When Our Morals Began to Fail

Posted on September 27, 2010 in History War

Last night, I watched the American Experience documentary on [[My Lai]] at Netflix. The event is doubtless known to everyone who was at least 10 years old in 1968: a company of Americans killed friendly civilians in a hamlet known to defense planners as Pinkville. Not every soldier participated, a few ((Our hats should ever be off to [[Hugh Thompson, Jr.]] who organized a helicopter evacuation of civilians from the danger zone.)) even intervened to save villagers from the rampage. The massacre was hushed up by local Army command until a year later when probes by Army prosecutors uncovered the evidence and set in motion proceedings against the officers who participated or covered up the murders.

A controversy exploded after the conviction of Lieutenant [[William Calley]], the first participant to be court-martialed. The Army had moved against him because there were officers who felt that Americans just didn’t kill unarmed civilians, no matter what their association to the enemy might be. Those who defended Calley, Captain [[Ernest Medina]], and their superiors said that it was reasonable to assume that the villagers were helping out the enemy. They knew, after, all, where the mines and traps were planted but they didn’t share this information with U.S. forces.

This weak argument was to justify a huge mistake by Army intelligence which placed a significant [[Viet Cong]] force in the area. The unit which was the target of the operation was actually 150 miles away: when the soldiers, who had been jacked up for a fight by their superiors, found nothing, they began shooting women and children.

The whole story is better told elsewhere (follow the links), so let this article focus on the single act that deserves our attention today: the uproar following the conviction of William Calley. Calley had led and participated in the massacre. Though today he speaks of his remorse, then he ran about heedlessly slaughtering those in his path and directing those under his command to follow his example. It was a cut and dried case of a unit being out of control, but a large segment of the American public did not see things that way. They saw Calley as a hero. They composed songs in his honor and called for his release. Richard M. Nixon bowed to the onslaught of sentiment and pardoned Calley. Thereafter, it was impossible to convict any other agent of the massacre.

We blame free sex, drugs, homosexuality, etc. for the decline of our nation in recent years, but I put my finger on Nixon’s handling of this affair. He sent the message that we could break the rules when it suited us. So on one hand, we could speak about peace and protection while on the other being a death-demon for those who had nothing to do with happenings in the war aside from very personal concerns about their safety. My Lai taught a large segment of the American public to never admit to gross mistakes, to persist in repeating the same errors with greater and greater vehemence. Do you not see the harbinger of the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the stolen election in Florida, and the concentration camps that Obama is supposedly building to house his political enemies? No matter what you say to these believers, they will not accede to the facts. My Lai was their [[imprimatur]] for their stubborn clinging to errors of fact.

Nancy Reagan said “Just say no”, but nobody did. They went ahead blindly in the field and their partisans went ahead blindly in public opinion. Nixon changed what it meant to be an American in the eyes of the world and, worse, in our own eyes. We have succumbed to evil ever since.