one night in saigon, 40 years of questions.

Have you ever seen the movie “The Reader?” Probably, since it won so many awards and in general was a great movie, most people have, and more recently than me, who only saw it for the first time a month ago. In it, Hannah Schmidt is put on trial 20 some-odd years after the end of the Second World War for her part in the Holocaust, serving as a guard at a camp. From what I gathered, she was never armed and had no authority, was more administrative than anything else, though this is not really the point, the point is that she knew and to some extent enabled the atrocities that happened happen. And she stood trial for it, and went to prison for a very long time, as many others have. Michael Gruber, a Croatian boarn-Austrian living as a retired mechanic in Rockland, New York, was deported to Austria in 2002 at the age of 86 to stand trial for his service as an armed SS-guard at Sachsenhausen. Even though (nearly) none of these people committed illegal acts by the standards of the times in which they were acting, the world saw fit to hold them accountable, and to continue to ensure the responsible nations hold these individuals accountable indefinitely, as well as remembering their own national responsibility in the situation. There is not currently a child in Germany who goes through the German school system without studying WW2 and the Holocaust in particular. And I would say rightly so, as would people, especially Jews.

What is the relevance of this? It’s coming.

I just got back from one night in Saigon. The particulars of the city and the trip will have their place and time, but this is not it.
In the city, I paid a visit to the War Remnants Museum, which when it opened in 1975 was called "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government [of South Vietnam]." Later it was renamed the Museum of American War Crimes, then as the War Crimes Museum, being renamed what it currently is in 1993 after relations between the US and Vietnam were attempted by Bill Clinton. The reality is, before this I did not know very much about the Vietnam war beyond what we saw in Forrest Gump, and in many aspects I still don’t. That is a part of the problem. The museum was of course heavily biased, ignoring all aspects of atrocities on the part of the Viet Cong, ignoring what was occurring that invited Western involvement to begin with. But that is not the point either. What matters here is what happened on the ground, part of individual incidents that repeated themselves. And were ignored. And were let go.
Former Senator Bob Kerry, as a leader of a unit of Navy Seal, lead an attack on a peasant village called Thanh Phong. Reports vary as to numbers, but it seems that in 1 night, 21 people were killed, 13 of them being women and especially children. In the War Remnants Museum, there is the cylinder of a well in which three children—siblings—were hiding. All three were dragged out, where 2 were stabbed to death, the third, disemboweled. It may not have the numbers of Babi Yar, but it has the brutality. In countless incidents villagers without discretion for children, pregnant women, etc. were lined up and shot, a scenario out of Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s willing executioners.” Only these weren’t Jews, they were Vietnamese peasants, and these weren’t Nazis, they were Americans.
I have never been in war. I have never been in battle. I am not trying to diminish the level of respect that should be paid to American veterans, of all wars; I also am not some bleeding heart liberal—while I am liberal, I believe in punishments fitting crimes and am not wholly against the use of extreme measures when it is truly necessary (this last part, however, is where I and many others who support various ‘torture’ methods differ). However, no matter how honorable and brave the members of the American military are at some instances should not absolve them from their ‘errors in judgment,” nor should the fact that the other side had begun using such violence first.
The indiscriminate use of chemical materials whose effects were not known is still having massive impact today. Babies are being born—or stillborn—with horrifying ailments and deformities. Why have we turned our backs to this?
I am disgusted that individuals who partook and lead such events have not been asked to answer for their actions just as we, as Americans and as Jews and as the entire world have forced Germany and all Germans to do. I am terrified that I did not know these things already. If we do not learn from the mistakes of our own actions, what will stop them from repeating, what prevents us from allowing those we send out to fight for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, from losing their morality, too? What makes us different from Goebbels, Mengele, Eichmann?
We continue to condemn the world for their actions and their histories, Rwanda, all of Europe, South Africa. When will America look in the mirror and take responsibility to our own history and mistakes?