...1. After reading the New York Times editorial and the National Review article, is one argument stronger than the other? • In my opinion, the New York Times makes more sense on their rationalization of who should take the consequences of the atrocities committed in Vietnam. As opposed to National Review’s, America as a whole cannot take the blame of the horrible deed during the war in Vietnam. The majority of the Americans, and some political leaders strongly opposed it. However, due to Truman’s doctrine, America would not abandon the war in South Vietnam against communist North Vietnam, under the direction of Ho Chi Minh. The succeeding presidents just carried out Truman’s legacy. To make it worst, America got deepened in the involvement in the war during the Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. The war escalated, and became an American war against North Vietnam. As for the My Lai massacre, the commanding officer of the operation has the moral responsibility for the killings. As the commander, he directed the platoons to abide orders. The platoons are drafted and trained to carry out and rely on orders from the officials. Thus, they bear lesser liability of the aftermath that the officials have directed them to carry out....
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...empirical evidence so contrary to this assumption, I would question as to whether or not I might have indeed been more compliant. Milgram’s findings that strong pressure from someone in authority can cause ordinary people to behave in ways that negate their values and morals (Weiten 2013 pg 542) have had an impact on our understanding of a number of different human tragedies including the atrocities of Nazi Germany, the systematic torture of inmates at Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay and the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. My Lai was a small village suspected of harbouring members of the Vietnamese resistance, the Viet Cong, during the Vietnamese War. When the American soldiers in Charlie Company under the command of William Calley raided the village and found no insurgents, Sgt Calley ordered his men to systematically murder the innocent villagers. On the afternoon of 16th March 1968 over four hundred men, women and children were slaughtered. The example of the My Lai massacre is consistent with the findings of the Milgram experiment in that even though these...
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...Society Uniting Tactics, Divisive Consequences Rape, torture and murder against innocent civilians- what could cause someone to do such a thing? The My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War was a result of a war tactic that continues to be utilized today: racism and dehumanization of the enemy. This strategy, employed by the Armed Forces and facilitated by the media back on American soil has proven to be dangerous in that it causes both soldiers and civilians to treat an entire group as subhuman and unworthy of empathy. We can see this in the My Lai Massacre and through the persistent hare crimes against Muslims during the United States’ current “war on terror.” On March 16 1968, 140 men of the American Charlie Company entered the village of My Lai and were ordered to kill whoever they saw. There was the belief that the province of Quang Ngai where My Lai was located was a stronghold for Vietcong guerillas. After increasing frustration with losing their soldiers and not progressing in the war as much as they’d like, the group took their anger out on what was thought was a village of Vietcong enemies. It was the first chance they had to meet the enemy face to face instead of through grenades and booby traps and finally get even. Lieutenant William L. Calley ordered a search and destroy mission and urged that anyone in My Lai was to be considered connected to the Vietcong in some way, and should be killed. Though no guerillas were found when Charlie Company reached the village...
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...2014 My Lai Massacre The My Lai Massacre happened on March 16, 1968 in the village of My Lai, South Vietnam. The Vietnam war was fought between North and South Vietnam and it was about stopping the spread of Communism, which was greatly feared around the world. Especially in America. Anti-Communist countries like France and America backed South Vietnam the best they could, while countries like China and Russia supported North Vietnam. America fought for eleven years even though the war lasted much longer. In January of 1968, a division of American soldiers called Charlie Company made a base in the Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam. Charlie Company believed that the Quang Ngai Province was full of Vietcong, or North Vietnamese. Earlier in March several Generals fell into a boobie trap, set by the Vietcong, killing one and injuring the others. The division became angered and were encouraged to be aggressive in their next encounter with the enemy. On March 16th, 1968, the 11th Bridge of Charlie Company was airlifted to My Lai Village, under the control of Lieutenant William L. Calley. He believed that the village was a hideout for the Vietcong. Civilians were supposed to be evacuated to safety, although before the operation took place, Captain Eugene Kotouc addressed his troops saying, “Any civilians remaining in the villages would be considered Vietcong or actively sympathetic to the Vietcong,” At 7:22 a.m. on March 16, nine helicopters lifted off for the flight to My Lai...
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... both fictional and nonfictional, regarding the war and its effect on those who had to fight it. (Edar) The My Lai massacre is not representative of American actions in the war, but it does hold a particular place in the effect that war had on those at home, a public that was horrified at some...
