------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the May 10, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- EDITORIAL: KERREY AND MCVEIGH Two mass murderers who learned their killing techniques from the Pentagon have been in the news: ex-Senator, ex-Navy Seal and confessed killer of Vietnamese civilians Robert Kerrey and convicted and confessed Oklahoma City mass murderer Timothy McVeigh. The two probably don't think of themselves as having much in common. Kerrey considers himself a law-abiding citizen who served his country. McVeigh likes to posture as a lone fighter against an oppressive tyranny in Washington. Yet they both became tools of a racist system of oppression and exploitation. Kerrey was a Navy Seal. That is, he was a trained killer, a shark with brains. Given the description of his group's duties, he was part of Operation Phoenix, a plan to assassinate civilian political leaders of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. It meant killing the equivalent of town and village mayors who were suspected of sympathizing with what the U.S. occupying forces and their puppets called the "Vietcong." It also meant killing any civilians--politically active or not, grandparents and children--who had the misfortune of being in a position to compromise the military operation the Seals were carrying out. Or those who might testify against the murderers afterward. Kerrey said it was hard to carry out these killings. It's like that moment of decision when you are drowning kittens, he once explained to a college class after his role in the war was over. In February 1969, when he led his unit in a massacre, Kerrey was a 25-year-old officer. Older than most U.S. youths drafted to fight in Vietnam. Not as old as the cynical politicians, generals, CIA officials and other executives of the Johnson and Nixon administrations who dreamt up Operation Phoenix, carpet bombing, napalm and Agent Orange for a war against an entire population. Those who orchestrated this war of imperialist aggression knew exactly what they were doing: keeping the world safe for the profits of the multinational corporations. All of these master criminals, like Robert McNamara and Henry Kissinger, have gone unpunished for their war crimes. It looks like Kerrey will also go unpunished for being their tool. McVeigh, on the other hand, never quite made the grade. He hoped for an Army career, won a Bronze Star in the brutal U.S.-led war against Iraq, boasted of killing some Iraqis and being on security for General Norman Schwarzkopf. He was a low-level tool for another master war criminal. When he tried to raise his level by becoming a Green Beret--an Army version of the Navy Seals--he failed to make the grade. Dumped from the Army, McVeigh had no officially sanctioned imperialist outlet for his backward and murderous sentiments. He joined the Ku Klux Klan. He hung around ultra- right militias. And he turned against the government that-- under slightly different circumstances--might have gone on paying him to kill in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Colombia, or wherever. But he kept the same racist sentiments that made him useful in Iraq. He just bombed the "wrong" target. McVeigh showed how close he was to the official military when he explained his limited remorse for killing 25 children. "That's a large amount of collateral damage," he told his biographer. He used the euphemism for war crimes that will forever be attached to Jamie Shea, a British official who spoke for NATO during the bombing of Yugoslavia but was coached by Clinton, Albright and Co. McVeigh may pretend to be a rebel, but he's just a racist tool who was discarded by his masters. Now they hope that by executing him they can completely cut loose from the responsibility they have for creating him in the first place. In Kerrey's day, the term "collateral damage" was not yet in use. Plus the murders were close up--not by guided missile from a ship in the Mediterranean or the Persian Gulf. Kerrey claims to feel remorse for what he did in Vietnam. Before people get caught up in the media spin on this story and start feeling sorry for Kerrey, they should consider that there were other choices. There were U.S. youths ordered into the military who refused the draft. There were troops ordered to Vietnam who refused to go. There were troops whose experience in Vietnam taught them they must refuse to fight, or that they should fight instead against the officers who ordered them into battle. A few went over to the side of the Vietnamese liberation fighters. Some went to jail, others went into exile, many paid dearly for their courage in refusing to fight against a people's war. But none of them has any reason to feel remorse. Kerrey was honored as a hero, but these youths were the real U.S. heroes of the Vietnam War and far too little praise is given to their acts of courage. Kerrey and McVeigh, on the other hand, are just imperialist tools. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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