Thirty-eight years ago, US troops massacred hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai, most of them women and children. Initially there was a cover-up, but it got out a year later thanks to a 33-year-old Jewish-American investigative journalist by the name of Seymour Hersh, who, 38 years later, also played an instrumental role in exposing the ill-treatment of Iraqi-Muslim detainees at Abu Ghraib with his articles in The New Yorker magazine.
The result of My Lai was international outrage and support for the war in Vietnam plummeted in the US. It could be said that My Lai was the psychological turning point in the war; from the moment it became public, the US had lost the moral justification for being in Vietnam. Will Haditha or the even more shocking allegations from the BBC of a massacre in the town of Ishaqi do the same for Iraq? Will they trigger international outrage and drain American support for US involvement in Iraq? Will they be a psychological turning point, where the US loses any remaining justification for remaining in Iraq?
The atrocities, if proved true, will most certainly trigger outrage. But the atrocities at Abu Ghraib triggered international outrage and yet nothing significant happened. As for it draining American public support for involvement in Iraq, polls have shown for nearly two-and-a-half years a majority of Americans opposed; even before the reports of the Haditha scandal got out last month polls showed a massive two-thirds of Americans opposed; again, to no effect whatsoever. It may be in years to come, we will say that Haditha signaled the end of the war in Iraq — although the US remained another seven years in Vietnam after My Lai.
In Vietnam, America’s enemy was the Communists under a brilliant military tactician, Ho Chi Min. This was a coherent single-minded political force that, when North Vietnam won and took control after the US retreat and provided a stable, working regime. No such alternative exists in Iraq. The situation is bloody at the moment; but remove the Americans and other foreign forces at this point and the country will collapse into further bloodshed.
In war terrible things happen and no army can claim to have the moral high ground. To pretend that American troops are somehow intrinsically more brutal than those of any other nation would be hypocrisy. The point, however, is that America tries to maintain an image of lofty ideals that are undermined by events like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Haditha and possibly Ishaqi.
Thirty-eight years after My Lai, the US military has not apparently learned that atrocities committed by soldiers are not only inherently vile, but also political disasters. The latest news, that American troops are to be given ethics lessons, comes years too late — although better late than never. The other point that needs to be remembered constantly is that the Americans went to Iraq proclaiming that they were going to bring Iraqis freedom, justice, peace and reliable electricity. As the daily death toll shows, it is the Iraqis who pay the price of these failures.
