My Lai massacre

[Msterbeau]

I heard about this on the radio and did a little digging to make sure I understood it correctly. The pilot, Hugh Thompson saves lives and is austrisized for it? Nice.... I'm escpecially baffled by the part where people actually supported the commanding officer when he was under trial.. (Jimmy Carter amongst them.... WTF!!)

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/doubleissue/heroes/thompson.htm

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/guide...chats/thompson/

Backround:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson%2C_Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley

Thoughts?

[The_Dark]

They did the right thing, but not what they were sopposed to do. It's a tough one and was handled badly by just about everyone except them. My Lia is the massacre that started all the false reports that came out of Vietnam. If things had been handled correctly, i think things would have gone down differently everywhere.

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Calley and his men snapped. By the time this happened, most of the soldiers did not want to be there. This made them even more upset at getting shot at by farmers. The icing on the cake was when the locals started placing boobytraps and mines around the area where Calley and his men were operating (really going through the motions) they got furious with the locals because the rightly believed they had something to do with it and or knew exactly who was placing the mines everywhere... so the executions started (Oliver Stone ripped this off for the scene where Sgt. Barnes is "interrogating" villagers in Platoon)... anyway they got started and then just said "F-IT" lets do the whole village.... and the rest is history (including the part where the helicopter pilot came down and did his best to stop everything)

notice how this got lots of media coverage, but when congressmen Bob Kerry (not related to John Kerry) and his seal team decided to crawl into a village and stab everyone to death with their knives "because they could".... nothing happened. He even got the medal of honor on his very next mission because he got his leg blown off... and then promised to be a good little soldier and go into politics.

[Msterbeau]

Justifying their actions with all the stuff you just mentioned is BS. They murdered woman and children in cold blood and the US govt. tried to sweep it under the rug. Vietnam ... or any war like it where the lines between civilians and soldiers is tenuous, is an exercise in frustration for the opposing soldiers... It sucks that they were frustrated but you'll never get me to buy their excuses for what amounts to mass murder.

Another thing that I'm pondering is why all the grunts were not indicted too. Based on what I read, some of them were less guilty then others, but to not even stand trial ... It contrasts fairly sharply with the soldiers convicted of torture in Iraq.

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Justifying their actions with all the stuff you just mentioned is BS.  They murdered woman and children in cold blood and the US govt.  tried to sweep it under the rug.  Vietnam ... or any war like it where the lines between civilians and soldiers is tenuous, is an exercise in frustration for the opposing soldiers...  It sucks that they were frustrated but you'll never get me to buy their excuses for what amounts to mass murder.

Another thing that I'm pondering is why all the grunts were not indicted too.  Based on what I read, some of them were less guilty then others, but to not even stand trial ...  It contrasts fairly sharply with the soldiers convicted of torture in Iraq.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did not justify anything they did, nor do I agree with it. All I provided was a simple narration of what was going on. Media coverage at the time was spotty at best and there was a concerted effort to cover up/ minimize the "damage" done by Lt. Calley's unit... here is somthing to look for... who else was in the same division at the same time this happened? Lt. Calley was in the 23rd "Americal" infantry division (the nick name comes from WW2 when the division was originally formed from american units on New Caledonia in the pacific)

There were some rising stars there and since then, the crime has been downplayed as much as possible. Ill let you find the names for your self... (hint neither has the last name of Bush or Kerry... or even Gore) One very important person was in vietnam at the time and helped in the cover up.... another important person was not with the division until about a year or so later and helped with the ongoing coverup (the media did not find out about it for almost 2 years and even then it was glossed over)

[ZhukovCodeslinger]

Another thing that I'm pondering is why all the grunts were not indicted too.  Based on what I read, some of them were less guilty then others, but to not even stand trial ...  It contrasts fairly sharply with the soldiers convicted of torture in Iraq.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

at Mai Lai, they had orders from Lt. Calley to kill civillians and they followed the orders. In Iraq, nobody could "prove" that the "torturers" were given orders from above to do it (in the grand scheme of things the torture in Iraq was a "mistreatment" at best compared to Iraqi style torture).

Also a point to consider... we now have massive media coverage and so many lawyers... Try finding a lawyer willing to go to vietnam in 1968-1970.

[Mikielikesit]

Lets just kill them all and let GOD sort them out........OH yeah thats what happened nevermind as you were..........