Watso .. Name one war in history that crimes have not been committed ??
And what about the VC or NVA crimes against their OWN peoples.. shooting dead anybody who is a police officer in the South and so on. ???
A bit of history to paint the picture of Vietnam.. France before the US had 160,000 troops in Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia where as the US & allies had a 500,000 strong army group in South Vietnam alone. After the battle of Dien Bien Phu, France pulled out of Vietnam leaving South & North Vietnam. South Vietnam has costal plains turning into mountains heading west towards Loas & Cambodia. When the NVA tries to push down from the mountains ino the coastal plains, they HAD to pass through villages and the people in these villages where victims from BOTH side of the conflict, they where caught in the middle. No crimes like you posted occured in large cities like Siagon or Hue. The communist from the North used the "French" then after the "Americans" to drive their cause to free Vietnam, only after did the terrible truth come to be seen by those who fought for the communists.
A great French General of the Indo-China War once gave a speech in Vietnam apealling for more local help in the speech he said ..
"There are many fighting very well for a very bad cause"
referring to the locals fighting in growing numbers for Ho Chi Minh... it was easy for the communists to get support, they just used the "Look at the French man he has all the money" then used nearly the same to get support to rid the whole of vietnam of the westerns and then the communists would make everything better in the peoples lives. Of course this was a lie, but many locals outside the cities bought it and fought for a free Vietnam, but really they where just going from something good with the French, to something terrible the the far left.
The locals where battle harded after years of fighting the French. If you were a US foot soldier in Vietnam, you never knew if the kid wanted a cigarette off you or had a handgrenade in his hand to kill you. After weeks of marching the rice paddies and hills, having 1 or 2 of your mates killed each day by a enemy that you never saw (and another disappear while sleeping and then find his cut body the next day), but that by the way the rivers and villages went, that the locals had to know about them, then being a young guy things are going to explode. Sure they tied them to tanks, behind tanks, pushed out of choppers.. this was a brutal war on BOTH sides. A war, where as a westener, you never knew who was enemy.
The number of abuses you list are not many when one considers the size of the US army group, the length of time it stayed engaged and the methods of underhanded, cowardly fighting that the enemy employeed, leading to so many men dying horrible deaths in tunnels, on jungle stake boobie traps through their feet and so on.
And you forget this WATSO > North Vietnam INVADED South Vietnam !! the North where the aggressors !!!!!!!!! got that !!!
The far left will always bring up the like My Lai, they always want the US to lose any war, because then they can say that US foreign policy is wrong.
I ask you this question WATSO .. If you where a soldier in the vietnam war, who would you rather surrender to, an American unit or a NVA unit ?? and yes you were drafted and had to go.
Easy answer isn't it, unless you want to be tortured, thrown in a bamboo cage and left for the rice rats to nore at you. No red cross, no medical, nothing documentmented like you have now Watso from the US.. and you want to knock the Amercians.. so do you spit on returning service personel Watso and the rest of you lefties ?????
What NVA crimes committed in the field have been documneted.. ?? Watso ?????
