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

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

#31

Post by ekianjo » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 9:20 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.…

> No wonder why China is fiercely anti-American

You know what happened during the Cultural Revolution in China right? Yet hardly anyone is talking about it.

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

#32

Post by verylittlemeat » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 9:36 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.…

>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.

I just want to be one anecdotal voice to disagree with this statement. I went to a city university and my American history class 1945-present included a curriculum with media such as:

A People's History of the United States

The Fog of War (documentary)

Hearts and Minds (documentary)

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram

Gary R. Hess, Vietnam: Explaining America's Lost War.

Nick Turse. Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.

I know some of my friends took courses where the Vietnam War was referred to pejoratively as the American War. We learned about My Lai in high school even. Where did you go to school that the Vietnam War was glossed over in such a pro-American way? Maybe it's a regional thing? I was educated on the east coast.

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

#33

Post by verylittlemeat » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 9:48 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?

During the Vietnam war that is what happened. Soldiers were treated like baby killers upon returning to the US.

There was a sort of rebranding of the American solider after that catastrophe. The American citizen is now supposed to see the American solider as a utilitarian third party cog in a system where soldiers don't make decisions they just execute them. So if you're unhappy with the war you take out your disapproval on the government not the lowly soldier who is "just doing their job/just following orders" etc.

Obviously this is very ethically questionable but I'd say it's the standard attitude towards the American soldier in my experience (in group social settings with ex-military people). The military is simply the hammer, the will of the people and politics. The hammer only acts when the hand picks it up hence we're supposed to hold the hand (government) accountable not the hammer (military).

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

#34

Post by megous » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:01 AM UTC

lopmotr wrote: post #23

megous wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "mista…

I agree with you, but why don't at least left-wing Americans agree too? Even HN posters are keen to show proper respect to soldiers and get angry if you don't do the same.

I don't know. I'm not an american. World is a mess though, and if people try to make sense of it by the use of some very large highlevel abstractions like left/right/democracy/islamism/etc. they're likely to fail.

I'm sure if someone tried, they can find good sounding justification for a lot of things within any of these highlevel thought systems. For example my mind boggles at the fact, that part of american left is pro-Assad (which is basically a horryfying middle-eastern dictator). If what he does would be happening in America, they'd be horrified. Currently there's some pushback against a new proposed CIA chiefess, because of overseeing torture. Yet Assad is acceptable despite running horrendous prisons like Adra, Sednaya, etc. (read some HRW reports, see "Caesar" photos).

To me it's more interesting to look at behavior/stated motivations of individual people, which leads to a more realistic view of the world. Yet it will cover very little, almost nothing, because it's hard to generalize from that.

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

#35

Post by wruza » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:06 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…

My friend participated in local war in 00s. They did not see much, generally sitting in trenches, but heard stories from spetsnaz guys. How anyone, including women and children could (and did) shoot at them or throw grenades after trading, smiling and handwaving. I’m not justifying orders they got there, but that definitely ruined their belief in humanity and peace, if any pre-existed. All these civilians were perceived as a real potential threat to their lives, not to some high political forces – that’s where violence grows from.

This is not a single story of war: my granddad took part in famous caribbean crisis (he cold-opposed to reds for a whole life). While cuban people were mostly on ‘our’ side, he told that leaving their dislocation at night or unarmed was strictly prohibited, since chances of returning in a box were too high. When people have no power, they figure out own ways to fight and these ways can do horrific things to their and your minds.

“But - make no mistake - many (most?) males are capable of such acts.” This thing is not their natural trait, it is an adaptation to not lose their minds in a new reality that they don’t actually support or understand. I blame those who throw them at it sitting in their soft chairs. It is their psychological problem, they are real psychopats.

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

#36

Post by verylittlemeat » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:08 AM UTC

fractallyte wrote: post #20

Red_Tarsius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You would be surprised. Some of the most terrible people in the Nazi concentration camps were fellow prisoners tasked with being Kapos (prisoner overseers). The Kapos were spared some of the worst labor but in exchange had to show extreme brutality to the prisoners they oversaw so the Nazis wouldn't question their effectiveness.

This isn't the only example: Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment. I'm sure there are others. When you value being alive many people will do anything to survive.

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

#37

Post by 7952 » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:26 AM UTC

fractallyte wrote: post #18

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…

Ah yes. The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers despite being highly technologically advanced.

A lot of problems are complex and require competing demands to be balanced. There is no single objectively correct solution to those problems. Rational intelligent people come to different conclusions. That is why we have politics, to deal with the messy complexity of the real world.

Treating rationality as a moral virtue just disturbs me. It is just a kind of moralistic discrimination based on things that may or may not indicate actual quality.

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

#38

Post by 7952 » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

afarrell wrote: post #29

fractallyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Heinlein's Starship Troopers had the right idea. I'm pretty unconvinced that limiting voters to volunteer military veterans would prevent war. I think it would instead lead to a government which is more able to successfully pander to those with a value-system that leads them to volunteer for the military.

It is ironic how that is a mirror image of fascist beliefs about military virtue. They wanted to give power to veterans so that wars could be started and won! They wanted to suppress the influence of weak willed peacniks. It is ironic that this could be reversed to imply that rationality means peace.

Heinlein had some pretty fascist ideas, and books like starship troopers project that in a comfortable form. It is easy to attach our own ideas of what is rational, but that is very subjective. To a fascist war is rational.

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

#39

Post by cm2187 » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:49 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.…

I am not sure that one massacre, no matter how bad it is, defines a whole war. The Vietnam war was meant to block the expansion of communism which at that time had a fair amount of blood on its hand.

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

#40

Post by eludwig » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 10:51 AM UTC

I'd also like to recommend the Ken Burns "The Vietnam War," which can be found on PBS. It is amazingly well done and the depth of it is beyond most documentaries. For example, there is one episode (1.5+ hours) that covers a six month period from 1967 to '68.

I was a small child during the war (10 in '68) and (to be truthful) only somewhat remember watching the coverage on TV. My mother said I used to ask her if I was going to have to go fight there and that I didn't want to. Thankfully, I didn't. The war ended in '75. I had just turned 17.

Strangely, the My Lai massacre is not covered until a later episode. They slotted it in the time line where it was first reported --not when it actually happened. But be patient, they do get to it eventually.

The sobering part about the series is that it absolutely captures the stupidity, futility, and mismanagement of the war over such a long period of time. The huge waste on both sides. The scale of it was staggering.

Myself, I am always drawn to the jungle patrols and the combat portions, which are fierce, terrifying and totally engulfing. I can see why certain people are drawn to war. It's the ultimate video game. Everything is on the line. You have no idea what the enemy will do and (really, in the end) no idea what you will do when faced with that visceral terror and excitement. What a rush it must be! And how horrible too. I am in inveterate coward. I don't believe I would have gone if called, but my 17 year old self is someone I don't really know anymore.

Anyway, the series is great and I highly recommend it.