My Lai massacre

Actualy TITO made this mess...But it is anotther ishue.
I wana 2 say u that u see,only what u news say,and i speak what my eyes sow.Nobody killed civilians with no reason there,only casulties was the same as NATO-s colateral damage.

 

the whole war was giving a funny smell , from westmoreland downward ,
my lai was an atrocity , but the reaction of the military was ultimately to
its credit making this event an example of what not to do .
when tested the U.S.army did the right thing ,
showing to all (not least to itself) that such events are the exception which
prove the rule of an arny run by decent men .

while questions will be raised for ever about the rightness of the war itself
the U.S. from its soldiers to its antiwar movement came validated from it .
comforting the belief than the american society could be an example to all







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anytime a western democracy has to face guerillas shooting at them fom behind civillian windows and doors . the western forces great advantages are nullified by its determination not to kill civillians (mai lai being an exception) it would be harsh ...but if fireing on nato ,us ,brit forces ALWAYS was met with overwhelming ,crushing force ,,, the practice would soon fall from favor...ditto if all male relatives of a suicide bombers would gain access to paradise as per common islamic folklore but they get to go right NOW ..like within a week of the suicide blast

 

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The secret of succesful counterinsurgency is to isolate the active minority
from the passive majority .
to have some degree of support from the disenfranchised is useful too .

easily said , very hard in practice .

the vietcong was a disciplined , motivated , competent , ruthless enemy
on balance and with the benefit of insight probably unbeatable .



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There was an awful lot of dead people for collateral damage...

Would you mind commenting on the accuracy or otherwise of my 'overview' post a while back?

 

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It wasn't collateral damage , it was a young bad officer loosing it ,
failing to control his unit and himself .

as long as young men with guns are put in stressful situations , those kind
of things are bound to happen .
the upper echelon job is to prevent it to become systematic and
widespread

an episode is bad enought , a serie of them show morale and discipline
problems .


comparison with the balkans is not exactly correct , there was a lot of
paramilitary with pretty slack chain of command
NATO bombing of Serbia-kosovo was possibly wrong but the air campaign
wasn't directed at civilians , any casualties were legitimate collaterals



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I did not understud ur question,sry man,can u be a bit cleared?
Btw,

Pretty much same problem,but serbian forces respond on fire with much more fire.

 

Uh, sorry, my mistakem, I was thinking of a different topic.

 

o,np then :lol:

 

Interestingly enough, the same is true today in battling the insurgency in Iraq. When US and British troops are taken under-fire, their response is very restrained due to imposed ROE.

In comparison when US advisor troops are imbedded with Iraqi forces--and taken under-fire--the Iraqis tend to respond with overwhelming force and shoot the crap out of everything in the immediate vicinity.

Tim

 

But then, when the Iraqi forces accidentally kill a civilian they don't have the world's media creating a "US Forces massacre women and children" circus out of it. :roll: :angry: :bang: and other annoyed smilies.

 

hoosier say

" In comparison when US advisor troops are imbedded with Iraqi forces--and taken under-fire--the Iraqis tend to respond with overwhelming force and shoot the crap out of everything in the immediate vicinity. "

as far as I know , it's not just the irakis , it's an arab thing to empty one
charger in the general direction of nothing in particular ,
they are ( usually ) pathetic marksman and trigger happy

the apparition of rebels snipers is a momentous development , possibly
under foreign influence .


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VC were beaten and badly

 

Generally accepted figure is 2 million : 60,000, but you have to remember that that figure includes civilians and that the North and South Vietnamese did alot of killing of their own (against each other), it was, after all, a civil war... It's impossible to say exactly what military kill ratio U.S. forces achieved in the field, though needless to say it was greatly in their favour...

How exactly did the politicians lose the war? What should they have done instead to win the war? Was the war even winnable? Off the top of my head I can't recall even one instance in history where an occupation has been successful... Ultimately, the invading force gets kicked out one way or another, whether it's after 10 years or 100 years...

 

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I definitely agree about the crippling loses of the VC during tet and little tet a
few months later , it decimated the armed units wich were protecting the
political work in the villages , leaving the commissars exposed with no
protection ,
after that the NVA took direct control to prevent a complete colapse of the
vietcong, refilling the ranks with northerners ,
True enought that the US Army didn't lost a battle , even khe san wasn't
even close .
the point remain that the communists were always going to win ,
the only question , for them was when ,the human cost was not
the prime concern .

the war wasn't won by the army , though I'll always agree on war being
lost by politicians

the US Army lost because the american people were divided ,
a sure sign of a crap war , there is never division on a just one





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American politicians did everything they could to legitimize Vietnam; there was little more they could have done, but unfortunately they did not have the power to change the minds of the American people...

The mass media, however, did...
Once the television sets began broadcasting the famous images of a young VC boy being executed and the aftermath of Napalm strikes, the American people began to disagree and no amount of political re-assurance could make them forget such terrible images... Politicians tried hard to justify Vietnam in the face of such imagery, but they simply did not have the power of persuasion that the average TV-set held... Just like Iraq today, the media was actively instilling dissent in the American people and there was nothing anybody could do about it... In my mind the politicians didn't lose the war, they just never had the power to stop the media from losing it for them...

Ironically, if the American government had been more restrictive and censored its television programmes, the war may well have been won...

 

Or if they had just allowed the Armed forces more freedom. For example, giving the Air force more freedom to bomb Hanoi, therefore helping to cut supplies to the guys down south.

When they finally did allow it, the North Vietnamise came running to the peace-talks table.

Why own a big stick and then use it to gently poke at something?

 

killing russian sailors in haiphong harbour was something the pols did not want to contemplate..its easy for us today to declare that we should have closed down all imports to hanoi ..the pols figured we could win without risking the killing of neutrals or russians...

 

In that was US had no chance to win.And as i remember,US newer proclamed war,they just go (that is fashion in modern times,started in WW II with blietzkriegh).Something similar heapens now in Iraq,only diference is that Iraq does not hawe jungle to hide and fight,so they use urban areas.Only way for US to win was to kill ewery living soul there.As somebody say,ocupation newer work.

 

Occupation works just fine, even against the bitterest enemies, if you can work out how to do it properly.

A few examples:

USA did a perfect job with Japan post-war, as did the Western Allies with Germany.

Heydrich was assassinated because he had proved to be so damn good at being in charge of the Czechs that they had effectively ceased resisting the Germans.



However, working out how to do it properly is the very hard bit, especially if other nations or organisations are stirring up trouble. You only get one chance, and if you blow that... :bang: