At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre • Hacker News Board

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#11

Post by lopmotr » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

Larrikin wrote: post #4

lopmotr wrote: post #3

How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?

My opinion has changed after you've marginalized a tragedy and treated it like an either or event in history. Thank you for showing that neither is important by what about ing.

I don't really understand you. I want to know why Americans on both political wings aggressively support their soldiers. I can understand if it's a country being attacked and their own soldiers defend it. But nobody is attacking America. What good did its soldiers do by fighting wars instead of just waiting to defend?

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#12

Post by contingencies » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:48 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #7

Wow had no idea the Vietnam was this bad (bad as in how bad the Americans were). Almost makes the invasion of Iraq look noble. I went through the US educational system and while we know about the Vietnam war, the protesters, this is definitely not the picture of the war that we were given. It's basically propaganda and history rewriting what they are doing here, even though the US didn't even technically win the war.…

AFAIK it's significantly more nuanced. Actually China did support Vietnam in the war - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#People's_Republic_... - but invaded Vietnam shortly thereafter, as China was annoyed Vietnam de-throned their darling regime the Khmer Rouge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War (Meanwhile, the US bombed the shit out of Laos, who barely had any literacy and were essentially bystanders). Vietnam kicked their ass (the Chinese made basically zero progress in taking land, though later declared themselves "victorious", having "taught the Vietnamese a lesson"), but at a cost: many deaths and a legacy of landmines along the remote and mountainous border. The border was only fully demarcated about ten years ago. These days it is better known for people smuggling (mostly young women from Vietnam to China) and drug smuggling (heroin and meth). Factories are moving from China to Vietnam to obtain cheaper labour, and Vietnam's infrastructure has developed substantially, though it is still behind China.

In the 1940s the US and Nationalist China were allies - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hump ... later, the Nationalists fled and and AFAIK Communist China's only major military engagement with the US was in Korea, where US agents descended from McCarthyism tortured Communists on what is now conveniently remade as a holidaying destination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Chinese_POWs

Then there's the French being kicked out, the fact that Ho Chi Minh was French educated himself, evolution in US-French relations and the US takeover of France's former most favoured foreign nation status in Thailand, which was used as a strategic regional base for US military supply.

Possible conclusion: It's all a mess, things are never simple in war, humans are sick greedy bastards, and getting over old hatreds stemming from nationalism and past events could be the best thing for the world.

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#13

Post by lopmotr » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #8

lopmotr wrote: post #3

How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?

> but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I Maybe not by the mainstream media, as they were getting pretty reluctant to point out things like Obama, the Nobel Prize recipient, dropping over 20k bombs in countries we were not even at war with in just 2016. Some did report though ex: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/americ... . Was there someone's mom or baby killed by tho…

You bring up a possible reason - negligent killing (drone mistakes) vs bloodlust (My Lai). Maybe that's the key? They didn't intend to destroy Iraq and Syria and spawn Isis, so they're not really to blame even though they did it?

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#14

Post by fractallyte » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:54 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #3

How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?

Wait a moment - did US soldiers really murder hundreds of thousands? You can't just throw around statements like that.

Iraq is an unstable conglomeration of religious and ethnic groups. The blame for this goes back to 1916: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-curse-of-sy...

The US invasion jostled that mix, and the resulting friction directly caused those deaths. So, to be more accurate (but possibly oversimplified), the US was a witless catalyst, and the fragmentation of Islam was the fuel.

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#15

Post by megous » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:56 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #13

rdtsc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I Maybe not by the mainstream media, as they were getting pretty reluctant to point out things like Obama, the Nobel Prize recipient, dropping over 20k bombs in countries we were not even at war with in just 2016. Some did report though ex: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/americ... . Was there someone's mom or baby killed by tho…

You bring up a possible reason - negligent killing (drone mistakes) vs bloodlust (My Lai). Maybe that's the key? They didn't intend to destroy Iraq and Syria and spawn Isis, so they're not really to blame even though they did it?

Of course they are to blame. People often times go to prison if they kill someone on the road even if they didn't intend to.

