In 1969, at the height of the Attrition War, our armored company had fired on military targets only, but we could sniff the smell of napalm in the morning from the Israeli air force raids on the western bank of the Suez Canal. Though we were bombed by Egyptians guns almost on a daily basis, some of us felt kind of sorry for the “poor bastards” on the other side but most, naturally, felt relieved if not vindictive.
On a rare leave I told my father -- whose extended family was murdered in the Holocaust and he himself fought in the ranks of the Red Army – about the napalm bombings (it wasn’t banned under international law at that time) and he generally informed me about the functioning of International War Crimes Tribunals and counseled me to be always conscientious (“but not weak-hearted”).
Later, while driving a tank in one of Gaza’s affluent neighborhoods I was suddenly ordered by the tank commander to swerve sharply to the right which meant demolishing an arty wrought iron fence surrounding one of the villas, I kept on driving straight under shouts that I’ll be court marshaled for refusing orders and being agitated I accidently hit a parking fancy Mercedes. I was assigned a latrines-duty for damaging army’s property. The mere mentioning of the international mission to abolish war crimes was a motivating factor in my refusal to blindly obey even marginally illegal (and not really consequential) orders – so spread the spirit of defending universal values.
8
Of course. Going there was a crime. Tonkin resolution was a crime. Agent orange, massive bombing (more than WW 2) massive ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, torture - all crimes.
We went there for ????? what?
(Kill the reds there so they won’t come here). More malarkey and it keeps coming with every bogus war we’ve entered which are usually about oil.
10
Why the silly title? Of course America committed war crimes in the Vietnam War.
7
Why is this headline in the form of a question?
3
So North Vietnam invades the South and uses its puppets the Viet Cong to subvert the South.
The war is assymetric. A punji stake coated in excrement is a biological weapon.
IEDs are indiscriminate and blew up South Vietnamese farmers too.
The VC and NVA terrorized the south.
This tribunal never investigated the rape of Poland by the Russians, or their suppression of revolts in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Or the terror of the Honniker regime in East Germany. Did they visit the Gulags in Siberia or visit the execution chambers in Ly0blyanka prison in Moscow where Stalin murdered a million Russians a year during the great terror.
Finally, how many South Vietnamese fled the terror of the North?
And now, are refugees from Africa and the mid east fleeing to Iran, Syria, Iraq, Russia and China for "freedom"??? I don't think so.
6
Did America commit war crimes in Viet Nam? Is the Pope Catholic?
2
Is this headline a joke? Of course.
2
The Vietnam War was fought for oil. Google it. Exxon's chief encouraged the war.
USA - So called "collateral damage", bombing of medical facilities and bombing "suspected"terrorist strongholds = WAR CRIMES!!
2
We are America, beacon of morality, the shining city on a hill. We don't commit war crimes; we identify and adjudicate on the others who do.
1
What about the use of Agent Orange?
1
Today the same country that committed those horrendous crimes is itching to start a nuclear conflagration in Asia.
3
Read Nick rurse's excellent book Kill Everything That Moves and its us military sources to see the truth of what the panel found. If anything our "exceptionalism" in war crimes is greater than ever today, as it spreads killing, kidnapping (rendition as CIA/military say),targeted assassination of locals, drone attacks on wedding parties, starvation, etc throughout the world from Honduras to Somalia, from Niger to Yemen, and so on.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
3
Are you kidding? You don't need any tribunal to get the answer. Ask any former infantry man who walked around there , going into villages and slogging thru paddies, what he had seen and done. Mini My Lai’s all over. In my job (scout dog handler), I went from unit to unit, working with my dog to provide some measure of safety from snipers an ambushes. In most every unit, the grunts would want to talk to me to tell me their stories. Many of which involved what surely were war crimes involving the killing of civilians. I could detect a sense of guilt which they were attempting to expiate. I began to feel like an itinerant shrink.
During my tour, saw several events that must have been war crimes but didn’t involve killing. I’m sure that you have gotten my point by now, that we committed war crimes, aside from My Lai, probably many, in Viet Nam.
2
I don't understand how you could write this article and not even mention the name of Noam Chomsky. He opposed the war and pointed out these atrocities years before the Russell Tribunal or many of the others you cite.
5
The answer to your question is "of course it did."
It was so painful to watch my country turn into an imperialist war machine, and hear the sons of the veterans of the "good war," in which we first developed these mass anti-civilian practices, defend this new war for....what?
2
Are we not all children of war? Unlike millions of other potential parents, our mothers and fathers magically survived the cataclysm of World War II, just as their own parents obviously lived through the carnage of WWI. Being the living and lucky winners of the great war lottery, one would assume that war survivors and their offspring would have learned its lessons and committed their lives to winning the peace. Because, no one really wins a war; just ask a member of your local chapter of PTSD survivors or the DAV. The vanquished and the conqueror are punished alike, often enduring lifelong physical and mental disabilities. So, what is the true point of war? A loaded question with many answers, most of them patriotic, but wrong. As current events once again point to a looming and unjustified war based upon the advice of yet another unhinged leader, the answer should be simple. Just say no to war. Say no to the nationalist ravings, the wanton killing and maiming, all for the love of a flag. Take to the streets and shout No More War! Don't you dare let it happen again.
3
Being the only true military Superpower on the planet empowers the US to thumb its nose at public opinion abroad, as well as domestically. This is a tragedy for the entire planet. I am sure that in my lifetime (I will be 70 next month) no President of the United States will issue an apology for the US's crimes in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, nor will he/she seek to pay meaningful reparations for the damage done. This is called Business As Usual. And aren't we all puffed up with pride (warning: facetiousness at work) as US citizens that the current administration just authorized bringing aging cluster bombs out of storage and putting them to use...who knows where? Because the 900-pound gorilla couldn't care less for international law. No wonder we are universally derided and despised.
4
The overwhelming casualties occur thru starvation and sickness. That is civilian causualties. Sanctions and blockades kill more than bombs and bullets. That goes for concentration camps. Government's owe it to their enemy and to their solders to end a war as soon as possible. That includes doing things people with a a moral superiority complex would disagree with.
If I were a German soldier during WW2 and had the choice of shooting civilians or go to the Russian front. I know exactly what you and I would do. The same with Vietnam. Napalm a village or die walking into an ambush. I would chose my own life and the lives I'm serving with. You know what you could do with your morality.
De Beauvoir and Sartre had a long history of contempt for the U.S. So anything they have said or written about the U.S in VietNam should be taken with a grain of salt. I was an airborne infantry officer in VietNam and what I saw were the terrible consequences of jungle warfare. What I did not see was deliberate destruction of civilian property or deliberate killing of civilians. (The operative word is "deliberate"). For those who are too young to know about the war except from books please keep in mind that the Cong often dressed in civilian clothes and many times they hid in the rice paddies.
The VietMinh were a highly trained army supplied from Russia and China with much of the latest weaponry. War is hell and there is no excuse for men like Calley but one should never blame an entire army or marine division for the likes of him.
3
Although Bertrand Russell's "People's Tribunal" set up at the height of the Vietnam War, to condemn the massive war crimes committed by US soldiers, the 1967 session in Denmark was merely a mock trial with no legal bindings. Nevertheless it had a huge impact on the public world wide. General William Westmoreland, argued that the US had not been defeated on the battlefield. He blamed the press, saying the American armed forces were defeated by bad policy, but most of all public opinion.
Indeed, responsible media have a role to play keeping an eye on warmongers and leaders who butcher their citizens. Russell's "tribunal" shows that today there is still an urgent need for a popular mechanism of independent oversight, a permanent "truth commission" rather than periodic, ad hoc public inquiries, to hold pertrators - be they state actors or non-state actors - responsible for atrocities and crimes against humanity.
7
Im glad we stayed in Korea and stopped the North. Im also glad we fought for the South in Vietnam. Do you not think Vietnam was a proxy war for communist advances around the globe. Soviet supported. We should have stayed longer and held the line like we did with Korea. Drafted American troops behaved in a sloppy manner and alienated many Vietnamese and this should have been avoided. War crimes by an American unit should have been tried and punishments carried out, no doubt, but persistence should have worked. Was mishandled and was a different era at home. If we had saved the South, then we would all be having a different conversation like we now do about North and South Korea. War is definitely a Pandoras Box. Iraq invasion was not justified, but the reasons for defending South Vietnam, I feel were justified.
3
Interesting response. Yes, we should have stayed and prevailed. Did our people do bad things.? i would think so as war brings "war crimes" to the fore. That is always true. Even in world war two we killed prisoners. Often on direct orders. It's not nice, but war is not nice. With respect to Vietnam, we could have won, but our people at home did us in. And now for all the conscientious objectors who didn't want to go, the U.S. is paying the price.
2
If what is meant by ‘war crimes’ includes invading a country on false pretenses and there by causing death and misery to multitudes of innocent men, women and children, a more modern scenario might also apply.
12
The original crime, of course, was the war itself.
From Wikipedia:
Reading the [Nuremberg] Tribunal's final judgment in court, British alternate judge Norman Birkett said:
The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world.
To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.
-----------------------------------------------------
To those who question the "legitimacy" of the Russell "Tribunal," which was admittedly stacked with opponents of the war Vietnamese call "The American War": I have no doubt that all of the participants would have welcomed the institution of a more official tribunal, one that heard evidence and rendered judgment impartially, along the lines of Nuremberg. But the US of course had no interest is setting anything up anything like that. Perhaps, in condemning the ad-hoc nature of the "Tribunal," its critics can suggest an alternative?...
