my lai massacre secondary sources

None were convicted. Pictography. Angers, Forgotten Hero of My Lai, 177-78. Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Therefore, devaluing the target can be an effective way of reducing outrage from an attack. Consequently, it is frequently observed that official investigations are established only when public pressure becomes too great - namely, cover-up, devaluation, and reinterpretation have proved inadequate to dampen outrage - and that token, in-house, or secret investigations are used unless the outcry is so great that a public, independent investigation is needed to reduce the pressure on leaders. Another application is to potential atrocities such as the use of nuclear weapons, which are qualitatively different from other weapons in terms of technology and, due to the efforts of anti-nuclear campaigners, are highly stigmatized. In other words, awareness of and concern about the massacre did not happen automatically or predictably; instead, they were the result of a lengthy struggle - indeed, one that continues even today. [5], There is a counter for each of these methods of inhibition; for example, cover-up can be challenged by exposure. American soldiers burned numerous homes during the My Lai Massacre on March 16, 1968, in My Lai, South Vietnam. That is a truism for historians. The magazines Life and Look declined Hersh's story, so he turned to a newly formed independent news agency, Dispatch News Service, whose general manager personally contacted 50 editors of newspapers around the country, many of which published Hersh's story on 13 November 1969. Some local Vietnamese village figures, when questioned by CID investigators, denied that anything inappropriate had occurred, presumably because of pressure by South Vietnamese government officials. Furthermore, the National Liberation Front (NLF) in Vietnam reported the events widely in leaflets and broadcasts. I didn't know whether they were true because I wasn't there. Just like the Jewish Holocaust of World War II, the realities of My Lai deserve to be revisited so that it will happen "never again." If an action is perceived as unjust and information about it is communicated to a receptive audience, it can cause public outrage and backfire on the perpetrators. This group includes U.S. troops, U.S. military commanders and civilian leaders, and other allied troops and commanders, from South Vietnam and other countries. Why is My Lai important? For some, My Lai became a symbol of an unjust war; for others, though, it was simply an unfortunate episode, with the soldiers warranting congratulations for pursuing the enemy. Many explained or justified the actions by saying that this was just something that often happened in war. A second implication of the backfire model arises from attention to interpretation struggles: one-sided perspectives are likely to go unremarked. In 1971, Colonel Robert Heini reported that: "By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden and dispirited where not near-mutinous.". Intimidation and bribery serve less to inhibit outrage than to prevent its expression. Some of the soldiers in Charlie Company had refused to participate in the killings; some of those who did were sickened by what they had done and witnessed. [27] . Medina and all the others who were among the killing soldiers that day went free, and only Calley was convicted of the murders of "at least 20 civilians." After leaving the army, he pondered what to do. The perpetrators and their allies took a range of steps to reduce the likelihood of awareness of and concern about the events, whereas some of those who were most disturbed by the massacre took action to foster awareness and concern. He said that NLF claims about a massacre were propaganda only.[28]. Brian Martin is Professor of Social Sciences in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication, University of Wollongong, Australia and author of numerous publications on nonviolence, dissent, scientific controversies, information technology and democracy. His most recent book is Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire (2007). http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/vietnam/mylai_survivor.cfm. 8. (Ronald S. Haeberle/Time Life/Getty Images) A soldier, William Bezanson, who had flown above My Lai, told in an interview how he coped with what he had seen and done: The first night we got back and were sitting in the bunker smoking dope. 53. 59. They were kneeling and crying and praying, and various soldiers... walked by and executed these women and children by shooting them in the head with their rifles. Two years later the American public found out what had happened at My Lai. President Richard Nixon asked his aides to undertake a secret investigation of Ridenhour in order to find dirt that could damage his credibility. For his stand, many vilified Thompson. There are vast numbers of histories of the Vietnam War by US and other Western authors, but no well known (in the English-speaking West, at least) history by a Vietnamese historian. today. ... Book Sources: Events - Vietnam War A selection of books/e-books available in Trible Library. Thompson feared that he might be charged over this and at one point considered fleeing to Canada. If we who are non-soldiers ever truly experienced the horrors of combat, the effort to abolish war would suddenly be a top priority (perhaps even the current crop of "Chicken Hawk" warmongers in the Bush Administration). With few exceptions the files have been purged of these documents and records of their removal or destruction have not been maintained.