Vietnam War

Latest news on vietnam war

John McCain is a Cylon, and Palin is Roslin (WARNING: BSG + ELECTION SPOILERS!)

A fearless truth-seeker who isn't afraid to go where mainstream media is terrified to tread sneaks us this breaking (!) blogsclusive, a deeply troubling discovery at the highest levels of power. Many have noticed that famously short-tempered Vietnam war veteran John McCain, famously imprisoned and tortured in Hanoi, bears a more than passing resemblance to famously short-tempered Cylon war veteran Saul Tigh, famously imprisoned and tortured on New Caprica: Oh, but it doesn't stop there... Adama, President Roslin, toasters... and America. John McCain is a Cylon (429truth.com) Update: Oh, wow, they have a campaign website. (thanks akbar56!)...

Recreating 1968

Multimedia: Activists try to recapture the spirit of Vietnam war protests outside Democratic convention

Robin Long, War Resister Deported from Canada, Faces Trial This Week

The first war resister to be deported from Canada since the Vietnam War faces court-martial and three years in jail. Who is next?

Boehlert: Fox News and Jerome Corsi, living in the past

It sure felt like déjà vu all over again, didn't it? No election watcher could forget the summer of 2004, when Fox News repeatedly invited Swift Boat author John O'Neill onto cable prime time and allowed him to air his scurrilous allegations about Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War record. Even before the partisan Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group unveiled its infamous television ads, it was on Fox News where the controversy was birthed. It was Fox News that allowed O'Neill a mostly unobstructed platform on August 10, 17, 19, and 24, 2004, to libel Kerry and to gin up a controversy that eventually swamped the Democratic candidate for most of that crucial summer month. Then, almost exactly four years later to the dates (on July 31, August 3, 12, and 14), Fox News presented its White House campaign sequel. It welcomed O'Neill's Swift Boat writing partner, Jerome Corsi, to publicize his new attack book, The Obama Nation. Laying out his fever-swamp allegations about Obama's drug use and his supposed connections to Islam, Corsi enjoyed the type of national exposure, courtesy of Fox News, that every author craves. It was an audience that helped propel The Obama Nation to No. 1 on the bestsellers list, which then ignited wide-scale mainstream coverage for Corsi and his book. In other words, everything was going according to plan. The sequel had been set up -- had been marketed -- just like the Swift Boat predecessor, and now all conservatives had to do was sit back and watch the fun, as the Obama campaign became engulfed in Corsi-led controversy. Right? It hasn't worked that way. The Obama Nation's allegations, as slight and flimsy as they are, have taken a back seat to questions about Corsi's own credibility. In fact, journalists have likely spent more time dissecting the errors in Obama Nation and highlighting Corsi's controversial path, including the hateful, bigoted items he used to post in online forums, than they have focusing on the allegations Corsi wanted to broadcast. As the conservative National Review Online noted with frustration, "The media narrative thus becomes 'Corsi refuted' rather than 'Obama embattled.' " Add in the fact that some conservatives have stepped forward to publically denounce Corsi and his brand of slime, beseeching the movement to divorce itself from Corsi's unsubstantiated attacks, and suddenly the sequel is in real distress. Oh sure, it's selling. (Thanks in part to bulk sales, a right-wing marketing staple.) But in terms of affecting the race, in terms of gumming up the works for the Obama campaign, the book has so far been a bust. What happened? How did a sure-fire follow-up hit turn into such a trouble-plagued production? And why isn't Fox News' Swift Boat formula working? Simple. Both Corsi and the Fox News team are living in the past and failed to realize how dramatically the media landscape has shifted since the shady Swift Boat accusers were able to deftly use the media to spread their lies. First and foremost, the progressive movement has spent the last four years bulking up its infrastructure, and specifically readying itself to respond to media-driven attacks from the right; the way Media Matters for America immediately blanketed The Obama Nation and documented its egregious errors (often floated on Fox News) and also raised doubts about the author's veracity and integrity. And thanks to the larger Netroots community, Corsi hasn't had any breathing room to spread his misinformation. But there were also key marketplace changes within the cable news industry that affected the Corsi coverage, I think. Because remember that in 2004, Fox News drove the Swift Boat saga; it was practically a co-sponsor of the anti-Kerry crusade, devoting endless hours to promoting the Vietnam-era allegations. By sheer force of repetition, Fox News, then the dominant player in cable news, forced its competitors to not only acknowledge the Swift Boat story, but to go all in as well. And soon all the cable news outlets were treating the Swift Boat saga with Fox News-like breathlessness. (CNN aired nearly 300 segments referencing the topic.) And just like Fox, they weren't asking the tough questions. Instead, they gave the Swift Boat accusers the same free ride that Fox News did. They became media enablers, too. Not this time around. With Fox News no longer the dominant cable news king -- and with Fox News no longer driving the campaign narratives -- its competitors opted for a much different approach to covering Corsi. And I think the coverage from the competitors sent a subtle, yet simple, message: We no longer take our cues from Fox News' lead, because they no longer dictate campaign coverage. Instead, we're going to exult in our role as a counterbalance, as a fact-checker, to the Fox News-produced