Want an American truth commission? Try the Kiwanis Club
A startling and absolutely riveting story out of Columbus, GA yesterday: William Calley, the Army lieutenant imprisoned for the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, faced an audience of his fellow Americans and forthrightly apologized for his role in one of the darkest moments of recent U.S. history.
From the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer:
“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”
In the four decades since the mass killings, Calley hasn’t spoken publicly about what happened — save for Calley’s 1971 court martial where he was convicted of 22 counts of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. (He only served four and half months of that sentence, though, thanks to an early release by President Richard Nixon and a later sentence adjustment.)
Calley told the same story last week that he did back in ‘71: that he was acting on orders from above and (total shocker) faulty intelligence. More from the Columbus paper’s account:
Calley explained he had been ordered to take out My Lai, adding that he had intelligence that the village was fortified and would be “hot” when he went in. He also said the area was submitted to an artillery barrage and helicopter fire before his troops went in. It turned out that it was not hot and there was no armed resistance. But he had been told, he said, that if he left anyone behind, his troops could be trapped and caught in a crossfire.
This is all fascinating enough — especially for Seymour Hersh fanboys like me — but what’s really amazing about the newspaper account of the meeting is the scene itself. A sample of the questions from the audience and Calley’s responses:
- Asked about American casualties, Calley said there were two injuries, but neither was the result of enemy fire, adding, “They didn’t have time.”
- One person asked about the story of a helicopter coming into My Lai during the massacre and its pilot threatening to open fire if the killing of civilians didn’t stop. Calley said the pilot asked if he could take children out of the area and he relayed that request to his captain, who said the pilot could.
- When asked if obeying an unlawful order was not itself an unlawful act, [Calley] said, “I believe that is true. If you are asking why I did not stand up to them when I was given the orders, I will have to say that I was a second lieutenant getting orders from my commander and I followed them — foolishly, I guess.” Calley then said that was not an excuse; it was just what happened.
These are regular, everyday folks confronting one of their fellow citizens about the questions they (and the rest of us) have had about My Lai since the first time we heard about it. Even decades removed from the story as I was when I first heard it as a high school student, My Lai is one of those events that make any of us desperate to know why and how something so objectively opposed to our professed values could have occurred under our flag. After all, a Kiwanis Club meeting isn’t exactly Drinking Liberally, but the Columbus members still asked Calley the hard questions that help us all understand and learn from our history.
And he answered them, fully and honestly.
A call for a truth commission to uncover, discuss and process the mistakes made during the so-called War On Terror was quickly raised in the weeks after Obama’s inauguration brought the WOT as we knew it to an end. But, just as quickly, the idea was scrapped due to (here comes shocker number two) partisan rancor in Washington. The idea was a simple one, and one we all know to be true: sunshine cleans everything. The truth commission plan wasn’t about blame, prosecutions or aquittal. It was about letting American citizens confront the people that tortured, illegally spied, lied and of course killed on our behalf in the years after 9/11. We all know those people thought they doing their jobs when they did what they did. What we need to know is why they thought that — and how that idea worked its way through our entire government. That way, maybe, we can keep it from happening again.
Look again at Calley’s version of events — does it seem the least bit implausible in the wake of Weapons Of Mass Destruction and politically-motivated terror alerts? Calley didn’t have to go before those Kiwanis members and take their questions. But when he did — without fear of persecution or prosecution — he gave us insights into the last failed American war that can help us understand the current one.
Imagine what would happen if Rumsfeld, Cheney, Tenet, Rice and Bush all took their turn before the Columbus, GA Kiwanis Club. We’d have the tools to actually learn and grown from our recent past. And they would have the catharsis of telling their fellow Americans about the (sometimes reasonable) fear and guesswork that drove them after the towers fell. Plus — if the Columbus chapter is anything like the Lebanon, TN Kiwanis Club I used to cover as a reporter — they’d get a three-course free lunch to boot. Now that’s what I call win-win.
