Shame on the Swift Boat Veterans For Bush
By Jim Rassmann
The Wall Street Journal

August 10th, 2004

John Kerry saved my life. Now his heroism is being questioned.

I came to know Lt. John Kerry during the spring of 1969. He and his swift boat crew assisted in inserting our Special Forces team and our Chinese Nung soldiers into operational sites in the Cau Mau Peninsula of South Vietnam. I worked with him on many operations and saw firsthand his leadership, courage and decision-making ability under fire.
On March 13, 1969, John Kerry’s courage and leadership saved my life.

While returning from a SEA LORDS operation along the Bay Hap River, a mine detonated under another swift boat. Machine-gun fire erupted from both banks of the river, and a second explosion followed moments later. The second blast blew me off John’s swift boat, PCF-94, throwing me into the river. Fearing that the other boats would run me over, I swam to the bottom of the river and stayed there as long as I could hold my breath.

When I surfaced, all the swift boats had left, and I was alone taking fire from both banks. To avoid the incoming fire, I repeatedly swam under water as long as I could hold my breath, attempting to make it to the north bank of the river. I thought I would die right there. The odds were against me avoiding the incoming fire and, even if I made it out of the river, I thought I’d be captured and executed. Kerry must have seen me in the water and directed his driver, Del Sandusky, to turn the boat around. Kerry’s boat ran up to me in the water, bow on, and I was able to climb up a cargo net to the lip of the deck. But, because I was nearly upside down, I couldn’t make it over the edge of the deck. This left me hanging out in the open, a perfect target. John, already wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat, came out onto the bow, exposing himself to the fire directed at us from the jungle, and pulled me aboard.

For his actions that day, I recommended John for the Silver Star, our country’s third highest award for bravery under fire. I learned only this past January that the Navy awarded John the Bronze Star with Combat V for his valor. The citation for this award, signed by the Commander of U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam, Vice Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, read, “Lieutenant (junior grade) Kerry’s calmness, professionalism and great personal courage under fire were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.” To this day I am grateful to John Kerry for saving my life. And to this day I still believe that he deserved the Silver Star for his courage.

It has been many years since I served in Vietnam. I returned home, got married, and spent many years as a deputy sheriff for Los Angeles County. I retired in 1989 as a lieutenant. It has been a long time since I left Vietnam, but I think often of the men who did not come home with us.

I am neither a politician nor an organizer. I am a retired police officer with a passion for orchids. Until January of this year, the only public presentations I made were about my orchid hobby. But in this presidential election, I had to speak out; I had to tell the American people about John Kerry, about his wisdom and courage, about his vision and leadership. I would trust John Kerry with my life, and I would entrust John Kerry with the well-being of our country.

Nobody asked me to join John’s campaign. Why would they? I am a Republican, and for more than 30 years I have largely voted for Republicans. I volunteered for his campaign because I have seen John Kerry in the worst of conditions. I know his character. I’ve witnessed his bravery and leadership under fire. And I truly know he will be a great commander in chief.

Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry’s service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration’s failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don’t understand the bond of those who serve in combat.

As John McCain noted, the television ad aired by these veterans is “dishonest and dishonorable.” Sen. McCain called on President Bush to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush ad. Regrettably, the president has ignored Sen. McCain’s advice.

Does this strategy of attacking combat Vietnam veterans sound familiar? In 2000, a similar Republican smear campaign was launched against Sen. McCain. In fact, the very same communications group, Spaeth Communications, that placed ads against John McCain in 2000 is involved in these vicious attacks against John Kerry. Texas Republican donors with close ties to George W. Bush and Karl Rove crafted this “dishonest and dishonorable” ad. Their new charges are false; their stories are fabricated, made up by people who did not serve with Kerry in Vietnam. They insult and defame all of us who served in Vietnam.

But when the noise and fog of their distortions and lies have cleared, a man who volunteered to serve his country, a man who showed up for duty when his country called, a man to whom the United States Navy awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, will stand tall and proud. Ultimately, the American people will judge these Swift Boat Veterans for Bush and their accusations. Americans are tired of smear campaigns against those who volunteered to wear the uniform. Swift Boat Veterans for Bush should hang their heads in shame.

Mr. Rassmann, a retired lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, served with the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam 1968-69.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

The Actuary and The Actor
The New York Times
March 16th, 2004

An Orwellian taint is emerging in the Bush administration’s big victory last year in wringing the Medicare prescription drug subsidy from a balky Congress. The plan is being sold to the public through propagandistic ads disguised as TV news reports, and it turns out the government’s top Medicare actuary was muzzled by superiors during the debate about the program’s price tag.
Richard Foster, one of the government’s foremost Medicare experts, says he was ordered not to provide requested information to Congress last fall when doubts were being raised about the drug benefit’s cost. The administration denies this, but a ranking former official has confirmed Mr. Foster’s story. As the bill was being considered, Mr. Foster privately cautioned that its cost could amount to as much as $600 billion, while the White House publicly stuck to the Congressional Budget Office figure of $400 billion over 10 years. The administration eventually conceded a cost of $534 billion, but only after the bill was safely signed into law.

