Any coverage of the US slaughter of Vietnamese civilians on ABC, NBC, CBS?

[Karmadillo]

Just wondering since I didn't have a chance to watch the news tonight.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/21/wviet21.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/21/ixportal.html

America's elite Tiger Force 'slaughtered civilians in Vietnam'
By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles

An elite American military unit killed and mutilated hundreds of unarmed civilians, tortured prisoners and severed ears and scalps for souvenirs during the Vietnam war, according to a newspaper investigation.

The unit, Tiger Force, was sent on a six-month spying operation in areas controlled by the North Vietnamese. Members of the unit have revealed details of a rampage that began in May 1967 in which they dropped grenades into bunkers where villagers, including women and children, were hiding.

Details of the unit's activities surfaced after an eight-month investigation by an American newspaper, The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio, that interviewed all but two of the unit's surviving members as well as Vietnamese witnesses. It also reviewed thousands of recently declassified documents.

If accounts of the atrocities are accurate, it would be one of the worst documented cases of war crimes committed by American soldiers.

One member of the unit, William Doyle, a former sergeant, said he had killed so many civilians that he had lost count. "We didn't expect to live. Nobody out there with any brains expected to live," he said.

more...

[pandatimothy]

1. That's real tame compared to what ex- German SS agents did for the French

The French recruited a bunch of SS to help them in their war in Vietnam and those SS boys made the Viet Minh look like cuddly Puffalumps.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. Of course not. They barely mention the people slaughtered today

neither by Crusaders in Iraq nor US-funded gunmen in Palestine.

[pandatimothy]

4. We don't fund Palestinian gunmen do we? n/t

[DuctapeFatwa]

9. No, we put people who try to smuggle food to Pal kids on the terror list

And we pay Israelis to kill Palestinians, and Turks to kill Kurds, which is really absurd, since both would do it for free.

[ShaneGR]

3. Personally, I don't think there should be coverage of that

Do we really need to tear open 30 year old scars? Maybe we do. But I would have to be convinced of why.

[foreigncorrespondent]

6. It is simple....

...should the 3000+ deaths from 9/11 be forgotten? The answer to that question should be NO. Well it is the same for the innocent people who lost their lives during the war that shouldn't have happened. No life holds more value than any other.

[DebJ]

7. why open old scars?

I don't like it either. But it seems to me unavoidable that in the horror of war ... when human beings are ordered to take the lives of other human beings, routinely, systematically, then part of a soldier's humanity can become lost, twisted... Cruelties like this have likely happened in every war. When we send our men off to war, we send them off to such possibilities....like those that happened to men in the book Winners and Losers, by Gloria (oops forgot the last name). I work with people who refuse to acknowledge this ugly side of war, who just don't see it, who refuse to see any more than rah rah sys boom bah GO USA! They need to know what it is they are cheering for.

[newyawker99]

11. Hi DebJ!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[theHandpuppet]

12. Why? Should we turn a blind eye to...

... any and all atrocities committed by Nazi soldiers in WWII, for those soldiers were also "just following orders"? Or we should forget the massacres in the Balkan war, because those soldiers were only "following orders" from their commanders? Should we also erase from our history the slaughter and genocide of the Native Americans, since the soldiers who massacred entire villages were only "following orders"?

The reason we must never forget the slaughter of innocents is because history must not be just a record of our humanity and achievements, but also a reminder of our inhumanity and failures. Without such painful honesty and reflection we would be forever doomed into repeating our bloody mistakes as a species. In the end, we MUST forever be reminded that war, any war, takes a terrible toll on our humanity.

[DUreader]

13. Has the statute of limitations on murder and war crimes expired?

?

[IndianaGreen]

14. We need to open those scars because they are NOT our scars!

They are the scars of the Vietnamese people. It is also important to discuss the cover-up because the same kind of cover-up is taking place today in Iraq.

We are killing civilians in Iraq at a very rapid pace and no one seems to give a damn about it. No one cares about the number of American wounded either, and the dead are invisible!

[bobbieinok]

5. Info about torture and taking ears

was well publicized during the war. I didn't spend all that much time reading news or watching TV (I was in grad school from 61-68), but I certainly heard about it.

Of course, I was in the Bay area. Friends, relatives in OK and TX seem to have 'experienced' a different 'home front war.'

The way I remember it ... US military supposedly took or were told to take ears as a way of counting killed 'enemy soldiers.'

[DuctapeFatwa]

10. The US has come a long way since then. Now they take wives and daughters

"Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54345-2003Jul27.html

[Syncronaut Seven]

8. Perhaps their trying to minimize

the current, ongong atrocity? More distractions?

Harrad.

[pandatimothy]

15. BINGO!

Take the news of of Iraq.