![]() ![]() We train our boys to be killing machines, then prosecute them when they kill!Ĭonservative Bill Kristol sensibly replied: Mathew is a highly decorated Green Beret who is being tried for killing a Taliban bombmaker. The case of Major Mathew Golsteyn is now under review at the White House. General Paul Selva more recently declared before a Senate committee: “We take our values to war.” That’s a far cry from what president Donald Trump tweeted before pardoning Army commando Mathew Golsteyn, who had been charged with premeditated murder in Afghanistan. He tried to defend his actions in a book: John Sack, Lieutenant Calley : His Own Story (Viking Press, 1971). Calley was condemned to life in prison, but was paroled three years later. Many of the others hid behind the collective by claiming that they were following orders. William Calley, commander of Charlie Company’s 1st Platoon, was found guilty. In 1998 Thompson, Colburn, and Andreotta (posthumously) were awarded the Soldier’s Medal for acts of extraordinary bravery not involving contact with the enemy.Ī few soldiers and officers at My Lai were eventually charged with war crimes, but only Lieut. Thompson’s door gunner, Lawrence Colburn, and his crew chief, Glenn Andreotta, manned their weapons as Thompson hailed other helicopters to join him in ferrying the civilians to safety. ![]() soldiers converging on more than a dozen women and children, Thompson landed his helicopter between the two groups. After refueling, Thompson returned to My Lai only to see that the wounded civilians subsequently had been killed. Observing wounded civilians, he marked their locations with smoke grenades and radioed for troops on the ground to proceed to those positions to administer medical aid. The Encyclopedia Britannica writes:Īs the massacre was taking place, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson was flying a scout helicopter at low altitude above My Lai. ![]() The very few heroes in this story include Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson and his two men. No Viet Cong combatants were in the area. During the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam, as many as 500 unarmed civilians including women and children were killed. The recognition of war crimes also reminds us of an important legal-individualist principle: even a soldier cannot hide behind the collective to commit crimes. The charge, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, follows a 2020 government inquiry that found credible information that Australian special forces were responsible for the unlawful killing of 39 prisoners, farmers and other civilians. The government of Australia just charged one of its soldiers with war crimes when he was deployed in Afghanistan, and more charges may be coming (“ Australia Charges Soldier Deployed to Afghanistan With War Crime,” Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2023): I take “civilization” in this context to mean a general recognition of a minimum respect for each human individual and of rules to that effect. It is clearly a sign of civilization that some of those have come to be be considered war crimes by international conventions and domestic laws since the 19th century. But just as international thugs must be dissuaded from waging aggressive wars, soldiers on all sides must be dissuaded from committing gratuitous atrocities. The world is not only inhabited by noble savages. Which does not mean that there are no good moral and economic arguments for defensive wars. It is a cliché, but true, to say that war is an ugly affair. ![]()
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