With program in hand, the administration then attempted to rally support, and take political credit , with government-produced TV ads masquerading as news reports. Actors were hired by the Department of Health and Human Services to pose as television journalists purveying faux upbeat “news” segments about the expanded Medicare coverage. The hope is that TV stations will air them as their own. In one version, anchors are offered a script in which they promise that “reporter Karen Ryan”, an actress, will explain the details of the new drug plan.

This sleight of hand only deepens doubts about White House credibility on a complex issue. The public deserves straightforward information about the changes in Medicare, and federal agencies should not be engaging in political spin. This is no way to run a democracy nourished by information and taxpayers’ money.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Many Soldiers, Same Letter
Ledyard King Gannett News Service
The Olympian Online

Newspapers around U.S. get identical missives from Iraq

WASHINGTON — Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.

And all the letters are the same.
A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as “The Rock,” in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.

The Olympian received two identical letters signed by different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters.

The five-paragraph letter talks about the soldiers’ efforts to re-establish police and fire departments, and build water and sewer plants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the unit is based.

“The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened,” the letter reads.

It describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you.

It’s not clear who wrote the letter or organized sending it to soldiers’ hometown papers.

Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter’s thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didn’t even sign it.

Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex’s father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.

A seventh soldier didn’t know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.

“When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: ‘What letter?’ ” Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. “This is just not his (writing) style.”

He spoke to his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs.

Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran in the Snohomish Herald, said Friday that his platoon sergeant had distributed the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers. Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton, whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.

“Everything it said is dead accurate. We’ve done a really good job,” he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing to return to Iraq.

Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a soldier wrote the letter, but he didn’t know who. He said the brigade’s public affairs unit was not involved.

“When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did,” Oliver explained in an e-mail response to a GNS inquiry. “Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail it to the various editors of newspapers across the country.”

Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th infantry Division that is heading operations in north-central Iraq, said he had not heard about the letter-writing campaign.

Neither had Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.

A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of America’s prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sept. 23 found 50 percent believe that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.

The letter talks about the soldiers’ mission, saying, “one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets.” It describes Kirkuk as “a hot and dusty city of just over a million people.” It tells about the progress they have made.

“The fruits of all our soldiers’ efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school,” the letter reads. “I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.”

Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn’t remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter.

Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter’s sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.

“It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade,” Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.

Moya Marois said she is proud of her stepson Alex, the former Olympia resident. But she worries that the letter tries to give legitimacy to a war she doesn’t think was justified.

“We’re going to support our son,” she said. But “there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this war that would like to see them returned home, and think it’s going to get worse.”

2003 The Olympian

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Private Jessica Says President is Misusing Her ‘Heroism’
Edward Helmore
The Observer

November 9, 2003

When American Private Jessica Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital last April, President George Bush’s administration and much of the US media was gripped by a dramatic tale of blonde, all-American heroism.
The story reaches fever pitch this week with the publication of Lynch’s autobiography, a dramatised TV documentary, interviews and a Vanity Fair cover story.

Beneath the gloss of the US media and the machinations of an administration eager to show a ‘good news’ angle of the Iraq conflict against the reality of a rising body count, Lynch has become a metaphor not for the heroism of pretty young Americans captured by a devilish foreign enemy, but for the confusion that has marked Bush’s Operation Iraqi Freedom from the start.

Misgivings characterising Lynch’s story are coming to a head: last week she accused the administration of manipulating her story for propaganda, saying she was not a heroine at all; accusations that she’d been raped were disputed by appalled Iraqi doctors who first treated her, and the army was accused of insensitivity and racism for awarding Lynch a full disability pension while others from her ambushed maintenance company, including Shoshana Johnson, the black cook wounded and captured by Iraqis, will receive barely a third of Lynch’s discharge package.

While Johnson is living on $500 a month, Lynch stands to make millions from her book, I Am a Soldier, Too. She has been romanced as the media target of the moment, photographed by Annie Liebowitz for Vanity Fair, and stands to make millions more from a movie deal.

‘There is a double standard,’ said Johnson’s father, Claude. ‘I don’t know for sure that it was the Pentagon. All I know for sure is the media paid a lot of attention to Jessica.’