Corsi attack campaign. In fact, we're gonna help pull the curtain back on Corsi. Just look at how MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer greeted Corsi, as he ventured for the first time beyond the friendly TV confines of Rupert World: BREWER: You say it's a comprehensive look, and yet there are already online bloggers that are going through this book page by page and picking apart what they see as factual errors. ... If they're going through, and they're finding all of these factual errors in your book, why should we give you the credibility? CNN's Campbell Brown introduced a prime-time report by announcing, "Obama Nation is riddled with pretty much every unsubstantiated rumor you ever heard about Obama." And on Larry King Live, Corsi was forced to face off against Media Matters Senior Fellow Paul Waldman, who refused to let the author spread his misinformation uncontested. All the above represented precisely what the press, and most especially the cable outfits, should have done -- but mostly refused to do -- in 2004. They refused to allow articulate, independent critics onto the national stage to debunk the patently false Swift Boat charges. Instead, the press most often treated the Swift Boat story as a political one, which meant amplifying the partisan charges and then going to the Kerry campaign for a quote, or inviting a Kerry campaign surrogate on the air to debate a Swift Boat liar. Rather than forcefully labeling the Swift Boat attacks a charade and IDing the attackers as pranksters, and instead of holding the Swift Boat accusers accountable, the press played dumb and abandoned its traditional campaign role. As Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher noted, "The mainstream press gave the charges -- carried in ads, in books and articles, and in major TV appearances -- a free ride for a spell, then a respectful airing mixed with critique, before in many cases finally attempting to shoot them down as overwhelmingly exaggerated or false." In the infamous words of former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie, upon being pressed about the paper's Swift Boat coverage in August 2004: "We are not judging the credibility of Kerry or the [Swift Boat] Veterans, we just print the facts." Talk about abdicating your role as journalists. During the Swift Boat hoax, Downie and his team at the Post essentially walked off the field, refusing to officiate the smear campaign. Wasn't judging the credibility of the previously unknown Swift Boat accusers precisely what the Post and the rest of the press should have been doing in August 2004? Thankfully, that kind of cowardice has been replaced by actual journalism when dealing with the Corsi sequel. And on TV, I'd suggest that about-face has been fueled by Fox News' fall from ratings grace, as its competitors, flush with confidence, realize they no longer have to follow. Instead, they can lead. Of course, the fact that Corsi won't admit or correct obvious errors in his book has only emboldened the press to pose tough questions. His often loopy logic has also not helped him, like suggesting we cannot believe Obama when he said he stopped taking drugs in college because, according to the author, "self-reporting, by people who have used drugs, as to when they stopped is inherently unreliable." When Corsi stumbled down that twisted path on CNN's Larry King Live last week, Media Matters' Waldman was waiting to pounce: WALDMAN: You put up on right-wing websites a whole series of bigoted and hateful posts in 2002 and 2003 that you later had to admit to when you got found out -- all kinds of really vile, malicious stuff. CORSI: OK. If you -- WALDMAN: Now, you say that you've stopped that. You say that you've stopped that and you don't put up those kinds of vile, bigoted, malicious, hateful posts on right-wing websites. But all we have is your word. I mean, do -- can we really trust you? People who do that kind of thing, well, you know, they're not really very trustworthy. CORSI: We have -- WALDMAN: So can we trust you? Are you still doing that? CORSI: You have more than my word. You've got the record of everything I've written since then. WALDMAN: Can you prove that you're not doing it anonymously? Can you prove it? I'm hard-pressed to recall the last time I saw an author get so thoroughly discredited on national television the way Corsi was at the hands of Waldman. (The encounter simply confirmed why conservatives often refuse to go head-to-head with reps from Media Matters in public settings.) That undressing proved infectious within the mainstream media, as it began to spell out, fairly and accurately, what Corsi and his book were about. The Associated Press' Nedra Pickler reported, "Corsi suggests, without a shred of proof, that Obama may be using drugs today. Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine as a teenager but says he quit when he went to college and hasn't used drugs since." The New York Times' political blog, The Caucus, set aside space to detail Corsi's touting of radical 9-11 theories that suggest explosives detonated inside the Twin Towers were also responsible for the destruction, not just the terrorist-piloted jumbo jets. And Politico noted how Corsi had "left a trail of wild theories, vitriol and dogma that have called into question his credibility." Is it some sort of collective penance journalists are serving for the media's Swift Boat failures of 2004? Who knows? But it's exactly what journalists ought to be doing when mischief-makers like Corsi climb onto the national stage (ladder, courtesy of Simon & Schuster), and start making unsubstantiated charges about presidential contenders. Conservatives now whine about the press taking sides, that it's teaming up on Corsi. In fact, the press is simply doing exactly what it should have done in 2004, and that's vet the accuser. Period. The game has changed. But somebody forgot to tell Corsi and his friends at Fox News.