6
With very few exceptions, isn't war a crime? Isn't it just mass murder to go to war without being attacked? Since responding in WWII, which of our wars have not been preceded by an attack? How many Iraqi terrorists flew planes into buildings on 9/11?
(hint: zero)
8
Invading another country is the ultimate war crime from which all other war crimes follow. The aggression against Panama and Grenada, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the murderous sanctions against Iraq, the drone attacks in several middle east countries - all war crimes.
This is why polls conducted throughout the world all list the US as the biggest threat to world peace.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/08/07/polls-us-greatest-thre...
8
"Invading another country is the ultimate war crime ..."
Each case is different.
"... Panama and Grenada, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars ..."
Each of those can be justified, although on different grounds. And you seem to have forgotten about WWI, WWII, and the Korean War.
See: "Political History Of America's Wars" by Alan Axelrod.
"... sanctions against Iraq ..."
Sanctions are not invasions, so that point is irrelevant to your thesis.
2017-12-03 02:47:02 UTC
It would be nice if this Times series paid equal attention to the actions of the Viet Cong who we now know were minions of North Vietnam acting under their orders and North Vietnam.
It would be nice if it were noted that the North violated Cambodian and Laotian sovereignty in moving men, women and war material through their land to attack the South.
It would be nice if the terror inflicted by the North on the South to include decapitations, executions and war crimes were chronicled with the same vigor as the "crimes" of the south.
Note that neither South Vietnam or the United States invaded North Vietnam. Massive bombing was rained on the North but it was not the bombing of WW2. Civilian targets were never intentionally bombed.
The crimes of the North after 1975 were never acknowledged by Noam Chomsky to include the Stalinist style collectivization and "reeducation" which in some cases lasted almost 20 years. Or the political executions.
And finally, let us acknowledge that the South did defend itself in 1972 against the North Vietnamese Easter Invasion. In 1975 the North was able to invade with impunity when American withdrew its support.
Where would you rather live....in North Korea or South Korea. Imagine what could have happened with time.
The continuing corruption of North Vietnam is noted frequently. Where is Noam?
Thank god for Agent Orange in clearing the roadsides so we wouldn't be ambushed.
4
Your misreading of history does a great disservice to all who suffered - Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and yes, Americans.
The US’ intervention in Vietnam after the French colonial defeat was uncalled for. Vietnamese people had every right to take control of their destiny in the shape or form of their choosing and the US was never asked to decide for them, just as the Koreans didn’t ask for their country to be cut in half.
12
Thank you Michael. Clarification was & is needed. Yep. If we had not been undermined, a long time ago, we would have won in Vietnam and Asia would be different. Even LBJ who I often disagreed with was correct as were his much maligned advisors.
"Thank god for Agent Orange...." Are you out of your miniature mind? Tens of thousands of American who served in Vietnam (myself included) are suffering the effects of Agent Orange exposure as are millions of Vietnamese from both sides of the conflict. Thanking god for a murderous birth defect inducing poison is nauseating.
1
what about working on what we can do now? namely we have WASTED $5.7 trillion on the war on terror over the last 16 yrs. think about how that could have changed america if we had spent that money on our crumbling roads bridges sewers etc....
meanwhile what has this accomplished? turned iraq into a failed state, the taliban are back in afghanistan, and syria is burning.... of course this has produced a flood of refugees into europe that is now de stabilizing europe. and we[ve messed up another generation of american troops with repeated tours into no win situations where once again--like vietnam no way to tell who is the friendly and who is the enemy.
11
I served in Vietnam in 1971-72, and I have two things I'd like to share on this topic. First, the people I served with scrupulously adhered to the rules of engagement and the Geneva Conventions in all of our activities. And we probably killed civilians. Second thing I'd like to point out is this whole concept of Rules of War seem designed to let civilians believe that war can be waged without innocent people dying. I'm sure some smart person can explain how that can be, but war as I experienced it involved people trying to kill people. And when one is in the killing zone (the killing rage?) targets appear and disappear with regularity. At the end, if you are still alive, you thank your lucky stars, your gods, or whoever else you want to thank, and you move on to the next day or the upcoming night. But you people who think that wars can be fought antiseptically or even justly, are full of it. You do not know what you are talking about.
12
Thank you Tom. Appreciate the clarity.
"... this whole concept of Rules of War ..."
Foster never uses the term "Rules of War". Foster doesn't even use the word "law", which is a serious mistake, because the law determines what is a crime.
2017-12-03 00:07:12 UTC
Has there ever been a war in human history in which "war crimes" however defined, were not committed? I sincerely doubt it.
5
'... "war crimes" however defined ...'
That's a self-defeating rhetorical strategy, because someone could define "war crimes" to mean "always saying thank-you".
