Key issue essay In 1968 on the 9th of March US soldiers from ‘c’ company entered hamlets in Quang Ngai on a search and destroy mission. The hamlets and My Lai were known as the Vietcong territory(Vietnamese army). US soldiers lost all control and killed 300-400 civilians including; men, women and children. 70 of these civilians were mown down with automatic fire once herded into a ditch. Over a year the US army covered up their massacre and 13 soldiers were charged with war crimes against humanity.
According to Youk Chhang, the Executive Director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia and also runs the Cambodia Tribunal Center website, claims that a couple days after they had taken control, “ ...the Khmer Rouge forced perhaps two million people in Phnom Penh and other cities into the countryside to undertake agricultural work “ (3). They went door-to-door, demanding people to gather their belongings and to evacuate. If the citizens did not comply, they were shot on the spot. In addition to the two million people that were captured, Youk Chhang also claimed that people panicked and wanted to stay alive but despite wanting that, thousands of people died because of the evacuation itself. Four years later, this massacre ended.
One thing he mentions repeatedly is the reluctance of United States aid money. He mentions the elite trained Aclactl Battalion, and that their American trainers had perhaps instilled their aggressiveness. He mentions that the Americans loved Monterrosa and that the Americans were desperate to finish the war. As an example Danner says, "The Americans had stepped forward to fund the war, but were unwilling to fight it" He mentions the aid of a CIA officer who claims that the largest fighting was taking place at El Mozote. This leads us to America actually acknowledging that something might have been happening at El Mozote.
The Chinese district of Cholon suffered with hundreds of civilians killed in the American counter attacks.” (First Battle) “On March 16, 1968, U.S. Army forces conducted a mass murder of hundreds of unarmed citizens in South Vietnam. Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in Charlie Company of Task Force Barker, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 villagers. His company herded hundreds of unarmed villagers into a ditch and shot them to death.” (Miller 65) When the My Lai Massacre became public knowledge, it reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War and created an anti-war movement. The anti-war movement became
The novel A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah is a book about the civil way in Sierra Leone which took place during the early 1990's all the way up until the early 2000's. During this civil war many human right were violated and some were even taken away from the innocent citizens of Sierra Leone by a group of men and children that called themselves the rebels. They were rebelling against the Sierra Leone government and their ways of showing their anger was by raiding villages and brutally attacking whoever was in the town at the time of attack. Then before they left the town they would burn down all the houses and buildings to ensure that no one could return to the village and survive. Some of the rights that were taken away from these citizens by the rebels were the right to life and the right to food and shelter for all.
Explaining My Lai In 1968 the civilians in South Vietnam were killed by American soldiers called Charlie Company. They killed around 350 to 500 unarmed villagers because they were ordered to by William Calley, a platoon leader in Charlie Company. Previous to the massacre Charlie Company had suffered many injuries and 5 deaths due to booby traps, but there were no sight of the people who had set them. Charlie Company were told that after 7:00 am the only people left in the nearby village would be NLF or NLY sympathisers, they were told to leave no one alive, burn houses and crop. When the soldiers attacked the village there was no resistance, only women, children and the elderly who were there, they got brutally murdered and even raped and
Danner worked to illustrate the story from a variety of viewpoints, including how the United States came into the picture, how the guerilla rebel forces reacted to the mass killings of civilians by the Salvadorian army, along with how all of these relationships interacted with one other. The book began by presenting the
The men under the command of Candelario Lopez burned and looted the city and the forces under Pablo Lopez, Beltran and Castro attacked the American forces. The men under Cervantes penetrated unopposed into the heart of the city killing anyone who stood on their way. After kicking the door open to the commercial Hotel they searched it desperately looking for Ravel who was out of the town at the time. L. Burkhead the postal administrator left the hotel with his wife and kids through a back door just before the hotel collapsed in flames. Arthur Ravel who was 16 years old at the time, witnesses this carnage only because the two men assigned to accompany him to his dad’s store were shot by the town folk.
On December 10, 1981 the people of a small Salvadoran town, El Mozote, were detained without resistance by the Atlacatl Battalion, which was a U.S trained army. On the following day, December 11, after spending the night locked in their homes, they were deliberately and systematically executed in groups. First, the men were tortured and executed, then the women were executed and, lastly, the children. This operation, known as operative de tierra arrasada, was a scorched-earth operation. Basically, "If the guerillas were fish swimming in a sea of people, then the army's job would be to drain the sea.
As the Cold War continued, the American public grew discontent with the handling of the disputes . They grew restless of the ongoing conflict and the injustices that were being committed by the American military towards these countries and the abuse that our American troops were experiencing at home. The Civil Rights movement again saw this as an opportunity to insert their agenda along with other injustices into the national picture. With the sentiment swaying against the established institution it was easier to gain public support for civil rights. The Cold War was fought to end the oppression and maltreatment of other countries citizens.