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

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

#51

Post by pensiveforns » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:04 AM UTC

contingencies wrote: post #12

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 by…

This is a good summary, but it's even more nuanced than that.

For example, while China did lose the Sino-Vietnamese War, they did achieve two important objectives.

First, they proved to be a trustworthy ally to Cambodia. This is why those other SEA countries like Cambodia, Laos, and others that were bullied by Vietnam are much more pro-China right now.

Secondly, they showed that while the USSR was a Vietnamese ally, it would not interfere with China.

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

#52

Post by meowface » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:05 AM UTC

megous wrote: post #34

lopmotr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The US left is generally anti-Assad, both due to his atrocities and the perception that the Russian government is propping him up. There is a wing of the left who support him due to a belief that the US are trying to destabilize his regime and install a puppet by funding violent rebel groups. They're not exactly wrong, but they're blinded by ideology and in some cases conspiracy theory thinking like the chemical attacks being fake or his atrocities all being US propaganda. I would say this is only a small minority on the left, though. Most of the left hates Assad and his regime. The right at the moment seem to be more sympathetic to him.

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

#53

Post by pensiveforns » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #31

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.

People in China talk about it all the time. But you do have to speak Mandarin or the local dialect to hear it. Many don't want to talk about it in English because it gets annoying to hear expats and tourists preaching to them.

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

#54

Post by snarfy » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:09 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?

Even with waning religious views the US is still a fairly religious and mostly christian country.

I don't understand the pride at all. Pride is a sin.

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

#55

Post by musage » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:09 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…

> So the responsibility is on us to enforce this distinction: who among our political technicians is actually qualified to lead?

None. Each of us, however, is responsible to participate, and therefore make "experts in how we should live together" pointless.

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

#56

Post by meowface » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:09 AM UTC

verylittlemeat wrote: post #33

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 disappr…

Don't know why people are downvoting you. Your description of the perception towards the government and soldiers is completely correct. You're just stating it as it is, not justifying it or saying you agree with it.

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

#57

Post by gaius » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:12 AM UTC

7952 wrote: post #37

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…

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 t…

The kind of rational society that fights giant insects with lightly armoured infantry soldiers

In the movie. In the book the MI wear power armour.

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

#58

Post by technotarek » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:13 AM UTC

There's a good short video here with Seymour Hersh telling how he broke the story and brought it all to public attention:

https://investigatingpower.org/vietnam-war/

(Disclosure: We designed and developed the site.)

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

#59

Post by fractallyte » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:15 AM UTC

7952 wrote: post #38

afarrell wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 eas…

Heinlein's point was that one's vote is a huge responsibility, and that privilege must be earned: by demonstrably placing the needs of one's country above individual wellbeing. Thus only military veterans could participate in governance. Militarism doesn't automatically equate to fascism.

There are further ideas in this: that, having experienced a war, a (typical) person would never again allow such a thing to happen. That's sound thinking, in my opinion.

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

#60

Post by squarefoot » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 11:15 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.

"Every nation will try to hide the atrocities its own forces inflict on the 'enemy'."

An the other way around, which could be even worse. From 1991 to 2009 US TV stations were barred from showing coffins returning from war zones, so that the public was disconnected from the atrocities of war, no matter who would commit them. On one side we (though I'm not an US citizen the principle applies globally) have action war movies where badass heroes save the world - those are characters finely crafted in a way every teen would like to impersonate in real life - and on the other side there can be regulations preventing media from showing what really war is (not to mention the growing use of drones). This is the worst kind of propaganda, the one that makes you want to kill or be killed and be also excited or even proud of it.