Anyway, Foster fails to give anyone's definition of "war crime", so Foster's OpEd is essentially meaningless.
2017-12-03 00:13:01 UTC
It's a trick question; the entire war was a crime.
Thank you so much for sharing this; I learned about the Russell Tribunal, but hadn't considered it in years.
The fact that the people who planned and executed - meaning political officials and armed forces elites - the U.S. war against Vietnam served no time in jail is simply astounding in a democratic society. Same for those who planned and executed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and most of our armed interventions around the world.
It is an objective fact that the U.S. is the most aggressive, violent, militaristic actor in the world - repeatedly violating and undermining international law and agreements - and this has been the case for at least 70 years if not more. I personally cannot think of a single case where the U.S. or the country we attacked/invaded was made better by our actions, with the exception of World War II (where we also committed many war crimes).
The nation is now awash in training and awareness around anti-bullying. Why shouldn't the U.S. government and its military (and all the private industry that fuels it and benefits from it) be given the same consideration? There's no bigger bully on earth, and as citizens we sit here and willingly give that bully all the money and freedom it wants.
15
"Did America Commit War Crimes in Vietnam?"
Is that a serious question?
Of course America committed war crimes in Vietnam. Too many to count. My Lai, and the countless other massacres like it that weren't reported, the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the use of chemical weapons such as Agent Orange, that hurt our own soldiers as well as the Vietnamese.
The whole Vietnam War was a "war crime", designed to enrich certain corporations, build new industries (Such as helicopters.), and revive our Merchant Marine, which at the start of the war was about to be mothballed. Vietnam was the first of many pure "corporate" wars.
15
In times of peace, the government arrests people who kill.
But in wartime, the government arrests people who oppose to kill.
And crimes are actions that are morally wrong.
So, I have a hard time thinking of even one war that was not a crime.
8
My first reaction to this article was, " Duh," starting with the question that Foster posits. Having been a Draft Resister during the war certainly colors my thinking, but it seems so obvious that the U.S. committed War crimes, perhaps with the very first combat boots that hit the ground; why is there even a debate?
3
well, the debate begins with people like you Sam. Were you a conscientious objector?
Using chemical defoliants to destroy jungle coverage for enemy soldiers constitutes a war crime for me, especially when those chemicals have persisted in Vietnamese soil and water to this day. The real reason for prosecuting this war is itself a war crime: that two American presidents would not be the first to lose a war.
8
Until Americans can face the reality that the nearly 60,000 US soldiers who died in Vietnam did indeed die in vain, just as those who died in Iraq and now in Afghanistan are dying to preserve national ego, these types of “brush fire” wars will continue. We our troops on pedestals and wrap every mission in Stars and Stripes, all while preaching increasingly hard to swallow homilies on how our soldiers serve to keep us free, to make us safe, to promote liberty and justice in foreign lands—lands most Americans can’t find on a map but learn to loathe.
17
Yes. Too bad Ken Burns left out the part about Cambodia.
13
A weapons expert argues that if the United States developed a weapons, the "guava bomb," that was clearly intended for use against human beings, not concrete or steel, this implied that the Americans had decided on a policy of bombing civilians. The logic looks bizarre to me. It did not occur to this "weapons expert" that enemy soldiers were human beings, and that the weapon might have been intended for use against them?
The United States bombed civilians in Vietnam, a lot, but the existence of the "guava bomb" is not evidence of this.
2
The logic is sound once you take into account that this was a guerrilla army the US was facing - one that blended in with civilians.
Ed -- My understanding is that the "guava" bombs -- cluster bombs made by Honeywell -- were deliberately used on civilian targets not to kill them but to wound them. The insidious goal was to create tens of thousands of family situations in which those who had not been wounded would be occupied tending to the wounded. As you say, cluster bombs were anti-personnel bombs, and were certainly used against military troops as well.
2
Ed Watters: "... this was a guerrilla army the US was facing - one that blended in with civilians."
The OpEd doesn't say anything about combatants disguised as civilians. Foster doesn't provide enough context to be sure, but judging from the examples in the OpEd, Vigier was referring to civilians, who are not combatants by definition.
2017-12-03 02:31:05 UTC
https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/1250045061/r...
Sad But True
2
Shoudn't the question be "was the Vietnam War a crime?"
After all, looking at its inception we find broken promises. In 1944 the OSS agreed to support Ho Chi Mihn's quest for independence from France if he and his people would fight the Japanese occupiers. Fight they did, but after the Allied victory the US changed sides and supported the colonial power, France, in re-establishing control. For many Vietnamese this already proved the US weren't to be trusted. Between 1945 and 1954 France fought a desperate war to maintain its Asian colonies, assisted by the CIA and the US armed forces, and failed. After that war, an international agreement was reached to let the Vietnamese decide who would run the country. Seeing a communist victory as inevitable, the US boycotted this agreement and instead supported a clique of city-based and rapacious Christians in exploiting the majority rural and overwhelmingly Buddhist population. This obviously created the perfect conditions for the Viet Cong to attract popular support and wage a quite successful guerilla war. Finding its badly led ally failing, the US increased its support to the point of committing up to half a million troops, supported by the most sophisticated weaponry available to man. At no point did this become an official war... More ordnance was dropped than the sum of what all participants dropped in all of WW2 + tonnes of teratogenic Agent Orange...
All for nothing, really.
So, yes, the Vietnam War was a crime.
59
Wouldn't a more constructive question be "Has America committed war crimes in Afghanistan and the Middle East and if so, what can be done to change this?" That is an issue we could do something about even at this late stage.
13
You can do nothing about it. Money buys control of the government of the United States and the military-industrial complex will never stop getting fat stock dividends from industries supported by massive amounts of your taxes. Afghanistan is exactly like Vietnam and has been going on for 16 years. Civilians are killed every day by American troops or their servants in the Afghan military. It has been like this since the end of World War II from both political parties. Your tax dollars at work.
6
>
There has never been a war without war crimes. So yes.
Americans committed war crimes in Europe AFTER Germany surrendered to boot.
Read: Crimes and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, by James Bacque. The data is all there for your little Yankee Doodle Dandy egos to absorb. And Bocque data is pointing at the American and British zones.
10
James Braque's claims about the alleged war crimes in the Western zones has been totally discredited. OTOH, Russian occupation of East Germany and Poland have been well documents by credible sources to have been as nasty and murderous as the Nazi occupations
.
Maybe outrage over the treatment of German citizens is lacking because of their overt complacency, approval, support, and participation in the Nazi regime and German crimes against humanity. Maybe that's just a stink that will never wash off.
Foster: "A weapons expert, Jean-Pierre Vigier of the University of Paris ..."
Vigier was a theoretical physicist, which does not qualify him as a "weapons expert".
Vigier: "I don’t see any conclusion except that bombing the civilians is a deliberate policy of the Pentagon ..."
That's a non sequitur. The design of a weapon cannot tell you anything about the "policy of the Pentagon".
2017-12-02 15:59:05 UTC
3
I disagree. The recent announcement by Secretary Mattis that the Pentagon would resume using anti-personnel cluster bombs (ironically banned during the Bush II administration) tells us a great deal about the "policy of the Pentagon."
9
Jason: "resume using" is a statement of policy, so you misunderstood my point.
2017-12-02 23:53:24 UTC
To clarify, Vigier's argument appears to be:
1. Cluster bombs do "little damage to concrete and steel", but they "tear through the flesh of human bodies".
2. Therefore, "bombing [] civilians is a deliberate policy of the Pentagon".
That's a non sequitur, because, military personnel also have "human bodies". Further, cluster bombs can be used to destroy weapons, unarmored vehicles, fuel supplies, etc.
There are reasons to oppose the use the cluster bombs, including that they are unreliable and indiscriminate, but the fact that they kill people is not one.
2017-12-03 00:50:14 UTC
The Vietnam War was fought for oil. Google it.
2
Ike and Nixon led us into this quagmire when they thoroughly repudiated FDRs contempt for colonial empires and rejected the Atlantic Charter of 1941 that defined Allied goals after WW II, one of which is "all people had a right to self-determination". They bought French propaganda about a Domino Theory to support their effort to recolonize Indo-China and refused to recognize western power was no match for people yearning freedom from colonial control. They supported the French puppet government's refusal to participate in national elections stipulated in the French surrender. Ike said, "85% of the Vietnamese would have voted for the Communists, anyway.", essentially spitting on the graves of everyone who fought a decade earlier to preserve democracy in Europe and Asia. Opposition to the American War in Vietnam centered around peace not the right for people to determine their future through democratic elections, a mistake the FDR would have never made. Ho Chi Minh and Zhou Enlai admired FDR's commitment to liberation and reached out for American support. Filipinos considered FDR a saint. The untimely death of FDR was one of the world's greatest tragedies because he would have lived up to the warning he gave his son earlier that "our boys wouldn't be dying in Asia today if it wasn't for French, Dutch, and British greed." America swallowed European greed in Vietnam when we refused to allow democratic elections in all three Vietnamese provinces. Anything else is hogwash.
16
This is why I read the comments. I'm 37 and I should know more of my history especially since I had an uncle who served in the army during the war, and came back a heroin addict. Nevertheless I appreciate the wisdom and insight of the New York Times commenters.
6
When Roosevelt dies, De Gaulle was at the funeral and spoke with Truman. Roosevelt's blocking of the French return to Vietnam died with him.
1
I don't believe Ike actually said that 85% of the Vietnamese would have voted for the Communists.
