Various veterans and historians have provided critical reviews of the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick series "The Vietnam War," and there is a score of points they take issue with, but I will address perhaps the simplest one: Glossing over the conscious and rigorously practiced policy of atrocities by the communist forces, while spotlighting those few committed by United States forces.
The terrorism practiced by the VC was constant and widespread; by the end of 1968, nearly 42,000 citizens of the south had been assassinated or kidnapped, never to be seen again. Teachers, policemen, village chiefs, monks, soldiers, and others were killed – sometimes whole families, sometimes in deeply gruesome ways.
The organized massacres in Hue during Tet are now known to add up to more than 5,000 people, including German doctors, French priests, and others – some shot, others clubbed, and many buried alive.
In the village of Dak Son in December 1967, more than 250 unarmed villagers were burned to death by NVA flamethrowers. We saw pictures of those murdered in My Lai, but none were shown of the burned bodies from Dak Son, or the remains dug up in Hue — wrists wired together, or gags stuffed down their throats.
More @ Washington Examiner
No comments:
Post a Comment