Haditha is Just the Tip of the Iceberg, As My Lai Was in Vietnam

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/06/05/edi06041.html

Alas, the massacre at Haditha -- in which women, children and men -- were executed by U.S. Marines will be the My Lai for Iraq.

That means war hawks will argue that the Marines were under intense pressure -- which they were -- and these "sort of things" are to be expected in war. They will excuse the horrific actions as an inevitable outgrowth of a war without rules.

And they are right, you know.

Not that these GIs should be excused from accountability, but the real people who should be tried and sentenced are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Rice. They, like Kissinger, Nixon and Johnson, put the Marines in this modern version of Dante's inferno for reasons that defy logic and honesty.

With Vietnam, My Lai was a real event that became a symbolic battle over whether U.S. soldiers should be held accountable for atrocities. They should, but, more importantly, the people who put them in an untenable position should be legally charged for war crimes -- and for misleading the men and women of the U.S. armed forces and the American people.

My Lai was only the tip of the iceberg in Vietnam. It was one atrocity among many, but it was the one where the soldiers got caught.

[wtmusic]

1. "The real people who should be tried and sentenced"

Oh crap. The buck gets passed from the Pentagon to the grunts. Buzzflash passes it back to the Pentagon.

Try them all.

[Bozita]

2. fellow DUer Stanwyck has a Marine son. Check it out.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1305268&mesg_id=1305268

[musette_sf]

3. where is our new Ron Ridenhour?

http://www.fertel.com/causes/ridenhour_award/about_ron.htm



(I was fortunate to have worked with Ron when I lived in New Orleans, and he has always been a hero to me.)

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. K&R, My Lai was VERY important in ending the "conflict"

[KharmaTrain]

5. The "Media" Will Get Blamed

I remember My Lai like it was yesterday...hearing the Ballad of Lt. Calley playing in my head...and remember the backlash at that time that the media reporting the massacre was worse than the massacre itself...and how dare our media portray Americans as "murderers" (the meme thrown at Kerry last year). I suspect we're about to get the latest version. Look at the whitewash about what happened in Fallujah...and how the only people punished for the crimes at Abu Grahb were underlings.

While I suspect we'll learn more about this tragedy and if there's an investigation scapegoats will be found...unfortunatly the causes of this massacre and those really responsible for the hatred instilled in our forces that boiled over will skate away from this...even having the chutzpah to blame others.

[magellan]

6. I agreed with this sentiment on another thread

(Short of excusing the actions of these soldiers, which I don't do.) I was attacked for it. Hope you fare better.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

8. I've been attacked for it too. it's hard to deal with emotionally

However neither of us are being "attacked" like our troops. I say, attack if you must but I'll post or kick ANYTHING that might bring an end to attacks against our brothers and sisters.

[magellan]

12. It is, but I'm with you

'However neither of us are being "attacked" like our troops.'

No, thank goodness. There but for the grace of God. And I'll keep kicking for the same reason as you: the soldiers who commit these atrocities must be reckoned with, but it CAN'T end there. Because the criminals responsible for this illegal war, from Bush** on down, are just as accountable. They put our soliders there. They set up the dire circumstances that are leading to the massacres. They put it all in motion.

These men and women weren't torturers and murderers before Bush** sent them to Iraq.

[rman]

7. "My Lai was literally a footnote" - Noam Chomsky

Democracy Now
The Life and Times of Noam Chomsky: A Brief History of America's Leading Dissident
http://www.democracynow.org/static/chomskymit.shtml

...
"The most people will talk about is My Lai, which was like a footnote. I mean, I was asked when My Lai was exposed by the New York Review, which I was then writing for, to write an article about it, and I said I would do it only if I mentioned it marginally, which I did. I mentioned it marginally. Then I talked about the main atrocities going on. My Lai was part of -- at that time it was part of one of the big mass murder operations, post-Tet classification campaigns, they were called, and which were just horrendous. Ed Herman and I went through a lot of them in a book we wrote. We used notes that were given to me by Kevin Buckley, who was head of the Newsweek office in Saigon, who did a very detailed investigation of one of these campaigns of which My Lai was part, and Newsweek wouldn't publish it, so he gave me the notes, and we published it. My Lai was literally a footnote. The reason it became -- you can talk about it, is you can blame it on people who are not like us. You can blame My Lai on half-educated, poor G.I.s out in a field not knowing who is going to shoot at them next...."

[Jeffersons Ghost]

10. and we can blame the My Lai's in Iraq on the same thing

It's the same type "enemy in Iraq. The same type insurgency that no Empire is effective against. As you say, rman "You can blame My Lai on half-educated, poor G.I.s out in a field not knowing who is going to shoot at them next...." but I'll add, or we can blame the war-criminals at the top who secretly order the atrocities and sit back to count their ill-gotten cash.

[IndyOp]

9. My Lai...Haditha...and America's Whitewashers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x213711

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. if you hate the side effects of illegally occupying weak nations. end it!

we are the majority.