PICKENS AND "SWIFTIES" ACCUSED OF ATTACKING ALL VETS

PICKENS FAILS TO PAY KERRY’S CREW FOR PROVING HIM LIAR

VETS BACK KERRY – TIME TO "PAY UP" OR GET OUT

By G. Duff 

The idea that a president who had dodged the draft during wartime would attack veterans who served by having billionaire’s pay vets to lie for him should be unthinkable.  It is not.  At the time, with the "fright parade" of lies and propaganda telling us that we weren’t safe in our beds running fulltime, Bush Administration lies about Iraq and the need to discard the constitution were taken seriously by many, including too many cowardly Democrats.

The worst crime was the attack on Kerry’s service in Vietnam.  Bush and Pickens showed the ignorance and hate they had for all vets and serving military.  They went after Kerry but for years have destroyed the lives of veterans and servicemen by the tens of thousands with policies showing these "rich boys" think of soldiers and heros as "trailer trash" and "welfare bums."

In the end, records of all who were there including other captains and even the Vietnamese enemy showed Kerry to be a hero.  I don’t like the man.  I don’t like Bush.  Nobody likes Cheney.  There, I’ve said it.  However, as things have turned out, Kerry would have been a much better choice for president and most believe that we would have two dollar gas, a few jobs left and not be glueing our banking system together to avoid have the "lights turned out".

Pickens, a "world class blowhard", AND  KOREAN WAR DRAFT DODGER offered a million bucks to anyone who could prove the Swift Boat Vets, his paid thugs who spread the lies about Kerry and his crew, wrong.  When the proof came in, Picken’s began changing the rules and has never paid up.  From the NY Times:

Veterans Rebut ‘Swift Boat’ Charges Against Kerry in Answer to Challenge

By KATE ZERNIKE, Published: June 22, 2008 

For most people, “Swift boat” has become a political verb, a synonym for the kind of attack that helped destroy the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry in 2004

But for a group of Vietnam veterans at the center of the attacks, it is still a fresh fight.

On Friday, the group, who served with Mr. Kerry in Vietnam, sent a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman who helped finance the 2004 attack advertisements, taking him up on a challenge he issued last November: that he would give $1 million to anyone who could disprove a single charge the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Mr. Kerry.

The letter-writers served alongside Mr. Kerry during the events that the Swift boat group insisted he had embellished or made up to win his military decorations.

Identifying themselves as “patriotic, concerned veterans” they say the accusations of the Swift boat group damaged their reputations and deeply affected their families, “tarnished the sacrifices we made, called into question the medals we were awarded and challenged the very authenticity of our service.”

The group is working with Mr. Kerry, who himself seized on the challenge soon after Mr. Pickens made it at an American Spectator dinner. In a letter, he offered to meet with Mr. Pickens to rebut the charges. Mr. Pickens wrote back to say that he was good for his money, but that Mr. Kerry would have to provide his military record, the journal he kept in Vietnam and movies and tapes made in his tours there.

Mr. Pickens also qualified his challenge, saying he meant that someone would have to prove false things in the group’s television advertisements — putting aside a best-selling book and extensive news media interviews that attracted the bulk of the attention. He challenged Mr. Kerry back: if you cannot prove anything inaccurate, give $1 million to the Medal of Honor Foundation, a charity.

Wait a minute, Mr. Kerry wrote back, you said nothing at the dinner about just the ads. (At least that is how Mr. Pickens’s challenge was reported by conservative blogs.) He said he would meet with Mr. Pickens — “no variations, no backpedaling, no retreat, no new bets, no changing the subject” — and direct his reward money to a charity that helps veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Pickens did not reply.

So Mr. Kerry’s veteran allies took up the cause. In a 12-page letter — with a 42-page attachment of military records to support their case — they rebut not one but several of the accusations of the Swift boat group.

The veterans offer to go through Mr. Kerry’s record and the video with Mr. Pickens “page by page, frame by frame.” And they demand an apology, to them “and to the American people.”

Of course, none of this is new. Extensive news media accounts undermined the Swift boat charges in 2004, pointing out that some of the Swift boat critics had written statements in Vietnam lauding Mr. Kerry for extraordinary bravery in the incidents they later said he made up. One critic had himself received a medal for heroism during a hail of gunfire he later claimed Mr. Kerry had concocted to win his third Purple Heart.

But that did not blunt the political impact.

Mr. Kerry has remained determined to set the record straight. And the other side remains similarly fixed.

A spokesman for Mr. Pickens, Jay Rosser, said the package had not arrived late Friday. Mr. Pickens — who has said he will not participate in partisan politics this presidential cycle — was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

END OF NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE

Postscript by G. Duff

The American people seem to have become a pawn in an international battle between Central Banks, US and Europe and oil companies who are collapsing, not only the dollar, but, eventually, currencies in Europe, Japan and China.  I would like to say that these are "smarter people than me", which may or may not be true, but however smart they are, they don’t give a lick about the United States.

We have had several huge bites taken out of America in recent years.  The Reagan stock market collapse was part of it, as was the Savings and Loan scandal.  More recently, the Morgtage Collapse and the Oil Collapse followed by the Dollar Collapse has managed to wipe out either the savings, home equity or jobs of millions of Americans.

We follow these things on the internet and, really, few or none of us pay any attention.  How do you explain that being president is nothing but controlling a bank or the Trilateral Commission is real power.

The rats running around Washington only have the power to do what their masters tell them.  Do you think we would have a war without oil companies and Haliburton sucking down billions and buying our government with their pocket change?

Every politician, every candidate is surrounded by thieves. 

After 40 years, government is still doing studies on how veterans need to be treated…studies that often cost more than treatment itself.

I look at our current military.  Our HUGE ADVANCE has been the Stryker vehicle.  We invented it…..and now use it in Iraq.

We fail to tell people that the Swiss company MOWAG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowag_Piranha makes it and has made it for many years.  You can buy them there….anyone can….at one tenth the price of a Stryker.

Macedonia can glue on the extra armour and the Swedes can put the gun on the roof.  You could buy the whole thing for 500k.  We pay ten times that.

We could have bought them years ago and had 3000 of our kids still alive. 

Nobody thought of it.

We could buy body armour at a tenth the price we pay that works better.  We could buy better rifles.  The Russians make better helicopters that cost a tenth as much.

We are running a welfare state for big business.  Keeping Bush in office is simply a way of making sure the bucks keep flowing for junk weapons.

Imagine our troops wiring pieces of steel to the canvas doors of their HumVee’s.  Did they use coat hangers? Duct tape? What does this say about us?

g

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

• Gordon’s Archives:  2008-2015
• Gordon’s Archives:  2016-2022