[simonh]

I’m sorry, but this is blatant whataboutism. The crimes of the Vietnamese Communists are inexcusable, but so was My Lai. The linked article was simply an American media article about something the American military did. We should be able to discuss it purely in those terms.

What another army did somewhere else to other people simply isn’t pertinent in that context, even if in the same war, unless it directly relates to the circumstances at My Lai and the reasons for it happening. You aren’t saying VC atrocities excuse My Lai, or that they caused My a Lai, so how are they relevant? What context do they add to the decisions made by those American soldiers or the army cover up or subsequent investigation? I just don’t see how it would have helped the article other than to muddy and obscure the issues of discipline and accountability in the US military the massacre raises and which the article discusses.

The responsibility of the VC for their actions just isn’t a necessary part of that dialogue and is an important and necessary subject, but for another time and place. At time and place in which massacres carried out elsewhere by Americans also simply wouldn’t be relevant, nor excuse anything done by the VC. And no I’m not making any false equivalency. That’s the point.