This one is delicious. An anti-American kangaroo court regurgitated its prejudices. And the Times treats it like manna from heaven. This adds insult to injury for this whole vicious series. But in the end it is Trump like in its agitprop cartoonishness. Time to re-read the old fairy tale: the boy who cried wolf.
2
Why don't you try and attack the argument, rather than the Court or the NYT?
1
I never thought it was a question. War is an ugly thing.
5
In May of 1970 a congressional hearing called War Crimes and the American Conscience took place in the U.S. House of Representatives over a three day period to examine the military strategies and weapons used in the Vietnam War that were outlawed under the concept of war crimes. The participants included congressmen, senators and outside guests such as psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, Philip-Noel-Baker a British MP and Nobel Peace Laureat, and Telford Taylor former brigadier general and chief prosecutor for the U.S. at Nuremberg trials. The hearings were published as a book in 1971 under the same title, named one of the best books on Vietnam to date, and remain one of the few official efforts to come to grips with the war crimes and human rights violations that the U.S. set in motion in Vietnam.
6
The huge lie of American exceptionalism is absolutely infuriating to any person who's done their homework on Vietnam. The way we lie to ourselves and how if, a certain percentage of the credulous buy the lies, then they become the common knowledge via dilution of the truth, is dismaying. America is like the son of the rich kid in High School. He does wrong, he gets off. He gets a girl pregnant, it's taken care of. His dad buys his way through life, he is an unstoppable force in comparison to the struggles of the lowly plebs.
Imagine, a study group with a person of the stature of Bertrand Russell, yet if you were offered a million dollars to find one American who knows about it in one hour in a major US city you could not. Our heroes are pop culture junk, our information is watered down tea, our instincts are to defend the lies we love over the love of the truth. Of course America committed war crimes in Vietnam, the question is ridiculous. The war taken in total was criminal.
20
It is easy, as some commenters have, to dismiss the findings of this panel because of the political make up of it. History tells us that yes, we committed war crimes. We may never know the extent. What is unique about the war crimes tribunal was the year, 1967. Mainstream America was not in favor of forming nor would it have been willing to accept the conclusions of a middle of the road blue ribbon panel. We were still in deep denial, and the Vietnamese had been dehumanized with racist nicknames and worse. As usual, it took a bunch of pinko liberals and socialists ahead of the curve to get the outrage started. Same as it ever was.
13
As a Vietnam vet I am dismayed at the many comments that refuse any real criticism of our conduct in the war or the neccessity for fighting. This denial is why we keep doing it over and over. Reagan told us to forget it and we were only too glad to accept that invitation to moral amnesia. Ken Burns not withstanding,we are a long way from understanding that conflict. As a former grunt, I can say that the difference berween a free fire zone and a restricted fire zone is moot and absurd. We were wrong, end of story.
22
Vietnam veterans met in Detroit in the famous "Winter Soldier" hearings testifying to the crimes the US committed in the war. That war, and others, gives lie to America's claim to represent freedom and democracy in the world. Our government has supported some of the most vile and violent dictatorships throughout the world. It structural, not a policy error. It's called US imperialism.
43
I was born at the end of WWII in Ohio. My entire life since then has been one American initiated war after another.
The American war in Vietnam was my generations war and, until then, the most contested war yet, both by Americans and their traditional allies like France and Germany.
The greatest value, if any, of these wars was the opportunity for Americans to learn the futility and immorality of their country's wars and avoid them in the future. This could be achieved through the public educational system that most students participate in.
There is no evidence that any concerted effort has ever been made by educators or politicians to successfully convey this message.
Only a very few dissidents fought this educational battle, with little success. Unless the current president is removed from office, he will very likely start another war during his term!
43
Read Andrew Bacevich’s work.
From the tribunal membership list it sounds as if the panel was populated with those who had already determined the result they wanted to achieve.
A horrible time in the world's history, to be sure. And if those accusations were true, a very black portion of the US's history.
4
Try reading Nick Turse's book, Kill Everything That Moves. It is primarily sourced from us military records. It demonstrates unequivocally, based on our own military records that "the accusations" were true. My Lai was the rule, not the exception. At My Lai several soldiers sacrificed themselves by bringing the massacre to the attention of the public, then suffering the punishment for telling the truth.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
5
Gerald McRaney played an Air Force general in an episode of The West Wing many years ago. "All wars are crimes" was one of the best quotes from that series.
8
How did one become a member of this bogus "tribunal" it seems it was filled with anti-war and anti-american who already had their opinions formed before taking testimony. I'm curious, Did these "fact-finding "trips include forays into territory held by North Vietnam?
