Thread: All American friends are possible targets

Originally Posted by floorpotato

Trans-generational revenge seems a lot more prevalent in the Middle East and the Muslim subcontinent than in Southeast Asia. There are clans in Afghanistan that will kill some poor farmer because his ancestors raped one of their women 100 years earlier. I never heard of this long memory for revenge in Southeast Asia, even in Cambodia after Pol Pot. I wonder if the Buddhist influence, a feeling that Karma will punish the morally retarded for many lifetimes, has something to do with it?

Good point - it never ceases to amaze how those who claim to believe in an almighty God (be they Muslim or Christians) always seem so intent on doing His work (as perceived or interpreted by themselves) for Him. After all, if there really is a judgement day, surely whatever punishment we mortals could meter out to the sinners today would just pale in comparison to what God/Allah will provide (plenty of examples in the holy books for those who are interested), so why even bother?

To me it just proves that despite what they say, they are actually not too secure in their faith. If they are wrong, they are missing out on an awful lot of fun right now - which I suspect is why they get so pissed off with us "sinners".

Originally Posted by ceburat

Americans have never killed innocent people on purpose.

what a completely ridiculous statement to make....how is life up there in cloud cuckoo land?




The My Lai Massacre (pronunciation (help·info), approximately mee-leye) (Vietnamese: thảm sát Mỹ Lai) was the massacre of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, by U.S. soldiers on March 16, 1968, in the hamlet of My Lai, during the Vietnam War.
The incident prompted widespread outrage around the world and reduced American support at home for the war in Vietnam. The massacre is also known as the Son My Massacre (Vietnamese: thảm sát Sơn Mỹ) or sometimes as the Song My Massacre.[1]

My Lai Massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



and....

Civilian Killings Went Unpunished
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.
By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson, Special to The Times
August 6, 2006


Photo Gallery
Vietnam: War Crimes
Related Stories
- Verified Civilian Slayings
- About this report
The men of B Company were in a dangerous state of mind. They had lost five men in a firefight the day before. The morning of Feb. 8, 1968, brought unwelcome orders to resume their sweep of the countryside, a green patchwork of rice paddies along Vietnam's central coast.

They met no resistance as they entered a nondescript settlement in Quang Nam province. So Jamie Henry, a 20-year-old medic, set his rifle down in a hut, unfastened his bandoliers and lighted a cigarette.

Just then, the voice of a lieutenant crackled across the radio. He reported that he had rounded up 19 civilians, and wanted to know what to do with them. Henry later recalled the company commander's response:

Kill anything that moves.

Henry stepped outside the hut and saw a small crowd of women and children. Then the shooting began.

Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known.

The documents detail 320 alleged incidents that were substantiated by Army investigators — not including the most notorious U.S. atrocity, the 1968 My Lai massacre.

Though not a complete accounting of Vietnam war crimes, the archive is the largest such collection to surface to date. About 9,000 pages, it includes investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military brass.

The records describe recurrent attacks on ordinary Vietnamese — families in their homes, farmers in rice paddies, teenagers out fishing. Hundreds of soldiers, in interviews with investigators and letters to commanders, described a violent minority who murdered, raped and tortured with impunity.

Abuses were not confined to a few rogue units, a Times review of the files found. They were uncovered in every Army division that operated in Vietnam.

Retired Brig. Gen. John H. Johns, a Vietnam veteran who served on the task force, says he once supported keeping the records secret but now believes they deserve wide attention in light of alleged attacks on civilians and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

"We can't change current practices unless we acknowledge the past," says Johns, 78.

Among the substantiated cases in the archive:

• Seven massacres from 1967 through 1971 in which at least 137 civilians died.

• Seventy-eight other attacks on noncombatants in which at least 57 were killed, 56 wounded and 15 sexually assaulted.

• One hundred forty-one instances in which U.S. soldiers tortured civilian detainees or prisoners of war with fists, sticks, bats, water or electric shock.

Investigators determined that evidence against 203 soldiers accused of harming Vietnamese civilians or prisoners was strong enough to warrant formal charges. These "founded" cases were referred to the soldiers' superiors for action.

