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T here is inconceivable massacres that take place
in every war. The United States is not an exception. Deplorably, the military
and government attempt to whitewash these crimes. They’re only brought to light
when participants or witnesses courageously report them. Cover-ups keep
Americans in the dark, but when they learn of them, they attribute these mass
murders to the “fog of war,” or accept them as an inevitable part of war.
The massacres committed during the Gulf War and Vietnam War
are among the most atrocious since World War II -- particularly the savage
cruelty of the U.S.
Army’s Tiger Force platoon in Vietnam, and Charley
Company platoon at Mỹ Lai.
During the Korean War, on orders of commanders, American
soldiers killed refugees at No Gun Ri and other localities in South Korea. Even
when Americans did not directly participate, U.S. commanders condoned mass
executions by the South Korean Army.
Over a seven-month period in1967, Tiger Force platoon killed and mutilated hundreds of
unarmed Vietnam villagers. They killed women and children by dropping
grenades into bunkers where they were hiding. They shot farmers working in
fields. “Prisoners were tortured and executed, their ears and scalps severed
for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their
gold fillings. Platoon members strung the ears on shoe laces to wear around
their necks.”
On Saturday March 16, 1968, at around 7:30 a.m., all
hell broke loose for the little hamlet of Mỹ Lai in Quang Ngai Province, South
Vietnam. Suspected of harboring the Viet Cong, Mỹ Lai became a "free-fire zone."
Following a bombardment of artillery rounds, and strafing by Huey Cobra attack
helicopters, two platoons from Charlie Company led by Second Lieutenant William
Calley entered the hamlet firing at anything that moved, including women and
children. They set fire to huts, killed animals, and poisoned water supplies.
They raped women, clubbed and stabbed villagers, and executed groups of
villagers and families. They carved some victims in the chest with a “C,” as if
signing off for Charlie Company. In testimony,
a soldier admitted, "I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out
their tongues, scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just
followed. I lost all sense of direction.”
In 1991, as the Gulf War was coming to an end, American
forces attacked Iraqi forces and civilians who were in retreat on Basra road,
making a beeline for Iraq. American fighter aircraft strafed
and used napalm “that produced horrific casualties such as the ‘crispy critter’
… a revolting Americanism to describe an Iraqi tank commander burned alive.”
News reports referred to the road as the “Highway of
Death.”
In Haditha, Iraq, on Nov. 19, 2005, U.S. Marines killed 24
Iraqis including children between the ages of 3 and 15. The Marines, based on
some news reporting, called Haditha
their Mỹ Lai.
In Afghanistan, there was the “kill
team.” And a look back at U.S. behavior should not give anyone reason not to
believe that Afghan
President Hamid Karzai may have had credible reason for giving U.S. special forces two weeks to leave
Wardak province, after some U.S. soldiers there were found to have tortured and
killed innocent people.
Now we hear Republican candidates for President of the
United States calling for war over diplomacy. An extraordinary number of voters
support the unsound notion that war is the only way to achieve peace. “For
Chris Hedges, a reporter for The New York Times who was a foreign correspondent
for 15 years, war was like a drug, ‘[exposing] the capacity for evil that
lurks not far below the surface within all of us.’” However, those who support war
evidently don’t care. In the era of Trumpism, it's expected.
Nevertheless, war’s
brutality clearly points to the fact they must end.
This is a rewrite of a
previously published article on Yahoo Voices, March 14, 2013
Sources:
Pulitzer, Killing Korean Refugees Investigative
Reporting: Works Article in a Series: 2000, pulitzer.org
Associated Press, U.S.
Okayed Korean War Massacres, The Raw Story
Pulitzer, Tiger Force Platoon Investigative
Reporting: Blade, Works Article in a Series, 2004, pulitzer.org
National Public Radio, My Lai
Pilot Hugh Thompson, NPR.org
Michael S. Schmidt, Junkyard
Gives Up Secret Accounts of Massacre in Iraq, The New Your Times
Hamid Shalizi and Dylan Welch, Afghan
president to expel U.S. special forces from key province, Reuters
© Copyright Horatio Green 2016
