Posted on 08/07/2006 7:19:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Atrocities against civilians and prisoners by Army soldiers during the Vietnam War were more common than originally disclosed to the public, according to a Los Angeles Times review of recently unsealed government files.
Some 9,000 pages of archives - the largest collection of documented war crimes in Vietnam - include sworn witness testimony, investigative files and status reports for top military brass that detail 320 wartime atrocities substantiated by the Army.
Still, few soldiers were held accountable for the war crimes, according to the newspaper.
The abuse was not restricted to one rogue Army division, but was committed by every Army division operating in Vietnam, the Times review found.
Among the incidents documented in the files:
-Seven civilian massacres from 1967 to 1971 that left at least 137 dead.
-Seventy-eight additional attacks on unarmed civilians that left at least 57 dead, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.
-141 incidents in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees and prisoners of war.
In one incident detailed in the report, members of the B Company rounded up and gunned down a group of villagers that included women and children after being ordered by a lieutenant to "kill anything that moves."
The files, collected by a Pentagon task force in the 1970s, do not include the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre. The incident, which left some 500 Vietnamese villagers dead, was exposed by reporter Seymour Hersh the following year.
Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, who was part of the task force that gathered the files, said he no longer thought the atrocities should remain in the dark.
"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," said Johns, 78.
The files show investigators found enough evidence to charge 203 soldiers with crimes related to the mistreatment of Vietnamese civilians and prisoners. But only 57 soldiers were court-martialed and 23 convicted, the Times reported.
Fourteen soldiers received prison sentences ranging from six months to 20 years, but most served much less time.
A former legal adviser to the Army's Criminal Investigation Division said there was scarce interest in prosecuting Vietnam war crimes after the war.
"Everyone wanted Vietnam to go away," said Steven Chucala, now a civilian attorney for the Army in Virginia.
Yet another attack on America from within.
What was the crime rate in the US during that period?
Sorry to sound cavalier, I can't get worked up about 320 atrocities over that many years. These are horrible things, yes, but considering the scope of the war and the MILLION PLUS who were slaughtered AFTER these horrible US soldiers left, I can't get too worked up.
War is hell ... and lest we forget it, folks like the MSM do their darnedest to remind us of this at every opportunity.
Too bad one of the atrocities was to burn the LA times to the ground. Oh wait, they are self imploding on their own. Treasonous leftists, all.
Didn't CNN come out with this sh!t a few years back and had to apologize to America for the madeup stories by a couple of their reporters?
Obviously Bush's fault.
Would be interesting to compare those statistics with the violent crime rate per 500,000 men of similar age group back in the states during those same years.
Its from ASSociated Press. What do you expect?
I wonder how many Ketchup Boy got in on like "Jenghis Khan."
As a VietVet I'm really getting tired of being called a warmongering babykiller. Would like to reply in kind except,
These lefty abortionists have no babies ar all.
Didn't CNN come out with this sh!t a few years back and had to apologize to America for the madeup stories by a couple of their reporters?
--
Time flies, huh?
We live in a renewable/recyclable age , I reckun
It's the same they are doing to the troops today. The filthy hippies in charge of the MSM's newspapers are reliving their utterly worthless youth.
Next time someone has to do a John Kerry, use the washroom and light a match !
So when will they do a study of Viet Cong atrocities?
* crickets chirping *
That is a pretty poor showing for "massacres".
How does that compare to BJC & Reno's record in Waco?
How about if we toss in Ruby Ridge?
Can we also count various acts of rape & Arkancide before & during Billarie's presidency?
How about the Balkans Tantrum?
Oh, yeah, the Afghanistan Ejaculation should be in there, too.
Our troops seem to have made a pretty poor "atrocity" showing, compared to what their future CIC achieved almost singlehandedly.
I await their reporting of Sherman's rape of Atlanta.
In April of 1945, we were doing 100,000 women and children at a pop.
War is bad. You shouldn't do it unless you must.
But when you must, you should kill relentlessly until the enemy collapses AND SURRENDERS.
Does anybody even remember what "surrender" means?
Surrender means that your commanding general can walk unmolested through the streets of the enemy capital while the natives avert their gaze lest they give offense.
We are a long, long way from victory.
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