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...Conflict and war are inevitable and sometime necessary Of the many wondrous and beneficial qualities we as a society possess, our inclination toward war and conflict is not one of them. In fact it is one of our most destructive and damaging activities humans do. As horrifying, catastrophic and fatal as war may be, it is a necessary element for the survival for humans as a species. Before we talk about why war might be necessary, let us first discuss some of the major causes of war. The most dominant reason for war in human history is ideology, or most specifically religious ideology. From the crusades that begun with Pope Urban II speech at the Church Council at Clermont in 1095 and ended with the expulsion of the Hospital of St John from Malta by Napoleon in 1798 to the current conflict in Israel religion has been a cause for conflict. “…Hubristic identities are a possible cause of war …He defines the term ‘hubristic identities’ as ‘the aspiration for recognition’ of one’s superiority, which is not recognized by other major international actors’… Fascist and communist regime from this hypothesis, and further integrate the notion of ‘image’ – for example, monumental works in the capital city – emphasised by the leaders of such regime. Logically, such ‘hubristic identities’ require some kind of proof for both the domestic and foreign audience to strengthen their claim of their superiority. In such a scenario, winning the war is perhaps the most viable and most credible...
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...The My Lai massacre was one of the most horrendous instances to ever take place during any of the wars the United States fought in. A United States Army battalion directed by William Calley, entered then My Lai village anticipating to discover participants of the Vietcong. Instead, the Charlie Company killed approximately 500 innocent civilians brutally. This massacre was not stopped until Robert Thompson, a helicopter pilot saw all the lifeless bodies and flew down to figure out what transpired. Calley claims Ernest Medina ordered him to execute the killings. When Calley was indicted for murder the nation broke out in a "Free Calley" movement claiming he was innocent. William “Rusty” Calley was born June 8th 1943 in Miami, Florida. His father was a United States Navy veteran from World War II. He attended Palm Beach Junior College for a year, but had to drop out due to...
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...The Vietnam War was an extremely controversial and divided time in American History. From the government lying to the public, media favoring an anti-war viewpoint, to the graphic images and stories of what was occurring an ocean away, many people were affected by the war and lives were changed from it. Many are still alive today to tell their stories. Two different people were interviewed, one who experienced the war from the eyes of an teenager at home, and the other an Air Force veteran that served in the war. Their stories and the thousands of others from the time will help us to learn more of the mistakes, triumphs, and the effects on the people from the Vietnam War. The first person that was interviewed was my grandfather, Roy Lenza. Roy...
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...Name: Andraie Lewis Eng. 122 May 8,2013 Blind obedience Society often view obedience as a good quality or trait to have; employers want obedient employees and parents often wish for obedient children. Being obedient means that an individual shows respect for an authority figure and will carry out the instructions they are given; when someone is obedient they are widely accepted by society, because they do whatever it is that society asks of them. But obedience carried too far can have disastrous consequences to both the individual and society; this is referred to as blind obedience. Blind obedience is when a person follows authority without even thinking about the consequences that the order to which they are obeying carries. It’s as if the authority figures are puppeteers and the people blindly obeying them the puppets. Puppeteers and their puppets best illustrate the relationship between the authority figure and the people doing horrendous actions, because being obedient is the right thing to do. So many events in history have proven how inhumane human beings can be when following authority. Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted one of the most controversial experiments in history, in attempt to demonstrate how individuals can lose themselves to an authority figure. Milgram’s experiment was called “Obedience to Authority.” Theodore Dalrymple wrote an article titled, “Just do What...
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...My Lai Massacre On the morning of March 16, 1968, soldiers of Charlie Company, a unit of the American Division's 11th Infantry Brigade arrived in the hamlet of My Lai in the northern part of South Vietnam. They were on a “search and destroy” mission to root out 48th Viet Cong Battalion thought to be in the area. The unit met no resistance in My Lai, which had about 700 inhabitants. Indeed, they saw no males of fighting age. They only found villagers eating breakfast. Nevertheless, over the next three hours they killed as many as 504 Vietnamese civilians. Some were lined up in a drainage ditch before being shot. The dead civilians included fifty ages 3 or younger, 69 between 4 and 7, and 27 in their 70s or 80s. Stabbed. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. One soldier would testify later, "I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, and scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I lost all sense of direction." Only one American was injured - a GI who had shot himself in the foot while clearing his pistol. America’s excuse When the American troops entered My Lai, they did not find any Viet Cong soldiers or weapons. Nonetheless, the platoon led by Second Lieutenant William Calley began to fire at what they claimed was an enemy position In response, the US Army initiated a program of...