Civilian Killings Went Unpunished - Los Angeles Times

Originally Posted by Ceburat

Macha, there is no American Aggression.

Read the post above me, it might give you some info.

You lie when you say you have nothing against America and when you say you do not dislike Americans.

That's why I have tens of American friends? Perhaps I want to behead them and post their video here on TD eh?

Do you really think there is a difference between the U.S. Government and the people.

Yes, there is a big difference. American gov't pokes its nose in others business without consulting general public so there has to be a difference? Why majority of Americans are against Bush's policy if they are the same?

How in the hell do you think the government came to be?

Americans voted for them that's how the gov't came to be! But the gov't always take swings and go against the will of its supporters (general public) and fuck things up. That's why the public is against Bush and his administration. NO?

Americans are the policemen of the world, like it or not.

Really? Who authorised them to do policing? Do you actually know why the American troops are in Afghanistan/Iraq?

Americans have never killed innocent people on purpose.

Laugh of the week! This is one of the examples:

Guilty plea in Iraq rape, murder case

A U.S. Army soldier pleaded guilty this morning and agreed to testify against three colleagues charged in the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and killing of her family, the Associated Press reports.
Spc. James P. Barker agreed to the plea in exchange for a lighter sentence, his attorney said. Prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty against two others in the case.
For background on the case, see this earlier story.

Posted by Mark Memmott at 11:51 AM/ET, November 15, 2006 in Mideast, Nation | Permalink

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Comments: (55) Showing: Newest first Oldest first

All this nutter and his fellow brave soldiers did is to rape a 14 years old girl, kill her 6 years old sibling and parents and attempt to burn the bodies .....

She wasn't an innocent girl anyway. Not a big deal. A small crime ...... shit happens in life ..... collateral damage ..... and the towel heads are all terrorists anyway.

In answer to your question. There is no interferring so NOTHING.

LOL! Now I have to ask for a poll, to find out, which one is "laugh of the week".

Originally Posted by Ceburat

Do you really think there is a difference between the U.S. Government and the people. How in the hell do you think the government came to be?

So that puts all the beheading of American civilians and above all the 9/11 incident in perspective eh?

Think before babbling shit.

i argue for a comprimise. suppose we all just kill canadians.


mi lai involved the premeditated rape and murder of noncombatents. it will forever stand as a testament to american stupidity, selfishness and inhumanity.

ceburate, you are a fool. read the history. it will challenge your silly patriotism. at least be intellectually honest and do the reading.

lastly. if my family were all killed by a missle from xistan, would i exact revenge on any/all xanites? no i wouldnt. why? because they had NOTHING to do with the deaths of my family. this isnt a football game. nationalism (and other isms) IS THE PROBLEM. fuck any man or god that says different.

Some sources Booner? Well, from The Guardian :-

"Our bloody coup in Indonesia


Britain colluded in one of the worst massacres of the century

Isabel Hilton
Wednesday August 1, 2001
The Guardian


As Megawati Sukarnoputri struggles to hang on to control of Indonesia in the latest round of political upheaval, news has been published of how the British government covered up one of the worst massacres of the 20th century. The slaughter in 1965 - of up to a million alleged communist sympathisers - was carried out by General Suharto, who ousted Megawati's father, President Sukarno, to become Indonesia's military dictator. What is still less well known is that the British and American governments did not just cover up the massacre: they had a direct hand in bringing it about.


In the era of decolonisation and the cold war, ex-colonial powers were intent on preserving their economic interests in former colonies while setting up nominally independent governments. But the natives, inconveniently, did not always see their interests as consonant with those of their former colonial masters. Patrice Lumumba in the former Belgian Congo, Su-karno in Indonesia - both argued for economic as well as political self-determination.


Lumumba was assassinated with the connivance of Belgium, the US and the United Nations. In Indonesia, the British and American governments succeeded not only in engineering the result they wanted (the replacement of Sukarno with General Suharto), but in selling a false version of events that persists to this day.

