To Save the Soul of America
America's Soul: From Vietnam to Gaza
“Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.” — Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam
This article examines some of the crimes committed by our troops and how we, as a nation, reacted to them. I think what made these crimes particularly shocking to me was the contrast these cases had to my own experiences while deployed overseas. While it is clear that their are sick individuals amongst us and in our military, I still hold that they are an aberration, not representative of our troops as a whole or of the American people.
Outside of the geopolitical consequences these crimes have on us, the more important question is, what impact does it have on the soul of America. Dr. King feared that we would ‘poison our nations soul’ in Vietnam and perhaps he was right. Since then we have fought in or supported many unnecessary wars, including the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Apathy and ignorance are the government’s primary tool in ensuring unjust wars and the war crimes that come with them can continue. I believe we must take an honest (and painful) look at these crimes to ensure that they do not occur again. I view these instances as a sickening rot on our nation’s soul, something that must be cut out, violently if need be, in order to keep the whole healthy.
Warning: The below article is a graphic, but I think necessary.
Disclosure: The book links in this article are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
My Lai
I had heard of the My Lai massacre before, I vaguely recalled the pilot who helped put an end to it, but I never looked too far into it. Bill Buppert recently had an episode where he discussed it & he recommended the book “My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness”. This book details the horrific crimes of our soldiers in My Lai on March 16, 1968 and the events that followed.
How it happened
Free Fire Zones
The ‘Free-Fire Zone’, officially meant (according to FM 6-20) “A specific designated area into which any weapon system may fire without additional coordination with the establishing headquarters”. In practice, it was often taken as “kill anything that moves”. Robert Ramsdell of the CIA provided intel for the operation in My Lai. Notably, he suggested that all civilians would have left for market by the time of the operation. In a later interview with Seymour Hersh he stated that ‘everyone was considered suspects’ “because they couldn’t survive in that area unless they were sympathizers”[1]. Despite Ramsdell’s assessment of forces in the area differing from all others, it was the intel provided and used for the mission.
Ambition meets incompetence
“Rape, gang rape, rape using eels, snakes, or hard objects, and rape followed by murder; electrical shock ("the Bell Telephone Hour") rendered by attaching wires to the genitals or other sensitive parts of the body, like the tongue; "the water treatment"; "the airplane," in which a prisoner's arms were tied behind the back and the rope looped over a hook on the ceiling, suspending the prisoner in midair, after which he or she was beaten; beatings with rubber hoses and whips; and the use of police dogs to maul prisoners” —The Phoenix Program
Howard Jones notes in his book that Ramsdell was “anxious to make his mark” as he had recently taken over the “Phoenix Program”, a brutal intelligence gathering operation designed “to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Lao Dong Party”[2]. In the Phoenix Program, it is noted that one reason for the use of torture was the inexperience of those running the operations. Muldoon, the first director of the Province Interrogation Center program in Vietnam, stated “A lot of guys in Vietnam were career trainees or junior officer trainees”. It isn’t clear to me if Ramsdell was incompetent or evil, but his contribution to the planning surely helped enable the outcome in My Lai.
Calley was ambitious despite his lifelong mediocrity. He was inspired by Audie Murphy (a decorated WW2 Veteran turned actor) and reportedly fixated on the violent aspects of training. Jones’ description of Calley is what many fellow grunts would recognize as your standard ribbon chasing idiot completely captured by the ‘heroism’ in movies (and today in games). A man in his platoon described Calley as “A little kid trying to play war , liked by few and hated by many”. This mediocrity, put to the test in Vietnam surfaced as incompetency making him a liability to those around him and especially those in his command.
Orders
“The absence of written orders, as we can see now, guaranteed considerable leeway in interpreting details of the operation” — Howard Jones, My Lai
The benefit of the lack of orders to the criminal soldiers of My Lai was in deniability and creating doubt. Had orders been written, they could be directly referenced, they could have been used as evidence of the complicity of command or to exonerate them. Instead, investigators had to rely on the memory of those there that day and to determine the truth amid conflicting reports. Some said orders were explicit to ‘kill everything’, others say it was implied.
American troops were trained to fear and suspect everyone in Vietnam, they received “little or no instruction on the treatment of noncombatants” and may not have been able to define a ‘noncombatant’ [1]. Additionally, “in a combat situation" the mere act of running away “meant that person was the enemy and was probably armed”. While Captain Medina, Calley’s commanding officer, noted no contact at the LZ, the lead pilot reported that they were taking fire, and that the LZ was ‘hot’. Medina seemingly took this to mean his company was under attack.