The people you're talking about are more to blame, given how much they were war profiteers themselves and were intertwined with war profiteering firms.

Also it can't seriously be called negligent killing if there's no serious effort to reduce or let alone count the dead and find what the "mistakes" were. Probably because there are no mistakes, it's calculated acceptable "colateral damage" (I hate this euphemism). Just like after Trump changed the rules and US related killing rate rised by some 400% or so right after that.

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#16

Post by chrischen » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 7:59 AM UTC

fractallyte wrote: post #10

chrischen wrote: post #7

Wow had no idea the Vietnam was this bad (bad as in how bad the Americans were). Almost makes the invasion of Iraq look noble. I went through the US educational system and while we know about the Vietnam war, the protesters, this is definitely not the picture of the war that we were given. It's basically propaganda and history rewriting what they are doing here, even though the US didn't even technically win the war.…

Every nation will try to hide the atrocities its own forces inflict on the 'enemy'. There's nothing unique about America in this regard; China is just as guilty.

Except people only believe the other side hides these things.

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#17

Post by Red_Tarsius » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

fractallyte wrote: post #9

So, just finished reading the article... I guess everyone should, just for the sense of thoughtfulness it should provoke. The thing is, the perpetrators started out as ordinary young American men. What tipped the balance, to turn them into stone-cold killers? It's not unique to this situation: this is what soldiers eventually tend to do. The ultimate modern example of pure, large scale monstrosity is the Red Army, at…

Anyone could turn into a monster. Even you, even I. It's like the old myth of the Sirens and Ulysses. We have to be vigilant and protect human rights beforehand, lest we are lured by bloodlust in the worst times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Brzica#cite_ref-2

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#18

Post by fractallyte » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 8:02 AM UTC

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #2

I was surprised by how much war footage and gut-wrenching videos I could find online. More people should be exposed to those documents as a form of shock therapy. It gives weight and meaning to words so effortlessly spoken by our leaders. It might also help young people have a little more empathy for actual individuals, as opposed to abstract demographics. The article reminds me of War against War! . It's a 1924 anti…

Most of the big wars were/are ultimately started (or allowed to start) by politicians.

The word 'politician' can be thought of as a portmanteau: political technician. So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead?

Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I wish just one nation in the world would implement it. Maybe it would lead to a cascade of rationality, and future wars would become impossible as a result.

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#19

Post by seagullz » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 8:03 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #7

Wow had no idea the Vietnam was this bad (bad as in how bad the Americans were). Almost makes the invasion of Iraq look noble. I went through the US educational system and while we know about the Vietnam war, the protesters, this is definitely not the picture of the war that we were given. It's basically propaganda and history rewriting what they are doing here, even though the US didn't even technically win the war.…

The textbooks and the mainstream media in all places tend to play the "nationalism" card; that's self-serving in all sorts of ways, after all. And no one articulated the 'nationalism' caricature better than George Orwell: "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

Re: At My Lai: The Photographer Who Captured the Massacre

#20

Post by fractallyte » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 8:09 AM UTC

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #17

fractallyte wrote: post #9

So, just finished reading the article... I guess everyone should, just for the sense of thoughtfulness it should provoke. The thing is, the perpetrators started out as ordinary young American men. What tipped the balance, to turn them into stone-cold killers? It's not unique to this situation: this is what soldiers eventually tend to do. The ultimate modern example of pure, large scale monstrosity is the Red Army, at…

Anyone could turn into a monster. Even you, even I. It's like the old myth of the Sirens and Ulysses. We have to be vigilant and protect human rights beforehand, lest we are lured by bloodlust in the worst times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petar_Brzica#cite_ref-2

I prefer to think that I could never turn into a monster. Solzhenitsyn managed to hold on to his humanity, through some of the worst atrocities imaginable.

"The little daughter's on the mattress, Dead. How many have been on it A platoon, a company perhaps? A girl's been turned into a woman, A woman turned into a corpse. It's all come down to simple phrases: Do not forget! Do not forgive! Blood for blood! A tooth for a tooth!" -Prussian Nights by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Nights)