Civilians caught in a War
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As Americans used to say: " A good gook is a dead gook".Originally posted by edwin3060:Actually, the guy who was being shot was a VietCong spy, and it was (and still is) perfectly legal under the Geneva Conventions to shoot such spies in wartime, which is why the photographer apologised to the shooter.
Only problem was, every Vietnamese was a "gook".
At that point, you could just point out anyone on the street as a VC and they would be shot on the spot no questions asked. That was how bad things were. Which confirmed what many Americans were beginning to feel that the war was immoral.
"Helping" the Vietnamese people often meant killing them. -
I would not use Yugoslavia as an example as ethnic cleansing cover most region so the picture doesn't tell if those bullet in their body belong to the soldier in picture.
pal that soldier is kicking the body..if the bullet were not his then its his friend -
Actually, the guy who was being shot was a VietCong spy, and it was (and still is) perfectly legal under the Geneva Conventions to shoot such spies in wartime, which is why the photographer apologised to the shooter.
i read in SOF magz. that man is a NVA political commander who during the siege busy executing teachers, doctors, engineers and whover he suspect as southerners. He was cought in a civilian cloths when tring to fled the town after the ARVN re capture the town. The ARVN commander were just pissoff with what he saw and shot the gook in the head. -
omg, ouch.Originally posted by Dr Who:
watermelon seller......... you sure kenna real flame soon........like this guy hit by Israeli rocket in Lebanon.
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Casualty of 21st century war in Middle East..... -
That last one was really gory. Could you put a warning on your first post?
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gory pic..
horrible.
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Cruelities of war.
If you dun mind, some censorship pls! -
Yes, I also think you should just post the link. I am curious like everyone else and want to look, but not have to look at it every time I come onto this thread.Originally posted by Dr Who:Casualty of 21st century war in Middle East.....
So, please edit your post. -
news excerpt from BBC:
It is 28 years since the United States ended its air war on Laos - a bombardment in which American B52s and other aircraft dropped more bombs than fell on all of Europe during World War II. Up to 30% of those bombs failed to detonate.
"I don't think anyone would accuse me of lying if I said there are still millions of pieces of ordnance just laying out there," says Paul Stanford of the UK-based Mines Advisory Group or MAG.
"We're destroying about 2,000 items a month," Mr Stanford says. "But we've only got three or four roving teams in this province so we have to prioritise."
Nine years of bombing
How long it will take to finish with the problem? Maybe 50 years, 100 years - even more Bounpone Sayasenh, head of the Laos de-mining programme
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580,344 bombing missions ...according to the news -
Good morning Iraq...... -
civilian or suicide bomber? How to tell when he APPROACHES YOUR CHECKPOINT?
You have 3 seconds to decide......
OK .....decided.... -
Ok car approaching with single male occupant. He's not slowing down......
You act decisively, and you open fire............but sorry wrong number.....
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awefully sorry about this , old chap..... -
Erm sorry, but I think you only heard one side of the story, this is the other side:Originally posted by chino65:
WHAT?
What "nasty personal things"? Like slept with his wife etc?
The shooter had barely set eyes on the victim for more than one second before shooting him.
Here's the story:
The shooter is a ARVN high-ranking officer. He's out on the streets/battle zone directing people while being filmed. He had just come direct from home because this was the Tet Offensive and the streets of Saigon was suddenly a battle zone. This may explain why he was armed with a small personal snub-nosed revolver.
A trooper drags the suspect to the officer and said that he is a VC saboteur. Without a single word, the officer drew his revolver and shoots the suspect in the temple.
All in a matter of 2 seconds without ceremony or questioning.
The VC suspect falls sideways down as blood spurts out of the entry wound.
The victim is NOT A CONFIRMED VC as far as most people were concerned- as he was never even questioned before being shot dead.
THAT's WHY, this picture helped turn public opinion against the war.South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Cong assassination platoon, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; these sources said that Lém was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. (In some accounts, the deputy was a victim as well; in others, the number of murdered relatives were as few as six.) Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.
In any case, the photographer himself speaks on the picture:
There is some dispute as to whether the executed man was Nguyễn Vãn Lém or Le Cong Na, a similar looking man who was also a member of the Việt Cộng and died during the Tet Offensive. The families of both men claimed that the Việt Cộng officer in the photo looks very similar to their relative but neither family could say for sure since the Việt Cộng officer's face was swollen due to severe beating by South Vietnamese police prior to the execution. If the executed prisoner was Le Cong Na then he was indeed only a political operative.
Though some critics claim that Nguyễn Ngọc Loan's action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Nguyễn Vãn Lém had not been wearing a uniform nor fighting enemy soldiers in the alleged commission of war crimes), the rights of POW status were accorded to Việt Cộng members only if they were seized during military operations.
The bottom line is, it's easy to say this and that is an atrocity or not, but until you are there during the heat of the moment and are pointing a weapon and what you think is a monster who just killed your close friend's family, you can never know what you are going to do.
