Pentagon covered up 320 verified war crimes in Vietnam (L.A. Times)

[kurth]

Files reveal coverup of Vietnam atrocities
Once-secret Pentagon archive shows that U.S. atrocities in Vietnam were more extensive than previously known.
By Nick Turse, Deborah Nelson
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Sunday, August 06, 2006

The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast. They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So Pvt. Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette. Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry recalled the company commander's response: "Kill anything that moves." Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began. Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre. Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities he saw. The files are part of a once-secret archive assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s. It shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than previously was known publicly.

The documents detail 320 incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators, not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre. The records describe recurring attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity. Abuses weren't confined to a few rogue units, a Los Angeles Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.

Retired Brig. Gen. John Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, said he once supported keeping the records secret but now thinks that they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq. "We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," said Johns, 78. Among the substantiated cases in the archive:
•Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.
•Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
•One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock...

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/08/6vietnam.html

[Selatius]

1. Bit too late for the 2,000,000 dead Vietnamese civilians, isn't it?

Or for that matter the 100,000+ dead Iraqi civilians.

:sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

2. No statute of limitations on war crimes

though is there ?