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

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

#81

Post by ptaipale » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 12:09 PM UTC

rqs wrote: post #44

megous wrote: post #22

Sadly, similar massacres are happening almost daily in this world. One day you see someone start a twitter campaing like #iamstillalive, the other you see a reports of him being killed in an airstrike with countless other people. People are daily begging on twitter for their lives, to be spared, to someone help them. You can easily find similar images from what you see in this article, from yesterday, day prior, almo…

Link: https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/status/974073948299284481 Weird to say but now you know why people in China treasures peace a little bit more than freedom. Massacres are common during Japanese invasion[0], and nobody stood up for civilians. The result of that was people got murdered village after village and then burned or lefted there for animals. That collective experience in some degree shaped the political…

Occasionally, a few people (foreigners) did stand up for civilians, although in the scale of events, it did not have large impact. Perhaps the most peculiar of them is the story of John Rabe, "a Nazi hero".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe

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

#82

Post by coupdejarnac » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 12:18 PM 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…

Written by a guy who never saw combat.

Anyway, one thing I got from the book, even if Heinlein never explicitly made this point, is that public officials need to perform some service or somehow show that they merit being our leaders. People who did poorly in intro uni economics should perhaps not be determining national economic policy, for example.

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

#83

Post by jstanley » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 12:24 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #75

jstanley wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the individuals are doing the work for the institution. If they'd just refuse (for example, don't sign up to be a soldier working on behalf of an institution you ostensibly don't support), then it wouldn't get done.

People who don't support the military won't sign up at all. People who do sign up don't have full information on all of the operations they'll be involved in at the time they sign up, and by the time they do have that information they generally cannot legally dissent.

I suppose it's better to murder some foreigners than to illegally dissent.

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

#84

Post by coupdejarnac » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 12:46 PM UTC

There is a Frontline or other PBS special about My Lai from about 5 years ago. I think I saw it on netflix, but it should be on the PBS website, too.

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

#85

Post by mynameishere » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

eludwig wrote: post #40

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…

Not that it matters much, but I couldn't really get through the Burns documentary because it had basically nothing to add to the 1983 PBS documentary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam:_A_Television_History

I don't know. It just bugs me when someone famous rehashes old material and gets credit for it.

As for My Lai, war atrocities are part of war, and that one wasn't anything special. It was actually the South Koreans (in Vietnam) who were the masters at it, though pointing that out does nothing to help the media's overarching agenda.

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

#86

Post by vietnamese59 » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

megous wrote: post #22

Sadly, similar massacres are happening almost daily in this world. One day you see someone start a twitter campaing like #iamstillalive, the other you see a reports of him being killed in an airstrike with countless other people. People are daily begging on twitter for their lives, to be spared, to someone help them. You can easily find similar images from what you see in this article, from yesterday, day prior, almo…

My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees.

They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love America and despise communist Vietnam. They wish the US had finished the job.

Promoting things like the link above and conveniently omitting the pure savagery of the Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, and the communists from the North is pure propaganda. It's always puzzling to me what types of topics journalists choose to run.

Instead of listening to journalists reporting on Vietnam from half a world away, you should visit Little Saigon in Southern California and Northern California and ask them how they feel about America and the Vietnam War.

EDIT: Since I have a post limit and I can't reply below, I'll reply here.

quan: I didn't say My Lai was propaganda. I said emphasizing My Lai over the several atrocities committed by the communists, including the systematic murders of those who opposed communism, is propaganda.

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

#87

Post by javiramos » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

eludwig wrote: post #40

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…

“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.“

History is repeating itself in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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

#88

Post by namelost » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:50 PM UTC

vietnamese59 wrote: post #86

megous wrote: post #22

Sadly, similar massacres are happening almost daily in this world. One day you see someone start a twitter campaing like #iamstillalive, the other you see a reports of him being killed in an airstrike with countless other people. People are daily begging on twitter for their lives, to be spared, to someone help them. You can easily find similar images from what you see in this article, from yesterday, day prior, almo…

My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees. They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love Amer…

I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents.

To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.

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

#89

Post by Erlangolem » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:56 PM UTC

namelost wrote: post #88

vietnamese59 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees. They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love Amer…

I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents. To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.

Just one point: there is no, “The US” as I’ve learned over time. The US is geographically vast, and full of hundreds of millions of people from wildly different backgrounds. Those poeple have politics ranging from Ghengis Khan, to Ghandi. They seem to agree, as a nation, on very little.

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

#90

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 1:57 PM UTC

namelost wrote: post #88

vietnamese59 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees. They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love Amer…

I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents. To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.

"The US" no longer uses anti-personnel mines outside the Korean DMZ (which is actually managed by the South Koreans). The US does not deploy them anywhere, and hasn't for years.

Maybe its India and Pakistan we're thinking of, hm?