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...The My Lai Massacre took place on March 16, 1968. The Massacre was a horrific event during the Vietnam War. At the beginning of the war, the American soldiers didn’t ever see their enemy. They would fall into poison bungee sticks, and were taken back to an American base for treatment; that is one way that the Americans lost some of their men. Another way that they lost soldiers, was that they would run into landmines. When the My Lai Massacre took place, the American soldiers were advised to kill anyone in the village, treating them as if they were all part of the Vietnamese military. The My Lai Massacre took place shortly after the Tet Offensive (which is another war in Vietnam). It was a bad part of American history because there were so...
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...Eisenhower wrote a letter to Ngo Dinh Diem offered to aid Diem in preventing Vietnam from being a communist country. Following Eisenhower’s promise to Diem, Kennedy aided South Vietnam with military support to fight against North Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a catastrophic since it fought against itself and destroyed its own people. It is significant to take notice of the fact that at the beginning many Americans supported United States in this war. Many Anti-war protests occurred on college campus across the nation because of events like the Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre. United States finally withdrawn in 1973. Therefore, without the media, many lives would have suffered, killed, injured because of the continuation of the war. Many American soldiers and Vietnamese citizens were killed. This...
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...Karen Raybould March 21, 2013 SOCI 1310 Book Review The book Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, an Indian History of the American West written by Dee Brown is a unique look at the “civilization” of the West through the eyes of the Native American populace rather than through the point of view of American settlers. It is intended to open the eyes of the reader, presumably a white American, to what truly happened during the conquering of the American West and dispel the romanticized version of western settlement popular in mainstream media and history. In the author’s own words “Americans who have always looked westward when reading about this period should read this book facing eastward.” (Brown, XXIV). Through his retelling of history, Brown discusses the effects of stereotypes, the influence of European habits of colonization, and the evolution of American policies regarding the native people. This book was written as a revisionist history of the American West from the point of view of the loser instead of the typical history which is written from the winner’s perspective. In that regard it was highly successful as even Native American authors wished they had written the book. “’Every Indian will wish he had written it,’ said Vine Deloria, author of Custer Died for Your Sins. ‘I wish I had.’” (Brown XVIII). In this work the author presents the history of the Native Americans from their own words and records. He has painstakingly combed through military negotiation...
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...Tiffany Sudarma History of Photography II Anna Lovatt September 28, 2015 Martha Rosler’s Gender Perspective During the Age of War As a form of art, photography expresses documents, personal visions, and memories that can often define images as very powerful and iconic. In the series Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful (1967-72), Martha Rosler, an American artist specializing in video, performance, installation and photo-text about art and culture, compiles ten photomontages from different magazines in order to convey the controversial issue of war during the early second part of the 20th century. Rosler uses a variety of mediums, but her most recognizable medium is photomontages and photo-collage. Constructed during the peak of U.S. military engagement in Vietnam and an outgrowth of Rosler’s self involvement with anti-war activities, these photographs are a response to the artist’s “frustration with the images we saw in television and print media, even with anti-war flyers and posters. The images we saw were always very far away, in a place we couldn’t imagine.” Through her choice to use colored images, she assembles photos together from homemaking women’s magazine such as Life Magazine and images from war. She accentuates the dominance of domestic representation and intersects it between war imagery by juxtaposing in a brutal and sometimes incongruous way. Rosler’s montages reconnect the two sides of human experience: the war in Vietnam, and the everyday-life...
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...The SAT Essay: Building a Repertoire of Examples The SAT essay is intended to measure your writing skills, not your knowledge of any specific subject. Therefore, the essay prompts given on the SAT must be fairly open-ended, so that anyone with a highschool education and life experiences common to all teenagers can respond to them. Most of them deal with basic philosophical, psychological, moral, or social issues. In my experience as a teacher, I’ve seen that the biggest challenge students face in writing the SAT essay is coming up with rich and relevant examples to discuss within the twenty-five minutes you’re given for the essay section. Quite often, students end up using examples that are inappropriate or superficial, or they don’t know enough about the examples they’ve chosen to write about them in detail. The way to combat this problem is to create your own repertoire of examples that you are well prepared to write detailed paragraphs about. Then, when you read the prompt you’re given on the day of the test, you can simply choose the examples from your repertoire that are most relevant to that particular topic. (Of course, this method isn’t fullproof; it may happen that you are unfortunate enough to get a topic that your prepared examples aren’t really appropriate for. If that’s the case, don’t try to force your examples to fit the topic. The process of coming up with these examples and writing several practice essays will also help you learn how to come up with new examples...
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