War Crimes
Murder
Reportedly, Major Calhoun had ordered Medina “make sure we’re not shooting anyone that s not necessary. Let’s not be killing any civilians out there”. Despite this, a bit later, Medina, trying to stay ‘on schedule’ ordered Calley to ‘waste’ the prisoners he had with him. Calley ordered two soldiers, Conti & Meadlo to open fire. Conti, a grenadier, claimed he didn’t want to so came up with an excuse (that his weapon wasn’t suitable for the task). Meadlo and Calley opened fire on men, women and children in a ditch. Meadlo began sobbing. Later, a toddler, maybe 2 years old crawled from the ditch while Calley was ‘interrogating’ a monk. Calley grabbed the toddler, threw him back in the ditch and executed him. Meadlo later ‘recomposed’ himself and began assisting in further executions at the ditch. Most of the soldiers there took part in the massacre.
Corporal Schiel, a squad leader, justified to himself, stating repeatedly “I don’t want to do it, but i have to because were were ordered to do it” before opening fire with his men on a family at point blank range. SP4 Gary Roschevitz, boasted of beating a child and then killing a man who tried to intervene. By the accounts provided, he saw it as a joyful sport, trying new weapons to execute unarmed civilians, methodically marching to ‘appropriate range’ to utilize a grenade launcher on groups of civilians allowing others to ‘finish off’ those that survived. He also apparently shot in the head a man, his wife and his two children among other crimes. A man known as “Mr Homicide”, Fred Widmer, saw a boy , 5 who had been shot in the stomach and was crying. He retrieved the pistol of Carter and shot the boy in the neck. The boy got up, walked a couple feet before and fell gasping until his death. Widmer complained the ‘damn the jammed’ . He remarked to another soldier, Stanley near by, “Did you see that fucker die?” Stanley responded “I don’t see how anyone can just kill a kid”. Widmer laughed.
After a ceasefire was ordered, a soldier came across a seven year old boy, apparently in shock, who had been shot in the leg. The soldier knelt beside an Army photographer, Haeberle, and shot the boy three times, killing him.
A reminder, these are some examples, many others participated.
Rape
“PFC Dennis Conti had yanked this young mother aside for oral sex. And even worse, he was forcing her into it by pointing a gun at her four-year-old’s head”. Calley intervened, not due to moral objection only because he felt “if a GI is getting a blow job, he isn’t doing his job”. — My Lai, Jones
Rape was a common theme in Vietnam according to Jones. He described the concept of “double Veterans” those who would rape then kill women. Reading the details provided in Jones’ book are truly horrific. There were at least 2 gang rapes and 20 rapes recorded the day of the massacre. In one case, a woman was gang raped, let go only to be snatched up by another (SGT Hodges) and raped again. Another was gang raped and then the soldiers opened fire on her and her family, including her 12 year old son. She was wounded and awoke later to find them all dead. A widowed mother found the remains of her 10 year old daughter, her clothes were ripped off, her only apparent injury was to her vagina.
Morality & Mercy
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”
There were several who outright refused to partake in the killing, even though it carried significant risk to themselves. While I wouldn’t categorize all of these men as ‘heroes’, especially ones like Conti, it is important to note that not everyone on the ground that day was a bloodthirsty monster. While in hindsight, removed from the reality it may be easy to say ‘they should have done more’, these acts of refusal are something and ultimately, perhaps collectively they ended the massacre.
PFC Dennis Bunning was one of the first noted by Jones. Upon entry into My Lai, soldiers killed 6 men and women working in fields. His squad leader, Hodges, one of the rapists detailed above, rebuked him for refusing to open fire when ordered. Bunning replied he “wasn’t going to shoot any of these women and kids”. He was then ordered to the far flank as he ‘couldn’t be relied upon’. Bunning later recounted many of the crimes committed that day.
Dennis Conti, was described above, both for his apparent refusal to murder as well as his willingness to rape.
PFC Leonard Gonzalez, also refused to kill civilians that day. He described what he say as ‘purely evil’. On another occasion Gonzalez had tried to stop the ongoing gang rape of a Vietnamese woman but was unsuccessful.
Gary Crossley shot an elderly man in the arm, reportedly mistaking him for VC. The man yelled ‘No VC’ and his wife, holding their baby pulled the man back inside. Two other soldiers ‘thought they were VC’ and executed them. Crossley was in shock and radioed to Medina that there were ‘only women an children’ in the village, ‘no Viet Cong’. Medina ordered him to “keep going”, Crossley ‘quietly refused’ [1].
