And only because this has gone public, they had to award Hugh Thompson Jr. with the Distinguished Flying Cross. Otherwise military court.

And that is the very few we know of, the more you learn about these, the more clear it becomes they cover them up unless they definitively can't. What we know barely scratches the surface of American terrorism and atrocities.

Initial reports claimed "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" had been killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". Westmoreland congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". As relayed at the time by Stars and Stripes magazine, "U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle."

Melvin Laird the Secretary of Defense discussed them with Henry Kissinger who was at the time National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon. Laird was recorded as saying that while he would like "to sweep it under the rug", the photographs prevented it. "They're pretty terrible", he said. "There are so many kids just laying there; these pictures are authentic".

Inside the White House, officials privately discussed how to contain the scandal. On 21 November, Kissinger emphasized that the White House needed to develop a "game plan", to establish a "press policy", and maintain a "unified line" in its public response. The White House established a "My Lai Task Force" whose mission was to "figure out how best to control the problem", to make sure administration officials "all don't go in different directions" when discussing the incident, and to "engage in dirty tricks".

The military had a sex trafficking and drug trade during the Iraq war.

The US murdered over a million civilians in Iraq.

Interesting how this narrative keeps getting used to justify our colonialism. “These are backwards savages and we are agents of progress and feminism” and then, in the course of the conflict, women and girls are raped, killed, and bombed while women’s rights are stonewalled or even stripped away back home

The police protect women,

WHICH WOMEN!?

Reminds me of Trump pardoning that disgusting war criminal from Iraq

For context “he” here is General Westmoreland.

I've read about this too, and the US blamed the problem on black soldiers. Maybe that's something that deserves its own post?

Someone who lacks enough empathy to brutally gang rape women and children are rarely people who feel remorse for hurting others. They unfortunately probably laugh themselves to sleep at night knowing they committed some of the sickest shit imaginable and will never be punished.

Of course they do. People thank them for their service. These brave brave war heroes

Vietnam vets are not necessarily famed for coming back and having a great time.

It's historically the only effective way to fight an insurgency and every military since ancient times knows it. Basically anytime you hear a modern military is enacting a "counter insurgency" it's either code word for doing death squads, or it's a tacit admission that they are out of ideas and have found themselves in an unwinnable quagmire.

The only way to defeat an insurgency is to do massive amounts of crimes against humanity......or avoid creating one in the first place.

Yeah, you're right of course, this is why we should get rid of all rulers, now and forever, and ensure that they never return. We do not need a ruling class to order us around. We can build a new society where all are equal, and where decisions are made by consensus, rather than by diktat or decree.

What no one ever considers is what is happening right now in real time. They are actively pushing out the troops that would object morally to bad orders. The administration doesn't care if they are left with inferior troops, as long as the ones they have left will follow orders blindly and without question.

As a former member of the US military, please go fuck yourself.

Don't forget Cuba, which is an actively ongoing event. Innocent people are being starved and deprived of medicine and other essentials, purely because the ruling class want to demonstrate how socialism is a failure. Such a failure that the US has needed to ruthlessly oppress and terrorize them for decades, and yet despite it all Cuba has still made incredible medical breakthroughs such as vaccines for alzheimers and lung cancer, which aren't even available under capitalism... I wonder how they did it if they didn't have innovation, such a mystery

The warning is implied, don't you realize that? If what happened at My Lai and the subsequent legal outcome was justice, then that justice can be done to you as well.

Its not a war, it's a raid.

I've edited the post to contain an explanation for why learning about history is important.

You can always find something worse. Doesn't make it acceptable.

"I broke my arm! Well a full body burn is worse. Oh, ok, I feel better now."

Sure, you should make a thread about that.

What Japan did to China was worse? Ok. So what? What relevance does that have?

Is that how your approach everything in life? Your mother is raped and mutilated, that's bad, but what Japan did to China was worse. So... stop complaining I guess? (Obvious sarcasm but I genuinely fear you won't catch that)

"We're not as bad as the worst of the worst" isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.

Then the US absorbed Japan as an imperial vassal, didn't mete out sufficient justice for the perpetrators, and went on to use Japan for logistics support during its attack on Vietnam. These two things are actually part of one greater whole, one that is still happening to this day.

ok are you a three letter operative bro