'Kill Anything That Moves': The Ubiquity of U.S. War Crimes in the Vietnam War

‘maybe… 1200 to 1500 [civilians] a month, easy. If I am only 10% right, and believe me it’s lots more, then I am trying to tell you about 120-150 murders, or a My Lay [sic] every month'-Anonymous Sergeant to General Westmoreland, 1970, referring to 'Operation Speedy Express'. Nothing was done.This is not an episode of Polymath.CONTENT WARNING: This video contains very graphic descriptions of physical and sexual violence, as well as descriptions of gross brutality and injustice.This video is meant to address the misconception that U.S. war crimes in Vietnam (such as the My Lai massacre) were isolated incidents, condemned by both fellow servicemen and officers. In reality, grievous war crimes were described by veterans as ‘standard operating procedure’. Their accounts (and subsequent research) depict acts such as unprovoked murder of civilians, mutilation, destruction, rape, and torture as both widespread and normalised. At all levels of the command hierarchy, war crimes were tolerated, facilitated, and actively encouraged. There was a top-down impetus of hatred, dehumanisation, and pressure which was absorbed by soldiers in the field, and a bottom-up ubiquity of atrocities which went unpunished (nor even discouraged) by the armed forces and its officers.The My Lai Massacre was a U.S. mass-murder/-rape of unarmed Vietnamese civilians on 16/03/68. The American soldiers found women, children, and the elderly getting ready for a market day and cooking breakfast over fires. The killing continued even after people realised no guerrillas were present. Houses were also burnt down and people tortured. U.S. soldiers raped girls as young as 10. There were zero US casualties from the Vietnamese and none were attacked.Ernest Medina, the Captain of the 'attacking' Charlie Company, was quoted as saying, "They're all VC [enemy combatants], now go and get them". He clarified that this applied to "Anybody that was running from us, hiding from us, or appeared to be the enemy. If a man was running, shoot him, sometimes even if a woman with a rifle was running, shoot her." Nobody in the village was even a male of fighting age.At Lt William Calley's trial (Calley led ~100 men and personally commanded some to fire on unarmed women and children), a defence witness testified that he remembered Medina instructing his men to destroy everything in the village that was "walking, crawling or growling". Varnado Simpson said ‘we did what we were told.’The first killer at My Lai was a man from 1st Platoon who stabbed someone, before blowing someone up with a grenade. Then, he saw 15-20 women, children, and elderly on their knees praying and crying around a temple. They were all killed by shots to the head.Private First Class (PFC) Dennis Konti said, "A lot of women had thrown themselves on top of the children to protect them, and the children were alive at first. Then, the children who were old enough to walk got up and Calley began to shoot the children". When Hugh Thompson tried to stop Calley, he was told ‘This is my business’. Thompson replied, ‘But, these are human beings, unarmed civilians, sir.’ Calley replied: ‘Look Thompson, this is my show. I’m in charge here. It ain’t your concern.’Calley was under house arrest for 3.5 years and 79% of polled Americans believed the conviction should be overturned. People thought it was unfair to convict him for following orders and that he was a scapegoat for the unit as a whole (no other soldier, including Captain Medina, was charged). Politicians (including Jimmy Carter) and musicians (many of whom country music/Southern musicians) rallied to his defence. A song praising an defending him reached #37 on the Billboard Top 100. Eyewitness accounts stated as he walked around Army facilities where he was held, servicemen bought him beers. Hugh Thompson, who stopped the massacred, was ostracised by other army officers and threatened.