A group led by Sergeant Buchanon reportedly did not kill anyone that day. Buchanon stated that they were anxious as they saw no resistance but heard what sounded like a firefight. He ordered his men “to fire when they’re fire on, keep moving…. Don’t shoot unless you’re fired on”.
SP4 James Dursi was encouraged by Meadlo to fire into the crowd. Dursi had killed someone that day. He thought they were VC but it turned out to be a woman carrying a baby. After that he stated Calley “can send me to jail but I am not going to kill anybody”.
PFC Herbert Carter, whose pistol was used to kill the 5 year old boy described above, then shot himself in the foot to get himself away from the carnage.
Harry Stanley refused to partake in the killing, Calley threatened him first with a court Martial, then with execution. Stanley told him to ‘Go to Hell’. When Calley had turned his rifle on Stanley, Stanley drew and readied his .45. The standoff lasted about a minute before Calley relented [3]. Stanley later stated that despite being trained to obey orders, “Murder was totally against my nature. You can’t order me to do this. It’s craziness”.
PFC Robert Maples, a machine gunner, came on site and was also ordered to shoot the civilians. He refused. Calley threw a woman into the ditch and demanded to use Maples’ gun, Maples refused stating “I’m not going to kill these people”. Calley again threatened a court martial. Maples said “You can’t order me to do that Lieutenant”. Calley pointed his rifle at Maples and threatened to shoot him, but members of Maples’ team readied their weapons on Calley. Calley relented and left.
Ronald Grzesik was ordered by Calley to ‘finish off’ the people in the ditch, he refused and was sent back to the village[4]. On return to the village he and his fireteam encountered a group including PFC Smith and led by SGT West . They were assaulting a group of 8 Vietnamese women and children (pictured below) attempting to rape the women. The woman in a red blouse, Ba So fought the soldiers allowing two women to escape. Grzesik realized they would be killed if he didn’t intervene so he broke the group up. Haeberle prepared his camera to take a photo of the altercation. Grzesik moved on, likely not wanting his photo taken. Haeberle took the photo below and watched as the group discussed what to do with them. West shouted ‘waste them’ and he and Smith unloaded on the group. The boy Do Hat survived the initial shooting. As he stood there, likely in shock, one of the two shot and killed him as well.
Hugh Thompson
Hugh Thompson was a gunship pilot circling My Lai that day. He had noted the amount of bodies seen but finally decided to do something when he witnessed someone (later identified as Medina) executing a woman. Colburn and Andreotta, crew/gunners on his helicopter agreed that they had “to do something about this”. He landed his helicopter and confronted the troops on the ground, including Calley. After a tense conversation with Calley, he believed he had done enough to stop the killing. He went into the air and to his horror saw a soldier, Mitchell, killing the wounded in the ditch. Thompson again reported what he saw. Again he was ignored.
Thompson spotted a group of soldiers (led by LT Brooks) closing on a group of civilians and knew they would die without any help. He again landed his helicopter and instructed his crew “if they fire on these people or fire on me while I’m doing that [getting the civilians out] shoot’em”. The presence of US soldiers forcefully intervening, both Colburn and Andreotta were armed with machine guns, caused enough hesitation to stop the impending slaughter. He then radioed the other helicopters to evacuate the civilians, women children and elderly men.
Prior to leaving, they did one more pass over the ditch. Andreotta saw movement, again they landed. Andreotta had to by-pass dying people grasping for him as he said “I can’t help you… you’re too bad off”. He found a child, thought to be maybe 5 years old (he was actually a small 8 year old) clinging to his dead mother. Thompson recalls the boy made him think of his own son back home. The men flew the boy to a hospital. Upon return to base, Thompson reported the war crimes he had seen.
Cover up
Although Thompson did file a report, the massacre was ‘unofficially’ investigated at the most cursory level possible. Those ‘investigating’ ensured that nothing came of the accusations and then even ‘lost’ the report. Medina even advised one of his men, Bernhardt (who also refused to kill civilians) ‘not to write his congressman’ about any of what happened.
It may have stayed buried, or at least more evidence would have been lost or destroyed had it not been for Ronald Ridenhour. Ridenhour had met up with a friend in Vietnam who began confessing to the massacre. Later Ridenhour was able to interview more witnesses and began to compile a complete story. On March 29, 1969 Ridenhour sent a 5 page letter to 30 military, administrative and congressional leaders regarding the My Lai massacre. One recipient Colonel William Wilson, a decorated WW2 veteran, asked to lead an investigation into the claims. The key testimony was that of Paul Meadlo who openly admitted to the killing of civilians at the direction of LT Calley. Despite hoping otherwise Wilson concluded that a massacre had occurred.
