Message posted by gary on October 29, 2000 at 19:25:25 EST:
Two things: 1) See my post to Connie regarding Yucca Mountain. I list the newspaper reference showing it in the GOP platform. 2) The New Republic did a good exposee on Powell and the My Lai Massacre, but it is not online. However, there are other sources that discuss the story as it is common knowledge, which is the reason Powell nevers runs for office. Here is one source: Powell's blind loyalty was demonstrated during a second tour in Vietnam (1968-1969), where as deputy assistant chief of staff for operations G-3 at Americal Division headquarters in Chu Lai, he was asked to handle a potentially embarrassing letter a young soldier had written to Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam. http://www.usvetdsp.com/story13.htm Regarding Powell as a war criminal, again this is true. The Geneva Convention makes it a war crime to shoot surrendering troops, which is what Powell let happen at the end of the war. The BBC covered this extensively, which is why you should always monitor the BBC versus the US press to get the real story. In fact, all the things the US press would say they couldn't divulge during the Iraqi war were put out right on the BBC. Sorry dude, I read a lot of news. You be better off arguing politics with someone else.
The soldier had written about rumors of a massacre that Americal Division soldiers had committed in the hamlet of My Lai 4 in South Vietnam. Although he did not mention My Lai in the letter, the soldier complained that Americal soldiers were indiscriminately killing Vietnamese civilians. Such acts, the young soldier warned, "are carried on at entire unit levels and thereby acquire the aspect of sanctioned policy."
Several days after he received a copy of the letter, Powell sent a memo to his superior, the adjutant general, making the outrageous claim that the young soldier had not given enough specifics upon which to base an inquiry. The purposely blind Powell said the soldier's charges were false except for "isolated instances." He wrote that "relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese are excellent." Powell's damage control efforts soon proved fruitless and the My Lai massacre burst onto the world stage like an atomic explosion, severely damaging the U.S. war effort in Vietnam.
In Reply to: One thread won't hurt anything posted by Steve Amerson on October 29, 2000 at 16:14:29 EST:
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