Focus on now

In the Sunday Chicago Tribune, an editor there who has maintained silence for 35 years on his Vietnam war experience has gone public with his account of events as a swift boat commander---the only one still alive who was actually there for one of the actions Kerry's critics are lying about. He supports Kerry's account completely.
The story can be found at the Chi Trib site, an almost as detailed story at the NY Times, but since both are "subscription" a more accessible link is this one:
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Why are the actual Vietnam vets involved doing this? Several who previously supported Kerry were severely criticized for their actions in Vietnam by historian/author Douglas Brinkley in his biography of John Kerry. Combine that with resentment over Kerry's testimony when he returned, now taken utterly out of context in the new swift boat ads, when he reported having heard at the Winter Soldier hearings in 1970 or so, Vietnam soldiers detailing how they had committed various atrocities or witnessed them.

In Maxine Hong Kingston's latest book, THE FIFTH BOOK OF PEACE, she tells of her work with a group of Vietnam vets. They learned meditation. Eventually they met and embraced Vietnamese who literally had been their enemies---officers and soldiers on the other side. But their openness to new ways of dealing with their experiences, to nonviolence and dialogue, and especially their forgiveness of their enemies, did not extend to Americans who had protested the Vietnam war. They hated them. They were the unforgivable enemy, more than 30 years later.

As early as a first draft physical in Chicago in 1968, we met Vietnam veterans who trashed the war in no uncertain terms. By the early 70s, soldiers in uniform greeted as a brother a contemporary with long hair, because "you guys were right." The political danger John Kerry represented to Nixon in the 1970s was precisely as a well-spoken leader of what was becoming the most dynamic force in the anti-war movement: Vietnam veterans. Nixon's men found their own Vietnam vet mouthpiece, and today he has resumed his career as one of the ringleaders of the anti-Kerry vets.

But there were lots of veterans who felt personally attacked by any criticism or even reporting on the conduct of the Vietnam war. The Vietnam vets in Kingston's book needed more than meditation. They needed some shadow work, some guidance in understanding their projections. Most veterans of that war and most wars have been shamefully abandoned by their government. Many didn't get the medical care they needed, let alone psychological care that would expose that government's cynical use of them.

Now they are being exploited by wealthy friends of Bush, and encouraged in their delusions and lies.

We hope that the belated but now overwhelming exposing of these lies will mean this matter gets a rest. But we aren't all that hopeful it will happen on its own. We suggest that Kerry make an aggressive move to reframe the debate---not on the Vietnam war, but on the war in Iraq. The one the American people are now paying for, the one Americans are now dying for, in increasing rates.

Though the press has moved away from evaluating it, the situation in Iraq is stark. The military situation is worse. The political situation is dire. Billions of dollars have gone to Halliburton and other Bush crony corporations for reconstruction they haven't done, and the Iraqi people are suffering and angry.

More and more is coming out about Iraq and war on terror prison abuses, and the abuses of the Patriot Act that have, among other internal acts of subtle terrorism, placed thousands of Americans unjustifiably on no-fly and watch lists, including at least one black congressman and none other than Senator Ted Kennedy. Even these powerful members of the U.S. government can't get their names taken off these lists.

The only virtue of this press attention on Vietnam controversy is that press is going to be listening to what Kerry says. If he comes out with a full bore attack on Bush policy in Iraq, it will be heard. It is the issue that resonated throughout the primaries, an issue that independent voters are troubed by, and now is the time to return our focus to it. No president can do anything about Vietnam. This president chosen in 2004 must do something about Iraq.