Iraq's My Lai

[MrFun]

I am too lazy to see if someone posted an update news article, but here is one from CNN:

Update on Iraqi Deaths

[Lawrence of Arabia]

what no one is saying is that these 20 yr old kids should never have been there in the first place, and that you can follow this right back up to bush.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Ned, the way you rewrite history is interesting.

Fixed

Neddie, you need to remember that it was the South the reinitiated hostilities in the idea that it was finally capable of driving the North out of the country. They wuz wrawng. They quickly over extended themselves, and then decided to retreat to a more defensibel perimeter. The retreat, however, because a full scalle panic and collapse, and all the North had to do was move in to pick up the pieces.

In any event, the South was a completely and totally illegitimate government, whih had almost no support from its own people. Whatever you want to say aobut the North, it had overwhelming support, in the North and the South.

[MOBIUS]

Hey Sloww, if a bunch of guys burst into the homes of dozens of innocent civilians and brutally mows them all down in cold blood, including women and children as young as two how would you punish them?

The Death Penalty? Life imprisonment?

Or a pat on the back and an "aw shucks, boys will be boys..."

The parents of two US Marines said their sons were left traumatised after being asked to clean up the mess. One of the men, Lance Corporal Roel Ryan Briones, said he had taken photos  quickly confiscated by investigators  and carried bodies out of homes.

"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," he said. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood."

His mother said: "He had to carry a little girl's body. Her head was blown off and her brain splattered on his boots."

from The Independent.

Your soldiers are out of control - this is just an incident so big that even the military can't sweep it under the carpet...

[MOBIUS]

Hey Sloww, cat got your tongue?

[chequita guevara]

It seems the Marines made a mistake. They left someone alive. A twelve year old girl.

[MOBIUS]

Sloww says: DEATH TO THE MARINES!!!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It seems the Marines made a mistake. They left someone alive. A twelve year old girl.

They're getting rusty; we need to whip them Marines back into shape.

[SlowwHand]

Bull****, Che

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither
That's a curious reading, Aggie, considering that the NVA successfully occupied SV, the Serbs were well and truely kicked in the nads in the Balkens, the British outwaited the IRA, etc....

Thanks for proving my point. South Vietnam was an artificial construction. There were never any such thing as "South Vietnamese". Just Vietnamese. And they wanted foreigners out, and they got it.

As for the Balkans, that has now divided (yet again recently) along ethnic lines, proving my point again.

Ireland is different. The invasion occurred hundreds of years ago, and there is now an ethnic mix in the place. It's completely different from the US invading somewhere like Iraq, or even Iran doing it.

[SlowwHand]

Incorrect.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Incorrect.

Out of interest, what, exactly, is incorrect?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

Withhold? The US gave SV over 700 million dollars worth of military aid that year, and had left tens of billions of dollars worth of bases and other military infrastructure.

The south vietnamese government was corrupt and inefficient. No amouint of American hand holding was going to stave off the North Vietnamese. They fought for 30 uears straight with one single Vietnam unde rtheir power as their aim.
The North Vietnamese were far more higly motivated than the ARVN forces. They were bound to win, no matter how much dough the US sank into the issue. If 500,000 US soldiers could not stop NV, then extra military aid would have not made the difference either. The fools in Saigon would have ****ed it up anyways.

The ARVN regime was a total failure. I find it incredible many people here think a failure like it should have been proped up, or even that it could be propped up.

You don't know what you are talking about. The NVA was so damaged after their failed attempt to overrun the South in 1972 that they predicted it would take a decade or more to make another serious attempt at it. 1975 was a limited operation to reduce the South's control of the central highlands region, which turned into a full scale rout when Thieu paniced after congress cut off funding and more or less stated that they were on their own.

The South may or may not have been able to hold on with U.S. support. One thing for sure is that they were significantly more capable in the 1970s than they were in the 1960s when the U.S. was doing most of the fighting. Another thing for sure is that with the Viet Cong wiped out and the NVA in some disrepair, their adversaries were a good deal less potent than they had been at peak strength.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Fixed

Neddie, you need to remember that it was the South the reinitiated hostilities in the idea that it was finally capable of driving the North out of the country. They wuz wrawng. They quickly over extended themselves, and then decided to retreat to a more defensibel perimeter. The retreat, however, because a full scalle panic and collapse, and all the North had to do was move in to pick up the pieces.

In any event, the South was a completely and totally illegitimate government, whih had almost no support from its own people. Whatever you want to say aobut the North, it had overwhelming support, in the North and the South.

No one "reinitiated" hostilities as the communists never suspended them in the first place. While ARVN did make some attacks on the Ho Chi Minh trail, it was the NVA which made the only attempt at wiping out the other state. And if the North had overwhelming support in the South, how was the South capable of doing anything at all? Or perhaps what you call overwhelming support is better described as strong support?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
It seems the Marines made a mistake. They left someone alive. A twelve year old girl.

Ah, I thought you were going to say that they left Mobius alive. Looks like they made two.