News reaches the public
“They didn’t put up a fight or anything. The women huddled against their children and took it. They brought their kids real close to their stomachs and hugged them, and put their bodies over them trying to save them. It didn’t do much good,” — Paul Meado, LT accused of Murdering 109 — Seymour Hersh
The initial response to Hersh’s article was muted. Reality set in when color photographs (taken by Haeberle) reached the public. Then Walter Cronkite aired them on his show. Bernhardt also appeared on multiple news shows to tell the story of what happened. The most shocking event for the American public was when Paul Meadlo appeared on 60 minutes with Mike Wallace.
Meadlo Interview
Paul Meadlo calmly recounted how he murdered civilians this day at My Lai.
Mike Wallace: [asking about the murder of civilians] Men, women and children?
Paul Meadlo: Men, women & children.
Wallace: And Babies?
Meadlo: And babies
Wallace: Obviously, the question comes to my mind, the father of two little kids like that… how can he shoot babies?
Meadlo: I dunno, its just one of them things
Meadlo continues that he ‘felt he was doing the right thing’ and at the time ‘he felt good’. He justified it by saying he lost some ‘good buddies’ there. His father stated that “if it had been me out there I would have swung my rifle around and shot Calley instead, right between the God damned eyes”[5].
Reaction
“To believe, however, that any large percentage of the population could believe the evidence which was presented and approve of the conduct of Lieutenant Calley would be as shocking to my conscience as the conduct itself, since I believe that we are still a civilized nation. If such be the case, then the war in Viet-Nam has brutalized us more than I care to believe, and it must cease. How shocking it is if so many people across the nation have failed to see the moral issue which was involved in the trial of Lieutenant Calley-- that it is unlawful for an American soldier to summarily execute unarmed and unresisting men, women, children, and babies. But how much more appalling it is to see so many of the political leaders of the nation who have failed to see the moral issue, or, having seen it, to compromise it for political motive in the face of apparent public displeasure with the verdict.” — Captain Daniels [Calley Prosecutor] letter to Nixon [6]
Trials
“There was no charge that General Yamashita had approved, much less ordered these barbarities and no evidence that he knew of them other than the inference that he must have because of their extent. ... Nevertheless, the tribunal found Yamashita guilty on the ground that he had " .... failed to provide effective control of his troops as required by the circumstances" and sentenced him to death by hanging.” - Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam
Many troops escaped prosecution due to a supreme court decision that said those who were already discharged couldn’t be charged under the UCMJ (uniform code of military justice). Robert Jordan, the Army’s lead counsel, stated that they could be persecuted, but it needed a White House directive to do so (you will understand soon why this wasn’t pursued). Several of the soldiers on the ground referred to the murders as ‘Nazi-like’, many others saw similarities as well and demanded Nuremberg style prosecution for those involved. Some, including Jones, referred to the Yamashita case which held a Japanese General responsible for the crimes of his troops. There is some debate on whether he ‘knew’ of or ordered the crimes, but it seems he would have been at the very least aware and permissive of them, even if he had not ordered them[7]. In my mind, this means that at the very least up to Medina should have been found guilty. The careless “investigation” by his superiors is highly suspicious as well and does little to exonerate them of guilt.
Calley was court martialed for his crimes & eventually found guilty (more on this later). Medina too faced charges but was found not guilty, Medina evading guilt is as mind boggling as what later happened to Calley’s “life sentence” .
Politicians
“Tell [White House Press Secretary Ron] Ziegler not to comment on it [the My Lai Massacre]” — President Richard Nixon
Nixon took several steps to mitigate & manage the damage caused by the My Lai Massacre. First, he sought ways to discredit those who reported the crimes (including Thompson & Ridenhour). He also from the start, set out to make the issue political, framing it as ‘left vs right’ in order to garner support for the war and for Calley from at least some of the population. Nixon attacked the media’s coverage of the war while again emphasizing the ‘leftist media’. His primary goal was to maintain support for “Vietnamization”. The politicization of the Calley case was noted by then Senator Bayh who points out 115 other Americans were charged with murder for actions in Vietnam and 59 were convicted [7].
Several other politicians showed their moral bankruptcy in face of this as well. Congressman Hebert of Lousiana, was part of a sub-committee on My Lai, where he sought (and succeeded) to interview those involved and then mark the event classified to prevent the prosecution from calling them as witnesses. Alabama governor and presidential hopeful claimed he would “pardon Calley” , and engaged in other absurd attention gathering acts of ‘support’. Jones provides additional examples in his book.