[15]. Of course the Vietnam War was a thousand times worse for the innocent people of that doomed land. The appointment of these lawyers was, it was reported , calculated to have the effect of deflecting public criticism of the apparent lack of independence of the inquiry. As a result of giving testimony, Thompson was ostracized and abused by other troops, so at new postings he avoided telling anyone about his role.[54]. Promotion was generally dependent on action in the field and a key measure of success was the "body count." Documents are reproduced in James S. Olson and Randy Roberts, My Lai: A Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/St. Few members of Charlie Company protested that day. Seeing official channels, as tactics, used (often unconsciously) by perpetrator groups to reduce outrage over injustice, is uncommon in historiography. Out of all the processes, only one person was convicted: Lieutenant William Calley. To approach this topic, a useful starting point is nonviolence researcher Gene Sharp's concept of political jiu-jitsu, in which violent attacks on peaceful protesters can be counterproductive for the attacker by generating more support for the protesters among the group attacked, the attacking group, and third parties. They were victims of an army of brutal young men from a foreign land who were taught that the Vietnamese people were pitiful sub-humans and deserved to be killed – with some GIs preferring to inflict torture first. Many injustices during the war received little attention, for example because of successful cover-up, so there was no need for other methods such as official channels. However, the Army did not want to recognize Thompson's role: he received a medal that falsely referred to his being in a crossfire at My Lai, which served as a whitewash of the massacre. It took five days. It was an almost total coverup" (198). So those businesses must hide the gruesome truths and try instead to make it look like something patriotic, with, for example, sloganeering like "Be All That You Can Be." He has produced an accurate look at the state of the Vietnam War during its height in March of 1968 and a compact but thorough recounting of what transpired before, during and after the My Lai massacre. The My Lai massacre took place shortly after the Tet offensive. In summary, various different reinterpretations were used in relation to My Lai, depending on the concurrent level of cover-up. There is no ethical way for the follower of the nonviolent Jesus to participate in or condone the mass slaughter of war. 45. A detailed look at this case reveals all five methods of inhibiting outrage, though due to the video they were insufficient to prevent massive outrage.[6]. Meadlo admitted his role in the executions. Believing that civilians were being killed, he landed and confronted a U.S. officer. This is modeled on Sharp's three audiences for political jiu-jitsu, but with slightly different terms. 17. Thirty-eight years ago, on March 16,1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the Americal Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed residents, all women, children and old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. The key third parties were the U.S. public, populations in other countries, and the governments of countries not involved in the war. Secondary sources Corsetti, Joseph. However, the mainstream media also were initially not interested. Several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in South-East Asia. I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. However, these hearings also were closed. The men were killed, while many of the women were also raped, their bodies mutilated, and their children slaughtered right in front of them. "After the shooting," he said, "all the villagers became Communists.". The carnage at My Lai might have gone unknown to history if not for another soldier, Ron Ridenhour, a former member of Charlie Company, who, independently of Glen, sent a letter detailing the events at My Lai to President Richard M. Nixon, the Pentagon, the State Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and numerous members of Congress. He faces the progressively grim alternatives by asking how many people were guilty, because an aberration must have limits. This meant that Charlie Company veterans who had left the Army escaped prosecution. David Halberstam, in Facing My Lai: Moving Beyond the Massacre, ed. Massacre at My Lai Shortly before 7:30 am on March 16, 1968, Son My village was shelled by U.S. artillery . It talked about the Massacre, Cover-Up, and the Impact. Generalizing from Sharp, it is plausible to propose that anything perceived as unfair, excessive, or violating a social norm - such as censorship, unfair dismissal, police beatings, torture, and war - can potentially be counterproductive for the perpetrator. The backfire model highlights this perspective. So I decided to forget about it. Is it still true of the churches? In other words, because the opponent is using violence, using violence against the opponent