US OFFICIALS ADMIT DROPPING NAPALM FIREBOMBS ON IRAQIS...

US OFFICIALS ADMIT TO DROPPING NAPALM FIREBOMBS ON IRAQIS...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0805-01.htm

Published on Tuesday, August 5, 2003 by the San Diego Union-Tribune
Officials Confirm Dropping Firebombs on Iraqi Troops
Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm

by James W. Crawley

American jets killed Iraqi troops with firebombs – similar to the controversial napalm used in the Vietnam War – in March and April as Marines battled toward Baghdad.

Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders who have returned from the war zone have confirmed dropping dozens of incendiary bombs near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris River. The explosions created massive fireballs.

"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. James Alles in a recent interview. He commanded Marine Air Group 11, based at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, during the war. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.



more....................

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sadly USA's tarnished history returns again.

This is what the US military did to Vietnamese children
with napalm --





here's another couple photos of same act of terrorism by US military.
Face it -- ANY Use of napalm IS terrorism --

They did drop leaflets first warning them that this would happen.

Yes, war IS hell. Which is why you don't have one if you can avoid it. The United States created Hell in Iraq, and we did not have to.

Secondly, leaflets. You are kidding right? Please say you are. It's perfectly fine to use a weapon like this against civilians as long as you warn em first? Is that really what you believe? Bah nm, I could go on for pages but you can't teach a horse to sing no matter how many voice lessons you give it.

against the better judgement of many.
Prior to the war the army dropped leaflets explaining exactly how the Iraq military could avoid being killed. Most (it turns out) read the advice, took it, and lived.
All this occurred after the "shock and awe" campaign and the soldiers that were killed must have understood they were up against a force they couldn't defeat, still they decided to take their chances in the protection of Islam and Saddam.

Since then we have discovered that, prior to our takeover, hundreds ot thousands of people had been killed under the Saddam's rule.
Yes many of Iraq's military were killed during our invasion, and, while I don't agree with the war, I do agree that using whatever means available to us to spare our soldiers lives was the intelliegent thing to do.

I wonder how many armies in the history of war have given detailed options prior to bombing of how not to die in the battle, in order to save as many civilian lives as possible?
Certainly not Hitler, certainly not Saddam.
War is hell, but if you're going to go to war the invading army has to do whatever is necessary to protect its troops.

You are making NO sense whatsoever!

What utter bullshit. You want to protect our troops? BRING THEM HOME.
I can't BELIEVE some people think using napalm is okay in war! What about mustard gas Dem2dend? How bout nukes? ANYTHING to protect our troops? Christ.

We shouldn't have gone to war. Amerika is no better than Nazi Germany now. Bush should be tried for treason.

He started the hell that was the Second World War and we started this one!!! This is really fucking sick!!!

warning "them" that they were about to be firebombed?
Citation, please?

They were warned that they would be killed.
While they didn't use napalm (which was banned) they used something else similar.
Since we were engaged in a war (whether or not the majority wanted one) what would have been the most humane way to eliminate the enemy in order to save the troops (who were in harms way)
We have to put aside the argument that we shouldn't have been there because we already were there.
With that said, would it have been better to go in with guns and fight it out while taking casualties wiping them out one at a time or wipe the enemy out at once with another version of a banned weapon?
Our objective was to kill the enemy.
How many of Iraq's troops surrendered as a result of those types of bombs?

wouldn't a nuke have been easier? hey, it's a banned weapon too, but since it would save our troops? how about biological or chemical weapons dropped from a plane? Since we were "already there" and needed to "save the troops (who were in harms way)", wouldn't it have been better to save all of our troops and be even more humane than burning an Iraqi to death by instantly nuking him? This is the logical progression of your argument, what do you think of these suppositions?

as long as we dropped a few leaflets first.

yeah, as long as we just drop leaflets on people first, we can do whatever the hell we want. Hell, why doesn't Bush just completely eliminate welfare and social security? I mean, as long as he drops some leaflets on America, it would be fine! puh-leeze... it sickens me to see intelligent people citing GOP talking points...

According to worldata.org, Iraq has a 55.9% literacy rate. Seems that the effects of dropping leaflets there just might be diminished.

but then, some may ask: If they didn't want napalm dropped on them, shouldn't they have learned how to read :eyes:?

