In among all the ballyhoo about spoiled and talentless rich socialite tart Paris Hilton going to jail, getting out then being sent back in tears (in contrast to her earlier cockey attitude) I missed something - see this picture which went all over the news of the silly girl weeping?
Imagine my surprise to find out the photographer behind that snapped image is Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Nick Ut. If you don't recognise his name you will recognise this photograph Ut took of Kim Phuc, a tiny wee lassie running screaming down a road in Vietnam, her clothes burned off and her skin roasted by napalm dropped by US aircraft (yes, I know, hard to believe the Americans back then thought it was perfectly okay to invade countries thousands of miles away and didn't care too much about civilian casualties; thank goodness we live in a more enlightened time, eh?).
As if that isn't a surprise enough as this article points out Ut shot the photo of this dreadful scene - which became not only one of the defining images of the Vietnam War but one of the most influential photographs of the 20th century, a moment of humanity's inhumanity frozen in time - on June 8th 1972. He shot the picture of a wailing Paris on June 8th 2007. What are the odds? There is a strand of thought which holds that the Americans lost the Vietnam war partly in the livingrooms of America, as people were exposed to photographs and TV news film of the atrocities going on leading a huge slice of the population (and not just the Love Generation) to turn against the government and the war - this is one of the images which probably contributed to that.
Little surprise that in the first Gulf War and subsequent ill-advised military adventures overseas the US military (and UK and pretty much all others) have kept a very tight reign on what the journalists can see, bribing them with the offer of 'embedding' them with active units to get good shots but subject to military approval and control or else go freelance and have a good chance of getting shot up not just by insurgents but by allied forces as happened to the BBC's John Simpson among others (all accidental of course, just as US armour shelling the hotel where foreign journalists were in Baghdad was accidental...). Hell, the control and spin extends as far as trying to stop images of flag-draped coffins coming home - supposedly out of respect to the families but if you are cynical (and since authorities are reticent about exact casualty figures I think you'd be right to be cynical) you could be forgiven for thinking it is to stop the home front losing faith.
Try and get your facts right. This bombing was conducted by South Vietnamese pilots. There was no American involvement at all. A little bit of research will reveal the true story. The incident is terrible, but so is the beheading of Village Elders by the NVA ... which is never reported, but was seen by Australian & US troops. Try for a more balanced and accuate approach in future.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny when someone makes a statement like this they usually hide behind the anony-mouse label. If you're going to make a comment like this then at least have the decency and courage to append your name to it.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all if you bothered to read it I didn't say the US dropped the bombs, I said US aircaft - you are partly right in that the bonb run was conducted by the Southern Vietnamese air force. Supplied, equipped, trained, supported and co-ordinated by US forces. So you claim that there is "no American involvement at all" is incredbly foolish and utterly, utterly wrong, as anyone with a grasp of 20th century history will know.
Quite how you can try and absolve the US of all blame and keep a straight face is beyond me - Nixon tried to rubbish the picture later as the administration tried to downplay it its authenticity, hinting it was a propaganda fabrication because of the enormous damage it did to their reputation amid constantly growing anti-war demonstrations. Regardless of who dropped the bombs the conditions which lead up to it were heavily influenced and directed by US involvement in a foreign area they had no business being in, so please don't make such a comment as 'no American involvement' because you're utterly wrong.
I don't know what you're trying to get at with your other point that the NVA committed atrocities either - at any point did I try to say that one side was shiny and heroic an the other utterly evil? No, I did not, I was commenting on one single moment in relation to a famous photojournalist's work. More to the point your 'argument' would infer that yes it was horrible what happened but since the other side was committing atrocities well, you know, these things happen in war. That is not an excuse - that's the sort of logic that allows torture in Abu Ghraib and the illegal detention of people in Gauntanamo Bay to go on to this day, the same mistakes repeated again, made worse by the fact they are committed by the side which claims to be on the side of liberation, freedom and rule of law. My point was that the same mistakes are being made again and that as well as being morally bankrupt, on a pragmatic level they sabotage the aims of the foreign policy that set up the conditions which allowed them in the first place because they turn world opinion against the US, turn the locals who might have been allies into people who fear and hate the US and so a spiral of violence and hate continues. Morally it is despicable and from a strategic point of view it is an own-goal so one has to wonder why leaders continue to allow this sort of thing to happen and why people attempt to make excuses for it.