June 8, 1972: "Too hot! Too hot!"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

AP 'napalm girl' photo from Vietnam War turns 40

Published May 31, 2012

Associated Press



TRANG BANG, Vietnam – In the picture, the girl will always be 9 years old and wailing "Too hot! Too hot!" as she runs down the road away from her burning Vietnamese village.

The little girl heard a roar overhead and twisted her neck to look up. As the South Vietnamese Skyraider plane grew fatter and louder, it swooped down toward her, dropping canisters like tumbling eggs flipping end over end.

Fire danced up Phuc's left arm. The threads of her cotton clothes evaporated on contact. Trees became angry torches. Searing pain bit through skin and muscle.

In shock, she sprinted down Highway 1 behind her older brother. She didn't see the foreign journalists gathered as she ran toward them, screaming. Then, she lost consciousness.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/31/shocking-ap-napalm-girl-photo-turns-40/

[rfranklin]

1. Yeah, America....USA! USA!

We sure showed them Commies!

[coalition_unwilling]

12. I share your feelings, but the napalm dropped in this

episode was dropped by one of our puppets.

A small, technical distinction.

Now back to regular programming.

[Zorra]

2. So, has anybody ever figured out what the conflict in Vietnam was really all about?

Was it really just about making more profits for the 1%? I think that was the primary reason for the war.

Was there some population control that needed to be done?

What many don't know is that somewhere between 2,500,000 and 3.000,000 people were killed in that conflict.

The number of those maimed by the conflict was probably higher.

The psychological and emotional toll is inestimable, but in reality just as egregious.

WTF was it all about?

[madokie]

3. To entice me to go

I and many of us was told that we had to stop the commies over there before they got over here.
I shit you not

[Bigmack]

4. Kinda like now... keeping the US safe from the fearsome Taliban Air Force and Navy! nt

[madokie]

7. Exactly

The years and the wars change but the reasons for remains the same. Which is mostly American Hegemony. IMO

[coalition_unwilling]

16. A bund of career-level military officers got to punch

their tickets. I mean, really, where would Colin Powell be without My Lai?

(in case it's needed)

[Scuba]

19. That's what they told me too. Then I heard about LBJ's ties to a company called Brown and Root....

... and that Brown and Root was making a fortune building airstrips, naval ports and other crap in Viet Nam.

That was my last day as a gung ho SSgt.

[scarletwoman]

5. Here's an excellent essay on the real reason we went into Vietnam:

Even now, we lie to ourselves about Vietnam

<snip>

The standard story in the United States about that war is that in our quest to guarantee peace and freedom for Vietnam, we misunderstood its history, politics and culture, leading to mistakes that doomed our effort. Some argue we should have gotten out sooner than we did; others suggest we should have fought harder. But the common ground in mainstream opinion is that our motives were noble.

But we never fought in Vietnam for democracy. After World War II, the United States supported and financed France's attempt to retake its former colony. After the Vietnamese defeated the French in 1954, the Geneva Conference called for free elections in 1956, which the United States and its South Vietnamese client regime blocked. In his memoirs, President Eisenhower explained why: In free elections, the communists would have won by an overwhelming margin. The United States is all for elections, so long as they turn out the way we want.

The central goal of U.S. policy-makers in Vietnam had nothing to do with freedom for the Vietnamese people, but instead was to make sure that an independent socialist course of development did not succeed. U.S. leaders invoked Cold War rhetoric about the threat of the communist monolith but really feared that a "virus" of independent development might infect the rest of Asia, perhaps even becoming a model for all the Third World.

To prevent the spread of the virus, we dropped 6.5 million tons of bombs and 400,000 tons of napalm on the people of Southeast Asia. Saturation bombing of civilian areas, counterterrorism programs and political assassination, routine killings of civilians and 11.2 million gallons of Agent Orange to destroy crops and ground cover -- all were part of the U.S. terror war in Vietnam, as well as Laos and Cambodia.

<snip>

[Zorra]

11. That is an excellent essay, thanks. nt

[northoftheborder]

17. Thanks for essay - we have not learned our lessons because they have not been taught enough.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Post VietNam, Kissinger actually wrote what our other wars of imperialsim is all about:

Remember Kissinger and his attitude to what he called "useless eaters"?

From Wiki...
.National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200) was completed on December 10, 1974 by the United States National Security Council under the direction of Henry Kissinger.

It was adopted as official U.S. policy by President Gerald Ford in November 1975. It was originally classified, but was later declassified and obtained by researchers in the early 1990s.

The basic thesis of the memorandum was that population growth in the least developed countries (LDCs) is a concern to U.S. national security, because it would tend to risk civil unrest and political instability in countries that had a high potential for economic development. The policy gives "paramount importance" to population control measures and the promotion of contraception among 13 populous countries, to control rapid population growth which the US deems inimical to the socio-political and economic growth of these countries and to the national interests of the United States, since the "U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad", and these countries can produce destabilizing opposition forces against the United States. It recommends the US leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the U.N., USIA, and USAID."

Thirteen countries are named in the report as particularly problematic with respect to U.S. security interests: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. These countries are projected to create 47 percent of all world population growth.

Much more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Study_Memorandum_200

The entire Memorandum is downloadable as a pdf on the Wiki page.

[bvar22]

20. Precisely!!!

"The central goal of U.S. policy-makers in Vietnam had nothing to do with freedom for the Vietnamese people, but instead was to make sure that an independent socialist course of development did not succeed."

This is STILL our EXACT Foreign Policy in Latin America.
Colombia, which has one of the worst Right Wing Human Rights Violating governments in Latin America is the 3rd Largest recipient of US Foreign Aid.
The bi-partisan policy of the US Government is to DEMONIZE, CONDEMN, and ELIMINATE the transparent Populist Democracies that are emerging in Central & South America.
We should be helping these young Democracies instead of driving them into the arms of Iran, Russia, and China.
We WILL Reap the Whirlwind for our shortsighted Foreign Policy in Latin America.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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[valerief]

10. Raiding the Treasury. Always number one reason for war. nt

[coalition_unwilling]

15. Ronald Reagan called Vietnam

a "noble cause". Yet another reason to revile his memory.

[2on2u]

6. GRAPHIC WARNING: FOOTAGE OF MISTAKENLY NAPALMED VILLAGE, DO NOT WATCH THIS IF

YOU CANNOT HANDLE EXTREME EMOTIONALLY DISTURBING IMAGES.

[99Forever]

8. That hurt me somewhere..

.. deep down inside. Thank you for reminding me why I absolutely hate the War Machine and all of it's parts.

[2on2u]

9. I am reminded of what happened to the Italian journalist on her

way to the Baghdad airport. AGAIN GRAPHIC WARNING:

There have several cases in which white phosphorus (WP) has been used as an anti-personnel weapon in Iraq by the United States military. Although initially denied, its use by the US was later confirmed by a United States army general serving in Iraq. General Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff denied allegations that the weapon was used against civilians, maintaining that it was only targeted on insurgents.

[coalition_unwilling]

13. She deserved it, because she was a terrorist disguised

as a child.

(in case it's needed to head off the alert)

[rug]

14. And we can effortlessly post scenes from Afghanistan.