Mai Lai & American justice!

When Narendra Modi was denied a visa to the land of opportunity the USA, it was an act applauded by the hoi polli. Modi, if found guilty, is not to be condoned and must face the full wrath of our penal system.

Modi's story we all know, but I'm sure a story that you would not be aware of is Mai Lai. Read on.....

'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.'

The massacre described above, is an excerpt from a BBC report and not a Hollywood flick. the perpetrators, were an elite company of American troops, fighting in South Vietnam, forty years ago, to this day.

My Lai, the village has neither forgotten, the massacre and the scars are still very fresh. There is bewilderment that so called civilized men could organize a crime of this magnitude, and there is plenty of evidence, that the massacre was planned and orchestrated rather than a spur of the moment act by a group of stressed American soldiers.

To this day Mail Lai exists and lives on as proof of the horrors of war.

An extensive cover up, by the US Army failed and eventually a court martial was ordered. What was the outcome:

Court martial
On November 17, 1970, the United States Army charged 14 officers, including Major General Samuel W. Koster, the American Division's commanding officer, with suppressing information related to the incident. Most of those charges were later dropped. Brigade commander Henderson was the only officer who stood trial on charges relating to the cover-up; he was acquitted on December 17, 1971.
After a four-month-long trial, in which he claimed that he was following orders from his commanding officer, Captain Medina, William Calley was convicted, on March 29, 1971, of premeditated murder for ordering the shootings. He was initially sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Nixon made the controversial decision to have Calley released from prison, pending appeal of his sentence. Calley's sentence was later adjusted, so that he would eventually serve four and one-half months in a military prison at Fort Benning.
In a separate trial, Captain Medina denied giving the orders that led to the massacre, and was acquitted of all charges, effectively negating the prosecution's theory of "command responsibility", now referred to as the "Medina standard". Several months after his acquittal, however, Medina admitted that he had suppressed evidence and had lied to Colonel Henderson about the number of civilian deaths.
Most of the enlisted men who were involved in the events at My Lai had already left military service, and were thus legally exempt from prosecution. In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction.
Some have argued that the outcome of the My Lai courts-martial was a reversal of the laws of war that were set forth in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals.Those tribunals set a historic precedent, establishing the principle that no one may be excused from responsibility for war crimes because they were "following orders". Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley honestly believed that what he did was a part of his orders — a rationale that stands in direct contradiction of the standards set at Nuremberg and Tokyo, where German and Japanese soldiers were executed for similar acts.

President Nixon, resigned in disgrace, not much later, over the Watergate Scandal. But that is another story....

American justice! Let's hope our judicial apparatus can take a call and come clean on the 'Godra killings' and the riots that followed. They owe it to the common Indian.