seems far more justifiable than it might otherwise. [7] However, our attention is not on the existence or extent of backfire but on the techniques used to inhibit or increase outrage. The country doesn't know it yet but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and trade in violence. Alexander, Paul. Fearful of losing them in battle, Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek ordered the removal of nearly all official Chinese troops from the city, leaving it defended by untrained auxiliary troops. Pictography. After forty years of silence, Calley finally apologized for his actions during the My Lai Massacre. Following a bloody victory in Shanghai during the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese turned their attention towards Nanking. Our aim is not to write a history of My Lai but rather to show how My Lai and the disputes around it can be understood as a struggle over outrage; in particular, we are concerned with the tactics deployed in this struggle. A young helicopter gunner, Ronald Ridenhour who saw the massacre wrote to President Nixon about the incident. Martin's, 1998), 133-38; W. R. Peers, The My Lai Inquiry (New York: Norton, 1979), 280-86. “Thirty Years Later, Memories of My Lai Massacre Remain Fresh” South Coast Today, March 15, 1998. We refer to the NLF rather than to the Viet Cong, a term considered abusive by many Vietnamese. A number of high-ranking Pentagon officials put forward the theory that the four main army men involved in command positions in relation to My Lai were all "misfits." He kept saying something like "What are we turning into?" He was sentenced to life imprisonment but he only served three years before being released from prison. But it didn't really matter that much; they were just gooks. What happened at My Lai? Another powerful option would have been a presidential commission, but Nixon resisted pressure to set one up: "By leaving the prosecutions and judicial decisions in the hands of soldiers, the Nixon administration virtually ensured that there would be no justice."[48]. Although war is filled with horrible occurrences, the chance of provoking outrage is greatly reduced by the very conception of war, namely a struggle between armed opponents. [51] Photographer Haeberle was also afraid. Challenging all these interpretations was the human rights position that killing nonresisting civilians is wrong. We began slowly with each death and every casualty until there were so many deaths and so many wounded, we started to treat death and loss of limbs with callousness, and it happens because the human mind can't hold that much suffering and survive . /id/32514139/ns/us_news-military/t/calley-apologizes-role-my-lai-massacre/. Secondary Sources "My Lai Massacre." Although there was a massive cover-up of this operation (which involved a young up-and-coming US Army Major named Colin Powell), those who orchestrated this "business-as-usual" war zone event did not deny the details of the slaughter when the case came to trial several years later. A feeling of social injustice can be created by certain violations of an implicit and variable social contract, including when rulers do not provide security, when rulers take advantage of their position, and - most relevant to political jiu-jitsu - when rulers exercise excessive cruelty. Things haven’t really changed. For example, most police beatings do not have significant repercussions for the police. The preparatory barrage was intended to clear a landing area for Charlie Company’s helicopters , but its actual effect was to force those civilians who had begun leaving the area back to My Lai in search of cover. Examination of the events reveals that the perpetrators and their commanders took various actions that inhibited outrage from the unprovoked killing of civilians. The other types of tactics covered in the backfire model, namely cover-up, devaluation, reinterpretation, and intimidation, are more readily seen as tactics, though they are not always studied that way. Further official investigations were triggered by Ridenhour's powerful letter sent in March 1969 to numerous top U.S. political and military figures. The story of My Lai and its ramifications has been told many times. Support targets, witnesses, and supporters to resist intimidation and bribery. According to Moore, "every culture seems to have some definition of arbitrary cruelty on the part of those in authority. The process of charging, prosecuting, and convicting soldiers was filled with complications and obstacles, most of which served to prevent or reduce penalties. 40. Thompson and his two crew members were the only U.S. heroes to emerge from the events on 16 March. "[56] Anything negative on a commander's file was damaging for promotion purposes, so it is not surprising that most of those in the line of command at My Lai were reluctant to speak out. We draw on the many detailed accounts of the massacre, the cover-up, and the official inquiries. The standout exception was Ron Ridenhour. But the story did eventually filter back to the Western news media, thanks to a couple of courageous witnesses and journalists whose consciences were still intact. The person who broke the story was Seymour Hersh, a young investigative journalist. Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), 49-70. "Jack the Ripper was not a corporation, so that we can think of him as aberrant," which we cannot do about "the Nazis under Hitler or the communists under Stalin". Adding to concern was information from the assault that 128 enemy had been killed with only three weapons captured, a statistic suggesting civilian deaths. Efforts were made by the US army to suppress information about the raping and killing of Vietnamese civilians but eventually, after considerable pressure from certain newspapers, it was decided to put Lieutenant William Calley on trial for war-crimes, In March, 1971, Calley was found guilty of murdering 109 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai. 35. 1. The second, "the horrifying" alternative, is that "America in AD 1969 has bred young Americans who can insouciantly murder grandmothers and little children.". Earlier, after World War I, the bombing of civilians had been considered an atrocity; outrage followed the fascist bombing of Guérnica during the Spanish Civil War. Charlie Company had arrived in Vietnam three months before the My Lai massacre. 154– 162., doi:10.2307/250947 84. Captain Medina warned Michael Bernhardt, who refused to participate in the killings, not to write to Congress about it. We do not explore related matters, such as the U.S. military's Phoenix Program and Pacification Program (the context of the massacre), U.S. military propaganda, other atrocities such as massive killing from bombing, or debates about the rationale for the war and the role of the media. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime, but, under pressure from patriotic pro-war Americans, President Nixon pardoned him within weeks of the verdict. These and other important issues deserve attention and could potentially be included in the framework we use. For example, many historians are attentive to one-sided perspectives and the influence of censorship on knowledge. Because the massacre became the most infamous atrocity in the Vietnam War, there is extensive documentation about the events revealing that all five methods of inhibition were brought into play. They can conceptualize their work as tools in these struggles. Barker only mentioned civilian casualties in passing, as due to crossfire. Henderson interviewed the men in Charlie Company, uncritically accepting their denials of any killing and dismissing the statements of those such as Thompson who reported otherwise. This process is even more pronounced when the injustice is clear-cut, such as police killings of peaceful protesters. Noam Chomsky, "After Pinkville," Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam, 1971. http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1971----02.htm, accessed 8 June 2006, reported a comment by US soldiers to this effect from New York Times, 24 September 1969. The Office of the Inspector General set up an inquiry led by Colonel William Wilson, which, after numerous interviews, confirmed the claims made by Ridenhour. Some of Calley's men thought it was breakfast time as they walked in; a few families were gathered in front of their homes cooking rice over a small fire. The policy of bombardment and clearing of entire areas of the Vietnamese countryside was a far greater atrocity in terms of lives lost,[60] but this did not have the symbolic potency of shooting women and children up close and in a ditch. Many of those in the United States who supported the war preferred to downplay My Lai. The result was that most of those who were guilty escaped anything more than token punishments, but by the time this happened public attention had turned elsewhere. [42], At the same time, in Congress, Armed Services Committee Chairman Rivers had his subcommittee, chaired by F. Edward Hébert, investigate the massacre. It was truly the first time I ever thought about that - I can remember. Truda Gray is in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication, University of Wollongong, Australia. I felt sorry for those children (soldiers arriving in Vietnam for the first time) knowing that they would all grow old in the land of endless dying. [8], This group consists of the Vietnamese population, aside from those aligned with the U.S.-supported side. They must climb out of it and find an indecent scape-goat or some bearable explanation that can restore their self-respect. When someone laughs and jokes about what they're doing, they have to be enjoying it." "Timeline: Charlie Company and the Massacre at My Lai."pbs.org. General William Peers, who headed the fourth and largest military inquiry into the massacre and its cover-up, was approached just before a press conference marking the conclusion of the inquiry. Later, when Thompson testified about the massacre to inquiries and at trials of soldiers charged with offenses, he sometimes was the one who came under attack, with some of his questioners - especially in the Congressional subcommittee inquiry - focusing more on Thompson's threat to fire on U.S. troops than on the atrocities he was trying to prevent. 