Jeffrey Blankfort wrote: While I appreciate the sincerity of Jerry West's response, he most assuredly was not everywhere in Vietnam and so is in no position to state with any accuracy that My Lai was a "sole exception" which involved US troops killing children. JW reply: I did not state that, Jeff. You are spinning my remarks. I said: ....but with rare exceptions such as My Lai directly shooting down children was not a common occurance.... Rare is not the same as sole, directly shooting down, as in specifically targeting children directly, is not the same as children being caught in the middle of a military action. If you want to argue that a lot of children were harmed and that the war was wrong or even just the conduct of the war was wrong, then I will agree with you completely. But, let's not try to spin every trajedy into an atrocity and devalue our criticism of the war. And I wasn't everywhere in Vietnam, just 18 months all over I Corps, but in the last 30 years I have studied quite a bit about the war and Asian history, and I did have routine access to Top Secret material while serving after my time in Vietnam, some of which helped to form my decision to become very active in the anti-war movement. JB wrote: As I mentioned in an earlier post, BEFORE My Lai became public, I was given a two-page list by Vietnamese representatives in London which contained the names of villages in which the inhabitants had been massacred by US soldiers and Vietnam was only one of the villages on that list. JW reply: I assume that you mean that My Lai was only one of the villages. I don't doubt your sources, although it would be interesting to see exactly what makes it into the category of massacre, particularly the willful, inexcusable kind that happened at My Lai. I have read of others and that there were more is not the issue. It is the propensity of some for whatever purpose to spin and distort the reality of the war into one big My Lai that I object to. There are a lot better reasons to object to this war and US policy than an occasional massacre. Also, while they were giving you this data did they give you statistics on the villagers executed (massacred) by the VC? That also was not unheard of. Perhaps they told you about the VC practice of using children as shields and as walking bombs? An honest war crimes trial on events in the Vietnam War would scoop up criminals on both sides. JB wrote: Had a US military photography not publicized the photos of My Lai, we may never have known about it in the US. I have also spoken with other Vietnam vets who confirmed the killing of children by their units. JW reply: More photos should have gotten out, and note that it was a military photographer who leaked them. And I would say that almost all combat units killed children indirectly, but most of them not like the scum bags who shot down people in cold blood at My Lai. JB wrote: It is only now that we are learning about a massacre of South Korean civilians early in the Korean War, the veracity of which was confirmed to be by a Korean vet who went to So. Korea to investigate the killings by "Defense" Secretary Cohen. JW reply: And the more we dig, the more of this stuff is going to come to light and all sides from here to the first recorded battle in history are going to have dirty hands. It doesn't make it right, but singling out one side or the other to carry the can for this stuff is a political manuever, not a moral one. JB wrote: It is both illusory and inaccurate to even imply that the North Vietnamese and the NLF were in any equipped in a manner equal to that of the US forces in Vietnam who had both jet fighters and helicopter gunships to support them and soften up "the enemy", not to mention the B29s which dropped more bombs on that country than were dropped in all of Europe in WW 2. It was the US also that exclusively used napalm, cluster bombs and white phosphorus against the Vietnamese, civilians and combatants alike, as well as Agent Orange which also inadvertently caused the subsequent illness and death of US soldiers who came near contaminated areas. JW reply: First, it is B-52s not B-29s. The NVA had jet fighters and SAM missiles. The AK-47 is a better weapon than the M-16. RPGs are not exactly clubs and spears. The NVA had bigger mortars and damn good artillery. Helicopters are great for transport and medevac, but only ok for ground support, and almost useless as such in bad weather and triple canopy jungle. Some people would like to portray the Vietnamese as primitive warriors with sling shots, it isn't so. I would check my sources on white phosphorous, it is a common military item. I think that the Geneva Convention forbade its use against troops, but I could be wrong, and the GC was not strictly adhered to anyway as far as I could see. Your point on Agent Orange and napalm, although I have no doubt that the NVA and VC would have used napalm too had they had an effective way to deliver it. Agent Orange under various names was used commonly by the folks at home to kill weeds, so I am not sure how to assign moral blame for that except that I wouldn't have used it, but then I refuse to use it at home too. How does all of this relate to Israel in 2000? One can always find some similarities, and both Vietnam and Israel are bit parts in a bigger act, but to compare the US role in Vietnam to Israelis shooting down rock throwing children as Tom Nagy did, is a stretch. -- Jerry West Editor/publisher/janitor ---------------------------------------------------- THE RECORD On line news from Nootka Sound & Canada's West Coast An independent, progressive regional publication http://www.island.net/~record/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 10/13/00 EDT