A couple of years ago The Nation reported on the recent
death of journalist Ridenhour(sp?) who had helped to unmask
Mai Lai. He wasn't there but was nearby and the next
day began to hear "what they did in gook-ville." He
began to investigate and finally showed that it was
not an aberration (the war on civilians) but a matter
of policy, as there had been command-and-control brass
in helicopters overhead on the day of the massacre.
His life story was one of how a common enlisted man became
involved and became first-rate journalist. Powell is a
dissembler at best. -Steve Grube
Chris Kromm wrote:
>
> All who would like to be disabused of the myth of Colin Powell's greatness,
> see "Behind Colin Powell's Legend" by Robert Parry and Norman Solomon:
> http://www.consortiumnews.com/121700a.html It's a few years old but right
> on point.
>
> A choice example: In 1968, the U.S. army committed one of the most horrible
> attrocities of the Vietnam War, the Mai Lai massacre. This frenzied killing
> of unarmed civilians was eventually exposed by servicemen who were appalled
> by its brutality. As the piece relates:
>
> "The slaughter raged for four hours. A total of 347 Vietnamese, including
> babies, died in the carnage. But there also were American heroes that day in
> My Lai. Some soldiers refused to obey the direct orders to kill and some
> risked their lives to save civilians from the murderous fire.
>
> A pilot named Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. from Stone Mountain, Ga., was
> furious at the killings he saw happening on the ground. He landed his
> helicopter between one group of fleeing civilians and American soldiers in
> pursuit.
>
> Several months later, the Americal's brutality would become a moral test for
> Major Powell, too.
>
> A letter had been written by a young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen,
> who had served in an Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of his
> Army tour. In the letter to Gen. Creighton Abrams, the commander of all U.S.
> forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal division of routine brutality
> against civilians.
>
> Glen's letter was forwarded to the Americal headquarters at Chu Lai where it
> landed on Major Powell's desk.
>
> Major Powell undertook the assignment to review Glen's letter, but did so
> without questioning Glen or assigning anyone else to talk with him. Powell
> simply accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that Glen was not close
> enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about, an assertion
> Glen denies.
>
> After that cursory investigation, Powell drafted a response on Dec. 13,
> 1968. He admitted to no pattern of wrongdoing. Powell claimed that U.S.
> soldiers in Vietnam were taught to treat Vietnamese courteously and
> respectfully. The American troops also had gone through an hour-long course
> on how to treat prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions, Powell noted.
>
> "There may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs," Powell
> wrote in 1968. But "this by no means reflects the general attitude
> throughout the Division." Indeed, Powell's memo faulted Glen for not
> complaining earlier and for failing to be more specific in his letter.
>
> "In direct refutation of this [Glen's] portrayal," Powell concluded, "is the
> fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are
> excellent."
>
> Powell's findings, of course, were false, though they were exactly what his
> superiors wanted to hear.
>
> But Powell's peripheral role in the My Lai cover-up did not slow his climb
> up the Army's ladder. After the scandal broke, Powell pleaded ignorance
> about the actual My Lai massacre.
>
> Luckily for Powell, Glen's letter also disappeared into the National
> Archives -- to be unearthed only years later by British journalists Michael
> Bilton and Kevin Sims for their book, Four Hours in My Lai."