I've watched
Stolen Honor twice, once casually and once more closely. I don't doubt the sincerity of the men who give their accounts. It's a very sad thing, and I've often said that the way vets were treated after that war was one of the most shameful episodes in our country's history.
But with any such presentation, including Michael Moore's, one has to be careful about the implications made and the conclusions drawn. Meeting exaggeration and hyperbole with exaggeration and hyperbole is not, IMHO, very useful. Kerry should have been more circumspect, and he's admitted as much, but by taking Kerry's actions and remarks out of context, Sherwood does us a similar disservice. He would have us believe that Kerry et al. made everything up and that their sole focus was on war crimes. They did witness crimes, but that wasn't their primary focus: their primary goal was to save, not endanger, the lives of the men who were serving and imprisoned - reading Kerry's testimony in full makes this abundantly clear. Also, the men repeatedly assert that Kerry prolonged the war, but offer no proof - it mostly sounds like bitter conjecture, and I would respectfully ask whether some of their anger shouldn't be directed at the men who ran the war as well as those who tried to end it. There are also the usual links to Jane Fonda, even though Kerry only had incidental links to Fonda.
Anyway, these men deserve the chance to tell their stories, and I don't blame them or anyone else for disapproving of Kerry's anti-war activities. I just wouldn't mistake Sherwood's presentation for history - it's got enough history to be worth watching, but its motivations are still, basically, political in nature.
One among a number of problems with the film:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Oct19.html
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