Citing response about Hanoi prison, Politico characterized as "new" McCain's willingness to discuss his "biography"

In an August 18 Politico article about Sen. John McCain's August 17 appearance at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, chief political writer Mike Allen and executive editor Jim VandeHei noted that in response to Warren's question about "[w]hat's the most gut-wrenching decision you've ever had to make," McCain cited his refusal to accept an early release from a North Vietnamese prison camp. Allen and VandeHei claimed that McCain's answer "shows the power of his biography, and a new willingness to publicly discuss it." In fact, McCain has repeatedly referred to his Vietnam War record, as Media Matters for America has noted, and has specifically cited his refusal to accept an early release in a book, interviews, speeches, and campaign ads since 1999. In a June 25 blog entry, Politico senior political writer Jonathan Martin similarly wrote that McCain's decision to decline early release "is perhaps the most compelling element of his biography yet something which he has rarely voiced in his years in pubilc [sic] life." And as Media Matters for America documented, in a February 4 article, Martin also falsely suggested that McCain did not "spotlight" his military experience and years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam during his 2000 presidential campaign. By contrast, Politico senior political writer Ben Smith noted in a June 30 article that McCain has "written repeatedly of his service": McCain has written repeatedly of his service, including in a long 1973 magazine article and in his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers." A Navy aviator from a military family, he was shot down on his 23rd sortie over Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967. His mission was to bomb a power plant in the North Vietnamese capital. Already suffering from broken limbs, he was beaten by a crowd before being taken to a POW camp. After being tortured there, he participated in some Vietnamese propaganda efforts. "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine," he later wrote. But he later defied his captors by refusing to meet with anti-war delegations from abroad, he wrote, and he also refused the most valuable special treatment he was offered: early release. "I did not want to go out of order," he later wrote. He was finally released on March 14, 1973. Below are additional examples from 1999 to 2008 of McCain discussing his refusal to accept early release: Faith of My Fathers McCain discusses his refusal to accept an early release repeatedly in his 1999 book, Faith of My Fathers (Random House). For example, on Page 235 of the paperback edition, McCain writes: I wanted to say yes. I badly wanted to go home. I was tired and sick, and despite my bad attitude, I was often afraid. But I couldn't keep from my own counsel the knowledge of how my release would affect my father, and my fellow prisoners. I knew what the Vietnamese hoped to gain from my release. [...] Moreover, I knew that every prisoner the Vietnamese tried to break, those who had arrived before me and those who would come after me, would be taunted with the story of how an admiral's son had gone home early, a lucky beneficiary of America's class-conscious society. I knew that my release would add to the suffering of men who were already straining to keep faith with their country. I was injured, but I believed I could survive. I couldn't persuade myself to leave. 1999 to 2000 In a September 13, 1999, interview on Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume, while promoting Faith of My Fathers, McCain discussed "a particular time when the Vietnamese offered me the opportunity for early release." From the interview (retrieved from the Nexis news database): HUME: Now when you were there -- When one reads, even when one captivity and the deprivation of it, but of the repeated beatings and torture and the terrible physical condition you were in, I mean, to any ordinary person, it seems like an impossible ordeal. To what extent were you thinking about your family, your father, and your grandfather and others when you were going through that? MCCAIN: Oh, I clearly didn't want to embarrass my family. I tried to do the best I could, which was not enough, by the way, but there came a particular time when the Vietnamese offered me the opportunity for early release. I knew they were doing it because of the propaganda they would get from releasing the admiral's son, who was commander in chief of all U.S. forces in the Pacific, and