A friend told me to watch Full Metal Jacket with him -- as enjoyable as the film was... Afterwards I decided to read about the Vietnam war - I came across the Mỹ Lai massacre.
What a disgrace. I've barely scratched the surface and I find it hard to see how Americans can function with yet another reason for national shame.
End rant.
If anyone has any recommendations for learning about the Vietnam war (books etc) please post below.
I just don’t really get it, why did the soldiers follow the kill order and not just say no, I get that that might have severe punishments but is killing 504 unarmed civilians better than punishment. I’m just curious as to why they went through with it and why it took a helicopter pilot to tell them to stop.
Well my question is pretty much laid out in the title. I'm familiar with controversies around Iraq back around 2000ish, but I had no idea Powell was involved in Vietnam at all.
Basically I just came from a mention on Twitter that Powell led the military's attempt to hide the massacre - not just part of, but led it???
Can somebody shed some light on this? Is it even true?
Batang Kali Massacre (1948)
The Batang Kali Massacre, described as "Britain's My Lai", was the killing of 24 unarmed Malaysian villagers by British troops on this day in 1948. The massacre happened during the Malayan Emergency and was part of counter-insurgency operations against Malay and Chinese communists in Malaya – then a colony of the British Crown.
A state of emergency was declared by colonial authorities in Malaya in June 1948 because of escalating violence and the assassinations of several prominent British landowners by insurgent forces. The massacre itself occurred that December when British Troops surrounded a rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh near Batang Kali in Selangor and gunned down 24 unarmed adult men. The only adult male survivor was a man named Chong Hong, who fainted and was presumed dead.
Despite several investigations by the British government since the 1950s, and a re-examination of the evidence by the Royal Malaysia Police between 1993 and 1997, no charges were brought against any of the alleged perpetrators. As recently as 2018, the European Court of Human Rights declared one appeal for justice as inadmissible on the grounds that it took place too long ago.
