Posted on 03/06/2023 8:00:50 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Remember all that political hay the far left and its media allies made during the Vietnam War about the wickedness of America's South Vietnamese ally and the importance of abandoning that country to the communists?
Here's the Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photo that was supposed to prick our consciences and make us turn against that "immoral" war against a communist takeover:
There's no doubt about it, the photo is hard to look at. It's crude, rough, wartime justice, a picture of South Vietnamese Police Captain Nguyễn Ngọc Loan coldly executing Viet Cong Captain Nguyễn Văn Lém. The film is even harder to look at.
It ran on the front page of the New York Times, cropped from the original to fill the space and make its impact even more immediate.
And it got the results the anti-war left wanted: Public sentiment abruptly turned against the war as a result of this photo. The Vietnamese people abandoned by the Americans whose cut-and-run evacuation from the Saigon embassy rooftop was only recently bested by Joe Biden's Afghanistan pullout. After that, the reeducation camps rolled in, the boat people launched into the high seas, and the killing fields of Cambodia began.
Jane Fonda must have been so proud of herself.
Just one problem, though: The context was missing and that context mattered.
The guy who got shot, who went by the nom de guerre of Bay Lop, was a death squad psychopath in the Viet Cong who just got done massacring 34 innocent people.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
SOURCE:
https://groovyhistory.com/viet-cong-execution-saigon-photo/6
From January to September 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched a coordinated series of attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam, proof that American forces had failed to quash the guerilla combatants. Death squads made their way through the cities, killing anyone who wasn’t joining their revolution. Captured in a building in the Cho Lon quarter of Saigon, Nguyễn Văn Lém was a member of the Viet Cong whose downfall began in the Tet Offensive.
Allegedly Lém was arrested for cutting the throats of South Vietnamese Lt Col Nguyen Tuan, his wife, their six children and the officer’s 80-year-old mother. On top of that, he was leading a Viet Cong team whose whole deal was taking out members of the National Police and their families. A the time of his death, Lém should have been considered a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention, but because he was dressed in civilian clothing and he wasn’t carrying a firearm, he was technically seen as an “illegal combatant.”
During the Tet Offensive, Lém was on a bloodthirsty tear through Saigon. He may look boyish, but he had the heart of a killer. The photo shows Lém handcuffed and in civilian clothing, but he was operating a death squad that had killed 34 that same day.
He allegedly took out seven police officers, multiple members of their families, and even a few Americans. Each victim was bound by their wrists and shot in the back of the head, execution style. Because he wasn’t wearing the outfit of a solider this put him in a bad scenario.
As a person committing war crimes he was in a bad way, especially with General Loan coming after him. Not only had he carried out a gruesome act, but he was eligible for immediate execution.
Looks like the pistol has been photoshopped.
Were there hammerless .38s back then?
RE: Looks like the pistol has been photoshopped.
When was photoshop available?
Before yesterday.
Well...looks like hammerless goes way back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerless
Pic still doesn’t look right to me though.
That model was introduced in 1955.
It looks like a S&W .380 with a hammer guard.................
This lie was perpetrated by the same bass turds who are sending Americans into communism right now. The people in this country are so self-centered and gullible that they believe anything. That’s why the “rich, Ethiopian prince” who needs your bank account number is still working the internet.
Not uncommon to have a pistol with the hammer schrouded.
When writing a story about fake news don't reprint more. At the embassy they cut down a bunch of trees and were able to land helicopters on the ground. The famous photo of the rooftop evacuation was of a building used by the CIA.
Yes. That’s a S&W J-frame Centennial. Introduced in the early 50’s.
Looks okay to me. . .video too.
The justification for executing this guy has been known for years. He was bad. The police were doing the right thing under those conditions. Nothing new here.
Yup, the hammer was internal to the design.
It functioned as a double-action only pistol.
What about the evacuation of Afghans when Biden abandoned Kabul? That one seems to be less of a big deal than the one in Vietnam.
This story comes around every so often.
Eddie Adams, the photographer, said he wished he’d never taken it. He knew the context and didn’t realize it would get airplay without it.
Loan caught up with the vicious VC prick and didn’t have time or interest in going thru any pleasantries during Tet. SOB deserved to get dead.
Talk about leaving out the most important fact of the story. They are even worse today.
Goebbels was supposed to be this horrible man.....he was just another propagandist like those before and after him.
Fortunately, today, we have a better chance at seeing the lies early in the process.
Trump/Russia Collusion comes to mind.....
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