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Editorial
Murder's still a crime
America. caught in a rush of
sympathy for Lt. William L Cal
ley Jr over his war crimes con
victions, is for the first time in
its history blatantly condoning
the murder of a 16-month-old
intant. not to mention the mur
der of at least 21 other Vietnam
ese civilians.
With unremembered unanimity.
Americans from all walks of life
have come to his side — signing
petitions demanding his free
dom. coughing up money for his
defense fund, and. in general,
labling his verdict and punish
ment as "unjust ."
We condemn this war in which
My Lais have been allowed to
happen and then covered up: we
condemn the government that
has perpetuated this war. and
we condemn the society that has
permitted it. But we can't go
along with the tide of American
sentiment
It's too easy to say: "Let Cal-
•ey go."
Were not the Americans in
great part responsible for the
Nuremburg trials which set the
precedent for the attribution of
war crimes to those ultimately
responsible'’
The fact that Harry Truman
ordered the dropping of the
atomic bombs, or that the bom-
badier pulled the lever, or the
navigator steered the course, or
that there were My Lais in
World War 11 and in every war
before all that, all that com
bined in no way diminishes Cal-
ley's accountability for what a
six-man military jury decided he
did at Mv Lai 4 on March 16.
1968
Yet, we are presented with a
dilemma Callev is a scapegoat
The United States, while con
demning the known and imag
ined acts of terrorism and the
atrocities of the Viet Cong
throughout the bloody war. could
not let an atrocity recognized
publicly worldwide go bv un-no-
ticed and unpunished
Calley is also a scapegoat for
the conscience of a nation un
willing to point the finger of
guilt at its government which
really perpetrated the crime
We must not stop with Calley
The jury must prosecute with
the same vigor the Medinas and
the Hendersons and the West
morelands and the Nixons And
in the end back off and take a
good, long look at the situation
that caused America's darkest
hour in quite a while
A situation whereby men
brought William Laws Calley Jr.
from that small Vietnamese
hamlet to Fort Benning. Ga .
and tried to come to a logical
decision about a wholly illogical
set of events
We're a long way from exact
ing justice, but we began with
the court-martial's decision.
Unfortunately, and perhaps
tragically, we have stopped with
the beginning President has
stepped in (in light of public in
terest attracted by the easel and
announced he will personally
review and make the final deci
sion in the case.
When the very people who
have cried "law and order" for
so many years are willing to
whisk away the entire concept of
judicial review in favor of the
one-man opinion of the Presi
dent. the Constitution becomes
meaningless
When the American people
say "Thank God for Lt. Calley.
this country has lost whatever
moral conscience it ever owned
Whether one agrees with the
verdict or not. it is inconceiva
ble to make a hero out of a baby-
killer, no matter what the cir
cumstances
And. when the American peo
ple are so willing to collect
themselves into a vast, unthink
ing mass, can a dictatorship be
considered such a remote possi
bility
Colley: hero
or criminal?
LEST WE FORGET
Evidence Old men. women, children
and babies were deliberately slaughtered
at My Lai on March 16.1968
Evidence American troops encoun
tered little if any hostile fire, found vir
tually no enemy soldiers in the village and
suffered only one casualty, apparently a
self-inflicted wound
Evidence Testimony of eyewitnesses
and of Calley himself are conclusive that
he directed the slaughter of the unarmed
civilians and participated in it himself
Evidence: Lt. William L Calley. Jr.
did in fact fire into a crowd of Vietnamese
villagers at My Lai ("We all huddled them
up i and that at least some of those
killed — the younger children who had
probably not yet reached the age of reason
— were innocent ( not Viet Cong i
Even if you had rounded up Viet Cong
soldiers who had been shooting at you two
minutes before and had them under con
trol and disarmed, there is no justification
for shooting them
Evidence Calley himself said he was
functioning like a platoon leader should
The supposed order from above to destroy
all inhabitants of My Lai was never corro
borated Even if such an order had been
given it would have been unlawful and
no soldier would have been required to
obey it.
"Calley killed people at the ditch and
later murdered an old man and a child
trying to escape fiom the bodies in the
ditch . Calley spotted a child
(estimated to be about two years old»
trying to get away Calley ran it down
threw it back in the ditch by the arm. and
then shot it " (Charles siedge. Calley s
radio operator •
1 believe with all my heart that Lt
Calley was given the benefit of every
doubt No man could have had a fairer
trial no man " (Maj Harvey G.
Brown, member of the Calley court-mar
tial jury>
The Red and Black, Tuesday, April 6, 1971 P°9 e 5
H. R. OSBORNE 5
Calley
EDITOR S NOTE: Henry Riggs Os
borne. author of this guest column, is a
graduate student in Food Science. He is a
lieutenant in the t. S. Army Reserve.
1 see little justification lor the current
uproar against the conviction of Lt Wil
liam Calley There seems to be little
doubt that Calley with malicious intent
killed many innocent women and children
What other conviction than first degree
murder would be justifiable* And yet the
majority of the American public accord
ing to the news media is glorifying him
and equating him with some kind of blind
idea of patriotism
Demonstrations
are occurring all
over this country
and more specifical
ly all over this state
with pleas of "Free
Calley.*' Yet all the
public clamor in the
world will not
change the fact that
under the law Callev
has committed 22 different acts of
murder and under the unbiased eyes of
the world and in the eyes of God he will go
down in history as the main perpetrator of
this horrible atrocity
Some would argue that Calley is just a
scapegoat to cover up the guilt of his
superior officers This statement is ques
tionable on two counts One. Cpt Medina.
