Showing posts with label vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnam. Show all posts
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best.
Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence.
Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line.
In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point.
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Tuesday, July 27, 2010
WHEN THE AMERICANS GOT INVOLVED
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the two naval skirmishes between North Vietnam’s torpedo boats and the United States Navy destroyers. It took place in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and August 4, 1964. On August 2, 1964, while conducting intelligence-collecting operations in hostile waters off the coast of North Vietnam, the US destroyer USS Maddox was attacked by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron.As the North Vietnamese boats approached, shooting 50mm shells as they bore down on the USS Maddox, the Amercian crew fired three warning shots, but the torpedo boats continued to advance. The Maddox then opened fire on the approaching boats with torpedoes being fired by both the North Vietnamese and the US ships. As the North Vietnamese boats were heavily damaged, they returned to shore. Only one shell had hit the US destroyer.On August 4, 1964, two US destroyers were again attacked in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin. Radar images on the C Turner Joy indicated that they were being approached by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Both the Maddox and the C Turner Joy fired repeatedly into the stormy night. Later that day the commander of the ships said that he was not certain of this second torpedos attack, but the next day he told Secretary of Defence Robert S McNamara that he was definitely sure that they had been attacked.When he was notified of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, President Lyndon B Johnson decided that he needed the support of Congress in order to act. On August 4, he had lunch with the National Security Council to discuss the situation in Vietnam. He was given approval for a proposed air strike, which was carried out the next day. The President announced the action on television as strategic North Vietnamese targets were destroyed including a petroleum storage unit in the town of Vinh.The outcome of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by communist aggression. Congress passed the resolution with the understanding that it would be consulted if the war escalated and particularly if ground troops were to be used in South Vietnam.
VIETNAM WAR: THE MEDIA SHAPES PUBLIC OPINION
The majority of Vietnam veterans think that overly negative television coverage helped turn the American public against the war and against the American troops deployed in Vietnam. The media is called the fourth estate for its capacity to form opinions, that is to say the power to shape patterns of thinking, feeling and reacting before certain circumstances, events and famous people.
Negative Impact of Media On The Vietnam War Outcome
Even trained military personnel sometimes have difficulties in withstanding the horrors of war. During the Vietnam War it was the first time that the horrors of an armed conflict entered the living rooms of Americans. For almost a decade in between school, work, and dinners, the American public could watch villages being destroyed, Vietnamese children burning to death, and American body bags being sent home. At the beginning the media coverage generally supported U.S involvement in the war, but television news dramatically changed its frame of the war after the Tet Offensive. Images of the U.S led massacre at My Lai dominated the television, yet the daily atrocities committed by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong rarely made the evening news. Thus, the anti-war movement at home gained increasing media attention while the U.S soldier was forgotten in Vietnam.
Coverage of the war and its resulting impact on public opinion has been debated for decades by many intelligent media scholars and journalists, yet they are not the most qualified individuals to do so: the veterans are. Journalists based in Saigon daily reported facts about battles, casualties, and the morale of the troops, yet only a soldier could grasp the true reality of war. The media distortions, due to television’s misrepresentations during the Vietnam War, led to the American defeat, not on the battlefield but on the political and social arena.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
WHAT WAS THE MY LAI MASSACRE?
The My Lai Massacre was the mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347–504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children (including babies) and elderly people.
Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. The massacre took place in the hamlets of Mỹ Lai and My Khe of Sơn Mỹ village during the Vietnam War. While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. He served only three years of an original life sentence, while on house arrest.
When the incident became public knowledge in 1969, it prompted widespread outrage around the world. The massacre also increased domestic opposition to the US involvement in the Vietnam War. Three U.S. servicemen who made an effort to halt the massacre and protect the wounded were denounced by U.S. Congressmen, received hate mail and death threats and found mutilated animals on their doorsteps. Only 30 years after the event were their efforts honored.
The massacre is also known as the Sơn Mỹ Massacre or sometimes as the Song My Massacre. The U.S. military codeword for the hamlet was Pinkville.
“Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. ... Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village.”
BBC News
“The first time the Americans came the children followed them and they gave the children sweets to eat then they smiled and left. The second time we poured them water to drink , the third time they killed everyone, killed everybody and destroyed everything, nothing was left.”
Anonymous Vietnamese woman witness on BBC News
VIDEO: MY LAI PICTURES
By 1968 the Vietnam War was well underway, and it was not going very well. People were beginning to question the war, and soldiers’ morale was dropping decidedly. Despite their unease, they were still soldiers taught to follow orders without question. Their purpose in Vietnam was to find the enemy and eliminate them. The higher the body count, the more successful a mission looked. For this reason, soldiers were encouraged to exaggerate their body counts. Also, non-combatant citizens were hard to distinguish from the guerilla warriors, and often were killed alongside them. This increased the anti-American sentiment in the area, and helped contribute to higher tensions between the natives and the American troops.
In December of 1967, Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, American Division arrived in Vietnam. After the Tet Offensive, the U.S. Army was sure the enemy had retreated to a village called “Son My,” which we know now as My Lai. They were instructed to go to the village and kill any insurgents or enemy sympathizers. It was difficult to tell between non-combatant civilians and insurgents, let alone civilians who sympathized with the enemy. Soldiers were told that anyone in the village after 7am could be assumed to be either Viet Cong members or active VC sympathizers - all of which were to be considered the enemy. The rationale was that other civilians would have gone to the public market by that time. Soldiers were instructed to destroy the village. It is debated whether they were instructed to kill women and children as well.
On March 16, 1968, soldiers went into My Lai and found no insurgents. They continued to follow orders, however, and proceeded to kill everyone they came across. Women, children and the elderly made up a lot of the dead. Some were tortured or raped. One platoon, led by Lt. Calley, killed hundreds of people, with Calley himself opening fire on a bunch of the villagers he forced to gather in a ditch. Depending on which source you read, anywhere from between 347 and 504 people.
A U.S. Army helicopter crew flew in a stopped the massacre. Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., only 24 at the time, landed between the soldiers and the remaining villagers and told the American soldiers that he would open fire on them if they continued with the attacks. He then proceeded in overseeing an evacuation of the village. It was not until thirty years later that Thompson was recognized for his bravery when he received the Soldier’s Medal honoring bravery outside of contact with the enemy.
The incident was kept hushed from Americans until over a year later when some Vietnam veterans wrote letters to representatives that sparked investigative journalists to look into what happened at My Lai, such as the letter written by Ron Ridenhour in the participant accounts section. There were pictures, such as the photo of the soldier setting fire to the village or the photo of the people lying dead in the road, that provided undeniable proof of what went on there. Photos, like the photo of the scared group of Vietnamese women, showed what appeared to be innocent people, who ultimately were considered "the enemy" and thus were killed.
There are stories, such as the peronal account in the participant account section by Ha Thi Qui, that back up these pictures. The American public was shocked and horrified. Political cartoons, like this one in the editorial cartoons section of this site, mocked the American public's apparent loss of conscience during the My Lai incident.
Publications like the National Lampoon also satirized the My Lai incident and the court martial hearings following inquiries over what really happened there.
VIDEO: MY LAI: PART 1
Though it happened more than 30 years ago, the My Lai massacre is still satirized today, which is seen in the Faux News screen shot in the editorial cartoons section.
PART 2
In 1970, Lt. Calley was court marshaled and in 1971 convicted of premeditated murder for which he was sentenced a life term in jail. President Nixon, however, ordered him released from prison days later. Lt. Calley ended up only serving three and a half years house arrest for the crimes he was found to commit. Everyone else that was originally court marshaled got off untouched.
Text Source
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5
PART 6
PART 7/7
America was on a ego-trip when it sent its soldiers into Vietnam. "Our democracy is best for everybody in the world. These poor Vietnamese have to be saved from these commies" was the thinking. The Vietcong have come to have a negative image of sly little Vietnamese fighters who attacked and disappeared and killed good American soldiers.
Viewed in another sense....