I knew that it was a violation of our code of conduct. But I also not only was it my father's approval or disapproval and my grandfather's, but also that of the -- my fellow POWs, who would have been told, "See the admiral's son gets to go home and you stay." And I thought that would have a bad impact on their morale. An October 28, 1999, Washington Post article by staff writer Howard Kurtz noted that McCain aired a television ad in which a narrator stated of McCain: "When found to be the son and grandson of admirals, was offered early release; he refused." McCain aired a February 2000 radio ad in which a narrator said of McCain: "In Vietnam, John McCain stood up to his communist captors and refused early release from prison. In Washington, he's the conservative reformer attacking big government waste." According to a February 25, 2000, Los Angeles Times article, McCain aired a television ad which featured the text: "McCain refused early release from prison, where he suffered repeated beatings and was held for 5 1/2 years." 2008 campaign McCain aired a December 2007 television ad in which Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said: "McCain has been tested like no other politician in America. As a prisoner of war, he turned down an offer for early release because he refused preferential treatment." In a January 1 Washington Post article, reporter Alec MacGillis wrote that "[a]t many of his [McCain's] events, his campaign sets up a screen and plays for the crowd a three-minute film called 'Service With Honor,' telling the story of McCain's more than five years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prison after his Navy plane was shot down in 1967. 'He was offered early release, and he told 'em to shove it,' says one fellow prisoner of war, Paul Galanti." At a June 26 campaign event in Cincinnati, McCain said: "When I was allowed the opportunity, given the opportunity to return home early from prison camp. I decided against that because I knew the effect that it would have on my fellow prisoners." In a June 28 speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a July 8 speech to the League of United Latin American Citizens, and a July 14 speech to National Council of La Raza Convention, McCain repeated this statement: "When I was in prison in Vietnam, I like other of my fellow POWs, was offered early release by my captors. Most of us refused because we were bound to our code of conduct, which said those who had been captured the earliest had to be released the soonest." In a July 8 McCain campaign television ad, an announcer states of McCain: "John McCain: Shot down. Bayoneted. Tortured. Offered early release, he said, 'No.' He'd sworn an oath." At a July 17 campaign event in Kansas City, Missouri, McCain said: "[T]he Vietnamese came to me and said, we'll allow you to go home early because my father happened to be a high ranking admiral. Our code of conduct said that only those go home early in order of capture. It was a brave young Mexican-American by the name of Everett Alvarez who had been in prison a couple years longer than I had. So I knew I had to refuse." Similarly, at a July 18 campaign event in Warren, Michigan, McCain said (retrieved from Nexis): "One time when I was in prison in North Vietnam and the North Vietnamese came and said, 'You can go home early,' because my father was a high-ranking admiral, I chose not to do that." From Allen and VandeHei's August 18 Politico article: 5) McCain shows the power of his biography, and a new willingness to publicly discuss it. WARREN: "What's the most gut-wrenching decision you've ever had to make? And what was the process that you used to make it?" MCCAIN: "It was long ago, and far away, in a prison camp in North Vietnam. My father was a high-ranking admiral. The Vietnamese came and said that I could leave prison early. And we had a code of conduct. It said you only leave by order of capture. I also had a dear and beloved friend, who was from California ... who had been shot down before me. But I wasn't in good physical shape. In fact, I was in rather bad physical shape. So I said no. Now, in interest of full disclosure, I'm happy I didn't know the war was going to last for another three years or so. "But I said no, and I'll never forget sitting in my last answer, and the high-ranking officer offered it, slammed the door and the interrogator said, 'Go back to your cell. It's going to be very tough on you now.' And it was. But not only the toughest decision I ever made, but I am most happy about that decision, than any decision I've ever made in my life." (APPLAUSE).

