OT, but connected - review in today's NYT

[karynnj]

about the crimes that were committed in Vietnam and investigated by the US military. From the review it seems to be a very well researched book that, like many earlier sources, shows Kerry spoke the truth in 1971. It might be good for countering the RW and even moderate Democrats who still deny the truth.

"Villagers, acting as human minesweepers, walked ahead of troops in dangerous areas to keep Americans from being blown up. Prisoners were subjected to a variation on waterboarding and jolted with electricity. Teenage boys fishing on a lake, as well as children tending flocks of ducks, were killed. “There are hundreds of such reports in the war-crime archive, each one dutifully recorded, sometimes with no more than a passing sentence or two, as if the killing were as routine as the activity it interrupted,” Deborah Nelson writes in “The War Behind Me.”

The archive, housed at the University of Michigan, holds documents from Col. Henry Tufts, former chief of the Army’s investigative unit, that reveal widespread killing and abuse by American troops in Vietnam. Most of these actions are not known to the public, even though the military investigated them. The crimes are similar to those committed at My Lai in 1968. Yet, as Nelson contends, most Ameri­cans still think the violence was the work of “a few rogue units,” when in fact “every major division that served in Vietnam was represented.” Precisely how many soldiers were involved, and to what extent, is not known, but she shows that the abuse was far more common than is generally believed. Her book helps explain how this misunderstanding came about.
<snip>

“Get the Army off the front page,” President Richard Nixon reportedly said. Investigations were a good way to do that. A cover-up attracts attention; a crime that is being looked into does not. The military investigations, Nelson argues, were designed not to hold rapists and murderers accountable, but to deflect publicity. When reporters heard about a war crime, they’d call the Army to see if it would provide information. If they suspected a cover-up, they’d pursue the story. If a military spokesman said an investigation was under way, the story was usually dropped.

<snip>
“If we rationalize it as isolated acts, as we did in Vietnam and as we’re doing with Abu Ghraib,” a retired brigadier general tells her, “we’ll never correct the problem. Counterinsurgency operations involving foreign military forces will inevitably result in such acts, and we will pay the costs in terms of moral legitimacy.” Whether it’s Vietnam or Iraq, the truth is disturbing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/books/review/McKelvey-t.html

[sandnsea]

1. when small boys ask why

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273x82984

*sigh* I don't know if this country will ever turn.

[karynnj]

2. Your 2006 post was and is awesome

That last line of the 1971 speech is haunting and likely reflects Senator Kerry's most consistent goal - I really hope that it is not wistful thinking that it is Obama's too.

I can't think of a single politician who has spoken out as much as Kerry did on the Iraq abuses. For 1971 and recent history, he is the leader I most trust to tell the truth.

[beachmom]

3. Thanks for posting, Karynnj. The author spoke about Kerry here:

http://media.www.roosevelttorch.com/media/storage/paper817/news/2008/12/01/News/Speaker.Sheds.Light.On.War.Crimes-3565984.shtml

According to Nelson, a lot of the needless killing can be attributed to the body count demanded by commanding officers, leading soldiers to kill civilians in order to reach that count. There were some commanding officers that refused to set body count quotas, like Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff.

The title of the book, Nelson said, comes from the soldiers she talked to who kept saying that they wanted to put the war behind them. Nelson also talked about the many people, including soldiers, that don't want this history told.

She reminded the audience that John Kerry lost his bid for the Presidency four years ago because the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth criticized him for his 1971 Senate testimony on war crimes. In that testimony, he alleged that many soldiers committed war crimes that went unpunished.

During the testimony in the early 1970s, John O'Neil, a fellow Vietnam veteran challenged Kerry's story. Thirty years later, O'Neil helped found Swift Boat, and co-wrote the book "Unfit for Command," which again, criticized Kerry's war service.

Nelson talked to survivors of massacres in Vietnam, one of whom saw her mother shot and her body crushed by other corpses.

"Vietnamese religion believes that those who are murdered spend eternity reliving the agony," said Nelson. "I wonder if the same can be said of the living who witness it."