C-SPAN WJ Caller talking about torturing

[Skidmore]

people in Vietnam. Anyone else here this man who called in response to the question about whether US troops should be exempt from litigation overseas? This man's call was riveting. Told about witnessing and being forced to participate in the torture of Vietnamese during that war. That it has affected him greatly and he still has nightmares. Said that this policy serves only to protect the president and higher ups.

[in_cog_ni_to]

1. I heard him

and Susan let him talk for a LONG time, asking him questions about it. I liked her question..."Have you spoken out about this before?" and his answer..."Yes, I have spoken out many times and was told by the Government that I never served in Vietnam. I don't know what I'm talking about. My Military Records don't exist, they have been destroyed."

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Tom Glen tried to speak out. Didn't do much good.

Specialist 4th Class Tom Glen in May 1968 wrote a letter to Gen Creighton Abrams the commander of US forces in Viet Nam indicating that he had witnessed during his tour of duty incidents of torture and war crimes against Viet Namese civilians and POWs. The officer assigned to investigate his allegations was none other than a certain Major Colin Powell. Powell preformed a whitewash investigation and did not even speak to Glen or assign anyone else to question him. Powell's report concluded that "relations between the Americal soldiers and Viet Namese people are excellent."

Although Powell sometimes has been accused of covering up the My Lai massacre, he was never directly charged with investigating My Lai. However Glen's letter arrived only a few months after My Lai and Glen later said that although he did not mention My Lai in his letter to Gen. Creighton, presumably because he did not have direct knowledge of the incident, he had heard rumours of an atrocity at My Lai circulating on the grape vine. Some feel that if Powell had done any type of serious investigation of Glen's charges instead of a whitewash coverup the news about the My Lai massacre would have broken much sooner that it finally did as it would have been hard for Maj. Powell not to uncover the facts about My Lai in the course of his investigation.

Behind Colin Powell's Legend -- My Lai

By Robert Parry & Norman Solomon

<snip>

The average GI's attitude toward and treatment of the Vietnamese people all too often is a complete denial of all our country is attempting to accomplish in the realm of human relations," Glen wrote. "Far beyond merely dismissing the Vietnamese as 'slopes' or 'gooks,' in both deed and thought, too many American soldiers seem to discount their very humanity; and with this attitude inflict upon the Vietnamese citizenry humiliations, both psychological and physical, that can have only a debilitating effect upon efforts to unify the people in loyalty to the Saigon government, particularly when such acts are carried out at unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy."

Glen's letter contended that many Vietnamese were fleeing from Americans who "for mere pleasure, fire indiscriminately into Vietnamese homes and without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." Gratuitous cruelty was also being inflicted on Viet Cong suspects, Glen reported.

"Fired with an emotionalism that belies unconscionable hatred, and armed with a vocabulary consisting of 'You VC,' soldiers commonly 'interrogate' by means of torture that has been presented as the particular habit of the enemy. Severe beatings and torture at knife point are usual means of questioning captives or of convincing a suspect that he is, indeed, a Viet Cong...

"It would indeed be terrible to find it necessary to believe that an American soldier that harbors such racial intolerance and disregard for justice and human feeling is a prototype of all American national character; yet the frequency of such soldiers lends credulity to such beliefs. ... What has been outlined here I have seen not only in my own unit, but also in others we have worked with, and I fear it is universal. If this is indeed the case, it is a problem which cannot be overlooked, but can through a more firm implementation of the codes of MACV (Military Assistance Command Vietnam) and the Geneva Conventions, perhaps be eradicated."

www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

[ElectroPrincess]

4. History may repeat itself ... well, in a way

Not through torture in Iraq because they're cover's blown. However, it was reported on News World International that the US Military is moving in *heavy weapons* into place close to the major cities (Artillery?). God I hate the aftermath of an artillery strike. Who doesn't ... yet the people most traumatized are NOT our soldiers but the family members of the victims who try (in vain) to mop up their loved one's remains for burial. :(

[Cheswick2.0]

3. I heard him

and of course the woman on C-span (who seems to be carrying water for bush) kept trying to get him to say if he favored the protections or not. He couldn't get through to her that the soldiers were not the issue.

My heart went out to him. I would like to know he is okay.

[ElectroPrincess]

5. There will be plenty more folks emotionally tortured (PTSD) ...

I've worked in the field of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Counseling and/or Alcohol Abuse and assigned to a battalion of Infantry Soldiers in Panama.

Second to the aftermath of the Vietnam, the masses of traumatized troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will be the most devastating on both the individuals and society.

Please reach out to help a returning combat veteran in any way possible? PTSD is often a chronic, life long medical illness. Our vets do not deserve to be viewed negatively because they've seen horrors that the average psyche can not integrate without emotional trauma.

[keithyboy]

6. Well, isn't this what John Kerry tried to speak out against as a young man

and was roundly criticized for doing so? Wasn't and isn't he still a called a "traitor" for telling this truth?

Do we want people who would call John Kerry and this WJ caller "traitor" running our government and controlling our lives?

[keithyboy]

7. And remember, our soldiers come home and make our lives a living hell.

It's not their fault but do you remember the crime wave that hit the streets of inner city America because returning black soldiers could not get jobs and the family abuse wave that hit rural and suburban America as traumatized and mentally and physically maimed young white soldiers returned to their families? Coming home, they turned on all of us...many died from drug overdoses, shootings, mental illness and untreated medical conditions.