Lego Tableaus Re-Create Classic Photos

: Photo: Mike Stimpson Lego fanboy and amateur photographer Mike Stimpson found a way to combine his two loves: He recreates scenes from historic photographs using the plastic bricks, then snaps his own photos. The British videogame programmer first began assembling his Lego duplications in October 2007 as a way to pay homage to his favorite lensers: French street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, World War II-era shooter Robert Capa, American landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Stimpson, 34, has used Lego bricks to duplicate everything from Buzz Aldrin's first steps on the moon to '60s antiwar protesters, but he has yet to produce a plastic version of an Ansel image. "Recreating large sections of Yosemite National Park is a little beyond my skills," he said. Left: Charles Ebbets' Lunch Atop a Skyscraper served as the inspiration for Stimpson's first Lego duplication. The original was shot during construction of Rockefeller Center in 1932. To stock up for the shoot, Stimpson says he bought more than 30 Lego minifigures to ensure he'd have enough variety to imitate the men in Ebbets' photo. : Photo: Mike Stimpson Recreating Ian Bradshaw's famous 1974 photograph of streaker Michael O'Brien during a rugby match wasn't easy for Stimpson, who struggled with figuring out how to undress the stock figurine. "He's actually made up of a yellow Lego spaceman with his body on backwards so you can't see the space insignia," Stimpson said. It's one of the few recreations without a smiling mug: "I tried, but he looked too much like a woman. The face I chose seemed to fit with the 'Jesus' look of the original." : Photo: Mike Stimpson Stimpson cites Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, the celebrated 1932 image by French street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, as one of his favorites. For this blocky recreation of Cartier-Bresson's legendary snapshot of a man leaping over a puddle behind a train station, Stimpson tied a Lego figurine to a piece of thread and suspended it above a baking tray that held a few millimeters of water. Although Stimpson Photoshopped the string out, the reflection is real -- he used a foam board to help reflect the Lego man in the light. "It took a long time to get all of the elements to work together," said Stimpson. "[There was] a lot of scenery that really liked to float away!" : Photo: Mike Stimpson War photographer Robert Capa became famous in 1936 for his image of a soldier collapsing after a fatal gunshot during the Spanish Civil War. Stimpson used towels and jumpers to create the backdrop of the photograph, then added a Lego character to mimic the dying militiaman. Although nowadays Lego manufactures plastic characters with a range of facial expressions, Stimpson elected to use one with a simple smile to offset the severity of the original image. "It's a similar effect to [the] Lego versions of Darth Vader or the stormtroopers," he said. "Taking something serious and menacing, and replacing that with something cute, harmless and funny." : Photo: Mike Stimpson Stimpson special-ordered a miniature Lego firearm to complete this blocky rendition of a Pulitzer Prize-winning picture by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams. At first, Stimpson wasn't sure how to represent the graveness captured in the 1968 image -- which shows a Viet Cong prisoner being executed -- but in the end he arranged a Lego-ized U.S. soldier and civilian on a Lego roadway and took the shot. "Some people find it funny," said Stimpson. "Some people find it a bit disturbing." : Photo: Mike Stimpson Stimpson subbed Lego figurines of an airline pilot and a nurse to stage Alfred Eisenstaedt's celebrated image of an American soldier dipping a young woman into a kiss in New York's Times Square in 1945. "This was a difficult one," said Stimpson. "Lego don't make sailor figures as far as I can tell." : Photo: Mike Stimpson Stimpson made a few modifications for this version of an iconic 1967 image showing a hippie holding a flower out to a line of armed soldiers. The original was taken by French photographer Marc Riboud at a Vietnam War protest in Washington, D.C. Stimpson swapped the antiwar activist in the image for Star Wars hero Han Solo, then used Imperial stormtroopers for his creation, dubbed Anti-Empire Protest. "My normal working practice if something doesn't work is to add more Lego stormtroopers," he said. "I think it worked." : Photo: Mike Stimpson After requests flooded Stimpson's inbox asking for a toy edition of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, the historic 1945 image by Joe Rosenthal, he knew he had to recreate it. He hung a white sheet for the backdrop, gathered rocks and pebbles for the landscape and had custom figures made by BrickArms, a company that specializes in Lego weaponry. Stimpson even carefully printed an American flag for the Marines to plant, but forgot one detail -- the correct number of stars. "I'm English," he admitted sheepishly. "That's my excuse." : Photo: Mike Stimpson How did Stimpson reproduce American journalist Malcolm Brown's 1963 shot of Thick Quang Duc's self-immolation to protest the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam? With an oilcan, Lego fire purchased on eBay and X-wing pilot Legos wearing red Imperial Guard capes. "It took weeks to find all those Lego flames," said Stimpson. "I was going to set a Lego figure on fire for this, but I couldn't bring myself to destroy Lego." Stimpson stuck with his decision to keep facial expressions consistent among his photographs, and said he thinks the soft smile on the burning monk's face reflects inner peace attained through Buddhism. : Photo: Mike Stimpson The reenactment of a 1969 photograph of U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin walking on the moon didn't require much -- just a base plate of Lego turf, a sheet of black paper to resemble space and a Lego astronaut. "Unfortunately, my '80s 'classic' spacemen were a bit too broken and chewed to use for that shot," Stimpson said. He hunted down a space-suited figure from a set, although he worried it looked too modern. Although Stimpson says he has more Lego sets and parts than he can count, he often mixes and matches parts to get the right look. The biggest challenge is finding proper Lego-ized attire for the figures in his recreations, he said.