<What do you think happened with the My Lai massacre?>
I post the facts, with links, clearly showing a gross miscarriage of justice, with dozens of murderers, rapists, and those who covered it all up (according to the government's own report), and all but one going un-punished, and you reply:
<the Army did the heavy lifting in the pre- trial investigation>
That investigation was their fall-back position, when the initial coverup failed. Even though, in the village, there was not a single military-age male, all 600 dead were children, women, and elderly men, this is what the Army did:
The cover-up of the My Lai massacre began almost as soon as the killing ended. Official army reports of the operation proclaimed a great victory: 128 enemy dead, only one American casualty (one soldier intentionally shot himself in the foot). The army knew better. Hugh Thompson had filed a complaint, alleging numerous war crimes involving murders of civilians. According to one of Thompson's crew members, "Thompson was so pissed he wanted to turn in his wings". An order issued by Major Calhoun to Captain Medina to return to My Lai to do a body count was countermanded by Major General Samuel Koster, who asked Medina how many civilians has been killed. "Twenty to twenty-eight," was his answer. The next day Colonel Henderson informed Medina that an informal investigation of the My Lai incident was underway-- and most likely gave the Captain "a good ass-chewing" as well. Henderson interviewed a number of GIs, then pronounced himself "satisfied" by their answers. No attempt was made to interview surviving Vietnamese. In late April, Henderson submitted a written report indicating that about twenty civilians had been inadvertently killed in My Lai. Meanwhile, Michael Bernhart, a Charlie Company GI severely troubled by what he witnessed at My Lai discussed with other GIs his plan to write a letter about the incident to his congressman. Medina, after learning of Bernhart's intentions, confronted him and told him how unwise such an action, in his opinion, would be.
If not for the determined efforts of a twenty-two-year-old ex-GI from Phoenix, Ronald Ridenhour, what happened on March 16, 1968 at My Lai 4 may never have come to the attention of the American people. Ridenhour served in a reconnaissance unit in Duc Pho, where he heard five eyewitness accounts of the My Lai massacre. He began his own investigation, traveling to Americal headquarters to confirm that Charlie Company had in fact been in My Lai on the date reported by his witnesses. Ridenhour was shocked by what he learned [RIDENHOUR'S STORY]. When he was discharged in December, 1968, Ridenhour said "I wanted to get those people. I wanted to reveal what they did. My God, when I first came home, I would tell my friends about this and cry-literally cry." In March, 1969, Ridenhour composed a letter detailing what he had heard about the My Lai massacre[LINK TO LETTER]and sent it to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous members of Congress. Most recipients simply ignored the letter, but a few, most notably Representative Morris Udall, aggressively pushed for a full investigation of Ridenhour's allegations.
216.239.57.104
I thought conservatives believed in harsh justice, and individual responsibility without excuses, and Honor, and Duty. If you were consistent, in the application of your own principles, you'd be saying that Calley, and about 30 others, should have been put in front of a firing squad. Or at least turned over to the ICC, for trial, along with the Argentine and Serbian soldiers who did similar things.
In the armies of Mao and Giap, soldiers who got caught doing this, were executed on the spot, by their superiors. Those armies were disciplined, far more than ours, in the treatment of civilians. They converted civilians to their cause, we killed and raped civilians. They used violence much more selectively. That's why they win guerrilla wars, and we lost in Vietnam, and are losing in Iraq.
600 civilians killed. Dozens directly involved. Abundant testimony, by dozens of witnesses, documented by the Army investigation, and the trial. There was an Army photographer, who was there during the whole massacre, and took lots of photoes, of children standing in ditches being gunned down, and GIs fondling the breasts of 15-year-old Vietnamese girls. It's all there, in the link I provided. One man spends 3 1/2 years under house arrest, for all this.
Does this meet your definition of justice? |