The American Public
There was outrage and disbelief at what had occurred. Many Americans struggled to believe that American troops could commit such crimes. Others, while outraged at the murders, felt that Calley was merely a scapegoat. Calley’s guilt was undeniable, but many others should have faced charges with him. Jones contends that many military figures wanted further prosecutions of everyone involved .
After Calley’s conviction, polls showed that many in the American public disapproved of the verdict, a Gallup poll showed 79% disapproved of the guilty verdict [1]. Jones also noted the many calls made to protest the verdict but the Herald and Review noted “The majority of the callers did not know the crime of which Calley was convicted. And of those who did, many thought Calley and his men killed civilians when caught in a cross fire” [8]. While it provides some solace that the vast majority of Americans weren’t cheering for wanton murder, the misinformed or underinformed still helped provide cover for heinous war crimes.
Outcome
“As the administration had worried would be the case, the Calley verdict had driven a number of doves and hawks together in calling for a withdrawal of America’s Forces” — Jones, My Lai
3 days after Hersh’s article 2 million Americans joined in a day of protests against the war across the country [9]. Despite Nixon’s best efforts, support for the war continued to decline, by 1971 Gallup polls showed 61% of Americans felt US involvement was wrong [9]. Protests surged again following the Kent State Shootings, where national guard members fired on anti-war protestors. Nixon’s own commission later stated that “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable”.
Although My Lai and the trials of those involved perhaps shifting public opinion, no one faced REAL consequences. Many simply left or were effectively forced out of the Army. Calley was initially sentenced to life in prison with hard labor, he was almost immediately moved to house arrest by Nixon. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Army. In 1973, Secretary of the Army subsequently reduced this again to 10 years, which made him eligible for parole in the coming months. His “confinement” lasted a mere 3 years, at his own house for his pivotal role in the murder of hundreds of civilians.
“Calley and Medina ought to have been hung and then drawn and quartered and the remains put at the gates at Fort Benning to remind all who enter of the consequences” — Colonel Harry G. Summers (retired), US Army (Korea & Vietnam Veteran)
A Continuing Problem
“For the push of Fallujah, there [were no civilians]. We were told before we went in that if it moved, it dies. ...” — Justin Sharratt, USMC
While I opened this article stating these cases and people are aberrations, it is important to note that our apathy towards them allows these crimes like these to happen. My Lai wasn’t the only massacre in Vietnam and there have been others since. This, again, is why it is critical to examine these cases and demand justice for the victims and punishment for the perpetrators.
Abu Ghraib
I think many, if not most Americans are aware of the brutal and inhumane torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. From my own perspective, it showed again the moral depravity of some of our troops. Multiple Presidents acknowledged the harm its perpetrators did to America and the security of our troops overseas. Despite this, most of these criminals received minor sentences relative to their crimes, ranging from effectively nothing, to 10 years in prison. Even I was at least partially ignorant to just how terrible these crimes were. These soldiers were not ‘in combat’ they are just sadistic and morally bankrupt. For committing some of these crimes I view the criminal as entirely beyond redemption. As if to emphasize how irredeemable some of these soldiers are, 10 years after the incident Lyndie England said in an interview “you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”[10]. Reading the quote below, I feel some should have received the punishment Col. Summers recommended above.
“I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.” — Mehaddi Hilas, Abu Gharib Prisoner [11]
Haditha Massacre
“First to Fight for Right & Freedom and to Keep our Honor Clean; We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine” — Marine Corps Hymn
In 2005 American Marines disgraced themselves, the Marine Corps and their country by carrying out a massacre in Haditha Iraq. This slaughter claimed the lives of 24 men women and children, including a 3 year old girl, shot point blank by American “Marines”. None of those involved served jail time. “To Keep our Honor Clean” would mean that Marines that execute defenseless civilians would, at a minimum, serve serious jail time. If you murder a child, I see no chance of redemption and no justification to waste resources keeping you alive in prison. The specifics of who was truly guilty and who was not, I do not know. One Marine, Justin Sharratt, was accused of herding 3 men into a room and executing them with his pistol. All 3 died with gunshot wounds to the head from his pistol [12]. He stated that at least one of the men was armed and pointing a rifle at him which led to the use of force (claiming the 3 died in a firefight). I don’t know enough to pass definitive judgement, very well placed shots does raise some eyebrows though. Still, assume that was legitimate, what about accountability for the 21 others that were killed, many in their beds, including children?
Gaza
Enabling Genocide
“Several sources described how the ability to shoot without restrictions gave soldiers a way to blow off steam or relieve the dullness of their daily routine” — I’m bored, so I shoot, 972 Magazine
Note: I initially had images from Gaza throughout this section. I moved them to the bottom of the article. I don’t mean to ‘shock’ you, but I truly do believe it is in our interest to at least glance at the evil we are supporting. Even still, these images are a TINY sample of what can be found today, do not think any image or description is ‘the only occurrence’, it is one of many.