The photo won Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, though he was later said to have regretted the impact it had. The image became an anti-war icon. Concerning General Nguyễn and his famous photograph, Eddie Adams later wrote in Time:
“ The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths...What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'
How do you know you wouldn't have pulled the trigger yourself?
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Eddie Adams later apologized in person to General Nguyễn and his family for the damage it did to his reputation. When General Nguyễn died, Adams praised him as a hero of a just cause:
“ The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him.[2]
It is tempting to think that we might behave like civilized people, but after seeing and dealing so much death one might react differently.
The difference here was that such a moment was recorded.
Those who are anti-war don't have to look far to find a reason why war is bad, the difference is that some are willing to pay the price to protect the kind of soceity that makes pacifism possible in the first place and endure the very insults from the people they serve for it. Soldiers do terrible and crazy things in wars, but not because most are monsters but because they are in indeed, a terrible and crazy world. -
good post, SingaporeTyrannosaur.
May I add more photos of the said incident:
"Mrs Nguyen Thi Lop, 56, the widow of Nguyen Van Lem, murdered by General Nguyen Ngoc Loan during the Tet Offensive in Ho Chi Minh City." -
lego/history -
I know the story of course, But when you said the victim "did some nasty personal thing" to the shooter it just sounded funny.Originally posted by SingaporeTyrannosaur:Erm sorry, but I think you only heard one side of the story, this is the other side:
Still, I don't buy the story because this allegation was made AFTER the officer was under fire for the summary execution.
A case of "shoot first - assign the crime later".
Hero? Dunno, man... -
I think some dude killing the family of one your close friends under your charge might make you take it very personally, especially if you are a soldier in a time of war.Originally posted by chino65:I know the story of course, But when you said the victim "did some nasty personal thing" to the shooter it just sounded funny.
Still, I don't buy the story because this allegation was made AFTER the officer was under fire for the summary execution.
A case of "shoot first - assign the crime later".
Hero? Dunno, man...
If you think about it, unless we can really get a CSI team down there back then to determine who did what and when we can only rely on the words of both sides and they both tell different things.
But I might point out that it's all too easy to see a summary execution in a photo and think that the allegations are less credible because it seems like an excused cooked up to justify the act.
And of course the allegations of atrocities would not have surfaced if nobody made ANY noise, even if they were true or not so I think it's a moot point.
Obviously if somebody was accusing you are carrying out an unjustified killing you would have to defend yourself. But the very fact of you having to defend yourself does not render your reasons invalid or less credible. It is the facts of the case that have to be looked at, and in the end it seems both sides give balanced counter stories, but I can point out certain things the general does have got going for him:
I find the greatest testimony comes from the photographer himself. If he felt it was an unjustified summary execution he would have stated it instead of apologizing to the general all those years later. After all he was there right then and would have seen things beyond the pictures and videos we got.
Somehow I am not inclined to believe this was just a case of pulling a VC from somewhere and capping him just because the General felt like capping some on that day and then making up an excuse for that.
Note that he capped the VC right in front of the international media an unless he was plain stupid or something I find it unlikely he did it with the intention of capping some enemies just for the sake of it. He obviously felt he had good reasons (at that moment anyway) to be that open about it.
The truth is, if the allegations are indeed true, the fact a summary execution is wrong does not change, but one is able to take a far more sympathetic view towards the shooter. The victim in this case would have gotten what was coming to him. -
I wonder if any of the photographers who took pictures of Japanese officers beheading POWs in WW2 ever apologize to the officers?Originally posted by SingaporeTyrannosaur:....
I find the greatest testimony comes from the photographer himself. If he felt it was an unjustified summary execution he would have stated it instead of apologizing to the general all those years later. After all he was there right then and would have seen things beyond the pictures and videos we got.
OH, they didn't have to... many of these Japanese officers were hanged for having committed a war crime.
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Take a chill pill man, and consider the facts of the case.Originally posted by chino65:I wonder if any of the photographers who took pictures of Japanese officers beheading POWs in WW2 ever apologize to the officers?
OH, they didn't have to... many of these Japanese officers were hanged for having committed a war crime.
The thing is, why the different case here? If Adams believed that the general was a monster for what he did, I hardly doubt he would have expressed regret about his picture as well as called the general a "hero of a just cause". I doubt Adams would have felt apologetic about it if he indeed considered his picture as a cold-blooded killing on record.
What I'm pointing out is that the opinion on the picture is far from one sided, an ultimately it's up to whose account you want to believe. It's possible that the stories of war crimes committed by the victim were made up and tacked on, but it's equally possible that that dude who was shot had committed the atrocities that got his captors mad enough to beat him up and then kill him.
Either way one only has the accounts of the people to rely on.
But I see no need to jump on the general's butt just because of a picture that shows what we all do not want to see ourselves ever doing, at the end of the day I don't think anybody's really innocent on the ground.
