Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (American Empire Project)

Category: Military
Author: Nick Turse
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by soil_nerd   2019-08-24

Read or listen to Kill Anything that Moves by Nick Turse. Excellent overview and description of the atrocities that occurred during the late 60s in Vietnam. Nothing went too far, literally the worse things you can possibly think of to do to other humans and just scale it up to US War Machine levels. To all humans: babies, children, women, and men. To animals, livestock, cultivated fields, and whole ecosystems. And the attitudes, no remorse, no empathy, just kill as many humans as possible as quickly as possible. I can’t believe it’s not generally known what the US did down there, it’s just not taught in schools. You’d be lucky to find someone who remembers the My Lai Massacre, but that’s about it.

by soil_nerd   2019-08-24

I just finished the book Kill Anything that Moves by Nick Turse. It is beyond fucked up what the US did down there to all forms of life, nothing was off the table, nothing, honestly makes ISIS look tame when considering the scale of atrocities in the late 60s. Great read for anyone living in the US, in the military, Vietnamese, or interested in that conflict.

by monopixel   2019-07-21

They were not caught in the middle but deliberately killed by the US military. There is a good book about that, it is called Kill Anything That Moves.

by shadowsweep   2019-07-21

Ok. This is sort of what I expected. I'll take on both points here. I explain why I even asked this question to begin with at the end. The impatient can scroll to the bottom.

>1: I know about the Phoenix Program, but not the former.

You can read the description of this book, http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/1250045061/ to get an idea what they did to your people. If you need more I can supply some overview articles.

 

>2: [–]hgl1998[S] 1 point 18 minutes ago

>The 9 dash line, building of military bases on Islands that’s inside the Special Economic zone of Vietnam and Philippines

main points from the article:

● We see The Times propounding–and building–the China as aggressor myth

● The reality is almost completely the opposite.

● China claims sovereignty over the Spratlys and Paracels islands in the South China Sea. By China, we should understand not just the People’s Republic in Beijing, but its post 1911 predecessor, the Republic of China (i.e., the government on Taiwan), and the great China’s imperial dynasties dating back at least 1000 years. The claim is based inter alia on discoveries by the Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He and by occupation of islands and exploitation of the surrounding waters for fishing by Chinese fishermen for hundreds of years.

● The famous “nine dash line” is an expression of China’s historical claims.

● Five times–in 1970, 1971, 1978, 1980, and 1999–Philippine armed forces took actions that have placed nine islands claimed by China under foreign occupation. Since occupying the islands, the Philippines has proceeded to build military installations and station some 1000 men on them. Beyond occupying the islands, Manila has for years taken actions highly provocative to China, including arresting and expelling Chinese fisherman

● fishing in the disputed area. Chinese protests have been dismissed. In June 2011 the office of PI president Aquino declared that the South China Sea would henceforth be called the West Philippine Sea.

● Against this background, what we–and The Times–should find remarkable is not China’s “maximalist stance in territorial disputes,” to quote the editorial, but Beijing’s restraint.

● On the recent altercation with Vietnam over Chinese drilling operations, on May 15, three days after Secretary of State John Kerry called the operations “provocative” and an “aggressive act,”

● “China is conducting the exploitation activity within 12 nautical miles of the Zhongjian Islands which is a part of the Paracel Islands. And this is an activity conducted within our territorial water.

● “And secondly, the related countries in the South–in the South China Sea have drilled actually many oil wells in the South China Sea, but China has never drilled even one.

● But while China is holding this position, other nations are drilling oil wells in this region.

● What to make of the facts and context above, and the absence in The Times’ editorial of any mention of them -

● The supreme irony is that the ‘pivot’ policy–in essence an American reprise of Cold War “containment” now directed at China, fueling an arms race and U.S. alliance structure that is a growing threat to China–has emboldened the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as Japan, to oppose and challenge China, and to decline to negotiate in good faith to resolve disputes.

 

The NYTimes' 'China Threat' Myth, The 'Pivot To Asia,' And Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2014/06/22/the-nytimes-china-threat-myth-the-pivot-to-asia-and-obamas-foreign-policy-legacy/

 

Note: The Western media in Vietnam may or may not be playing up the SCS issue. I believe Vietnamese leaders would play up the China threat as it's in their interests to justify claims.


The reason I asked you the question: A key part of the West's divide and conquer strategy relies on media control - especially propaganda against a competitor [in this case China] and the erasure/downplaying of their own crimes. Here is an example.