The extent of the documentation of israeli war crimes is staggering. While Americans had become outraged by the color photos of dead children in 1969, today we see video of men, women, children and babies executed by israeli forces. Many Americans do their very best to ignore it completely. I think many are ignorant or misinformed, like the callers who professed their support of the murderous Lt. Calley. Some Americans will argue that ‘its not us, its the israelis’ but make no mistake, Israel could not carry out this genocide without the full backing and support of the US government. The blood of these people is on our hands too.
October 7th set a tone for the israelis much like that felt by the soldiers entering My Lai. They were fighting an ‘unseen enemy’ and had a strong desire for vengeance. At the start of the invasion, much of the atrocity propaganda the israeli government pushed out was still believed to be true, mass rapes, beheaded babies, blown up vehicles, all later proved false or the actions of the IDF itself fueled hatred and a lust for vengeance.
While My Lai was noted for the lack of written orders as an oddity, it has been the policy of the israelis since the 1980s not to issue written rules of engagement [14]. Unsurprisingly this has allowed for the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians. The current death toll is over 40,000, the Lancet had estimated a ‘conservative’ 4 indirect deaths per direct death, this math would put the current figure at over 200,000 deaths. The high end of the estimate is 15 deaths per direct death which would over a 600,000 people (>25% of Gaza’s population)[15].
Note: I encourage you all to read I’m Bored so I shoot by 972 magazine.
The accounts in the 972 article provide more evidence to the policy of slaughter enacted by the israelis. “B” describes it as “total freedom of action” “B” elaborates how no real cause is needed, “no need to explain— you just shoot”. He detailed one instance where people were instructed to go one way, if they went the wrong way they were instantly killed.
“A battle started inside; people ran away. Some fled left toward the sea, [but] some ran to the right, including children. Everyone who went to the right was killed — 15 to 20 people. There was a pile of bodies.”
Others detail how any weapon is permissible, “machine guns, tanks, mortars”. They speak on how it is mere formality to get approval to fire on hospitals, schools and other ‘sensitive’ buildings. Much like the soldiers described in the My Lai massacre, aiming for ‘high kill counts’ the zionists have a similar sentiment, labeling all men ‘terrorists’ and eager to show they are “the big guy”.
It is STILL permitted for soldiers to fire upon anyone, even those they know to be civilians. A reservist interviewed by Haaretz said "In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate”. The soldiers reiterate in that article that the rules are not well defined, kill zones are established and basically, anyone they want to kill they can kill [16].The barbarity here cannot be understated. The guardian reported multiple accounts from doctors in which they saw child after child deliberately shot in the head by israeli snipers [17].
State Sanctioned Torture & Rape
“The conditions at Sde Teiman aren’t unique. They’re just the tip of the iceberg,” Shai Parnes, B’Tselem
I mentioned in my article Zionism, an Obstacle to Peace, how Israel has long been known to both torture and rape prisoners. One horrific case noted in that article involved the rape of a 13 year old boy. Defense of Children International reported the rape to US State Department official, Josh Paul. Paul then reported it to the IDF as ‘credible’, the IDF responded by labeling DCI a terrorist organization and seizing all of their equipment. In its report “Welcome to Hell”[18], B’Tselem details how many of the crimes are systemic and intentional. The report covers beatings, various forms of torture and rape of the prisoners.
The fully Rotten soul of Israel
The unchecked criminal activity of the zionists has led to worsening conditions. While many point to Sde Teiman as the ‘Israeli Abu Ghraib’ , it has a feature that Abu Ghraib did not, open governmental support for the crimes committed there. Video was released of a group of soldiers raping a prisoner [19] who had to be hospitalized following the abuse. 10 soldiers were arrested for their crimes, an attempt by the israeli government to give the impression of legitimacy.
This pretense quickly collapsed showing the full rot of the ‘soul of israel’, rioters (some of them armed) broke into the prison holding the soldiers, demanding their release. With the rape undeniable, both on film and noted by doctors in the hospital, Ben-Gvir, the man in charge of Israel’s prison service said “The spectacle of military police officers coming to arrest our best heroes at Sde Teiman is nothing less than shameful,”[20]. Likud party member (PM Netanyahu’s political party) and Knesset member Tally Gotliv joined the rioters in support of the rapists. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the ‘protests’ “are justified and I support them with all my heart”. Hanoch Milwidsky, another Likud party member in the Knesset, when asked by another Knesset member if it was legitimate “to insert a stick into a person’s rectum”, stated that “everything is legitimate to do! Everything!”[21]
Amidst the cover of Israeli escalatory attacks, the israeli government released the rapists, one of whom went on a publicity tour on public TV and was often treated as a hero. What was described as ‘near anarchy’ was averted at the expense of any pretense of international legitimacy and moral goodness.