They love us there.

against using it (napalm)!! Fuck him! I wonder how he'd feel if it were dropped on him, or his family!! Prick!!

It's ugly, it's horrific, and it's heartbreaking.

at all costs.

We were not attacked. We were not threatened.

We invaded Iraq to steal their oil.

What this country did amounts to a war crime.

and I don't know about the "not threatened" bit, but I agree with everything else.

I was trying to find out if the weapon called "napalm" was actually a trade name (like "Levis" blue jeans or "Frisbee" flying discs) which pertained to one specific (though dominant) brand. That way, the U.S. could use a napalm-like weapon, but not marketed under that brand name, and credibly claim that they hadn't used "napalm," as that would refer to a specific brand-name item. Weaselly, to be sure, but nothing I wouldn't expect from this lying bunch of corrupt bastards.

What I found instead was a tad more interesting:

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749944836.html

'Dead bodies are everywhere'
March 22 2003

Herald Correspondent Lindsay Murdoch, travelling with a Marines artillery unit, reports on one of the war's first battles on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

* * *

Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. But a navy spokesman in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, denied that napalm - which was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 - was used.

"We don't even have that in our arsenal," he said.

The navy admitted to using napalm as late as 1993 in training exercises on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, but the last cannister of a vast US naval stockpile was reportedly destroyed in a public ceremony in April 2001.

* * *

The Pentagon subsequently issued a statement to the Herald:

Your story ('Dead bodies everywhere', by Lindsay Murdoch, March 22, 2003) claiming US forces are using napalm in Iraq, is patently false. The US took napalm out of service in the early 1970s. We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm. - Jeff A. Davis, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

____________________________

Very curious, indeed. Was it napalm, or wasn't it napalm? Wouldn't you like to see a hearing convened so that Mr. Davis could explain his statement to the Sydney Morning Herald?

Try living in a third world country. Then you can come back and be grateful to be living here.

I really get angry when I see people "Blame America First". We are a better country than the powers we've fought.

I would love to see you all try to live in a third world country, where you would see how people who don't live here have it. Then maybe you would be greateful to be an American.

Did you ever wonder why people come here every year, both illegally and legally? It's because they want a good life, which in most countries, is hard to get.

We can do any damned thing we want, and because we're America, it's okay? Is that what you're saying Carlos? The use of napalm is banned by the UN. I'd sure be grateful to be living in a country that lived up to its treaty obligations. Or is a 23 year old document too old to bother with any more?

If that's your position, I find it sickening.

People who are ungrateful for what this country has given them. That's what I find sickening.

I never said America was perfect, but there is a core group of those on the far left who do nothing but blame this country. No one country is guilty of anything, just America.

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a perfect example. An educated and informed government should raise itself to a standard of conduct above its' rivals. Otherwise the whole world would just look like a case of an eye for eye a tooth for a tooth.

There is too much anti-Israeli sentiment here. People act like the Palestinians are angels.

and the Olso accords. Israel however has done some stupid things like invade Lebanon in 1982.

Holding some countries to higher standards need not apply only to international justice. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world which makes it even more unacceptable that we have so many poor, hungry and those who have no health insurance.

Proportional justice seems natural to me and is surely not mearly an invention the "leftist fringe".

government to the ideals of America and the ideals and values upon which the nation was based. For this, they are truly far more American -- rather than less American -- than anyone.

You've jumped the rails, I think. Who in this thread has absolved every other country of wrongdoing, and who in this thread has said that only America is guilty of anything? I'd suggest you go take a walk around the block and clear your head.

But if the U.S. has used an illegal weapon, against its own public pronouncements, and against its own treaty obligations, I gather you're saying that the country shouldn't be held accountable? Is that a privilege you're willing to extend to every other country, or not? And if not, why should Saddam be blamed for using banned chemical weapons, but the United States be applauded?

I find that mentality absolutely sickening and disgusting.

. . .that America GAVE ME? I beg your pardon Carlos, but i have worked for everything i have.

I owe the country nothing but my duty as a citizen to stay informed and make sure that felons don't use our military like a personal hit squad. I owe the government nothing but my taxes and be sure that our soldiers don't act like stormtroopers while i stand by and accept it.

