has anyone done a comparative/side-by-side timeline of VN + Iraq????

[bobbieinok]

Vietnam----------------------------Iraq

US major build-up 1964--------------US starts war 2003

My Lai massacre....1968-------------Haditha massacre 2006

******

Is Iraq moving faster than Vietnam???

******

(one source on My Lai massacre)

http://www.jurist.law.pitt.edu/trials3.htm

Every month, Professor Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, developer of the Famous American Trials website, introduces JURIST readers to one of legal history's famous trials. This month...
—————————————————————————————
The My Lai Massacre Trial
Thirty-two years ago this month, nine helicopters carrying members of Charlie Company landed in a rice paddy just south of the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Four hours later, "My Lai was no more": its buildings were destroyed and its inhabitants--old men, women, children--lay dead or dying in ditches. No sooner had the massacre ended, than the cover-up began. Only because of the persistence and courage of two men, Hugh Thompson and Ronald Ridenhour, did what happen on the morning of March 16, 1968 come to light.

It would take three years, but finally the man who ordered the massacre of My Lai civilians, Lieutenant William Calley, would have his fate decided by a military jury in Fort Benning, Georgia following the longest court-martial in United States history. Rejecting Calley's defense of following superior orders, the jury in March, 1971 found Calley guilty of murder and sentenced him to life in prison. The verdict did not sit well with the American public (nearly 80% expressed disapproval), and represented a turning point in attitudes toward the Viet Nam war. Shortly after the Calley verdict, polls for the first time reported that a majority of Americans disapproved of the war in Southeast Asia.

The court-martial of William Calley is tough reading, but it is a story that contains lessons we should never forget.

Douglas Linder
University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law
[e-mail]
March 2000

* * *

Two tragedies took place in 1968 in Viet Nam. One was the massacre by United States soldiers of as many as 500 unarmed civilians-- old men, women, children-- in My Lai on the morning of March 16. The other was the cover-up of that massacre.


much more.....