 

>"In the Philippines, the great majority of people is now convinced that the US actually ‘liberated’ our country from the Japanese", my left- wing journalist friends once told me.

 

>I asked: "How is it possible? The Philippines were colonized and occupied by the United States. Some terrible massacres took place… The country was never really free. How come that this ‘love’ towards the US is now prevalent?"

 

>"It is because of extremely intensive North American propaganda machine", clarified Teresa’s husband, Dr. Eduardo Climaco Tadem, Professor of Asian Studies of University of the Philippines Diliman. "It has been depicting the US colonial period as some sort of benevolent colonialism, contrasting it with the previous Spanish colonialism, which was portrayed as ‘more brutal’. Atrocities during the American-Philippine War (1898 – 1902) are not discussed. These atrocities saw 1 million Philippine people killed. At that period it was almost 10% of our population… the genocide, torture… Philippines are known as "the first Vietnam"… all this has been conveniently forgotten by the media, absent in the history books. And then, of course, the images that are spread by Hollywood and by the American pop culture: heroic and benevolent US military saving battered countries and helping the poor…"

 

>Basically, entirely reversing the reality.

 

>The education system is very important", added Teresa Tadem. "The education system manufactures consensus, and that in turn creates support for the United States… even our university – University of the Philippines – was established by the Americans. You can see it reflected in the curriculum

 

>Almost all children of the Asian "elites" get "educated" in the West, or at least in so-called "international schools" in their home countries, where the imperialist curriculum is implemented. Or in the private, most likely religious/Christian schools

 

>And once conditioned, children of the "elites" get busy brainwashing the rest of the citizens. The result is predictable: capitalism, Western imperialism, and even colonialism become untouchable, respected and admired. Nations and individuals who murdered millions are labeled as carriers of progress, democracy and freedom. It is "prestigious" to mingle with such people, as it is highly desirable to "follow their example". The history dies. It gets replaced by some primitive, Hollywood and Disney-style fairytales.

 

Here's another example..Indonesia

>Indonesians don’t know, because they were made stupid!" Shouts my dear old friend Djokopekik

 

>Djokopekik is open, and brutally honest: "It was their plan; great goal of the regime to brainwash the people. Indonesians know nothing about their own history or about the rest of Southeast Asia!"

 

>2 to 3 million Indonesian people died after the 1965 military coup, triggered and supported by the West and by the religious clergy, mainly by Protestant implants from Europe. The majority of people in this desperate archipelago are now fully conditioned by the Western propaganda, unable to even detect their own misery. They are still blaming the victims (mainly Communists, intellectuals and "atheists") for the events that took place exactly 50 years ago

 

>Indonesians almost fully believe the right wing, fascist fairytales, fabricated by the West and disseminated through the local mass media channels controlled by whoring local "elites"… It is no wonder: for 50 nasty years they have been "intellectually" and "culturally" conditioned by the lowest grade Hollywood meditations, by Western pop music and by Disney.

 

>That was the plan: the old divide-and-rule British concept.

 

>After "forgiving the West", several nations of Southeast Asia were immediately forced into the confrontation with China and Russia.

 

>Renowned Australian historian and Professor Emeritus at Nagasaki University in Japan, Geoffrey Gunn, wrote for this essay:

 

>"The US wields hard power and soft power in equal portions or so it would appear. Moving in and out of East Asia over the last four decades I admit to being perplexed as to the selectivity of memories of the American record.**

 

Southeast Asia “Forgets” About Western Terror

https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/02/southeast-asia-forgets-about-western-terror/

 

And, no, this is not "a long time ago" / they're "different" now.

>Two spikes in U.S. government funding occurred since CIMA started reporting: "The data showed a spike in funding in 2008 as part of a major investment in democracy and governance– including media–in Iraq and another in 2010 due to a similar investment in Afghanistan."

>This is very telling and completely destroys the "independent media" idea being promoted by the U.S. government and NED. It clearly shows that in the last decade the US government has substantially increased its funding of "independent media" in countries it has illegally invaded and militarily occupied.

>How can the U.S. claim to be funding media development to "advance freedom" as claimed in the 2007 report, when the money comes after it has waged illegal wars against countries, killed millions of their citizens, destroyed their infrastructures and militarily occupied them

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

They are nothing compared to the world champions of racism running for 500 years. No one even comes close to the Humanist Traditions™ of the white man.