The Vietcong were freedom-fighters who believed in a better Vietnam. May be yes. Who knows what is best for humankind? American style capitalist democracy? Or Chinese capitalist communism? Who were the bad guys in Vietnam? The Americans? Or the Vietcong and the NVA?
Tough to say...
WHO WERE THE VIETCONG?
The Viet Cong, or National Liberation Front (NLF), was a leftist, political and military insurgent movement which was created in 1960 in South Vietnam and Cambodia to fight against South Vietnamese and American forces during the Vietnam War (1959-1975). The Viet Cong had both guerrilla and regular army units, as well as a network of cadres who organized and armed peasants in the territory it controlled. Many soldiers were recruited in South Vietnam, but others were attached to the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), which was the regular North Vietnamese army. The Viet Cong was a tool used by the communist government of North Vietnam to overthrow the South Vietman government and unite the country as one communist nation. Many of the Vietcong’s core members were "regroupees," southern Viet Minh guerrillas who had resettled in the North after the Geneva Accord (1954). Hanoi gave the regroupees military training and sent them back to the South along the Ho Chi Minh trail in the early 1960s. Northerners and southerners communist guerrillas were always under the same command structure.
The name "Viet Cong" derives from "Viet gian cong san", which means "Communist Traitor to Vietnam." It was a derogatory term that Ngo Dinh Diem gave to his communist opponents. The word appeared in Saigon newspapers for the first time in 1956. However, the earliest citation for "Vietcong" in English is from 1957. American soldiers referred to the Vietcong as Victor Charlie or VC. "Victor" and "Charlie" are both letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet. "Charlie" referred to communist forces in general, both Vietcong and North Vietnamese.
VIDEO
VIDEO: VIETCONG: PART 1
Vietnam, May 1968. With fear and apprehension showing on their faces, and at the urging of South Vietnamese troops, women and children scurry past the bodies of three Viet Cong killed in the fighting. (The stall in the backgound is an ice cream stand.)
VIETCONG: PART 2
VIDEO
This picture showing Viet Cong prisoners being loaded into a South Vietnamese Jeep was taken in 1962
It was perhaps the most controversial cover for LIFE magazine, which usually steered clear of controversy. Paul Schutzers captured this image of a VietCong prisoner gagged and bound, being taken prisoner by American forces during the Vietnam War. Photography and news coverage like this helped to turn the American public against the Vietnam war.
Schutzer, one of LIFE’s best photographers, worked frequently in the Middle East during his short career and there he would perish too: he was killed on assignment on June 5, 1967, the first day of the Six-Day War between Israel and its neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
It is almost dehumanizing to personally witness the execution, no matter what the victim had done. It mattered a little that the person about to be executed was a Viet Cong Guerrilla named Bay Hop responsible for killing twelve only that fateful morning. It matter a little that his group of guerillas had slaughtered the family of his executioner’s best friend in a house just up the road. America–a nation that still supports death penalty by overwhelming numbers (for various reasons)–was shocked to its core. In the picture, its framing, its lighting and its depth mattered little. For instance, picture was cropped again and again just to display the general and his victim. However, the act, ‘the thing itself’ spoke directly–the general is the personification of America’s hidden hand and her dirty involvement in the Vietnam Quagmire. The fact that the executioner was American-educated and trained Brig. General Nguyen Ngoc Loan (then South Vietnam’s National Chief of Police) did not help either.
In Adams’s photograph, we see Loan firing a bullet point blank into Hop’s head; Hop, wincing, appears to be receiving the bullet. Ironically enough, it has been argued that Ngoc Loan was only interested in publicly assassinating the Viet Cong prisoner because there were AP press corps there to capture the image. For him, the photographic evidence of the execution was meant to teach the Vietcong what would happen to their forces if caught.
The photograph was published on the front page of the New York Times and, along with the NBC film of the same event, is credited with having provoked the civilian outrage that lead to massive demonstrations against the war. Although the above photo was not as graphically violent an ending as shown by the television footage of the same incident, for many viewers, the picture was a climactic moment, proclaiming the horror and immorality of the war, signifying its barbarity and its incoherence. Within two months, President Johnson would be announcing his desire not to pursue a second term.
Source: iconicphotos
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