Did this Bogus Tribunal come to any conclusions of North Vietnamese atrocities and
war crimes, or was it purely a vehicle to dump on the U S.? The war was North Vietnam invading South Vietnam, not vice versa. North Vietnam received weapons and supplies from the Soviet Union and China. I'm Curious did the
this star chamber offer any conclusions about them? Did they investigate the atrocities and horrors inflicted by the communists in Cambodia? No. This "tribunal" was nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for anti-american activists to dump on America. It had no credibility, and thus is nothing more than a footnote.
The author says, it was obscured because of public relations programs in the 80's. No it was forgotten because it was a pathetic joke. To even mention this pathetic gathering of the dunces in the same article as the Nuremberg trials is a travesty.
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Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.
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Kill everything that moves, a phrase in the article is the name of Nick Turse's book Kill Everything That Moves. Try reading it and its sources, primarily military records. You might re-evaluate criticism.
us army 1969-1971/california jd
Yes. The US committed monstrous crimes against the Vietnamese people. These actions were war crimes. And any arguments that the other side was also guilty of war crimes is irrelevant to a recognition of our national guilt.
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The US military learned a valuable lesson during WWII: one can commit war crimes and get away with it, easily, if the opposing government is evil enough, and loses. Needless strategic bombing (most notably through the use of incendiary bombs, and finally atomic) destroyed most of the major cities in Germany and Japan, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and countless cultural treasures destroyed; war criminals of the other side were of course judged and executed, but the British and American planners and bombers ("the greatest generation") were honored. This was taken to heart: in Vietnam the same methods--indiscriminate bombing of civilians, needless destruction of cities and farms, etc.--was carried out, with the expectation that this time as well the "strategy" would be "successful" (??) and the bombers would be celebrated as heroes. It must have come as a shock when that didn't happen. As the article rightly notes, it was necessary after the Vietnam war to undertake a whole new campaign to whitewash the past and rehabilitate the bombers and overall planners. This campaign was retrospectively applied to Allied strategy in WWII as well.
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In WW2, days when bomber runs had no specific industrial targets for their explosives were referred to by the air crews as "women and children days."
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War crimes are nothing new. My father would tell stories of how US Army MPs would summarily execute German POWs (they were SS, so....).
But what distinguishes the war in Vietnam was that the entire US military strategy was premised on techniques that were war crimes.
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When the murderers of Emmitt Till were asked by Look Magazine (where they confessed to the murder to earn some spare $$, after their acquittal) "Where did you learn to do that to a person?" they answered, "In the US army."
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Yes, Vietnam was one big war crime, as was Iraq. Kissinger, GW, Cheney, all should be so charged.
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The high-profile war crimes like My Lai got everyone's attention, but what was even more horrific, in my view, was our routine practice: our planes dropped napalm on villages -- villages full of non-combatants, children and old people. The napalm forced the villagers out into the open. The next wave of our planes dropped cluster bombs -- which exploded in the air above the people and rained shrapnel down over them. This killed some and wounded many. It was as evil a military strategy as I can imagine -- and we used it routinely.
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Mr Paine gets it exactly right. I was an Intelligence Analyst/Interrogator-Linguist in RVN in 1967-8 and although I agree that US and our allies tortured POWs as a common part of the war , by far the most horrific aspects of our effort there was the routine use of bombs, napalm and artillery. This resulted in huge civilian casualties. My unit, Company A, 519th MI Battalion stationed in Cholon during the May Offensive in 1968 watched US and ARVN planes using napalm, white phosphorus and 250-500# bombs to attack a refugee village 100 m from our barracks. There were some enemy infiltrators in the village, but rather than sending a company of infantry to clear the village they simply and literally blew it away. We were driving around dead bodies for days afterward, and dump trucks were used to haul the corpses away. We estimated at least 200 civilians died. We had some casualties from the shrapnel flying around. As an analyst I had access to Situation Reports or Sit Reps, official after action narratives. It was never reported. Using firepower like this was how we fought the war and how we still fight wars.
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Roger,
Making gross exaggerations does not enhance one's credibility.
This “tribunal” was something I completely missed at the time.
The U.S. military continues to commit war crimes. Only days ago the Pentagon announced it will delay indefinitely a ban on older types of cluster bombs still in existing stockpiles. It appears the nation's generals and admirals -- and the Trump administration -- are ignoring once again the ban imposed by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, signed by 108 nations, but not the United States. Cluster bombs mainly kill and maim civilians in war zones. Another war crime is perpetuated with each drone strike on civilian areas in war zones.
I witnessed war crimes in South Vietnam in 1967: napalm strikes, indiscriminate bombing runs, VietCong POWs thrown out of helicopters and ears sliced off dead VietCong and Vietnamese civilians strung together and worn as a necklace.
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It boils down to: Did the soldier, airman or sailor actually watch them die. If soldiers came into a village and individually shot everyone, that might be considered a war crime. If a war plane killed those same people with napalm, the airman would not see individual villagers burning to death, and he would not think of himself as a criminal, but a patriot.