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecution-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/chinese-in-britain-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/hollywood-asian-stereotypes.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/not-racist-just-goofy-squint-eye-faces.htm

http://www.kulturemedia.org/

 

First Nations

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0805086846

 

Blacks

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0385722702

 

Cambodia

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0671835254

 

Laos Hiding America’s War Crimes in Laos | http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2715

 

Vietnam

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/B00KGMIW6Q

 

Korea

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0316817708

 

Philippines

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0300030819

 

China

● China’s Rise, Fall, and Re-Emergence as a Global Power | http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/chinas-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/

● USA’s warfare against China ½ | http://www.voltairenet.org/article177063.html

 

India

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

ya ok there...

https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

since you love ranting about ip theft

>…the U.S., and for that matter, almost every Western nation, might wish to remember their own, no-holds-barred campaigns to swipe industrial secrets.”

>“Throughout the 18th century, every European power attempted to rip off industrial secrets”

>…one nation in particular was known for using the illicit methods to great advantage: the U.S. In the country's very first years, aspiring industrialists looked to Europe and quickly learned to take the easy way out, stealing instead of inventing.”

China didn’t invent industrial espionage

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-26/china-didn-t-invent-industrial-espionage

 

When will the West compensate China for gunpowder, compass, moveable block press, paper, porcelain, tea, and silk tech?

 

BTW, here is your human rights record [just a glimpse]

First Nations

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0805086846

 

Blacks

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0385722702

 

Asians are a much longer list

 

Cambodia

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0671835254

 

Laos Hiding America’s War Crimes in Laos | http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2715

 

Vietnam

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/B00KGMIW6Q

 

Korea

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0316817708

 

Philippines

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0300030819

 

China

● China’s Rise, Fall, and Re-Emergence as a Global Power | http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/chinas-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/

● USA’s warfare against China ½ | http://www.voltairenet.org/article177063.html

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

>so damn hateful

What is wrong with talking about the facts?

 

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecution-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/chinese-in-britain-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/hollywood-asian-stereotypes.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/not-racist-just-goofy-squint-eye-faces.htm

http://www.kulturemedia.org/

 

Cambodia https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0671835254

 

Laos Hiding America’s War Crimes in Laos | http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2715

 

Vietnam

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/B00KGMIW6Q

 

Korea

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0316817708

 

Philippines

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0300030819

 

China

● China’s Rise, Fall, and Re-Emergence as a Global Power | http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/chinas-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/

● USA’s warfare against China ½ | http://www.voltairenet.org/article177063.html

 

India

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

Meanwhile, Jenny Han, racially insecure author of white worshipping book, To all the boys I've loved before, is paying her respects to this psychopathic war criminal. And people wonder why we call out these insane Auntie Tans?

 

Here's a reminder of what white men from the highest positions of military/political power down to generals approved for standard operating procedure https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

That's hilarious. When will you contain your extreme racism against Asian people?

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecution-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/chinese-in-britain-history-timeline.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/hollywood-asian-stereotypes.htm

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/not-racist-just-goofy-squint-eye-faces.htm

http://www.kulturemedia.org/

 

Cambodia

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0671835254

 

Laos Hiding America’s War Crimes in Laos | http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2715

 

Vietnam

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/B00KGMIW6Q

 

Korea

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0316817708

 

Philippines

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0300030819

 

China

● China’s Rise, Fall, and Re-Emergence as a Global Power | http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/chinas-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/

● USA’s warfare against China ½ | http://www.voltairenet.org/article177063.html

 

India

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities

by shadowsweep   2018-11-10

look at the context. SK was a Western puppet that collaborated with compradors and the Imperial Japanese. They killed leftists. It's like "invading" your home to save your own family from thugs. See https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061 same pattern [of killing leftists because they got in the way of Western capital] in every country.

by abalone   2018-09-25
That is pure unresearched wishful thinking.

They would fly helicopters up to farmers on a field who would look up at them in confusion and do nothing. Then they'd turn on a siren and when the farmers scattered they shot them all down for taking "evasive action", making them "combatants". There'd be reports of raids with hundreds of "viet cong" killed and a few weapons recovered. The killing machine was about body counts. Kissinger ordered "anything that flies on everything that moves." Villages were leveled in indiscriminate, massive bombing campaigns that exceeded twice the ordinance dropped in WWII. Millions were killed.

