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PrintFebruary 28, 2008
Smearing the Troops: Then and Now
This last Monday FrontPageMag.com published "Newly Discovered Army Reports Discredit 'Winter Soldier' Claims" written by Scott Swett, proprietor of WinterSoldier.com and co-author of "To Set the Record Straight - How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry". Swett and research partner John Boyle have located and made available the long missing summaries of the Army's CID (Criminal Investigation Detachment) investigation into atrocity and war crime charges made by members of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War at the 1971 "Winter Soldier Investigation" (WSI).
On the same day, an online petition was posted with an appeal to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) to not allow the "testimony" from next months' scheduled "Winter Soldier Investigation - Iraq and Afghanistan" (March 13-16, Washington D.C.), to be conducted by the Iraq Veterans Against the War, to go unchallenged. Many of the signatories of the petition were indignant and pained that the 1971 WSI "testimony" had been entered into the Congressional Record without any of the "testifiers" having had to swear an oath or sign a legal deposition or affidavit.
Obiter Dictum provides an overview in "Touching Nerves, Hearts and Painful Memories" with excerpts from the Swett article on the CID investigation, quotes from members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War and the comments of dozens of veterans and their family members pleading with the members of the SASC that injustice not be repeated.
