BBC radio 4 is about to broadcast a program that will reveal the true extent of the My Lai massacre from tapes uncovered from the US National Archives where they have been declassified after 40 years of obscurity. These tapes are said to be interview tapes from the US military's own internal investigations into the My Lai massacre and apparently reveal a far greater crime than was uncovered at the official investigation which sentenced Lt William Calley to life imprisonment (he was later acquitted by President Nixon).

According to the BBC the tapes reveal Link.

According to Wikipedia, Link.

A lot of people draw direct parrallels between My Lai, and atrocities allegedly carried out in Iraq by US forces. In particular, the lack of accountability for American soldiers committing war crimes is widely regarded as evidence of American ill will towards non Americans.

What does My Lai mean in 2008?

Are American soldiers given a free pass because they are American (as opposed to the defeated Axis troops executed at the end of World War 2)?

Has America turned its back on the very commitments it established at Nurenburg and Tokya?

What does My Lai mean in 2008?


Not much. Soldiers who commit crimes in Iraq are prosecuted. In My Lai men women and children were herded into a ditch and machined gunned – and then not punished.. Nothing in Iraq has or will approach this.

Has America turned its back on the very commitments it established at Nurenburg and Tokya?


I don't think so, we have prosecuted American soldiers for offenses committed in Iraq.

There is no excuse for what happened at Mai Lai, it was used by some to paint every soldier serving in Vietnam before and after as a war criminal. And, there's no excuse for that either. I'm not drawing any kind of moral equivalence here, Mai Lai was a war crime of far greater proportions and consequences than the disrespect returning Nam vets received in this country - no question about that at all. But, since most here are too young to have actually known much about what happened on that horrible day I think it might be appropriate to tell a part of the story that's seldom told and apparently wasn't included in Moif's BBC television program. Maybe it was and I missed it in the transcript. I don't know.

Do you know who stopped the massacre at Mai Lai? It was an American soldier, an Army CWO helicopter gunship pilot named Hugh Thompson. Here is his story and if you Google his name you'll find many more. Although I don't see it in the page I cited, word at the time was that Ron Ridenhour had trained his guns on the American troops killing the people at Mai Lai and told them to stop. I don't know if he'd have pulled the trigger or not, Nam was pretty screwed up, but he might have if they hadn't stopped.

My point to this is to tell the whole story about what happened that day. Not to excuse the actions taken by those who massacred the people in that village, but to illustrate that not every American in Nam was a war criminal. Far from it. We had some pretty decent guys fighting there too in a horrible situation.


Aquilla