Abu Ghraib is Iraq's "My Lai"....

[kentuck]

I first heard of My Lai while in the little hamlet of So Chin (which meant #9 in Vietnamese) along the coast of central Viet Nam. Locals told me about it. I did not believe it. I told them that Americans did not do such things. They were very animated and adamant in their explanations of what happened. I did not understand everything they were saying but I did hear enough to know that it was several hundred people, including women and children. This was not reported in the American media until later. It happened right after Tet '68.

My Lai had a transforming effect on the psyche of Americans that were against the war or leaning against the war, in my opinion. Protests grew much larger and much more vocal after 1968 and '69. Our leaders were never able to regain their offensive in that occupation. It was downhill from there.

I sense that Abu Ghraib may have the same impact in this occupation. Americans do not like to see their young soldiers turn to animals and act in such horrible ways. Once it is made public, the genie is out of the bottle. It is very difficult to regain any momentum for any type of victory. That's the way I see it.

[Political_Junkie]

1. I hope your right

At least some good would come out of this barbarism!

[Flubadubya]

2. I hope you're right kentuck...

but you are assuming the American people today possess the same "conscience" as they did back then. My gravest concern is that we are dealing with a much "different American public" than existed during the Vietnam War. They have changed psychologically and morally.

I fear that some American people (at least half of them anyway) are either completey desensitized (and thus complacent) to that sort of thing, or are even jaded to the point of finding it exhilirating and tantalizing, "fun stuff"... if you will. I think many view this as coldly and remotely as a scintillating video game. Many in this country have lost their conscience (otherwise they wouldn't be following Bush).

I believe the American people have come a long way from Vietnam, but, unfortunately, many have moved in the wrong direction.

[kentuck]

4. Now that is scary !

But many people felt similarly about Richard Nixon and it took Kent State and Watergate and other events to bring him down...

[Flubadubya]

6. Yes well,

I think our only hope is the "other half" of the American public who do have a conscience and will stand up if need be. We just haven't seen it happen yet, and, yes, it may take another Kent State or the likes to moblize us.

Speaking of Watergate, with respect to where American "conscience" is now... Watergate was very, very small potatoes compared to the abject criminality that is going on in this administration today. Again, I think this reflects the loss of concsience in this country, especially in the media. It was the media that brought Watergate to the attention of the general public. Today the media only props up the corruptness of the Bushies. Just another proof of how this country has degenerated.

[Poiuyt]

5. I hope you're wrong, Flubadubya

I'm afraid that since Viet Nam we Americans have been trained to support the troops. I guess none of us could believe that the troops might not deserve supporting. I hope that this was just an isolated incident.

[Flubadubya]

8. John Kerry came back from Vietnam decrying atrocities...

that had taken place in Vietnam and that he witnessed. Today, as a presidential candidate, he is being beaten over the head for ever having mentioned this in public (although it was an extremely courageous thing for him to do at the time). His great conscience and his willingness to express it is being turned on him like a weapon by the "dark side".

Moreover, Kerry himself, backpedaled on the issue on Meet The Press a couple of weeks ago. He tried to play it down as being the words of a "27-year old". Where is his conscience about it now. That's what's really scary! Who will stand up against these awful things now, or is there anyone who will?

[Junkdrawer]

3. Well, THUBOUF is dead...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1509361

[dogman]

7. I don't think so but hope you're right

about it helping bring an end to this mess. I think Falujah had more potential to be a My Lai because My Lai was a massacre of a village inundated with enemy. There were atrocities similar to this in Viet Nam. Prisoners tortured and thrown out of helicopters and things like that. The thing about this is the world has seen once again we are not liberators. This only affects people with a conscience and is a side effect that cannot be directly tied to B$$$. Just as Colin Powell limited the damage from My Lai to those in immediate command, this is unlikely to come back to the source, Crusaders of the Global Oil Project.

[cliss]

9. Thanks kentuck, for bringing this up.

It's shocking. It's hard to believe, but it's true. Those are our troops over there. Someone from Amnesty International said this week, "this is probably the tip of the iceberg".

Now that Pandora's box has been opened, we will most probably see more photos. They won't come from the US press, by the way. They will migrate toward us from places like the India Times, or Pakistani Times, or Sri Lanka Times.

As the ugly truth is revealed, the rest of the world talks about us with revulsion and recoils.

What happened? There are many reasons for how this came about, but probably the biggest reason is that we ar now the world's only superpower. The USSR folded. China is predicted to be the rising power in the east, but not yet.

In the meantime, we behave like giants stomping on ants because there's no one to oppose us.

I read recently that "the only people this administration fears are the Americans themselves".

[Greylady]

10. The American Occupation will soon be over

CNN Headline News is showing Iraqis in Baghdad watching the degrading POW videos and they are furious. The Arab League is appealing to the UN to step in.

[babzilla]

11. coincidentally, one of the My Lai defense lawyers is on the case

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040510fa_fact

At the Article 32 hearing, the Army informed Frederick and his attorneys, Captain Robert Shuck, an Army lawyer, and Gary Myers, a civilian, that two dozen witnesses they had sought, including General Karpinski and all of Frederick’s co-defendants, would not appear. Some had been excused after exercising their Fifth Amendment right; others were deemed to be too far away from the courtroom. “The purpose of an Article 32 hearing is for us to engage witnesses and discover facts,” Gary Myers told me. “We ended up with a c.i.d. agent and no alleged victims to examine.” After the hearing, the presiding investigative officer ruled that there was sufficient evidence to convene a court-martial against Frederick.

Myers, who was one of the military defense attorneys in the My Lai prosecutions of the nineteen-seventies, told me that his client’s defense will be that he was carrying out the orders of his superiors and, in particular, the directions of military intelligence. He said, “Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?”

same shit, different war.

[Junkdrawer]

12. BTW: Seymour Hersh broke the My Lai too... n/t