As horrific and barbaric as the My Lai massacre was, it lasted a few hours. The ongoing genocide in Gaza, which routinely and deliberately targets children, has been going on for nearly a year.
In service to the State
“Out there, lacking restraints, sanctioned to kill, confronted by a hostile country and a relentless enemy, we sank into a brutish state. The descent could be checked only by the net of a man’s inner moral values, the attribute that is called character. There were a few—and I suspect Lieutenant Calley was one—who had no net and plunged all the way down, discovering in their bottommost depths a capacity for malice they probably never suspected was there.” — Philip Caputo (Vietnam Veteran) , Rumor of War
We saw the different levels of moral limits of those in My Lai. Some refused to partake in murder, some, like Thompson tried to prevent it. Conti was ok with rape but apparently drew the line at murder . Calley, Meadlo and many others had seemingly no morality and were the embodiment of evil. Calley knew killing and murder was wrong, yet in his interview with a psychiatrist you could see his framework. His morality, his natural sense of what was right & wrong came secondary to his service of orders. He, like Meadlo, placed orders above all else. They worked through morality like a lawyer working through case laws, seeking a loophole to justify their crimes, all in service of the state.
‘Rules of engagement’ which essentially establish when a soldier can or cannot shoot, are the final obstacle to those without their own ‘net’. If a state, like israel, removes all rules of engagement and trains its people to abandon morality, unnecessary deaths will be the inevitable outcome. If ‘bad intel’ effectively removes rules of engagement, unnecessary deaths will result.
Psychological Conditioning
“Psychologically and morally, it’s much easier to kill a ‘dink’ than it is to shoot a Vietnamese” — American civilian official [from Jones’ book]
“I sent them a good boy and they made him a murderer.” — Paul Meadlo’s mother
I’ve mentioned this before, primarily in Guarding Your Humanity, but there is a science to getting people accustomed to killing. In my opinion it starts at a young age with the violence in our various forms of media. “A” an israeli soldier interviewed by 972 stated “It felt like a computer game. Only after two weeks did I realize that these are [actual] buildings that are falling” [14].
Dr. Hamman, a psychiatrist interviewed Calley, he asked Calley “Well, you keep using the word ‘waste’… I never hear you use the word kill, why not?”, Calley responded “we don’t use that word. Kill refers to our teachings that we are brought up with ever since childhood—Thou shalt not kill. If you use the word kill with the troops, it causes a very negative emotional reaction, so you use the word waste, to get rid of, to destroy”. He further went on to detail that its “The enemy dying” not ‘humans dying’, he thought of the Vietnamese as “potential killers of himself and his men”. [1]
The assumption here is that most people have morality and they must be trained to override what they are taught. Calley and others, however, were morally bankrupt. Bernhardt , a member in his platoon, described emerging from a bomb shelter (this was before My Lai) and seeing Calley ‘with his pants down and a woman kneeling before him while he held a .45 pistol to her head’. He determined that he “really wanted to kill that guy [Calley] but there were just too many guys around”. Bernhardt described Calley as “pure evil…rotten to the core”[1]
Fixing our moral compass
Most Americans profess to be Christians, many others would still agree with the ‘wrongness’ of the things listed in the Bible excerpt above. As we all agree with this, why do we allow our government to conduct so many of these things in our name? Why do we allow the ‘north’ of our moral compass to be led off course by the ‘magnetic pull’ of political machinations?
Hannah Ardent said “The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good”. In light of this, we must actively CHOOSE to be good. To be ‘unaligned’ poses too great a risk for us to do or accept evil. We must FIX our moral compass. We must make a hard definition of ‘north’ like the one described above and we must learn to adhere to it and hold our government to it as well. We cannot put the state before morality, we cannot allow the state to have supremacy over ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
Individuals should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but actions deserve no such luxury. If you hear a child is murdered, your reaction should be revulsion and outrage. You shouldn’t need to hear of nationality or political ideologies first to decide if the murder of that child is right or wrong.
Collateral Damage
“Unintentional or incidental injury or damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time. Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.”[22]
One of the most evil ideas in modern times is the concept of ‘collateral damage’. This concept asserts that ‘as long as we didn’t mean to kill them, its ok’. I think this was one of the most important steps in chipping away at our moral compass. The fact that some people will accidentally be killed in war was used to give cover to policies and strategies that did little to prevent such deaths.
