"Think you're missing my point here. I really don't believe that Kerry's actions or any single person's outspoken rhetoric about the war back then amounted to a hill of beans compared to the huge collective voices of the country and the world at that time."

I assure you I'm not missing the point. Kerry's words did have an affect. People could rightly assume that the Senate had functioning brains. The same can not be said for bunch of people smoking dope and largely of a age in which they are clueless.

"The North Vietnamese didn't need the testimony of John Kerry or the antics of Jane Fonda to rationalize their abuse of prisoners or their continuation of the war. The people that were torturing people then did so because they wanted to. They were bloodthirsty, war-hardened punks that got their rocks off brutalizing other human beings. They would've terrorized and killed no matter what was going on in the US. "

You seem to not understand why soldiers are sometimes tortured- they have valuable intel. And they have PR value if prisoners can be made to say stuff- like "the war isn't worth it, my fellow soldiers should refuse to continue to fight this war". Now, it's true that most torture is simply due to twisted and sick human beings- simply the evilness of humans.

"We are incapable of winning any war where the the distinction of enemy and friendly civilian is so blurred. Are you guys seriously saying that war was winnable and if so within what timeframe from the time Kerry was making his speech? 1 year, 2, 5? How many more POW's would've fallen into enemy hands in those years? Those guys already in the camps were toast and to infer that tapes of Kerry's speech made their lives harder is absolute folly. It's an unbelievable miracle any of them came out at all. Sure seems to me that withdrawing from there with our tail between our legs is possibly the only thing that saved their asses. Bottom line is that nobody knows that. I don't and you can't either unless you have some deal with Robert that grants you all-knowing status."

Well you are so clueless that I don't know where to start. I will limit it to a "miracle" that the prisoners were returned. It was part of the cease fire or "peace agreement"- the process that Kerry was undermining.