Did the U.S. Commit War Crimes in Vietnam?

[G_j]

http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR082404.htm


August 24, 2004
Did the U.S. Commit War Crimes in Vietnam?



DAVID MacMICHAEL, [e-mail]
A disabled veteran of ten years active Marine Corps service in Korea, MacMichael was a Defense Department consultant from 1965 to 1969 in Southeast Asia. During most of that period he was attached to the office of the Special Assistant for Counter-Insurgency at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. In that capacity he reviewed classified reports from the U.S. mission in Vietnam. MacMichael said today: "Some Vietnam veterans are outraged that presidential candidate Kerry in his 1971 Senate testimony spoke of atrocities reportedly committed by U.S. military forces in Vietnam. There is more than a little substance to the charge. The Toledo Blade won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize by revealing that in 1967 the 101st Airborne Division created a 'Tiger Force' ordered to kill all Vietnamese males in Quang Ngi Province. According to official U.S. Army records unearthed by the Blade reporters, Tiger Force killed many hundreds of Vietnamese and, yes, soldiers of that force did proudly ware necklaces of the ears they cut from their victims. The Army did investigate and identified the perpetrators of the crimes but chose not to prosecute them."

MacMichael added: "In 1968, Colonel George S. Patton III -- son of the World War II general -- then commanding a brigade in Vietnam, sent out Christmas cards showing dead Vietnamese stacked up Abu Ghraib-fashion with the message 'Peace on Earth' and signed by him and his wife.... And then, of course, there was My Lai. There, C Company of the 11th Brigade of the Americal Division in 1967 entered that village and methodically executed between 347 and 504 of its unarmed inhabitants, men, women and children. At least 100 of them were lined up in an irrigation ditch by Lt. William Calley and shot to death by his GIs. The slaughter only ended when the shocked crew of an Army helicopter gunship landed and forced C Company at gunpoint to cease and desist. My Lai was far from an exceptional case. In fact, it might never have come to light had not a troubled Americal Division mortarman, Tom Glen, who had not been present, heard about it and, after rotating out of Vietnam to the U.S., wrote to the U.S. commander in Vietnam, General Westmoreland. His letter only mentioned My Lai as 'part of the abusive pattern that had become routine in the Americal Division.'"


DAVID CLINE, [e-mail], www.veteransforpeace.org, www.vvaw.org, www.nhgazette.com/chickenhawks.html
Currently national president of Veterans for Peace and a longtime coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Cline is a disabled combat veteran. He said today: "After 30 years, some people are trying to whitewash what happened in Vietnam."


S. BRIAN WILLSON, [e-mail], www.brianwillson.com
Willson is a former Air Force captain who served in Vietnam. He said today: "As head of a 40-man USAF combat security unit in Vietnam, I was separately tasked to assess 'success' of targeted bombings. I discovered egregious war crimes -- daylight terror bombings of undefended fishing and rice farming villages resulting in mass murders and maimings of hundreds of residents. Subsequently, in conversations with members of the 9th Infantry Division, I heard bravado about slaughter of 11,000 'enemy' from ground operations, though the vast majority proved to be unarmed civilians."
....more....

[lottie244]

1. Yes, absolutely!!

My dad is a VN Vet.

[searchingforlight]

2. Yes. Everyone knew it. The coverup was in plain sight.

[leftchick]

3. Photos are always useful.....

In making the case....




My Lai Massacre: On March 16, 1968 the angry and frustrated men of Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, Americal Division entered the village of My Lai. "This is what you've been waiting for -- search and destroy -- and you've got it," said their superior officers. A short time later the killing began.
Online Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mylai.html

My Lai--Among the hundreds of unarmed civilians massacred by U.S. soldiers on march 16th, 1968.
Online Source:


Wow... those headbags have been around a while I see....



Questioning a suspected Vietcong.
Photo Credit: The Byrd Archives. Online Source: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/shwv/images/a_ground-3.htm

[wurzel]

4. Of course! I know of no country that has not when engaged in a war.

There is nothing "noble" about war. It is a disgusting business.

[Stone_Spirits]

5. sadly, yes

and all the denial in the world won't make it untrue.

Good segment on this on Democracy Now, www.democracynow.org

[JohnKleeb]

6. Didnt Colonel Patton call Kerry a communist or something like that

for his testimony against the war. And the answer is without a doubt yes, My Lai was one of many incidents.

[Blue_Roses]

7. hell yes! well known fact

n/t

[NV1962]

8. "Tiger Force" and "Operation Tailwind"

The Toledo Blade has done some amazing reporting documenting misdeeds -- war crimes is more accurate -- committed by members of the Tiger Force. Then, there's the infamous case of "Operation Tailwind" over which CNN got its tail in a wringer, not because it was proven untrue, but because Peter Arnett didn't go far enough to document the case before airing the resulting documentary, opening him and CNN to an acrimonious controversy which eventually cost him his job.

The thing is, evidence abounds on war crimes among those two cases, My Lai, the deliberately indiscriminate use of Agent Orange and the well-documented testimony delivered by many Vietnam veterans during the Vietnam Veterans Against War-sponsored Winter Soldier Investigation in Detroit about systemic atrocities committed in Viernam, upon which John Kerry based the testimony he somewhat later famously provided to the U.S. Senate (but was grossly misrepresented and maligned -- even back then -- by the very same John O'Neill, a ruthless stooge for Richard M Nixon then and George W Bush now.)

By the by - the same VVAW are subjected to a smear campaign similar to that conducted by GOP-sponsored hacks against John Kerry. The GOP-agitprop tools are still on a rampage to discredit veterans and immerse the whole Vietnam issue in controversy; it's more convenient to them to make and keep Vietnam and its bitter lessons a taboo subject, so as to keep people from drawing parallels with rogue ideologist-propagated wars - and Iraq has put that cabal of immoral, neocolonialist and neocon-driven bigots in high gear.

The soul of America is at stake here - and the biggest mistake we could make is obliging by conceding Vietnam and its systemic abuses as a non-issue in this campaign.

We have to break through the barrier of carefully targeted disinformation, slandering innuendo and orchestrated lies, or the long standing efforts by people like John Kerry will perish in a toxic cloud of indifference and ignorance.

The truth shall set us free.