Vietnam: The War Crimes Files

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians,and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled the company commander's response:

Kill anything that moves.

Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began.

Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Toots]

1. Hey I was in "B Company"

"Bad Bet" was it's code name. The battalian was called Rovin' Gambler with other companies named "Ace High" "Wild Card" "Stacked Deck" and sometimes we traveled with a "Plunger" Unit as our Echo company. My particular squad was called "The Good Bad and Ugly" Army sure goes in for romanticism.

[4bucksagallon]

2. There were many more that never made headlines.

Those who speak up are subject to the being branded traitors and liars by the ones who ran away from this war, re the flag wrapped, cowardly republican assholes. I have written to this group, the swift-boaters, and they denounced me and said if I could not furnish names and dates of "alleged" atrocities then I was a liar and probably never had been in the military. Well my DD 214 says I was, and 36 years is a long time to try to recall from memory things that you tried so hard to forget.
I don't know maybe it is better if it does just go away. These men, boys really, were doing what all these chickenhawks would not do. So it is hard to condemn there actions. I guess you had to be there to understand what was going down. Unlike the current military, all volunteers, most of the kids in Nam were drafted and took the place of our current leaders, the Rove's, Chaney's. Limbaugh's, Bushes, and on and on.

[Rose Siding]

3. A conviction with a 20-yr sentence was reduced to 7 mos

-and that was MI for "indecent acts on a 13-year-old girl". It's not hard for me to condemn actions like that.

And there's documentation of officers giving orders in the files, so grunts weren't the only ones who skated.

[maddezmom]

4. kick

[CHIMO]

5. New US Vietnam war abuses unveiled

US soldiers killed far more civilians during the Vietnam war than was previously thought, according to a survey of declassified army documents.

The 9,000-page collection of files was assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s - which the Los Angeles Times said proved that atrocities by US forces had gone far beyond what public records had shown.

The crimes committed also went largely unpunished, the newspaper said on Sunday.

The newspaper said it examined most of the files and obtained copies of 3,000 pages, or one third of the total, before government officials removed them.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CEC58096-1CC6-4B98-BF4E-E9EF628A992A.htm

[Miss Chybil]

6. Any other link besides al Jazeera? nt

[CHIMO]

7. Well

The reference is from Reuters.

Try a bit of googling if you won't accept it.

[Pepper32]

10. L A Times: Civilian Killings Went Unpunished

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Miss Chybil]

13. Horrendous. Thank you. nt

[Pepper32]

14. You're welcome n/t

[IndianaGreen]

12. Well, there is the White House press office

They say that there are a lot of happy news from Iraq that the press is not reporting. Victory is around the corner.

[Octafish]

8. Editor & Publisher has LA Times overview...

'L.A. Times' Study Finds High Number of Vietnam Atrocities

EXCERPT...

"Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units," the Times reported. "They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam."

DRUNKEN DRAFT-DODGER

[Monkeyman]

21. wrong not the 506th you can take that to the bank

[LynnTheDem]

9. Imagine what's gonna come out about US atrocities in Iraq

in a few years.

And Americans wonder why we're so hated. Hint, idiots; it ain't for our (mythical) "freedoms".

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

11. Raise your hand if this is a surprise to you.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

[IndianaGreen]

15. I question why the Pentagon declassifies this stuff now, at this time

Are they trying to minimize our war crimes in Iraq by saying that our Vietnam War GIs did the same thing?

[Judi Lynn]

17. Fast thinking, I.G. I'll bet your entirely right. n/t

[Ms. Clio]

19. actually, the archive was declassified in 1994

from the LA Times article:

The records were declassified in 1994, after 20 years as required by law, and moved to the National Archives in College Park, Md., where they went largely unnoticed.

The Times examined most of the files and obtained copies of about 3,000 pages — about a third of the total — before government officials removed them from the public shelves, saying they contained personal information that was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.



The more interesting question is why the government decided to close the files to further investigation?

[IndianaGreen]

20. Someone is playing a game of peek-a-boo!

If the files went unnoticed since 1994, what perked the LA Times' interest in them?

Why was the LA Times allowed to peek at the files if they contained information exempt from FOIA?

Could it be that the same someone that tipped the newspaper, and allowed it to browse through the files, is the one that yanked them on the pretext that they contained personal information?

Nothing happens without a reason in Bush's America!

[Ms. Clio]

24. According to the article, they were originally found in 2002 by one of the

reporters when he was working on his dissertation. That sounds plausible to me.

I don't think anyone actually thought they contained info exempt from FOIA until after the govt. decided it wanted the files closed again.

Surely nothing happens without a reason in Bush's America, but I can't decide if this is just par for their fascistic course (they have "reclassified" thousands of documents that have been publicly available for decades), or if they really don't want the obvious comparisons drawn between the terrible atrocities detailed in the files and what is surely occurring today in Iraq.

[IndianaGreen]

25. Sounds like a reasonable explanation

I have gotten so paranoid that I automatically look for a hidden agenda in everything that involves the government.

[Judi Lynn]

16. The right-wing politicians and the Swift Boat a-holes got a lot of mileage

from their charges John Kerry was a liar and a traitor for what he said about soldiers who had told him of atrocities.

You can be sure you'll never hear one word of concession from these reeking piles, not ever.

John Kerry has been vindicated publicly. Intelligent people knew he was telling the truth a very long time ago.

Jerks. Clowns. Republicans.

[Ms. Clio]

18. more from the LA Times article

Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.

The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.

Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.

Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines

On edit: read the entire LA Times article, then try to explain why the exact same horrors are not occurring in Iraq. My god.

[Monkeyman]

22. I can hear it again baby killer I warn you don't last posting in the DU if

If this Nam vet hear it

[Monkeyman]

23. Make this very clear I join the VVAW because we wanted to tell

America not all of us did this crap. Any soldier that did is a coward

[UTUSN]

26. Anybody got an e-addy for the Swiftbots/John O'NEILL? n/t