We, through the concept of collateral damage put these losses of human life at a near zero cost. We don’t look at the person, the family the town. It’s “just an accident” like a car crash or a fall, “wholly unpreventable”. Avoiding civilian casualties is (in the short term) costly and often risky, it often involves troops on the ground as opposed to air and drone strikes. In the eyes of a merciless government, ‘why bother, the American people don’t seem to care much’.
While some civilian casualties are ‘unavoidable’ it is our duty to, at the very least, ensure the exchange is ‘worth it’. If bombing a wedding would kill dozens along with a ‘terrorist’ who can be easily replaced, why bother? That equation only ‘works out’ if we allow our government to assign zero value to the innocent people around the ‘target’. We must reject the automatic, blank check acceptance of ‘collateral damage’. We must demand accountability and real consequences when innocent lives are lost.
In our sheltered, mostly blind and short sighted view of the world we, our government included, may see this as ‘their problem’ not ‘our problem’ but blowback is detrimental to our interests. The created security risks keep us in forever wars and rob us of lives, liberty & property as I detail in American Victory.
Protesting and Liberty
Today we see many protests, again centered around college campuses. Earlier this year many ‘encampments’ were erected. Unsurprisingly, political leaders and media personalities condemned the activities in a desperate attempt to defend the zionist state and the many flows of money dolled out on its behalf. Donald Trump lamented the current environment where people could protest israel (and AIPAC). His own platform goes even further labeling anti-genocide protestors ‘pro-hamas’ and vowing to deport them, in the same document he pledges to support free speech. For those confused, supporting free speech means supporting all speech, even that which you do not like.
I think that the below excerpt from Nixon’s own commission on ‘campus unrest’ is sufficient enough to simply be reapplied to the protests we see today. While you may incorrectly believe the protestors are ‘wrong’, you are attacking liberty if you seek to use government pressure or force to make them stop. That is a much more ‘anti-America’ stance than protesting a genocide.
Conclusion
“A country without a conscience is a country without a soul, and a country without a soul is a country that cannot survive” —Winston Churchill
“I think there is a good deal of evidence that we thought all along we were a redeemer nation. There was a lot of illusion in our national history. Now its about to be shattered….This is a moment of truth when we realize that we are not a virtuous nation.” — Reinhold Niebuhr on the conviction of Calley
"For this nation to condone the acts of Lieutenant Calley is to make us no better than our enemies and make any pleas by this nation for the humane treatment of our own prisoners meaningless. — Captain Daniels
Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were and still should be inspirational around the world. However, we cannot claim to uphold our founding principles while simultaneously allowing our government or our troops to destroy “the deepest hopes of men the world over”. We must look at the evil we have done and forcefully reject it. All who are responsible, from policy setting on down, MUST be held accountable and the punishment must be severe.
The cost to America is not just political capital, it is not just the added security risks we face, it is a risk to the very soul of America. The “they should have obeyed” mentality that has arisen in support of the growing police state is to me a domestic reflection of the evil we have allowed overseas. We must choose morality, we must choose to be ‘good’, both at the personal and at the government level. What we allow to occur in our name will shape the kind of nation we leave for our children.
Related Articles
American Victory
Resources
My Lai: Vietnam, 1968, and the Descent into Darkness, Howard Jones
Yamashita, Nuremberg and Vietnam: Command Responsibility Reappraised
President's [Calley] move arouses political debate, NY Times
The Anti-War Movement AlphaHistory.com
Iraq War 10 years later: where are they now? Lynndie England NBC News
The Haditha Massacre Photos that the Military didn't want you to see, the New Yorker
Counting the dead in Gaza: Difficult but essential, the Lancet
Israel Created 'kill zones' in Gaza. Anyone who crosses them is shot, Haaretz
'not a normal war': doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza, The Guardian
Welcome to Hell, B'Tselem
Israeli media airs footage showing alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainee, The guardian
'Bordering on anarchy': IDF chief sounds alarm after right-wing mob overruns 2nd base, The times of israel
‘Everything is legitimate’: Israeli leaders defend soldiers accused of rape, Al Jazeera
Images From Gaza : Warning these are graphic
Unless America - & the West generally - can persuade itself to reflect honestly on its own portrait, it will soon share the same fate that befell Dorian Gray.
The rest of the world has always been familiar with the portrait only..
Leftoid retards will listen to stuff like this and still think there's no possible way WW1 or 2 could have been lied about. LOL