You want to start a list of what this country GAVE me, i'll read it. But, there's no way for you to know me well enough to do that.

Carlos, a prediction for you: You'll get a very good job around 30. By 40 you'll be voting Republican.
The Professor

I can say that much.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

ANY COUNTRY THAT USES NAPALM IS GUILTY OF TERRORISM. PERIOD.

It's NOT 'my country right or wrong', BUT

I want MY country to act responsible, and fairly in the
belief that "we are still THE GOOD GUYS".

Using napalm makes us 'the bad guys' to the world
and hence re-enforces the world's view
of the US govt that the only thing
US govt believes is -- 'might makes right'.

Thats NOT the country I believe in.
The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is better than that.

"I never said America was perfect."

I'm glad, because if you had you'd be silly person.

"No country is guilty of anything, just America."

Now this was an unnecessary and silly statement.
There is one thing America has done that no other country has, or should every do, and that is unilaterally attack/invade another country, and kill thousands of innocent people.

People who are ungrateful for what this country has given them. That's what I find sickening.

I never said Germany was perfect, but there is a core group of those on the far left who do nothing but blame this country. No one country is guilty of anything, just Germany.

criminals in OUR White House have perpetrated on the world.

There was NO JUSTIFICATION fot this invasion. NONE.

I am at least literate and experienced enough to know when WE do something that agains humanity.

Stop making excuses Carlos. Grow up a little.

right of the far-left who refuses to accept any responsibility for anything. Nope, just keep pointing the finger elsewhere and continue on with your destructive lives.

Some of us expect more from ourselves and from our country. We are hardly the enemy; rather the only voice working to save this sick country.

I gather you are saying a great standard of living justifies starting immoral and illegal wars and comitting war crimes if it enables that standard of living to be maintained.

What I am saying is that a small minority on the far left isn't appreciative of what they have in this country.

by the GOP in the 80's during the Iran-Contra thing to take heat off of the people who deserved it and make it seem as if the Dems/liberals "hated America" because they wanted justice served. This is a line right out of Rush's playbook, and I can't believe that you're buying it. Just because people want to make America better and hold our country to a "higher" set of morals because we are the "greatest nation on earth" doesn't mean we hate America, rather, we want to ensure its greatness. What a load of crap! Do people who want shrub held accountable for sending our soldiers to die for no reason that can be elucidated "hate america"? Do people who want to see justice served to the people who have been wronged by the american government "hate america"? This is where I think you are wrong my friend, people who want justice do not hate America, America is founded on the concept of justice, and if you hate justice, then you hate America. Sorry for the rant, this is just one of the most common talking points of the right, and it sickens me to see it brought out to justify killing people for no reason "just because we warned them", the ends don't justify the means if the means were corrupt to begin with.

I never said anyone "hated America" here. You are putting words in my mouth.

"I never said America was perfect, but there is a core group of those on the far left who do nothing but blame this country."
It is not a far jump from "blame america" to "hate america"; in fact, I think that the second is implied in the first. So you didn't say liberals "hate america". Do you want to answer any of the other objections other than semantic ones I just raised to you?

But there are people who do nothing but "Blame America First".

are you making the correlation between "people who blame america first" and people who believe that "the US using Napalm-type weapons on Iraqi soldiers, even though we graciously dropped leaflets on them first, is wrong"? If you are, then read the end of that long post I had previously, because that is nothing but a right-wing copout to defend any wrongdoings by our government.


on edit: added "is wrong" to supposition in first sentence.

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or do you just have these sound bytes pre-programmed into macros to pop out?

It's like a parady of limbaugh.

Thank you.

Your definitions of "far left", et. all, need to be studied a bit more, or were you asleep last year when they discussed that subject at school?

You know, America has the strongest military in the world, but I read recently that the number one country, when it comes to education, longevity, and other things, is Norway, followed by Sweden, with Canada in third place. Australia is fifth. I forget who is fourth - it wasn't the US.

Maybe if the US spends less on the military, more people can have health insurance.

:nuke:

because we have a higher standard of living and a constitution and free speech and people like to come here to live means that it's ok to drop napalm and carpet bomb and kill in excess of 5000 innocent civillians in countries in a bogus war for oil?

And it is based on a non-sequiter, false logic, and a very common tactic among the right wing.