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Great Find. I always wanted to know what Calley was thinking that fateful day and if he ever felt remorse. We should insist on these types of truth telling after important events, even if we must give them immunity from any legal action against them as a reward for finding out the true way they were thinking at the time. I too would love to hear from the Bush people about what drove them to do what they did after 9/11, so we at least have their mindset for future reference.
There’s nothing new about their mindset.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t want Rumsfeld, Cheney, Tenet, Rice and Bush to have catharsis. I want them in jail for the spying and then hanging by their goddamn necks for the torture.
That’s simple justice for war criminals except to media villagers like you who think that the Constitution is an advisory document and that treaties and laws against murder and torture are for the little people and foreigners, not for American “leaders.”
Truth commission, my hairy ass. Everyone in the world already knows what happened. Some of us were saying so at the time but were written off as dirty f*cking hippies.
Oh, and whether it’s Stalin, or Mao or Pinochet or Pol Pot or Bush and Cheney, the people ordering the torture and murder ALWAYS think they are doing it for the good of the country. For the best of all possible motives. There is nothing new here to be learned. It is a very old story.
Your mistake is to think there is anything different about these people because they are Americans.
I’m an American, so I can only view what happened through the prism of that cultural experience. But I didn’t mean to say that they were justified because they’re Americans — no one can ever be justified when embracing torture, etc as our leaders did in the wake of 9/11.
What is fascinating to me, in fact, is the very anti-American nature of the truth commission. We are not served as a nation drawing lines in the sand and making torture or unconstitutional domestic spying partisan issues. Yet that seems to be the only way we can handle anything in this country. I, personally, would much prefer to see some contrition and some real analysis of what happened than more attempts to politicize the past eight years.
Frankly there’s no greater rejection of the politics of Bush’s team than the election of Obama — the health care debate, etc proves the country didn’t shift leftward in ‘08; rather it ran screaming from Bush’s version of the GOP. So that battle has been fought. Now we need to win the war (i.e. restore some semblance of our global reputation) and I think that a truth commission could be the best way to do that. It is other nations that have proven it to me — I’m actually surprised that any American, especially one like Calley, could ever muster the courage to face an honest and frank discussion of his actions.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m sorry that I mischaracterized you viewpoint.
But there is no truth to uncover, since it’s all out in the open. And to fail to prosecute is to a)support a two-tie justice system and b)guarantee it will happen again.
As for partisanship, the only reason why it is partisan is that Republicans have no honor. I know you want to see both sides and create false equivalencies.
You would well to remember Watergate, however. Nixon had to resign because Republicans in the Senate were honorable enough to put aside partisanship and follow the law. A group led by Barry Goldwater met with Nixon to tell him that they would not protect him.
In response to another comment. See in context »So you think a truth commission is “anti-American”, but you’re for it? Maybe that’s a typo. Anyway, I’m for one because the people who don’t know/understand/accept the illegality and immorality of the Bush policies need something concretely rubbed in their faces. It’s not enough to say that Obama’s election was a rejection of Bush, because there are too many intervening variables, and other interpretations of his election will ensue. If you want a crime to stop you’ve got to address the crime itself, not some aggregated proxy.
Well, inherently I think a political trial that doesn’t involve a punishment of an individual but is instead focused on the common good is pretty anti-American, yeah. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad.
In fact, I may have focused too much on the Republicans in charge of the WOT in the White House when arguing in favor of a Truth Commission. The fact is, the majority of U.S. politicians turned their back on at least the whiff of unconstitutional activity during the WOT — the reason a Truth Commission is necessary is that everyone needs to be held accountable, which I guess is what you’re saying.
This is not an idea I originally supported, by the way. Back when Leahy first seriously suggested one, I thought it was the coward’s way out. People need to go to jail, I thought. But I’d much prefer to see everyone be honest about what they did than watch the Dems try to make political hay out of a mistake they themselves played a key role in.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t think anyone is in favor of letting the Dems “try to make political hay out of a mistake that they themselves played a key role in.” The best thing to do is to investigate, prosecute and let the chips fall where they may.
In response to another comment. See in context »you have touched on why there will never be a truth commission…all in washington share responsibility for the crimes against the constitution…none want to take any responsibility.