Receptet på omänsklighet är gammalt, och produkten ingalunda verksam bara på amerikaner.

Men för min generation står massakrerna i My Lai - eller Song My som det ofta kallas i Sverige - under Vietnamkriget som emblem för hur människor brutaliseras bortom allt förnuft i krig. Dessutom "sprängde nyheten om den händelsen en gång för alla de propagandamyter som de styrande i USA med stor möda vävt runt sitt krig i Sydostasien", som Peter Englund skrivit i "Massakern i Song My".

Så kommer i dagarna berättelserna om ännu fler, ännu ohyggligare grymheter:

"At the height of the Vietnam War, civilians were butchered by an army unit and the carnage was covered up. But this was not My Lai. This bloody massacre has only come to light in the past week...

Tiger Force operated out of control in the Vietnamese highlands for seven months in 1967. Moving across the region, the platoon of 45 paratroops slaughtered unarmed farmers and their wives and children. They tortured and mutilated victims. A litany of horror has emerged - a baby decapitated for the necklace he wore, a teenage boy for his tennis shoes. A former Tiger Force sergeant, William Doyle, told reporters of a scalp he took off a young nurse to decorate his rifle. The Blade investigation concluded that hundreds probably died. 'We weren't keeping count,' Ken Kerney, a former soldier who is now a California firefighter, told the paper. 'I knew it was wrong, but it was an acceptable practice.' Another, Rion Causey, then a 19-year-old medic and now a nuclear physicist, talked of how villagers were routinely shot: 'If they ran we shot them, and if they didn't run we shot them anyway.' "
Observer: Vietnam killing spree revelations shock US: Atrocity to rival My Lai is exposed - after 36 years, 26 oktober

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