bold]
Time magazine called the speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” The Washington Post declared that King had “diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people.” [...]
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080402_where_do_we_go_from_here/
January 11, 2008
Tonkin Gulf or Strait of Hormuz: SSDD
CIA, Iran & the Gulf of Tonkin
By Ray McGovern, Janua
ry 12, 2008
When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as “the bowels of the agency.”
Out of that experience I must say that, as much as one might be tempted to laugh at the bizarre theatrical accounts of Sunday’s incident involving small Iranian boats and U.S. naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, this is—as my old Russian professor used to insist—nothing to laugh.
The situation is so reminiscent of what happened—and didn’t happen—from Aug. 2-4, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Washington, it is in no way funny.
[...] What follows is written primarily for honest intelligence analysts and managers still on “active duty.”
[...] Given the confusion last Sunday in the Persian Gulf, you need to remember that a “known known” in the form of a non-event has already been used to sell a major war—Vietnam. It is not only in retrospect that we know that no attack occurred that night.
[...] As James Bamford describes it in “Body of Secrets:”
“The twin missions of the [USS] Maddox were in a sense symbiotic. The vessel’s primary purpose was to act as a seagoing provocateur—to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its 5-inch cannons up the nose of the Communist navy. In turn, this provocation would give the shore batteries an excuse to turn on as many coastal defense radars, fire control systems, and communications channels as possible, which could then be captured by the men...at the radar screens. The more provocation, the more signals...
[...] We in the bowels knew there was no attack; and so did the Director of Current Intelligence as well as Cline, the Deputy Director for Intelligence. But all knew, as did McNamara, that President Johnson was lusting for a pretext to strike the North and escalate the war. And, like B’rer Rabbit, they didn’t say nothin’.
[...] “... the dilemma CIA directors and senior intelligence professionals face in cases when they know that unvarnished intelligence judgments will not be welcomed by the President, his policy managers, and his political advisers...[They] must decide whether to tell it like it is (and so risk losing their place at the President’s advisory table), or to go with the flow of existing policy by accentuating the positive (thus preserving their access and potential influence). In these episodes from the Vietnam era, we have seen that senior CIA officers more often than not tended toward the latter approach.”
[...] Back to Iran. This time, we all know what the president and vice president are lusting after—an excuse to attack Iran. But there is a big difference from the situation in the summer of 1964, when President Johnson had intimidated all his senior subordinates into using deceit to escalate the war.
[...] It is my view that the only thing that has prevented Bush and Cheney from attacking Iran so far has been the strong opposition of the uniformed military, including the Joint Chiefs.
As the misadventure last Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz shows, our senior military officers need all the help they can get from intelligence officers more concerned with the truth than with “keeping lines open to the White House” and doing its bidding.
[...] If you’re working in the bowels of the CIA and you find that your leaders are cooking the intelligence once again into a recipe for casus belli, think long and hard about your oath to protect the Constitution. Should that oath not transcend any secrecy promise you had to accept as a condition of employment?
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/011108a.html
November 2, 2007
Dedicated to Dave
A FILM ABOUT AGENT ORANGE IN VIETNAM
the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Foundation will host a presentation of the film
The Last Ghost of War.
This screening is dedicated to the memory of former President of Veterans for Peace David Cline. Lecture attendees are asked to RSVP to (732) 335-0033. A donation of $5.00 per person is suggested. The Vietnam Era Educational Center is located adjacent to the New Jersey Vietna
m Veterans' Memorial off the Garden State Parkway at exit 116. The Educational Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM - 4 PM. Admission is free for veterans and active-duty military personnel. Regular adult admission is $4.00; student and senior citizen admission is $2.00; and children under 10 are admitted free.
October 11, 2007
GI Jane Checks In
My colleague GI Jane at Daughters of Vietnam Veterans (Dovv.net) got some hate mail, posted below. I'm glad to say she's got it all in perspective, and is taking the high road. Isn't it weird when "patriots" want to take your freedoms away? I just can't understand the bullies who have to intimidate and harrass... Anyway, enjoy the video!
I got an email today from a Veteran that said I oughta be ashamed of myself being Anti-war ... what was I doing trying to embrace anti-war, peace, and 911 truth on my site....
I am not ashamed! HA!
Then my friend sent me this of my REAL Veteran friends...
Keep your head between your shoulders and feel your feet on the ground. All will be fine, especially when you're dancing! Love right back at ya, GI Jane.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPrGrxg5nqU
oh...yea.
peace,love,and 911 justice,
love
GI JANE
September 11, 2007
NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
FROM DALLAS TO 9/11: The War on the Truth
The next time you want to throw a new curve into the 9/11 debate, make a narco connection via this blog. They have been following the "Venice Flying Circus" story and others in a wide web of conspiracy stories. Now I’m not saying …, neither will I rule out ANYTHING until there is a full and UNAFFILIATED investigation of how we were attacked. At the end of the day, the only true thing we can all agree upon is that we were attacked and there was absolutely NO DEFENSE FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
As long as we’re straight on that. You might want to read on:
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Sept 11 2007
by Daniel Hopsicker