Colin Powell

[Max Sawicky]

There's at least one parallel.  I have an old friend
who was an MP in Vietnam.  He still has friends in
the military.  They told him they took umbrage at
orders to shoot Iraqi soldiers who were basically
just running away.  Then there is the famous
'highway of death.'  Before the war started
there were press accounts of a terrifying,
inhumane weapon the Iraqis might use. I forget
the name but it entailed spraying a fine, flammable
mist over a wide area, then igniting it, creating
a huge fireball. Of course, it was the U.S. that
used this weapon.

Now suppose one of these incidents was isolated
and a scapegoat made of the lower-level officers
involved.  That seems a partial parallel, at least,
to My Lai.  My point is that the politics of fixating
on an episode in this way, even when it involves
higher-level officers, seems off point.  And I
wonder how service people would react.

mbs

I am a vet, but not Vietnam. Gulf war...almost. I demanded a discharge
rather than participate in something I so strongly felt was amoral. Of
course it wasn't an honorable discharge and they busted me down to E-3
before they granted it but I got out. I HAD friends who went and our
friendships fell apart because of our differing opinions. I'm pretty
conflicted about how I feel about others who participated. I can never know
how much, if any, moral agonizing another person goes through when deciding
whether to participate in something like that. These 2 conflicts are so
different and the people who fought them are from different times so I am
not sure my experiences with the Gulf war issues give me any insight into
the issues facing people who participated or refused to in the Vietnam war.
John Thornton

From: "Max Sawicky"
>
> Assuming it is all true, I still have to wonder about
> the politics of this line of criticism.  I wonder if
> there are any veterans, especially Viet vets, on this list.
> Regarding Powell and My Lai, I have to wonder if this
> indictment satisfies the needs of some, present company
> excluded, for some kind of veiled political attack on veterans
> who served in Viet Nam, or veterans in general.