The fact that people admire American ideals does not mean that they admire what its military (or its current Administration) is doing, or that they cannot (or should not) criticize and call for an end to such actions and the inevitable damage to American values and reputation that such actions bring.

Anyone who fails to make this distinction can, as well, go live in a third world country. It would make just as much sense for them to do so rather than someone who seeks to hold the American government to the nation's ideals.

We are a better country than the powers we've fought.

I would love to see you all try to live in a third world country, where you would see how people who don't live here have it. Then maybe you would be greateful to be an American.

And this is why it's cool to use banned weapons to firebomb civilians?

Perhaps you're just clumsy in trying to make the point that we "invaded Iraq to liberate the oppressed Iraqis." If that's the case, you're dreaming.

.rog.

But I am alarmed at reports of the new Napalm. It IS possible to have opinions in this country...and that's why many of the people you cite want to come here in the first place.

I'm very pro-military and proud of the military and realize that we must have a strong military. Our military is beyond the wildest dreams of anyone on the planet.

Who the hell is "Blaming America First," and why do you use such a cliche phrase?

It's silly and reactionary.

And you'll understand why I posted in this thread.

ALWAYS!! The BFEE/PNAC/CarlyleGroup Mob are a fascist, militaristic, ruthless gang of murderers, who in no way represent the will of the American people, nor the ideals and values that have traditionally symbolized the greatness of this nation: they are at this point merely a rogue entity - a junta comprised of self-serving corporate, fossil fuel pushing/military industrial complex hoodlums, who have temporarily managed to wrest away control of the world's most powerful military!!

I LOVE America, but I DESPISE Bush and his God awful Administration!!!

but now consider the powers that put the Bush Administraton in place, and blame them. You're looking at a symptom, not the root cause.

It's holding individual accountable for their actions. Nepalm is an outlawed weapon and the United States is not supposed to be using it anymore. The people responsible for using this should, at the very least, be drummed out of the government or military.

Do you remember at the high of the conflict when American official were whining because the Iraqis where using "terrorist" tactics like not wearing a stand issue uniform?

:eyes:

Try living in a third world country and getting napalmed...then tell us how grateful you are.

Why should those of us who believe America deserves better than to be left under the control of murderous morons be forced to leave? It would seem to me that people who like dictators, unequal justice, and wide disparities between rich and poor would be far more comfortable living in third world countries. People who approve of brutality at the hands of the military directed toward civilians and government approved murder are the ones who should go live somewhere else. They contribute nothing of value to this country.

Hurray for the real patriots who still know what it menas to be an American.

...the use of this type of weapon.

Over and over again.

So the excuse will be that's it isn't actually called Napalm so we're all just the most honorable people on the planet.

That's undeniable bullshit.

Nah, 1st or 2nd world will do, thanks. I'll take Europe or Canada any day and am actually making plans to move soon.

Have you even spent real time outside of these borders? I'm not talking about charity work in a 3rd world country.

Do you know any immigrants on a deep level? For the most part they move here because they buy into the American propaganda just like you do. After they get here, the majority of them regret it for the rest of their lives. Of course they don't tell you that out of kindness or fear..but if you give them the opportunity and they trust you, you might actually be surprised.

Of course you'll respond that you are well travelled and know many immigrants well...but your post leads me to believe that you are inexperienced and/or simply closed to ideas contradicting your pre-conceived notions.

plays as big as it should. They have obviously
created a new version of napalm but do not
call it napalm.

:puke:

Advocate & back on the story...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0805-01.htm

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/6463500.htm

Tue, Aug. 05, 2003

Report: Marines dropped devices similar to Napalm on Iraqi troops
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO - Marine Corps fighter pilots and commanders say they dropped firebombs similar to napalm on Iraqi troops earlier this year, according to a report published Tuesday.

skip.....

"We napalmed both those (bridge) approaches," said Col. James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11, told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the (cockpit) video.

skip..........

"The generals love napalm," said Alles. "It has a big psychological effect."

The firebombs were used again in April against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, the Marines said. There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war.

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen denied that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Napalm, a thick, burning combination of polystyrene, gasoline and benzene, was used against people and villages in Vietnam. Its use drew widespread criticism.

more............

but it's napalm."

***********

During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.

