The records released "asserting" Bush's attendance were pay stubs. All it said is he was paid. That doesn't mean he served. Daddy's connections got him the cushy position in the Air National Guard keeping the Viet Cong, who are notorious for their air strikes and not silly underground tunnels, from attacking Texas. The odds of him getting paid for things he didn't do are fairly high.
Bush decided to fight this war as a result of U.N. sanction violations. The U.N. said, essentially, "Don't." We went ahead anyway.
Bush is also not the first leader in history to issue a Preemptive attack. Hitler did it in 1939. Hussein himself did it in 1991. Or at least, that was their excuse.
Bush is a war criminal. He's having the wholesale slaughter of American Boys and Iraqi Civilians with no justification. When we went to war, he lied to get people on our side. Those lies became evident, so he kept lying. It's premeditated murder. If he were in Texas he could get the death penalty.
Hell, even the Pope said the war was illegal and immoral.

Sources:
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=15&num=1904

http://www.earthside.com/bush-war-crimes.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4999734/site/newsweek/

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=3006

I can understand the aggrivation and hate that is held aggainst Sen. Kerry with regard to his statements about the Vietnam War.
I can also understand the visceral attacks against his character by those who disagreed with him. I believe it is absolutely our duty as soldiers to speak out against a war when we have witnessed unspeakable acts. A lack of conscience would allow otherwise. At what point does a man protest against a war in which he fought? Does he do it when the survivors return? Or, when he believes the American right to protest may bring them home. For all of the complaints of John Kerry's testimony, I've not heard a single reference of the facts that the American people WERE lied to with regard to The Gulf of Tonkin incident. The secret war in Cambodia. The lies that continued to justify a war that was killing the youth of this country, and dividing our nation. When do we decide to openly disagree with our governmnent's decisions to go to war, or not to go to war? Are we to wait until it is politically correct? The things John Kerry said did damage the opinions of our soldiers as they returned from an unpopular war. They weren't treated as the patriots who answered the call regardless of their volunteer service or their draft status. The soldiers have a right to hate him, but, we as a nation, and soldiers need to consider the courage it took to speak out against a war, Senator Kerry obviously did not agree with.
The real question is, do we lay silent in our beds and keep our opinions to ourselves, when there is a nagging feeling of wrong in our hearts? Or do we exercise the greatest gift our country has provided for us, the right to speak out regardless of popularity.

Jason,

You and I, we live in two different worlds, at least on this matter.

I have no trouble with the idea that a soldier who has witnessed atrocities should speak out. None whatsover.

But that has almost nothing to do with the "SwiftVets flap", as I've called it here.

Kerry didn't come back and testify that some atrocities occurred. Indeed, THAT statement would have been true: But it was also true that what atrocities we do know about today were discovered, investigated, and proactively prosecuted by the military then. As I understand it, the atrocities which we're pretty sure happened, such as the Mai Lai massacre, were not done at the request of the brass.

But if you think the swiftvets are mad at Kerry because he said some atrocities occured, you've probably been relying on the news for your information. Sadly, that's a mistake these days.

The issue is that Kerry lied in front of the Senate. Not in saying some atrocities occurred, but in saying that he'd witnessed his peers, his "band of brothers", doing them, daily, as part of policy which went all the way up the chain of command. That they and he torched villages, shot children, tortured people using wires attached to their genitals, etc. etc. etc.

The problem is: there is zero evidence whatsoever to suggest that is true. Kerry wasn't in Mai Lai, and the only hints I have of atrocities involving the Switboats involve, ironicly, John Kerry. (There are reports indicate that he actually torched a village unnecessarily.)

Look: If you and I were family members, say you were my "brother" in a typical, normal family. It would be one thing if I stood up and said that police reports said there was organized crime going on in the country. Not very interesting, but at least it's true. On the other hand, if I stood up and said that my entire family -- you me, mom, dad, sis and our grandparents -- acted, daily, like mafioso, and killed a lot of people, you would -- and should -- have a real problem with that.

And that is the problem facing the Swiftboat Vets. Not that Kerry testified honestly about the war crimes which did occur, elsewhere, years after he left (which is when Mai Lai happened), but instead that he fabricated a story of seeing some in order to have something to testify about.

Was Kerry "brave"? I have no indication Kerry was "brave" in the slightest. If Kerry were a brave soldier who saw war crimes going on, he would have reported them at the time. That is what a good soldier will do. But it wasn't until YEARS after coming back, and after the rise of the anti-war movement among the youth, that he suddenly decided there were war crimes going on, back then, and started speaking about them.

In addition, his own little "war crimes" tribunal VVAW, was found to largely consist of fabricated testimony: Most of the testimony was shown to come from (a) people who had been vets, but not gone to Vietnam, (b) people -- like Al Hubbard, Kerry's co-leader -- who had not even been vets but claimed to be, and (c) people who falsely assumed the identities of real soldiers and testified in their name, putting words into their mouths.

I have little doubt Kerry was aware of all of this, and there are some indications he was.

There's nothing particularly brave about any of that. There's nothing brave about being dishonest to get attention.

And fianlly, to cap it off: You may not understand this, but if you wanted to be popular among the youth in those days, you became an anti-war leader. You want to get chicks? Come out against the war. It was about as "brave" as being a liberal in Hollywood today. Yeah, if you came from a conservative family and were in your 40s, then it mght be brave. But not for a young, college-age guy.

Reprecussions? Goodness, he got a Senate seat out of it.

Secret war in Cambodia? Same deal. Of course, there were some secret actions. But that's different than whether it was going on way back in 1968, and whether John Kerry was in the thick of it, as he claimed to be. Goodness, the Khemer Rouge, which John Kerry testified to seeing there and then, didn't even become a fighting force until years later.

Last, I think the reason people aren't talking about the Gulf of Tonkin is because its utterly irrelevant to questions like whether Kerry was on secret missions in Cambodia, or whether we should take everyone else's word of Kerry's on whether ALL the Swiftboat Soldiers, DAILY committed unspeakable atrocities.

I mean, sure it led to escalating the war, but so did Kennedy's death and host of other factors too. It has nothing to do with what the Swiftboat Veterans are trying to warn you about.

You want to see someone who's brave? How about a group of retired veterans who are having their lives torn apart in the media, who are being ridiculed publicly because they're trying to warn the US about a very unscupulous soldier they once served with? Who are spending their own private money to let people know about a serious threat.

It's hilarious: Kerry is the darling of half the US, and he's a "brave" man who testified AT ANY COST -- that "cost" being a senate seat, a career in politics, a VERY WEALTHY wife whom he never would have met otherwise, and run for the US Presidency.

Then there are a group of old retired guys spending their own cash to let us know he's not all he's told us he is -- and they're demonized, not "brave".

Hilarious.

Please wake up, Jason.