6. [32] President Nixon stated that My Lai was an "isolated incident. Next, the Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) investigated responsibility for the massacre and made recommendations for prosecution. Also, several official processes served more to cover up or excuse the massacre, in particular Henderson's investigation immediately after the massacre, the Hébert subcommittee inquiry, and the trials. However, many supporters of the war thought Calley was a hero who was being scapegoated. Only one American was injured - a GI who had shot himself in the foot while clearing his pistol. He refers to the fact that the name ‘My Lai’ is a misnomer in that it was not the name used by the inhabitants of the … Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (London: Vintage Books, 1972), 197. A very sad thing happened while we were there - to everyone. The interview had an enormous impact. And inside of VC women, I guess there were a thousand little VC now.[24]. The category of "official channels" includes grievance procedures, formal inquiries, court proceedings, pronouncements by authorities and experts, and other processes or actions that offer a formal and authoritative resolution of social problems. Bilton and Sim, Four Hours in My Lai, 21. Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, "Making Censorship Backfire," Counterpoise 7 (July 2003): 5-15; Sue Curry Jansen and Brian Martin, "Exposing and Opposing Censorship: Backfire Dynamics in Freedom-of-Speech Struggles," Pacific Journalism Review 10 (April 2004): 29-45; Brian Martin, "Iraq Attack Backfire," Economic and Political Weekly 39 (17-23 April 2004): 1577-83; Brian Martin, Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Brian Martin and Truda Gray, "How to Make Defamation Threats and Actions Backfire," Australian Journalism Review 27 (July 2005): 157-66; Brian Martin and Iain Murray, "The Parkin Backfire," Social Alternatives 24 (Third Quarter 2005): 46-49; Brian Martin and Steve Wright, "Countershock: Mobilizing Resistance to Electroshock Weapons," Medicine, Conflict and Survival 19 (July-September 2003): 205-22. Another way to look at this is to say that people adopt an "injustice frame" - a frame is a way of looking at the world - when they believe that authorities, or the authority system, are linked to injustice. I am still finishing researching the precepts created by Nuremberg and will find out if any IMTs have convened since the Vietnam War as time permits. Later, when the story had been exposed, struggles over language occurred, with labels ranging from "massacre" to "incident." The 1968 My Lai massacre, during the Vietnam war, and its aftermath can be conceptualized as a struggle over outrage. There are several possible explanations for this, but our point here is that the Western histories almost never comment on the absence of histories from a Vietnamese perspective. Many accepted the excuse made by soldiers that they were only following orders or doing their duty. Daniel C. Hallin, The "Uncensored War": The Media and Vietnam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 158. The South Vietnamese government said, like Henderson, that enemy claims about a massacre were propaganda.[30]. . The massacre occurred on 16 March 1968. . On March 16, 1968 , American soldiers went into a small village in Vietnam called My Lai and killed approximately 400 unarmed civilians. If the target of an attack is perceived as worthless, degraded, or evil, then many people will be less upset than if the target is of high status. The official press release written by Sergeant Jay Roberts of Charlie Company described a battle in which 128 Viet Cong died. Late in January 1968, Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese soldiers had launched attacks on urban areas across South Vietnam. It happened slowly and gradually so no one noticed when it happened. There’s nothing new here; Allison uses well-trod primary and secondary sources to give us this overview. Even Captain Medina was having a good time. We use this same approach to analyze the struggle over outrage over the My Lai massacre. Found on. The trial stimulated a lot of interest because it occurred during the rising outcry of millions of Americans against the war that was acknowledged as an "overwhelming atrocity." 60. This website is about the My Lai Massacre. Inquiries that are internal or closed hold the greatest potential for creating a facade of justice. However, 79% of those that were polled strenuously objected to Calley’s conviction, veteran’s groups even voicing the opinion that instead of condemnation, he should have received medals of honor for killing "Commie Gooks.". 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( Boston: Bedford/St bombardment and crossfire and that no one noticed when it happened TV with... War is still with us, particularly among those who wanted to `` nuke the gooks '' Olson... Otherwise occur of significance, as outcomes, or as parts of webs of influence and causation Newsletter! Part of those in the memory of living Americans like the massacre and made recommendations for prosecution the -...: Lieutenant William Calley and Company C commanding officer, Ernest Medina by U.S. artillery and testified! These methods played an important turning point in American public opinion the Lai!, photos, and the whole operation only took 4 Hours methods regularly used perpetrators... [ 29 ] barker 's report said that the men concerned were not found... The Arizona Star, but Thompson insisted on a serial killer a private ceremony, few. Measure of success was the `` body count. '' and much of the Law village and... 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