Let's not talk about this, more recently a marine was shown checking on insurgent bodies and then shouting that one guy was playing dead before firing into that unarmed person and truly killing that person dead. The videos sparked some heated debate as well, a war crime?
As it turned out, the marine's platoon just had one of their buddies killed from an ambush from those very insurgents, and it was not uncommon for the insurgents to play a fly a false flag of truce to lure the yanks into an ambush, or having their injured number playing dead and then open fire or ignite a grenade when the grunts come to check on the bodies.
Ultimately it's easy to say this and that. That marine could have simply held his fire on the unarmed man or whatever, but we werenÂ’t there. We werenÂ’t involved in the intense house to house fighting of Fallujah and having to face up to dirty tactics and an elusive enemy that uses every trick in the book to kill us, and perhaps even killed some of us. And finally when we come face to face with one playing dead, in our normal state we might give pause to the trigger but right there and then in the actual situation we might not have any patience for any tricks.
How does this relate back to Vietnam? Consider that the VC ran a very successful campaign of terror and atrocity by killing the families and friends of those they perceived were in support of their enemies. They didnÂ’t abide by any laws of war and pulled out all the stops when it came to winning.
Now imagine you are faced by such an enemy that has turned your home into a battlefield, your loved ones, your friends are in direct risk, by virtue of your appointment from the enemy, and you come across one of them who was on such a mission.
This is very different from the cold-blooded killings the Japanese or Serbs carried out, where they had the situation well under their control, all main fighting had died down, and they were simply decided to spill some blood for amusement. -
I am of course, not implying that it was correct of the General to GOLI MAR! But what I am saying is that things here are probably not so black and white, and easily divisible into right and wrong. This does not show the signs of a case of going around capping captured enemies just for fun, but more of a hot-blooded killing between two sides with little patience for each other.
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You chill your pills man and consider this - I never started out saying it was black or white and demanding justice for past deeds etc. But since I'm now in that corner, well...what the heck...Originally posted by SingaporeTyrannosaur:Take a chill pill man, and consider the facts of the case.
No one is asking for the police general to be tried, but it made people at that time realize that both sides are equally brutal and US shouldn't be supporting one or the other. Why should American young men die for such people running a brutal regime?
The S Vietnam government is known to be thoroughly corrupt so how the photographer came about calling police general a hero for summarily executing a prisoner is ... well, over generous.
If he is a hero, it is because this photo of him helped the Americans to withdraw the support and end the stupid war and saved millions of lives on all sides. -
Seems like he's gonna kick the corpse...Originally posted by Dr Who:
dead civilians caught in the war in former Yugoslavia.........
What should civilians do in a war? Run far far away........like Australia?
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New York World Trade Centre burns after hit by terrorists using planes
unable to escape the fire, this guy falls to his death.......one of almost
3000 who died..... -
I didn't wanna get involved in this thread. But I guess, seeing the heated discussion and exchange of views, I decided to throw in my loose change.
Civilians caught in war, or collateral damage? Summary Execution or plain and simple murder?
They mean the same thing, just different perspective. None of them paints a pretty picture, and definitely theres no way to hide the tragedy that human life was loss.
SGT-rex's view is simply put, war is terrible. And you have to do things that you don't really know whether is right or wrong at the end. A split second decision to protect your buddy, your friends, could well be an act of murder. You might accidentally shoot an unarmed civilian, or even an unarmed- but surrendered enemy soldier. But you might also have shot a potential insurgent who was strapped with explosives and a detonator in hand. The only way to find out is to risk either lose your buddy, your section mates - or - risk being labelled as a murderer of an innoncent. Its a very, boots on the ground view, coming from the perspective of a soldier on the ground.
Chino, Dr Who, if I don't gather wrongly, have more legalistic and in a way a more "politician's view." It is a fair cry for justice, for the innoncents that have lost their lives from summary executions and human rights violations. There is no reason why an unarmed civilian or even an unarmed-surrendered- soldier, protected under conventions can be shot.
Interestingly, both views, though at the extreme ends of the spectrum, are what keeps actions commited in war, in check. In the oddest of way, they work hand in hand, constantly checking on each in order to achieve the same aim. That is, to reduce casualties to a minimum.
Adopting SG T-rex's boots on the ground view wholly, would lead to a situation of chaos and massive loss of civilian life, IF there weren't legalistic hawks to jump of them. At the same time, if any army was run by legalistic hawks who care more about following conventions and lawful actions over the safety of their own troops, then that Army is bound to take unacceptable losses, lose morale, the will to fight and its sense of purpose. And eventually, they will no longer be an army, but just a band of killers.
When the Japanese invaded Singapore, many young Chinese men were beheaded, on suspect that they were part of the resistance movement. Or in modern terms, insurgents. That is precisely the scenario that i mentioned, where there are no legalistic hawks to check on the actions of the army. Massacres and other human rights abuses ensued.
Call me a fence sitter. But I believe BOTH views are necessary as long as there are conflict and wars.