Re: Voting stats

Patrick Dolan wrote:
...
> My Lai was an exception to the behavior of American troops.

You assert that, I'm unconvinced. Hopefully, yes it was an isolated
case. Possible there were other cases like that which aren't known;
it's possible.

If we can expand this a bit, please. There was a Harvard psychologist
who had students role-play guard and inmate, and what ended up
happening was that otherwise normal and healthy students started
brutalizing each other. This, I imagine, is something like what
happened at Abu Ghraib (sp) and My Lai.

Otherwise decent Americans, well brought up, might start behaving in
some uncivilized ways under the right conditions -- that's human
nature. When you put the racial component into the mix, as existed in
the Vietnam war, things can get that much uglier that much faster.

Yes, it may be a fact that My Lai was an isolated incident, I hope so.
However, that My Lai even occured demonstrates both that something was
bubbling below the surface and that there was a leadership problem.
Wasn't Calley considered sub-standard by the Army, but they were short
on 2nd lieutenants, or something?

> In fact,
> the murder of the My Lai villagers was stopped by an American
> helicopter pilot who threatened to shoot anyone who refused to stop
> the massacre. Two US Army door gunners on the chopper backed his
> threat with machine guns that were aimed at Calley and his
> nutcase's.

I'm glad to hear it. I'm guessing that Calley's nutcases were randomly
selected, meaning that they were representative, in a sense, of other
troops. Yes/no?

I would hope that anyone educated in North America or Europe would do
the same as that pilot and the gunners, but this isn't the case,
there's a tendency to jump in.

>
> My statement should not be misconstrued to condone any actions
> similar to the My Lai atrocities.

Of course, no worries.

> What I meant is that the USA is killing the
> terrorist combatants faster than they can be replaced by more
> terrorist combatants. This is true.

Sure, but what's meant by "replaced?" In Vietnam, this had the
connotation of "born" in that children fought that war. It's a very
similar problem with the PLO, Hamas and now Al-Quada. These
replacements aren't draftees, they're generally going to be
indoctrinated from birth. I've seen some sad and chilling images of a
father celebrating his sons sacrifice to kill, I think it was the
PLO-Israel conflict. The father thought it was fantastic that his son
was going to be rewarded for the ultimate sacrifice.

-Thufir

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Ken the "combat vet"
    ... >>My Lai wasstopped by NOBODY you cretin! ... >>Every last fucking one of those gooks were killed fucking DEAD! ... >>NOBODY survived so just when did some American stop it pal? ...
    (soc.culture.iraq)
  • Re: Ken the "combat vet"
    ... >My Lai wasstopped by NOBODY you cretin! ... >Every last fucking one of those gooks were killed fucking DEAD! ... >NOBODY survived so just when did some American stop it pal? ...
    (soc.culture.iraq)
  • Re: Voting stats
    ... My Lai was an exception to the behavior of American troops. ... threat with machine guns that were aimed at Calley and his nutcase's. ... terrorist combatants faster than they can be replaced by more ...
    (soc.culture.iraq)