What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons. Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

"YOU CAN CALL IT SOMETHING OTHER THAN NAPALM, BUT IT'S NAPALM," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.com, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va.

Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. THE UNITED STATES HAS NOT AGREED TO A BAN AGAINST POSSIBLE CIVILIAN TARGETS.

and depleted uranium munitions.

All of which are very indiscriminate ways of killing people. Truly we are the greatest most caring and Christian nation on earth.

"and blessed by God every day!"

A polystyrene gel which makes it stick better, nothing but inhumane articles coming from the War Profiteering Death Lovers

"Yes folks, we have taken our tried & tested 'Napalm Original' formula
and ... improved it! Hard to believe isn't it, but our tireless
researchers really *have* worked wonders this time!

While you can use the standard product on simple clothed targets,
this extra-glutinous mixture will give better results on most
surfaces.

No more flowing globules that slide off those pesky bare skins!
No more mere first-degree burns!
New Formula Napalm-Super (tm) has added viscosity ingredients to make
sure that every drop counts!

(Surveys show that 9 out of 10 generals prefer it)"


Let's face it, we've had the "new, improved" bullets, guns, missiles,
tanks, planes, bombs, anthrax and everything else ... what's wrong
with a new, improved napalm? Jeez, anyone would think you were human
or something ...

Nihil

He missed the obvious and went straight for the "Why do you hate America", crap.

Jesus.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm

Napalm was banned by an United Nations convention in 1980.


------------------------------------------

http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/000878.shtml

March 21, 2003
US Dropping Napalm
How can we seriously talk about Saddam Hussein using "weapons of mass destruction" when we are now dropping napalm on Iraqis?:


The destruction of Safwan Hill was a priority for the attacking forces because it had sophisticated surveillance equipment...the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald.

We are attacking a country where we have no proof that they retain chemical weapons, while using napalm and other area weapons denounced as violations of human rights by international bodies.

Here-
http://www.londonmun.org.uk/tcuranium.htm
In 1996, the UN Commission on Human Rights Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities produced a resolution (96/16) urging states to ‘curb the production and the spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, NAPALM, cluster bombs, biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium’.



The US has blocked formal treaties on banning napalm, an "unreasonable veto" if there ever was one, but for us to fight a war in the name of stopping "bad weapons" with horrific weapons like napalm just adds to our lack of credibility around the world.



Update: The military is denying it has napalm available in this update to the napalm story, despite US military officers telling the original reporter that napalm was used.

Posted by Nathan at March 21, 2003 06:29 PM

kick

Use of Napalm is a terrorist act.

If you are going to fight a war, you should fight it with overwealming decisive force. In the end this method saves lives.

Lets not kid ourselves, our forces are not there to win a popularity contest.

The real question is why were we at war in the first place.

yup, nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning.

OH hell, why not use some 'tactical' nukes ?

Lets BURN their villages to the ground.
We have to destroy them in order to "save" them. RIGHT ?

FREEDOM !
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM !

yup, just like the freedom Kim Phuc recieved from
the USA's FREEDOM FIGHTERS in Vietnam

This was not a US attack. As stated by the photographer himself, Nick Ut, and clearly shown on film, the Viet Nam Air Force (VNAF) dropped the bombs that hurt Kim. This was witnessed and reported by UPI television correspondent Christopher Wain, and also reported at the time, by correspondent Peter Arnett.

lets get it staight.

A US war. The American War, as its known in Vietnam.
US allowed, and used napalm in Vietnam.

IF it was the USA's puppet govt in Vietnam using napalm,
we supplied then with napalm.

DOW and other corporations trading in death munitions


--------------------------------------

http://moderntimes.vcdh.virginia.edu/PVCC/mbase/docs/napalm.html

On this final point, best-selling novelist Robert Crichton, writing in the New York Review of Books, says that “the justification for this behavior . . .lies in the words 'saving American lives.' Any action can be condoned, any excess tolerated, any injustice justified, if it can be made to fit this formula. The excessive valuation on American life, over any other life, accounts for the weapons and tactics we feel entitled to use. . . ."

The quote above the pictures is as follows.


This is what the US military did to Vietnamese children
with napalm --


This is incorrect and does an injustice to the US military since the vast majority are honourable. Peace out.

