"Swift Boat Swill" National Archives: New proof of Vietnam atrocities

[G_j]

http://www.villagevoice.com/print/issues/0438/turse.php

From the National Archives: New proof of Vietnam War atrocities
Swift Boat Swill

by Nicholas Turse
September 21st, 2004 11:40 AM

John Kerry is being pilloried for his shocking Senate testimony 34 years ago that many U.S. soldiers—not just a few "rogues"—were committing atrocities against the Vietnamese. U.S. military records that were classified for decades but are now available in the National Archives back Kerry up and put the lie to his critics. Contrary to what those critics, including the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, have implied, Kerry was speaking on behalf of many soldiers when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 22, 1971, and said this:


They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

The archives have hundreds of files of official U.S. military investigations of such atrocities committed by American soldiers. I've pored over those records—which were classified for decades—for my Columbia University dissertation and, now, this Voice article. The exact number of investigated allegations of atrocities is unknown, as is the number of such barbaric incidents that occurred but weren't investigated. Some war crimes, like the Tiger Force atrocities exposed last year by The Toledo Blade, have only come to light decades later. Others never will. But there are plentiful records to back up Kerry's 1971 testimony point by point. Following (with the names removed or abbreviated) are examples, directly from the archives:

..more..

[BigBigBear]

1. Stunning piece

I read it.

Flash this one in front of the "Kerry lied in '71" herd, and watch 'em squirm.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Colin Powell had a role in covering up Viet Nam war crimes too.

By late 1968, Powell had jumped over more senior officers into the important post of G-3, chief of operations for division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles Gettys, at Chu Lai. Powell had been "picked by Gen. Gettys over several lieutenant colonels for the G-3 job itself, making me the only major filling that role in Vietnam," Powell wrote in his memoirs.

But a test soon confronted Maj. Powell. A letter had been written by a young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen, who had served in an Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of his Army tour. In a letter to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal division of routine brutality against civilians. Glen's letter was forwarded to the Americal headquarters at Chu Lai where it landed on Maj. Powell's desk.

"The average GI's attitude toward and treatment of the Vietnamese people all too often is a complete denial of all our country is attempting to accomplish in the realm of human relations," Glen wrote. "Far beyond merely dismissing the Vietnamese as 'slopes' or 'gooks,' in both deed and thought, too many American soldiers seem to discount their very humanity; and with this attitude inflict upon the Vietnamese citizenry humiliations, both psychological and physical, that can have only a debilitating effect upon efforts to unify the people in loyalty to the Saigon government, particularly when such acts are carried out at unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy."

Glen's letter contended that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." Gratuitous cruelty was also being inflicted on Viet Cong suspects, Glen reported.


www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

[G_j]

3. kICk!

:bounce:

[G_j]

4. needs a kick

[WEagle]

5. to lurking freepers, this info is from the National Archives ...eom

[G_j]

6. very unpleasant reading but..

since history is being ignored and rewritten, the truth must be told.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Yep...Pandora's Box has been opened, and the ant-Kerry Swifties...

...have nobody to blame but themselves.

[G_j]

8. well put

they wanted to discuss this issue? Here is it boys, and there is a lot more.

[Zorbet55]

9. Nothing is worse

than a swiftboat prostitute for bush. The crap they have thrown up was long and thankfully forgotten by most. Thanks, shitheads, for getting veterans at one another's throat 30 years later.:spank:

[G_j]

11. I can't believe

they are so stupid as to attack fellow Veterans to help a spoiled frat boy AWOL coward like Bush. And believe me swifties, its not just Kerry you are attacking!

I doubt if I've ever heard a better use for the now famous quote: "You want the truth? you can't handle the truth!"

[Stone_Spirits]

14. I so agree!

nasty, nasty people. They are a disgrace!

[David Zephyr]

10. Kicking This Up to the Top Where It Belongs!

:kick:

[peace4all]

12. kick!

[Hello_Kitty]

13. John Kerry is a hero for this AFAIK. n/t