it's sad when I don't even know which massacre is being discussed, or even which theater of war or era - there are just too many examples
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And that is the very few we know of, the more you learn about these, the more clear it becomes they cover them up unless they definitively can't. What we know barely scratches the surface of American terrorism and atrocities.
Initial reports claimed "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" had been killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". Westmoreland congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". As relayed at the time by Stars and Stripes magazine, "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle."
Melvin Laird the Secretary of Defense discussed them with Henry Kissinger who was at the time National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Laird was recorded as saying that while he would like "to sweep it under the rug", the photographs prevented it. "They're pretty terrible", he said. "There are so many kids just laying there; these pictures are authentic".
Inside the White House, officials privately discussed how to contain the scandal. On 21 November, Kissinger emphasized that the White House needed to develop a "game plan", to establish a "press policy", and maintain a "unified line" in its public response. The White House established a "My Lai Task Force" whose mission was to "figure out how best to control the problem", to make sure administration officials "all don't go in different directions" when discussing the incident, and to "engage in dirty tricks".
The military had a sex trafficking and drug trade during the Iraq war.
That sounds like something that We Should Know about.
Sorry trying to find article. I think it was US contractors doing it. Either way.
Afghanistan too.
The only reason why my Lai is known today is because one helicopter pilot had a conscience and ordered his door gunner to open fire on their own troops if they were to approach another group of Vietnamese civilians that he decided to protect
Had he not, likely nobody would have known what happened
And only because this has gone public, they had to award Hugh Thompson Jr. with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Otherwise military court.
US soldiers also raped thousands of French women during WW2.
I've read about this too, and the US blamed the problem on black soldiers. Maybe that's something that deserves its own post?
That's just one village.
"According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. "
"Tiger Force, a reconnaissance unit of the 101st Airborne Division, probably murdered hundreds of civilians during a 6-month period in 1967"
and from bombing:
"Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from U.S. bombing range from 30,000 to 65,000.[35][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000.[36] American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants."
Edit: I haven't done extensive research and as was pointed out the actual numbers might be much higher, and my figures don't include deaths and damage from Agent Orange chemicals
The US murdered over a million civilians in Iraq.
Robert MacNamara stated that the US killed 3-4 million civilians during the Vietnam War. Since he was the Secretary of Defense during that time, he wouldn't have exactly benefited from exaggeration of the total.
| Sentence | Life imprisonment; commuted to three years' house arrest by President Richard Nixon |
Fucking hell Nixon …
“Protect the children and women” Except from my murderous rapist soldiers apparently.
Interesting how this narrative keeps getting used to justify our colonialism. “These are backwards savages and we are agents of progress and feminism” and then, in the course of the conflict, women and girls are raped, killed, and bombed while women’s rights are stonewalled or even stripped away back home
after learning of the massacre, he wrote in his memoir that it was "the conscious massacre of defenseless babies, children, mothers, and old men in a kind of diabolical slow-motion nightmare that went on for the better part of a day, with a cold-blooded break for lunch".[
yo what the fuck
For context “he” here is General Westmoreland.
YSalsoK that Colin Powell was instrumental the attempt to cover up My Lai.
War. What is it good for. Absolutely nothing.
Other than fulfilling the desires of sociopaths under the guise of being a patriot
It is important to know this because when the military is turned on you, you should know they’ll obey. If you think there are enough that would so no, you’re wrong.
I suppose many of the perpetrators who were there are still alive today. I wonder if they sleep soundly in bed at night.
Someone who lacks enough empathy to brutally gang rape women and children are rarely people who feel remorse for hurting others. They unfortunately probably laugh themselves to sleep at night knowing they committed some of the sickest shit imaginable and will never be punished.
Of course they do. People thank them for their service. These brave brave war heroes
For a long time, I assumed that veterans who didn't want to talk about their time served were doing so because they witnessed difficult things or felt shame about what they had to do in combat situations.
These days, I wonder if it's because anyone they talked to would see them for the monster they are.
Well, the US did more than that in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Vietnam, Somalia, Nigeria, and a lot of other countries!
The reality is the USA is the real example of a terrorist country.. spreading fear, killing innocent people and ruining their lives.
Don't forget Cuba, which is an actively ongoing event. Innocent people are being starved and deprived of medicine and other essentials, purely because the ruling class want to demonstrate how socialism is a failure. Such a failure that the US has needed to ruthlessly oppress and terrorize them for decades, and yet despite it all Cuba has still made incredible medical breakthroughs such as vaccines for alzheimers and lung cancer, which aren't even available under capitalism... I wonder how they did it if they didn't have innovation, such a mystery
What those in authority don't want to tell us is that this is exactly what they expect in war. They want our soldiers to be so horrific that the other side quits. That's the goal of EVERY leader who starts a war. Any hand-wringing or regret later is just theater.
The only sin is letting the Civilians hear about it.
It's historically the only effective way to fight an insurgency and every military since ancient times knows it. Basically anytime you hear a modern military is enacting a "counter insurgency" it's either code word for doing death squads, or it's a tacit admission that they are out of ideas and have found themselves in an unwinnable quagmire.
The only way to defeat an insurgency is to do massive amounts of crimes against humanity......or avoid creating one in the first place.
"You should know: [totally horrible political sexual abuse thing with absolutely no kind of warning on it at all]"
...no, I really, really didn't need to know that, thanks
-- Frost
War and rape go hand in hand; you can't dehumanize people and respect them simultaneously.
Not to mention that a lot of soldiers are amped up on drugs and/or alcohol. Many of them don't want to even be there.