And America is determined that Lynch will be a heroine, despite the fact that she never fired a shot, and instead got down on her knees to pray as her unit was surrounded by enemy forces. As she pointed out herself, it was her dead colleague Lori Piestewa, a Native American mother of two, who went down fighting.

Lynch says the circumstances of her rescue was dramatised and manipulated by the Pentagon. She was not rescued in a ‘blaze of gunfire’ as reported by Defence Department officials last April, but picked up from compliant Iraq doctors who had saved her life.

She was not raped, as the department said, and the Iraqi, Mohammed Odeh Al-Rehaief, who was given US citizenship for his efforts, has written a book about how he risked his own life to win her freedom. Now he is described by his wife as overly influenced by John Wayne movies.

‘Lynch is basically saying the whole thing was made up, a fraud,’ said media critic Michael Wolff. ‘At the same time, the media is going on with this elaborate production effort to make her into a hero. It’s as if the size of the attention itself makes her a hero. Everyone is committed to making her the face of the war whereas the other story that this all a kind of scandal.’

But the story may be too far along to reverse. ‘She can’t take back being a star. The fact that she says it’s all made up doesn’t make a difference. It’s been decided she’s a star, and that’s the only indisputable fact,’ said Wolff.

The New York Times has pointed out how Lynch has become the Mona Lisa of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Americans have been able to read into her unrevealing snapshot whatever story they chose. Her story becoming ‘a Rorschach test for homefront mood swings’.

Now, with the US forces having lost 32 soldiers in the last week alone, the mood may be turning and she stands to become symbolic of US confusion and press credulity. The inconsistencies have not been missed by veterans’ groups who don’t wish to besmirch her individual valour but are uneasy over the administration’s efforts to present ‘good news’ while ignoring the reality.

‘The White House sent a message that they were going to tell the good news stories so now we have a situation where we are not allowed to witness the coffins coming home and there are no images of young soldiers coming home missing arms and legs,’ said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Centre.

‘We’re just seeing one side of the story, and you’ve got to tell the other side, the one about the wounded, maimed and the dead.’ There is growing doubt Lynch’s uplifting story will help to sweeten the nation’s mood about the dim prospect that the US will be able extricate itself from Iraq before hundreds, and possibly thousands, more servicemen died.

Lynch, who joined the army hoping to see the world after failing to land a job at a supermarket, is preparing to go on a media tour that will include appearances with TV anchors such as David Letterman. Yet she is unable to fulfil the role of the patriot.

The administration’s game plan, enabled by a supplicant media, is showing signs of distress. The singer Cher recently visited the hospital where Lynch recovered from her ordeal and talked on TV of meeting a teenage soldier who had lost both his arms.

She wanted to know why Bush and his team weren’t there having their photographs taken with the injured troops. ‘I don’t understand why these guys [the wounded] are so hidden and there aren’t pictures of them,’ Cher said.

Lynch now questions why her rescue was filmed: ‘They used me to symbolise all this stuff. It’s wrong. I don’t know why they filmed it, or why they say these things.’

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Stunning Victory in a Propaganda War
Olivia Ward | Feature Writer
September 8, 2003
Toronto Star

Bush uses media expertly to push apocalyptic view.
U.S. president becomes unlikely master of rhetoric.

In the ruins of the two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, declared U.S. President George W. Bush.

“Whatever the duration of this struggle and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men. Free people will set the course of history.”
Last January, when Bush made his now-contentious State of the Union address, he was winding up Americans for a new war on Iraq, sending troops into battle against a country that had not attacked theirs, and was neither attacking its neighbours nor waging civil war.

But Bush’s rhetoric was so successful that by the time the war began in mid-March, most Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that he had weapons of mass destruction poised to finish the job of destroying the United States.

For a man who once told reporters that “anybody who doesn’t think I’m smart enough to handle the job is misunderestimating,” this was an extraordinary achievement.

In less than a year, Bush’s popularity had zoomed from a scant 50 per cent - following an election that many believed was rigged - to 82 per cent after the Al Qaeda assault, one of the highest presidential job ratings in American history.

Bush’s progress from bungler to emperor was made possible by the unprecedented attacks on the U.S. But it was speeded to its conclusion with the coaching of a well co-ordinated cadre of advisers who taught the president one of the most crucial lessons of politics, that language is power.

“Before Sept. 11, people talked about `Bushisms,’ meaning humorous misstatements,” says linguistics expert Dr. Sandra Silberstein of the University of Washington. “Now that’s been turned around to mean folksy delivery that’s endearing and to the point.”

When Bush mounts the podium these days, few Americans, including his political foes, are laughing anymore. And as a new election looms in November, 2004, the strongest voice in the country continues to be the president’s.