The facts are not supportive of your denials.

“The only lesson that the U.S. government seems to have learned from Vietnam is the need for absolute control of the press.”

— David McGowan
author of Derailing Democracy

------




This famous photograph has embarrassed a lot of American patriots. Not because they care the slightest bit about what Americans did to the Vietnamese people, but because it revealed our war crimes to the world. Back in 1972 the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government didn’t have the almost total control of the press that it enjoys today.

Behind the children in the above photo, in that mass of gray smoke in the background, lie the burning, napalmed bodies of their parents, their brothers and sisters and friends. Americans inflicted horrific suffering on innocent children and civilian people all over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for 13 years. Trang Bang was just one of countless napalm attacks, very few of which were ever publicized in Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. There were thousands of My Lai massacres all over Vietnam, and the U.S. Army routinely photographed its own war crimes.

And yet, incredibly, there are still many Neanderthal apologists for the Vietnam War who seem to think we can evade accepting responsibility for all this evil. One of their tactics is to blame the South Vietnamese air force and army for attacks like the one at Trang Bang. Never mind that American pilots routinely butchered and burned alive Vietnamese women and children in countless villages all over Vietnam. Never mind that the United States dropped over three times as many tons of explosives on the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people as it dropped in all theaters of World War II combined, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Sweep all that under the rug. If one of the rarely-publicized atrocities like Trang Bang can be blamed on our South Vietnamese puppets, then many grossly immoral American patriots can feel a whole lot better about all of it.

Well, suppose this particular mass-murder was carried out by one of our South Vietnamese servants. The fact remains that South Vietnamese pilots were trained by Americans, the jets they flew were built by Americans, the napalm they dropped was made by Americans, and the South Vietnamese military obeyed the orders of their American masters.

more.................

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/TrangBang.html

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/TrangBang.html

“The only lesson that the U.S. government seems to have learned from Vietnam is the need for absolute control of the press.”

— David McGowan
author of Derailing Democracy

This famous photograph has embarrassed a lot of American patriots. Not because they care the slightest bit about what Americans did to the Vietnamese people, but because it revealed our war crimes to the world. Back in 1972 the U.S. Corporate Mafia Government didn’t have the almost total control of the press that it enjoys today.

Behind the children in the above photo, in that mass of gray smoke in the background, lie the burning, napalmed bodies of their parents, their brothers and sisters and friends. Americans inflicted horrific suffering on innocent children and civilian people all over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos for 13 years. Trang Bang was just one of countless napalm attacks, very few of which were ever publicized in Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. There were thousands of My Lai massacres all over Vietnam, and the U.S. Army routinely photographed its own war crimes.

And yet, incredibly, there are still many Neanderthal apologists for the Vietnam War who seem to think we can evade accepting responsibility for all this evil. One of their tactics is to blame the South Vietnamese air force and army for attacks like the one at Trang Bang. Never mind that American pilots routinely butchered and burned alive Vietnamese women and children in countless villages all over Vietnam. Never mind that the United States dropped over three times as many tons of explosives on the Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people as it dropped in all theaters of World War II combined, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Sweep all that under the rug. If one of the rarely-publicized atrocities like Trang Bang can be blamed on our South Vietnamese puppets, then many grossly immoral American patriots can feel a whole lot better about all of it.

Well, suppose this particular mass-murder was carried out by one of our South Vietnamese servants. The fact remains that South Vietnamese pilots were trained by Americans, the jets they flew were built by Americans, the napalm they dropped was made by Americans, and the South Vietnamese military obeyed the orders of their American masters.

more.................

excerpt -

Honest people will have no trouble admitting that the napalm attacks on the civilian men, women and children of all villages like Trang Bang were fundamentally American attacks. Whether or not any particular atrocity was carried out directly by American pilots or soldiers, they were always ordered by American military commanders. Every bloody, nightmarish atrocity was just one of countless others, each a part of the whole, evil, racist American terror campaign against those courageous Vietnamese people who dared to fight for their freedom and independence from America.

But pro-government American patriots are pathologically dishonest people. They’ll go to their moldy graves convinced that we had some sort of God-given right to commit our racist war crimes against Vietnamese women and children.

more.............

http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/TrangBang.html


“Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished — only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina...”

— William Shirer
author
1973