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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (141977)	7/30/2004 5:09:00 PM
From: marcos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi uw, sorry i missed this yesterday ..... that's a bit surprising, when you say you saw no atrocities whatsoever during that much time in Viet Nam .... maybe the term itself is the problem - could i ask you if you saw any civilians killed, any hooches burned, any livestock slaughtered by troops, coco palms cut down, irrigation systems destroyed? Maybe these things were not policy in the areas you were stationed, they sound relatively unpopulated by peasants [?] ..... such was not the case in the Mekong delta, where one famous sweep-and-destroy project with 11,000 'enemy' KIA netted up a grand total of 700 weapons, many of them quite old .... the people had been told to leave, by what means i don't recall, possibly leaflets, then everything was wiped out in the entire area, anything that moved was killed, anything standing was burnt or destroyed .... the idea was to deny the Viet Cong access to rice grown in the area, and probably cover as well ..... but most 'enemy' here were unarmed civilians, the killing of whom i would personally term 'atrocity', so that's what i mean by that ..... also 'free fire zone', you hear that expression in connection with such projects .... i think this was 'Speedy Express', can't recall, no time to look it up .... cheers