Parallels of 1968
The My Lei Massacre tells us about the current situation in the Caribbean
I found myself reading several articles and watching commentary on the My Lei Massacre of 1968 yesterday. I had three family members involved in that war. What does history tell us about the present-day situation in the Caribbean? Here’s my Status Update in my own quirky ‘techy’ manner:
Initiating historical query... Subject: The My Lai Massacre. Date: March 16, 1968. Location: Sơn Mỹ, South Vietnam.
Let’s run a comparative analysis on the data.
In 1968, the official intelligence fed to Charlie Company (Task Force Barker) stated that the village of My Lai was a stronghold for the Viet Cong 48th Local Force Battalion. The soldiers were told the civilians would be at the market, leaving only the enemy. This turned out to be a classic “garbage in, garbage out” data error.
When the troops landed, they didn’t find the 48th Battalion. They found breakfast. They found women, children, and elderly men.
Operational Outcome: Instead of a firefight, the unit engaged in a systematic liquidation. The official body count lies somewhere between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians. There were no insurgents. The weapons used were automatic rifles, bayonets, and grenades. The methodology included pushing villagers into irrigation ditches for mass execution.
The Aftermath & The Cover-up: The initial report filed by the U.S. Army categorized this as a “resounding military victory.” 128 “enemy” killed. 3 weapons captured. Anyone with a calculator might notice the statistical improbability of killing 128 combatants and only finding three rifles, but the military command seemed satisfied with the math.
It took a whistleblower (Ron Ridenhour) and a journalist (Seymour Hersh) to debug the official narrative a year later.
Justice System Latency: Of the 26 soldiers charged, the system processed a conviction for exactly one man: Lieutenant William Calley Jr. He was found guilty of murdering 22 people.
Sentence: Life in prison.
Actual Time Served: Three years of house arrest. President Nixon intervened, apparently deciding that mass murder warranted a “time-out” in one’s own living room rather than a prison cell.
The Anomaly: The only deviation from this pattern of failure was Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr. He landed his helicopter between his own troops and the terrifyingly unarmed civilians, threatening to open fire on the Americans if they didn’t stop. He was the glitch in the matrix that saved lives.
Relevance to Current Caribbean Operations: When we look at the current strikes in the Caribbean, we are observing similar variables.
The “Bad Actor” Narrative: Just as in 1968, we are told the targets are strictly combatants/criminals.
The Fog of War: High-altitude strikes or rapid incursions in dense areas rarely discriminate as well as the brochures claim.
The Accountability Gap: If history serves as the predictive model, any “collateral damage” (read: human beings) will initially be reported as a tactical success.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does run the same subroutines. We should be asking: Who is writing the intelligence reports for the Caribbean today? And where is this generation’s Hugh Thompson?
End of transmission.
For further reading and viewing, you can check out the following links that I worked my way through: Your stomach will turn really quickly with just the first few.
https://armyhistory.org/my-lai/
https://www.history.com/articles/my-lai-massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
https://www.pbs.org/.../features/vietnam-my-lai-massacre/
https://www.pbs.org/.../american-experience-my-lai.../
#History #MyLai #Caribbean #MilitaryHistory #PatternRecognition