Iraq's My Lai

[Agathon]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Incorrect.

What would you know, you ignorant hick!!!!!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Sikander


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

Moby isn't a 12 year old girl? Well I'm shocked.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Agathon


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.

how about Korea? what happened there?

[Ned]

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.

Point taken. The South did try to drive the North out of South Vietnam in '74. But that does not change the fact that Congress cut them off and denied them any emergency aid whatsoever when the North's major offensive began in '75.

As to popularity, we shall never really know, will we?, as the only polls taken were by the commies themselves who reputation for truth is well known.

[Arrian]

"We're supposed to be fighting this war for democracy and yet something like this happens that sets us back," Rep. John Murtha told CNN on Tuesday. "It's as bad as Abu Ghraib, if not worse."

The Pennsylvania Democrat said the military tried to cover up the incident. "They knew the day after this happened that it was not as they portrayed it," he said. "They knew that they went into the rooms, they killed the people in the taxi. There was no firing at all. And this comes from the highest authority in the Marine Corps."

****e.

-Arrian

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
The ARVN got into trouble because they had no ammo. Congress had cut them off (actually, severely reduced aid). When the North attacked in '75, Ford requested emergency aid. That was denied.

Revisionist history.

ARVN panicked and ran without much of a fight when the North Vietnamese attacked. That's why the South lost. ARVN had ammo. What ARVN lacked was leaders willing to fight. Remember the general who ordered his troop to fight to the end, and then fled the country.

It was over in a month. Too quickly for the US to make a difference.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Arrian


****e.

-Arrian

I agree Murtha is a piece of ****e. Commentary should be curtailed until such time as investigation is complete.

Plenty of Marines are pissed at Murtha right now and rightly so.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tingkai

Revisionist history.

ARVN panicked and ran without much of a fight when the North Vietnamese attacked. That's why the South lost. ARVN had ammo. What ARVN lacked was leaders willing to fight. Remember the general who ordered his troop to fight to the end, and then fled the country.

It was over in a month. Too quickly for the US to make a difference.

The only way I know whether your version or my version is right is that I was there.

[Ned]

Coverup?

According to the NY Times, the Marines conducted no investigation. Why? Did command believe the reports from the field? Or, did they intentially cover up the truth?

This is going to be interesting.

"The military began its examination of the killings only after Time magazine presented the full findings of its investigation to a military spokesman in Baghdad in early February.

General Chiarelli, an Army officer who took command of American ground forces in Iraq in January, learned soon after the spokesman was notified that the Marines had not investigated the incident, according to the senior military official."

NY Times, May 31, 2006

[Wernazuma III]

I heard that when the journalist came with direct video proof of the massacre, he was sent away by officers of the unit who "refused to take a look on propaganda".
I wonder how often facts have not been taken up and not been shown to the Time magazine...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Tingkai
It was over in a month. Too quickly for the US to make a difference.

Four months. Invasion: Jan. 75. Fall of Saigon (IIRC) April 30, 75.

And true, the South Vietnamese Army folded up like a house of cards. Especially after the I Corp surrendered in Danang? IIRC, there was only one more major battle, down south, where elite South Vietnamese units initally smashed an NVA attack, only to be outflanked on both flanks because of a lack of troops.

[Tingkai]

Are you sure? I thought the final attack was March to April.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned


The only way I know whether your version or my version is right is that I was there.

Ah, no. That's a common mistake.

Someone who was in Vietnam in 1975 would be seeing a very small section of the entire picture. And what a person sees in their small section may well distort the reality of what was happening.

For instance, on a given day, it might be quiet on one part of the front, while in another part, the front is being overrun. Depending on where, you're going to have a different image of what happened.

Anyone can under study history. The people "who were there" do not have a monopoly on understanding the past.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Tingkai

The people "who were there" do not have a monopoly on understanding the past.

Exactly; which is why we need historians.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Tell me when you find one.