Photographer revisits images of Vietnam War

Well... Cambodia and Laos did become communist. Cambodia was later "saved" by communist Vietnam and all the three Indochina countries are now kind of hybrid communist/capitalist and rather corrupt. Not as corrupt as Thailand though.

As for hell vs. real hell, more than 2 million people died in Vietnam during the war, a war that USA kept nurturing. Several hundred thousand children were born with defects because of the use of Agent Orange. There are still areas in Vietnam where food can't be grown because of the dioxin in the earth.

I think I would prefer to be alive in a communist regime rather than dead in a capitalist one.

1. Communist does not equal hell;
2. What capitalism has brought us is debatable, at least.

This and nothing else, zakk9? Take a pill and chill: things are usually neither this nor that, but this AND that -- and all sorts of stuff in between.

Surely there's something more current about which you can get your knickers in a twist.

Would you see the German soldiers from WWII the same way, as tough guys just doing their jobs? Those who transported Jews to the concetration camps? They were also just obeying orders.

Every time the theme of American soldiers in Vietnam come up, they are heroes. Even now, 40 years later, attempts like this are made to make things look "nice". "There's a tough world out there, but we coped, although some of us succumbed." Sorry to say: The fact that some Americans died too doesn't make their task more honerable, not then and not now.

William Calley, the only soldier who was convicted for the My Lai massacre where hundreds of innocent Vietnamese civilians were cold bloodedly murdered, got three and a half years in "house arrest". What a joke.

There was nothing honorable about the Vietnam war. Killing people because they have a different political view isn't comme il faut now and it wasn't then, cold war or not. Most civilised nations have understood that many decades ago.

What a horrible analogy. The genocide against the Jews was part of the Nazi official policy. Mai Lai - wasn't. What about those who tortured and killed US pow's and their allies? You think they were tried and punished? No, they were made into national heroes.

" Killing people because they have a different political view" - yet ironically no mention is made about what happened to the south Vietnamese after US pulled out. Any idea? Doesn't get much play does it?

I have little or no sympathy with the communists, but with regards to how they treated those who cooperated with the Americans: Of cause they were seen as traitors. Any American helping a foreign power attacking the USA would be treated as a traitor too, and honestly, I doubt many doing that would survive for long if caught.

From a North Vietnamese point of view, they were under attack by a foreign power, and it's difficult to disagree with that. As for the question if massacres were a part of official American policy, many American soldiers who were there have claimed that this was the case. What is clear is that My Lai wasn't an isolated incidence, although it was was of unprecedented size, and it was uncovered, although attempts were done to cover it up.

zakk9, your failure of reasoning -- and it is an utter failure -- is to simplistically equate My Lai with the Vietnam war; try to keep your focus. While there are many reasons to dislike both, they aren't interchangeable.

And "many Americans" have NOT claimed that My Lai was a function of policy (certainly not a representative portion of them who have legitimate insight into the matter). That's simply ridiculous. It's as though you enjoy believing anti-American diatribe to the point where you don't even bother vetting it.

Besides, coming out against My Lai is kind of like coming out against cancer or murder: you're not going to find many proponents of either. Translation: your invective here, now 45 years after the fact, is rather pointless.

zakk9, I don't think Michael H contends the US wasn't involved; duh.

And do you know how many "innocent Americans" died in the Vietnam war? The failures of that war -- as those of ANY war -- aren't limited to one nation or another.

Newsflash: the human race isn't perfect...get over it.

The responsibility for the Vietnam War is very easy to place. If the Americans hadn't been there, it would have been very short, no Americans and much fewer Vietnamese would have been killed, and the outcome would have been the same; a communistic Vietnam. It was the Americans who travelled to the other side of the globe to fight, not the Vietnamese.

And if Americans didn't fight the war in Korea and both South/North were both ruled by the Kims... Would that amount to more or less deaths? (How many died in the communist induced famine?)

zakk9, I can appreciate your opinion on the matter, but allow me to suggest just appreciating the images for what they are, please don't hijack this post and turn it into your soapbox. I mean that politely. Charlie has stated through all this that his intent in sharing the images is to honor the men in them, men who worked hard at doing a nasty job, men who but for a couple twists or turns of fate could easily have been you or I. These aren't meant as a statement on history, politics, war or any of that. And there is honor in those men doing the best they could in a horrible situation, even if there isn't much other honor often found in war in general.

Zakk9, You miss the profound meaning those photos have acquired by what is now established truth. Your comments belong to photos of Nixon, Westmoreland, and other perpetrators of the war. Nearly all the people shown in Haughey's photos did not freely choose to be in that conflict and were lied to by morally corrupt American and South Vietnamese politicians. This was the time of the draft: the U.S. grunt soldiers were forced to serve. The children could not flee. They all endured a time of profound stress, being maimed, scarred, tortured, and killed. The very facts you state underline the horrible irony in Haughey's photos of smiling people--for an incongruous moment.

zakk9 wrote:
"At least a couple of million innocent Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians were killed during the (Vietnam conflict)..."

Then I wrote:
"do you know how many 'innocent Americans' died in (that conflict)?"

Then zakk9 wrote:
"The responsibility for the Vietnam War is very easy to place. If the Americans hadn't been there..."

Here you go again, conflating the US government with Americans. Are you really suggesting that American soldiers who were drafted into Vietnam service against their will were somehow responsible for their own deaths in that conflict?!

Here in the US, I don't know of any Americans who are always in agreement with every single thing their government does (but maybe you're in agreement with everything your government does, like the Thammasat Massacre?). Then again, I understand this sort of distinction gets in the way of your simplistic blather.

By "it", I think Ivar means an avoidable, non-defensive war with high civilian casualties. Even the last war in Iraq, sadly fabricated as it was, doesn't fit this definition.

Some people do re-evaluate thoughts. In the latest round of military adventures for example no critiscism is allowed and all journalists are strictly controlled. When looking back at Vietnam it is important to be aware of the history, which is still coming out. The recent revelations about LBJ's knowledge of Nixon keeping the war going is a case in point. It looks more and more as though people like Lennon and Hendrix told the truth while governments lied to a man. I think it is important to keep this in mind when looking at these shots.