historic Vietnam photo (another beheading...caution...graphic)

[diamond14]

[DemoTex]

1. A little background would be helpful.

At least a link to an article.

[diamond14]

6. photo speaks for itself...American soldiers beheading two Vietnam

citizens.....and displaying their trophy heads....most Vietnam atrocities were shown in Black and White, rather than the contemporary color....still, this photo is very famous, almost as famous as the guy shot on the street...the shooting was shown more frequently, since both victim and perpetrator were Asian as therefore, more acceptable to Americans....Americans just don't want to see their own troops beheading their victims, or burning villages and killing civilians...but are very tolerant of the written words, and recently, much too tolerant of the Iraqi prison murders, rapes, sodomy and torture....

there are many stories written about Vietnam WAR CRIMES...soldiers took body parts as trophies of the kill...carried parts around on their belts or mounted in camp....are you surprised?

[DemoTex]

7. No it does not speak for itself.

What unit? When. Where. Why.

Don't try to paint Vietnam with that grainy photo, Amen1234, without some more info. At least the latest Iraq color pics were attributed to Abu Ghraib. Source and circumstance? Before I get pissed off.

[mike_c]

11. here's a similar account, although not of this photo....

link: http://www.vietnamese-american.org/b8.html

Gisele Halimi: I would like you to tell me about your having witnessed, one day in the month of October 1966, how American soldiers killed South Vietnamese prisoners with machetes. Is it possible that you can confirm this to me before the Tribunal?

Yes, I can confirm this. But the only thing inaccurate as to this question that you asked me was the date. This did not happen in October of 1966. It happened 2 March 1966 at a place about fifty miles north of Ban Me Thuot, near a Special Forces camp - Ham Brain. On this date, in the 3rd Brigade of the 25th we had our first casualties. We lost eleven men that day and the enemy lost 100 men. After the battle was over there were several wounded North Vietnamese, you know, laying around on the ground, see, so everyone was angry because this was our first battle and we had lost a lot of our friends, see. So one Japanese-American, his name was Sergeant Takahatchi, I believe he was a staff sergeant, he took his machete and beheaded this wounded soldier. The soldier was wounded in the chest but he was still alive. So after he beheaded the man, he threw his head down the hill to serve as warning to other NVA elements, if they were still in the area, that we meant business. And I was standing near by when this occurred.

Halimi: Can you witness about other cases that are analogous about war prisoners or civilians that were killed by the American forces or by the South Vietnamese in the presence of American forces?

Yes, I could also testify to other incidents of mistreatment of {236} prisoners by US and South Vietnamese forces. Shortly afterwards, after we got over there in February 1966, I happened to be on a work detail to a place called Camp Hollaway which is right outside the town of Pleiku, and while I was there I saw a VC being tortured by the South Vietnamese under the direction of US forces. When I got there they had the man tied on the ground; he was spreadeagled. They were using a knife to sort of pry under his toenails and the soles of his feet. When this got no results they went on to other more sensitive parts of the body. Well, this still got no results, because evidently this man was, as we say in America, a tough nut to crack. So then after that they put the knife under his eyeball in another endeavour to make him talk, and he still would not talk. So then what they did, they put him in a barbed-wire cage in which he was on his hands and knees. And if he made any moves the barbs of the barbed wire would press into his flesh, so they kept him there for two days.

<snip>

I left much of the last paragraph because it points out the similarities between the tactics used in Iraq and those directed by mil intel and CIA in Vietnam.

[diamond14]

16. we must never forget what happens to humans who are sent to WAR

both sides commit atrocities...WAR is KILLING humans...women, children, men...everyone...both sides....


Iraq is the same....Iraq is Vietnam in a microwave....torture, rape, abuse, murder...KILLING is what WAR is....that's what we pay for...
that's why OUR taxes pay for weapons to spew out tiny HOT metal fragments which burn through to the bone while held by molten plastics onto humans' skin....weapons that spin out big chunks of hot metal to rip off arms and legs....most of our federal research does not go to medicines or advancements in science...it goes to KILLING and the KILLING industry....

[mike_c]

12. here's another....

link: http://www.thememoryhole.com/war/thisiswar/ (warning: VERY GRAPHIC).

"I became a fucking animal. I started fucking putting fucking heads on poles. Leaving fucking notes for the motherfuckers. Digging up fucking graves. I didn't give a fuck anymore. Y'know, I wanted—. They wanted a fucking hero, so I gave it to them. They wanted fucking body count, so I gave them body count."

—unnamed Vietnam Veteran, quoted in Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (New York, 1994). Reprinted in An Intimate History of Killing.

[diamond14]

13. here's some more 'grainy' Vietnam photos....

no, I cannot answer "WHY"....the best answer that I ever found was in Dr. M. Scott Peck's book "People of the Lie" ...it takes a whole society to make this happen...taxpayers, scientists, soldiers, war-profiteering corporations, trophies, medals, glorious monuments, cheering crowds and parades....and we are all at fault...and we all carry responsibility for the Iraq prison WAR CRIMES, the Vietnam war crimes, and all that we PAY FOR, and cheer for and build monuments for...

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BrotherBuzz]

15. Ever heard of Xerox?

1960's photograph reproductions on copy machines were pretty crappy. I can believe that photo is at least a second generation reproduction.

[kalian]

2. But those were godless, commie gooks....

:eyes:

[achtung_circus]

3. pinkos one and all. nt

[progdonkey]

5. yeah, and I bet he wasn't picked up on a traffic violation

I'm sure he had American blood on his hands. :puke:

[DrWeird]

4. Obveeusly U hait America.

Support Are Troops!

[JohnOneillsMemory]

8. I saw that photo in 1971 when I was 10 years old. Learned a lot from it.

I also read first-hand accounts of hand to hand combat in letters that GIs wrote home to friends.

This contributed to my understanding of human beings thrust by circumstance into inhumane situations. Meanwhile, my relatives argued about the value of containing communism during family gatherings.

Since I had seen photos of Nazi concentration camp victims when I was six years old, learning that Americans were just as capable of atrocities gave me insight into the way indoctrination makes good people do bad things to belong to a group.

Horrible photos should be mandatory education for children, not something to hide from them.

Justice is a universal theme of history that depends on preventing dehumanization...and decapitation.

[diamond14]

9. .....Texas....(caution: graphic photo)

Charred corpse of Jesse Washington suspended from utility pole.

May 16, 1916, Robinson, Texas.


Lynchers often paraded their victim down the main street, through black neighborhoods, and in front of "colored schools" that were in session.

Jesse Washington, seventeen years old, was the chief suspect in the May 8, 1916, murder of Lucy Fryer of Robinson, Texas, on whose farm he worked as a laborer. After the lynching, Washington's corpse was placed in a burlap bag and dragged around City Hall Plaza, through the main streets of Waco, and seven miles to Robinson, where a large black population resided.

His charred corpse was hung for public display in front of a blacksmith shop. The sender of this card, Joe Meyers, an oiler at the Bellmead car department and a Waco resident, marked his photo with a cross (now an ink smudge to left of victim).


there are HUNDREDS more here....including those burned alive...lest we forget as America condemns others....
http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

[Dees]

10. I spent a year in a grunt unit of the 1st Infantry

at Lai Khe Vietnam 1965-66. Not once did I participate in nor witness
any dismemberment, mutilation, abuse or degradation of any living or dead enemy soldiers. I know for a fact that other units "spooked" Victor Charles with various "calling cards". I never saw it therefore it never happened. I'll leave it at that.