That, says psychologist Dr. Renana Brooks, is because the once-shaky leader has been able to “use his language intentionally to dominate others. He’s a master of emotional language.”

Brooks, who heads the Washington-based Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion, is completing a book called The Virtue Myth: American Culture’s Obsession with Abuse and Intimidation. She says the kind of power language that Bush employs is all about fear and control. “He’s gone farther than any other president in creating a crisis scenario that makes people feel helpless.”

Using language as a marketing tool, Bush has turned fear into propaganda. It’s a winning formula that allowed him to mesmerize the nation after Sept. 11, making himself politically invulnerable, while turning his political enemies into enemies of the state.

“Our enemies send other people’s children on missions of suicide and murder,” Bush told the nation four months after the Al Qaeda attacks. “They embrace tyranny and death as a cause and creed.”

On the surface, Bush was describing the terrorists who killed some 3,000 people in the United States. But, he continued, “we stand for a different choice - made long ago on the day of our founding. We affirm it again today. We choose freedom and the dignity of every life.”

Soon there would be no doubt that “we” meant a nation of right-thinking citizens solidly behind Bush. To be otherwise was to be a traitor to America. The polarization of the country - and the world - into “us” and “them,” began with the terrorist attacks, but quickly spread to political debate.

Few critics dared to raise their voices in the wake of Sept. 11. And as months went by, those who did were pilloried as un-American. Ignored or derided by the media, they were effectively silenced.

Bush’s techniques for winning public support have been stunningly successful. And, says Brooks, they employ several “dominating linguistic techniques” that prompt surrender to his will. “The first is empty language,”she says. “It’s like empty calories - you just enjoy the flavour and don’t ask questions about the content. Bush talks in generalizations that may be faulty, but are difficult to oppose.”

Another Bush technique, she says, is “personalization,” or focusing on himself as the main actor, with the public as a passive and dependent audience: “I will not yield. I will not rest. I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people,” he said in his State of the Union speech.

And, says Brooks, Bush uses what psychologists call “learned helplessness” to convince Americans they have no control over their environment.

“He uses very negative, pessimistic language,” she says. “It stresses an ongoing threat to the personal survival of Americans. The war on terror, for instance, will be `a lengthy campaign unlike any we have ever seen.’ There is no positive message there.”

When analyzing Bush’s speeches, Brooks found that the ratio of negative to positive statements was much higher, and the pessimistic statements more persistent than those of any other president.

The language Bush uses is often biblical, and apocalyptic. It borrows material from the Christian right wing, which polls show makes up a third of the American electorate.

Although many Americans downplay Christian fundamentalism as simple-minded and provincial, analysts say it has gone through a dramatic transformation since the early 1980s, emerging as one of the country’s most powerful and sophisticated political forces.

Bush has made direct appeals to the Christian right, and appears to identify with its values.

`Bush uses his language intentionally to dominate others.’

Dr. Renana Brooks, Sommet Institute for the Study of Power and Persuasion

“One hears that Bush, who entered the White House without a clear sense of what he wanted to do there, now feels there was a purpose behind his election all along,” said right-wing commentator Norman Podhoretz.

“A born-again Christian, it is said he believes he was chosen by God to eradicate the evil of terrorism from the world.”

Silberstein, whose book War of Words investigates the strategic use of political language after Sept. 11, says that Bush’s message could never have had such massive impact without the backing of the media. “The tools available to him were unprecedented,” she said.

“With Sept. 11, the (television) headlines were fairly terrifying, but random. The constant repetition of horrifying images, with voiced-over narrative, created a terrifying world that viewers were shown over and over.

“With Iraq, there were headlines telling people what to think. Instead of commentary, or thoughtful conversation, you got visual images that worked like entertainment, reinforcing the message that Bush wanted to promote.”

For the Bush administration, the supreme media moment came when the president chose to announce the end of the Iraq war by making a symbolic landing on the deck of a naval carrier, wearing a jaunty military-style uniform and surrounded by wildly cheering sailors.

“The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free,” he declared.

A handful of critics who objected that Saddam Hussein had not been captured and the shooting continued, were quickly shouted down.

As Bush capitalized on media images of patriotism, the flag-waving campaign his administration was publicizing went farther, into the commercial sector.

“While the administration was selling patriotism, commercial interests were using patriotism to sell products,” says Silberstein.

“Instead of planting a victory garden, you had to go out and buy a car.”

Bush and other administration members continue to claim victory in Iraq and defend their misleading statements as the fault of other people.

But rhetoric and reality may now be on a collision course, as politicians who previously kept silent are demanding answers and accusations of lying are growing louder.

Says Silberstein: “Bush is vulnerable, and we’re likely to see a real backlash.”

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)