If you really want to research what happened in Vietnam start with Nick Turse's Kill Anything That Moves.[1] It's a polemical title but it's based on a ton of primary research, e.g. the Pentagon's War Crimes Working Group and the National Archives and interviews with over a hundred veterans. And that stuff will make any good soul polemical.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250045061/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

by slantedview   2018-03-20
While My Lai was horrible, evidence collected since then such as in Nick Turse's book "Kill Anything That Moves" [1] and at the Winter Soldier hearings [2] show that Mai Lai was hardly an aberration. Horrible atrocities committed by US soldiers were widespread in Vietnam, much more so than most people digesting the Ken Burns narrative realize.

What's important to learn about My Lai isn't just that it happened - that Americans are indeed as capable of horrible atrocities as anyone - but that almost no consequences resulted. In fact, as Turse discovers, Army officials who were aware of what was happening in Vietnam later moved to take control of the Criminal Investigation Division in order to suppress investigation and prosecution of the innumerable war crimes that took place. The most significant prosecution that took place was of Lt. William Calley, who ultimately received 3 1/2 years of house arrest after being convicted of hundreds of murders. The message that this sends to the rest of the world is that we are imperialist killers of the highest order, and we are above the law.

Without looking at these atrocities in the eye, we are doomed to repeat them. And so we have.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation

by countercom2   2017-08-19

>of dissenting ideas in China

No. Dissidents are trying to overthrow a government would bring massive chaos. Also, read these

https://np.reddit.com/r/CIWO/comments/3o7hc8/censorship_government_disallowed_imprison/?ref=search_posts

https://np.reddit.com/r/CIWO/comments/3qttki/tiananmen_square_massacre/?ref=search_posts

>agendas

I gave you a lot of links above already. again..

see https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0452287081

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1567512526

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0805086846

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0316221031

https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061

 

>good portion of Americans don't really support the actions America took that you sited.

Look at China bashing.

 

>In what way are the American people racist?

see above. see this too http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2012/08/sinophobia-the-last-acceptable-racism/

Ask First Nations, Blacks, every Asian [especially the men]. See this too

http://www.zakkeith.com/articles,blogs,forums/anti-Chinese-persecution-in-the-USA-history-timeline.htm

oscars Asian jokes

Jimmy Kimmel's kill all Chinese to solve debt problems.

The jokes themselves are incidental. The main problem is the widespread acceptance. Would "kill all Africans or Jews" be acceptable? of course not. And, it's not because they are enlightened. It's because of consequences that that stay quiet.

 

>Again, citation needed.

see above

 

>it seems to me that most of your comments can be translated over to other countries because they are so general

Great then show us a country that invaded dozens foreign lands far far away from its home and overthrew the country, commit mass rape and genocides, and/or economically rape them so they are enslaved with debt like https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/0452287081

 

Where are the other countries on this list? http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/us-is-the-greatest-threat-to-world-peace-poll/. No one even comes close to USA.

 

First nations, Africans, many south Americans, Middle Easterners, Asians, Hawaiians, etc. Anyone of these groups who actually know real history [not the Eurocentric propaganda] hates America [and many of its allies] to their core. What other group even comes close?

edit: I should've been more specific. "Doing what they don't want done to themselves to people who are innocent". Innocent as in those victims did nothing to America to deserve it [eg Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, China, etc...]

by shadowsweep   2017-08-19

The gap between reality and perception is largely explained by media. As long as western media, which is global in reach, continues to whitewash White crimes, lionize its villains, and demonize its victims, then this gap will remain and people will continue to believe Asians are uncreative despite the fact that foreigners contribute some 40-50% of patents on behalf of America. Hilariously, these Asians are disparaged as perpetual foreigners until they're counting patents...then they become "true Americans".

 

Go to any high tech park, military science lab, grab a random STEM paper and what do you see? A bunch of Asians. Whites would like you to believe that Asians can clean up all the through graduate school, but as soon you enter the workforce, your "inferior genetics" will doom you to a lifetime of reciting multiplication tables while True Innovation™ is achieved by the Brilliant Caucasian Mind™.

 

Why would Asians work for ungrateful racists, who actually use your genius to exterminate your race. https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1250045061 and https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1567512526 and http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/03/chinas-rise-fall-and-re-emergence-as-a-global-power/.