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So a blatantly political "tribunal" led by rabid anti-American communist and marxist "philosophers" found the United States guilty of "war crimes" in its war to stop the aggressive expansion of a communist dictatorship? Theres really no way that anyone could have seen that coming, is there? What with the "expert" panel being full of fellow travelers who considered the very existence of the United States to be a crime against humanity. Why continue to give that overwrought dog-and-pony show the attention it doesn't deserve 50 years after the fact?
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Certainly, the Tribunal should have included Curtis Lemay, so he could tell 'his side of the story' - about how he wanted to bomb Vietnam 'into the stone age' as he had so successfully done in Korea. For the good of the people of Vietnam and Korea, of course. To protect them.
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I'm a Vietnam veteran, and I've always maintained that what we did there was criminal. No ifs, ands or buts about it. The glorified-by-some Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. Yet he was ludicrously awarded the Nobel Peace prize along with Le Duc Tho (sp.), who rightly refused to accept it.
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50 years ago, leave it alone.
W have enough issues to worry about.
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Refusing to acknowledge the realities of the US War ON Vietnam (ALL of VIETNAM), creates a poor foundation for examining the "heroic" war crimes committed in the name of "freedom" and "liberty" by current US foreign policy. The recent Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Vietnam War which, on the one hand, described the atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam but on the other hand excused them because the Vietnamese did bad things while defending their nation from foreign invaders, and on the one hand described the lies presented to the American people about the history and conduct of the War on a daily basis and on the other hand, described the War as a "mistake", provides a great example of how to NOT face up to the evil that was the American War ON Vietnam... and a template for how we are likely to see excuses made for the dozens of 'interventions', invasions, and wars the US has conducted since.
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War itself a crime to humanity. Just war or evil war doesn't differentiate suffering of civilians and drafted soldiers.
I see cynical undercurrent through Trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo punishing German Nazis and Japanese militarists. They on the losing side committed war crimes. Those on the victorious side didn't?
Indiscriminating bombings are justifiable and non-crime against humanity? Slaughters of civilians through the use of A bombs are acceptable non-crime against humanity? Many Americans would argue ends justify means. Oh well.
In my view Americans committed war crimes during WW2 as well as German Nazis and Japanese militarists. Of course, in Vietnam, too.
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Perhaps if the world had held us accountable and punished us for our actions like they did with Germany and Japan after WWII our military wouldn't be active all over the world. Part of the problem is that other than 9/11 everything happens elsewhere. I suspect that if these wars were happening in our own backyard our attitude would be different.
Ike was right to warn us of the military complex. Too bad we didn't listen. At some point we're going to go too far and the world will punish us.
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Well intentioned, but you mix metaphors. Ike's warning had nothing to do with unethical behavior by soldiers, as it is the duty of every soldier to refuse illegal orders.
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Ike helped create and grow the military-industrial complex, and warned us about it as he was leaving. Such a magnificent display of courage and wisdom! He gets a lot of credit for it, but not from me.
If he knew, as he was helping the military buildup along, that it could become dangerous to our country, then he should have been sounding warnings and pointing out dangers all through his term of office. He should have been trying to structure military procurement to avoid these dangers as well as to help win elections for his party (the standard thing). With his insider's understanding of the military and his reputation as a war hero, he might have been able to do a good deal.
If he realized the complex's dangers only as he was leaving office, he owed us an apology for helping to create a potential monster and not seeing the danger.
It does not represent courage or wisdom to dump a huge unaddressed problem on one's successor.
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Quite correct. We seem to on the verge of validating a nuclear strike against us by North Korea because our Child King thinks we are invencible and he can insult and belittle all would be enemies as he sees fit.
All wars generally involve various sorts of war crimes by all sides. Certain sorts of war crime involve sophisticated technology which only one side has, but many war crimes can be achieved with simple, readily available technology.
Often the definitions of war crimes are obsolete, and weapons have been devised to achieve the same or more ghastly results in ways that have not yet been declared illegal. Modern bullets are designed so that they tumble when entering a body, so that the entrance wound is a small round hole but the damage done is far greater than a small tunnel through the body. Modern mines are made of plastic so that fragments cannot be found by x-ray and must be probed for, making wounds worse and tying up medical manpower. The defoliants used in Vietnam caused long-term health problems for both Vietnamese and Americans. People are still being killed by unexploded bombs, which could have been designed to go off after a few months buried in the ground, but werent.
Avoiding commission of war crimes is a part of winning hearts and minds, which is one strategy or tactic among others, and is chosen because of effectiveness and not morality. Modern war is itself a war crime; even if we manage to avoid gratuitous violence, very often senseless and unpredictable killing and destruction is a tactic adopted to hurt the enemy's morale. Usually it is much less effective than it was predicted to be, but this does not stop its adoption.
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