No Gun Ri, Mai Lai, Haditha

| by TFLS | 2:25 AM |

Well - It seems massacring civilians is as American as apple pie. And to think I believed Haditha and Mai Lai to be anomalies! I actually thought doing something this heinous was so antithetical to even being American, the chances of it happening a multiplicity of times were slim and none. After all - Mai Lai and Haditha happened under the ‘leadership’ of two criminal presidents – Nixon and Bush. I thought that played into it. But No Gun Ri occurred on Truman’s watch. The buck stopped with him, as he so famously put it. That means those deaths were on his shoulders. And now Haditha. Once again American servicemen murdered civilians; slaughtered babies in their beds. Excuse me while I throw up.

Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson understands Mai Lai better than most. He had a front seat. If not for his intervention – hundreds more would have been executed. He put his life on the line to save women and children from being slaughtered by Calley and his band of murderers. He was the one who brought this horror to light - testifying to the truth. And he paid dearly for it – threats to his life, threats to his family, the torture and slaughter of his pets. This from ‘supporters’ of the military machine. They thought he should have shut up – helped cover it up; stood by and let it happen - like the Haditha apologists today. I suggest you take time to read his story. Perhaps it might affect your opinions toward the marines in Haditha. At least – I hope it will. This is how Thompson summed up that day:

It was probably one of the saddest days of my life. I just could not believe that people could totally lose control and I've heard people say this happened all the time. I don't believe it. I'm not naive to understand that innocent civilians did get killed in Vietnam. I truly pray to God that My Lai was not an everyday occurrence. I don't know if anybody could keep their sanity if something like that happens all the time. I can see where four or five people get killed, something like that. But that was nothing like that, it was no accident whatsoever. Pure premeditated murder. And we're trained better than that and it's just not something you'd like to do.