Galley's commanding officer, stated under
oath several times that he never gave
orders to shoot innocent women and child
ren To the contrary. Medina stated that
he ordered his men not to shoot innocent
civilians
Secondly, even if Calley had been fol
lowing orders his actions would not be jus
tified Each officer in his preparation at O.
C. S (Officers Candidate School) under
goes a ngorous indoctrination in military
law One of the things which is stressed in
this training is that every order which is
given by a commander should be followed
to the utmost of the subordinate s ability
unless such an order is unlawful It
would hardly seem possible that anyone in
his right mind would consider conciouslv
gathenng women, children, and infants
and mowing them down as lawful
There are those who would argue that
we all are guilty in some way for what
happened at Mv I^ai These people say that
society and more specifically the military
forced Calley into the position where he
had to do what he did The proponents of
this idea therefore think that Calley
should not be incarcerated for his actions
If one thinks about this argument for a
second, he finds it absurd Such an argu
ment could be made for any person con
victed of a enme in our society Does this
IMMI that dll CfittMi should be blamed on
conviction
society and therefore go unpunished' 1
Some would argue that the fact that
Calley was a soldier and under pressure
on the battlefield would absolve him from
his crime The argument is made that the
individuals he shot were communist sym
pathisers who set booby traps kiliing
American GIs and deserve no belter than
they got Since when does a uniform with a
lieutenant s bar make a person a judge,
jury, and executioner'* And even if this
were so. "you are going to tell me logical
ly that a sixteen-month-old infant is a
communist sympathiser and sets booby
traps to kill Americans' 1
If Calley is not punished justly for his
crime but instead is praised as some kind
of hero by the American people, what will
TIM DRAIN
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Tim Drain, author
of this guest column, is a freshman in the
School of Journalism.)
On Wednesday. March 31. yet another
name was added to the long list of Amen
can casualties in Southeast Asia that of
Lt William L Calley Jr As everyone
knows. American public response was
overwhelmingly in favor of Calley But
this column is not
intended to condemn
or defend Calley
There has been more
than enough specula
tion on the subject
Many people have
suggested that if Cal
ley were guilty, then
Gen. Westmoreland
and President Nixon should also be
tried But I would like to offer my opinion
If there is a guilt, it must be placed
squarely on the shoulders of the American
public — you and 1 The Amencan public
has become so complacent and apathetic
that. unfortunately, it has taken the My
Lai incident to stir us into action I hope
that, as a result of that action, we. as a
nation, can pull together and put an end to
the longest police action that this na
tion has ever been involved in
After 17 years, and countless American
lives, the war drags on After literally
thousands of our boys have come home
physically disabled or mentallv disabled,
the war drags on. After seeing dozens of
picture stories in many of our leading
magazines of our boys lying dead, dying or
dismembered on the Asian battlefield, the
war drags on And the only real dissent in
this country was from the anti-war pro
test movement But todav the picture is
changing
justified
that say of the American people to the
world' 1 First it will say that we are hypo-
entes. that we are willing to hang Japa
nese and German generals for war
crimes, but we praise our own soldiers for
such atrocities Second, it will tell the
world that we are barbarians in that we
allow and even promote such incidents to
occur without following the rules of hu
man decency Finally, it will give the
world final notice that the American judi
cial system no longer stands for equal
treatment under the law. but rather jus
tice by mob rule and public pressure
If Calley is treated any differently than
Charles Manson or any other convicted
killer, ! think it will be a travesty of
American justice
On Thursday. April 1. in response to the
Calley verdict news commentator Paul
Harvey called for all Americans to band
together and demand an end to Amencan
military involvement in Southeast Asia
i Mr Harvey has never been known as an
anti war protestor i After hearing this.
1 took action Quickly a petition was
drawn up calling for troop withdrawal
The results of my work on this petition
should show just how much the anti-war
picture has changed Between Knday and
Saturday, a total of 40 stores in the Athens
area accepted the petition and began work
on getting the public to sign it All three
radio stations in Athens have offered sup
port Bill Strickland of Copies Unlimited
ran off 200 free copies of the petition
Korean war veterans. World War 11 veter
ans. Athens policemen: all gladly have
signed
On Friday. I mailed a copy of the peti
tion to Paul Harvey, with the hope that it
will go nationwide In the meantime, if
you are concerned, consider these facts:
through December 14. 1970. 50,000 Ameri
cans had been killed and 330,000 have been
wounded In a speech made by Senator
Stephen Young the war is now costing
2G billion per month " Can America at
ford either the men or the money' 1 If the
war has not been resolved in 17 years, is
there any reason to assume that it will be
resolved in the next 17'’ If you. like me.
feel the answer is a resounding NO. please
sign the petition If you are downtown
shopping, ask the store manager where
the petition is located in his store If any
stores need more, they will be supplied if
you can't find one, sign this and return it
to P. O. Box 5215. Alps Road Station. Ath
ens. Georgia 30601
Demand war's end
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