Watching "Cover Up" on Netflix--Makes the hope I had the military would not follow illegal orders seem foolish
I'm watching the documentary "Cover Up" on Netflix about the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who broke the story about the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam.
Seymour Hersh was contacted by a source who had already written to Congress and various other newspapers. Many other journalists passed on the story, not wanting to go up against the Army. Seymour Hersh published the story, which received widespread coverage, but eventually people bought the Army's lies and dismissed Hersh's article as "propaganda". Eventually, though, the story was too big to be dismissed. However, only one of the 22 soldiers and generals who were charged with murder was court-martialed. The rest had their cases dismissed with the defense, "they were just following orders".
This is so depressing, it's all too familiar to what is going on now, except it's American civilians who are being killed. The journalists are too afraid to call it out as it is, instead coach their stories in cautious language so as not to p*ss off the Trump administration. And now I'm wondering if ICE, if ever prosecuted, will get off with "just following orders." Germany held the Nazi's accountable for murder, the US let the murderers off.