Roland Challis, a former BBC south Asia correspondent, has described how British diplomats planted misleading stories in British newspapers at the time. But there is also evidence that the British and US responsibility for the fall of Sukarno goes back to the event that triggered it - an alleged left-wing coup attempt in 1965. The British were keen to get rid of Sukarno because he was pursuing a policy of confrontation with Malaysia. The US was convinced that Sukarno would drift towards communism - a far bigger potential headache for US interests than Vietnam.
Sukarno was hugely popular and an assassination would have unpredictable consequences: at worst, it might benefit the Indonesian Communist party, the PKI. The army was divided on the merits of a move against him. There was one man, though, who was willing to help - the commander of the strategic reserve, General Suharto. The challenge was to engineer Sukarno's downfall and, simultaneously, the elimination of the PKI.

In October 1965, a group of what are still described as "progressive army officers" kidnapped and brutally murdered six army generals, apparently in preparation for a coup. The motives of the group remain a matter of dis pute. At the time, they were alleged to be in sympathy with the PKI. They have subsequently been described as pro-Sukarno nationalists in revolt against their rightwing superiors. But a study carried out at Cornell University in 1966 discovered that what most of the officers had in common was not any association with the PKI, but a connection with General Suharto.

Lt Col Untung, the alleged leader, was a successful military officer who was a known anti-communist. Some of his colleagues had been trained in the US where it is unlikely that any communist sympathies would have escaped notice. Suharto subsequently dismantled the unit and the group's alleged links with the PKI became the pretext for the massacre of up to 1m people. After a series of closed show trials and staged confessions, the leaders were said to have been executed, but there is no independent evidence that the executions took place.

It has been known for more than 10 years that the CIA supplied lists of names for Suharto's assassination squads. What is less widely known is that the supposed pro-communist coup that triggered the crisis was almost certainly also the work of the CIA. Sukarno was finally removed from power in 1967. Suharto, meanwhile, was offered economic aid and the British lifted their embargo on sales of military aircraft. Suharto's massacres were whitewashed in a campaign of disinformation in which the British government willingly participated. The operation to "save" Indonesia, according to enthusiastic reports in, amongst others, the Atlantic Monthly, was a resounding success. "Suharto," Atlantic Monthly assured its readers, "is regarded by Indonesians who know him well as incorruptible ... In attacking the communists, he was not acting as a western puppet; he was doing simply what he believed to be best for Indonesia."
Best for Indonesia, in Suharto's view, was the granting of lucrative concessions to western mining and oil companies. It was the beginning of a post-independence economic order that continues today. After 32 years, Suharto was finally overthrown. By then, even the US government had to admit that he was one of the most corrupt dictators of the 20th century."
Our bloody coup in Indonesia | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited


Or Try - ITV - John Pilger - Spoils Of A Massacre

Quotes- ""In terms of the numbers killed," reported the Central Intelligence Agency, "the massacres rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century." The historian Gabriel Kolko wrote that "the 'final solution' to the communist problem in Indonesia ranks as a crime of the same type as the Nazis perpetrated". [About 2/3rd down]

And- "In 1990, the American investigative journalist Kathy Kadane revealed the extent of secret US collaboration in the massacres of 1965/66 that toppled Sukarno and brought to power Suharto, who at the time was little known outside western intelligence circles. In a series of interviews with former US officials, she concluded, "They systematically compiled comprehensive lists of communist operatives. As many as 5,000 names were furnished to the Indonesian army, and the Americans later checked off the names of those who had been killed or captured."

And- "Having already armed and equipped much of the army, Washington secretly supplied Suharto's troops with a field communications network. Flown in at night by US Air Force planes from the Philippines, this was state-of-the-art equipment, whose high frequencies were known to the CIA and the National Security Agency. Not only did this technology allow Suharto's generals to coordinate the killings, it also meant that the highest echelons of the US administration were listening in."


Suharto stands as one of the worst mass murderers of the 20th Century, probably only behind Stalin and Hitler. He certainly makes Saddam and Milosevic look like juniors.

But, what was the aim of the bombing in Cambodia, and who was it aimed at?

Was this a deliberate targeting of civilians, or were these calculated casualties, "collateral damage"?

There is a difference.

Then there was Laos, different still.

None of it equates to deliberately killing civilian nationals for reasons of revenge and retribution.

I am just picking up the pieces, not making a moral judgment right now.