Double standards...

Today marks the 39th anniversary of an incident that perhaps changed the course of the Vietnam War, and firmly established the duplicity that has come to characterize the American stand toward many issues, terrorism included.

The My Lai massacre, committed on March 16, 1968 by U.S. soldiers on hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, remains to date a shameful blot on the U.S.'s claim to being a nation founded on liberty and freedom. U.S. soldiers had killed more than 300 Vietnamese, which comprised mainly of aged people, women and children, purportedly in a search operation aiming at rooting out Vietcong guerrillas and their supporters.

The search operation found no insurgents in the village. On questioning the villagers present there, the U.S. soldiers found them either pleading ignorance, or showing reluctance to provide any information, a logical stance, considering that the U.S. weren't exactly very popular at this stage in the war. Fearing, or so they claim, that these villagers were in truth Vietcong supporters, the U.S. soldiers herded them into ditches and mercilessly executed them with automatic firearms. The commanding officer, at the height of this killing frenzy, even expressed the desire to throw hand grenades into trenches harbouring villagers.

From an account gathered by the Peers Inquiry from one of the participants who described using a baby for target practice during the massacre:

He fired at it with a .45. He missed. We all laughed. He got up three or four feet closer and missed again. We laughed. Then he got up right on top and plugged him.

Convinced beyond doubt that any and all villagers of My Lai were a threat, the soldiers decimated the entire village, killing innocents in the age group of one to eight-five. If a one-year old can be a threat to the U.S., God save them!

The military then shamelessly attempted to camouflage the carnage as a military victory with the death of over 100 'enemies'. Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and then investigating officer, simply white-washed all allegations of brutality on the part of the U.S. and the South Vietnamese forces towards innocent civilians. It was only when returning soldiers echoed stories of such horror in the U.S. to the media that the incident was brought to light, and the offenders prosecuted.

The Americans did not find it a tad difficult to execute leading military personnel of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany for having issued the orders to commit crimes against innocent people. But when it came to punishing Americans guilty of the same crimes, the U.S. showed a strange reluctance. Of the 26 men charged with the crime, only one, the commanding officer, would be convicted, and he too would serve barely 4 years in prison before being pardoned, purportedly because an officer cannot be prosecuted for following orders.

Whatever may have been the justification for the Vietnam War, the conduct of the U.S. soldiers sorely fell foul of the principles of jus in bello. The acts of war should have been directed against those who have wronged the U.S., and not towards innocents caught in situations not of their making.

That the My Lai massacre was barbaric goes without saying. Comparing this with the Holocaust would be presumptuous, and yet the sheer abandon of reason is the same, whether it was by the Nazis or by the Americans. My Lai would strengthen the anti-war movement in the United States, and eventually, after 7 years, the U.S. would withdraw, in what would be the only military defeat they had suffered till then.

The Americans choose to depict the Nazis and the Japanese as the ultimate symbols of evil. But I wish to state that for their reluctance to prosecute, for their desire to subvert justice under the garb of command responsibility, they have done the world greater wrong than the twain could ever have done. Those who claim a moral high ground are obliged to maintain those heights. Even Caesar's wife must be above suspicion, for Caesar to be venerated.

The Ides of March...

The day would seem as ordinary as any other. And perhaps not without reason. For no great event has taken place so far today. And yet, history has been witness to two of the most important events in the annals of mankind, events which occurred on this very day, the Ides of March.

44 BC. The Roman Republic is hobbling back to normalcy. Julius Caesar, the greatest general to have lived so far, had emerged victorious in a civil war that had threatened to bleed the Republic. The land was finally enjoying peace after troublesome years of strife and bloodshed. Caesar was being seen as just the leader that the Republic had needed, although he would associate with himself the title of Dictator for life, certainly not a republican nomenclature.
And then would be struck the blow of betrayal. When men whom Caesar had trusted stabbed him, purportedly to save the Republic from his machinations, from his designs to re-establish a monarchy with him at the helm. They feared him, because he was popular, because he was a powerful general, beloved by the military, a member of the aristocracy, but most of all, because he was ambitious.
And ironically, the blow to save the Republic would wound not just Caesar, but also the Republic the most. Caesar's death and the consequent civil wars, first between the forces of the assassins and those of Octavian and Mark Anthony, and then between Octavian and Anthony, would render the Republic redundant. Never again would the Senate emerge as powerful as it was during Caesar's lifetime. Octavian would become the first Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar. The Republic was dead, long live the Empire!

Nearer to our times, in 1917, another man abdicated from his throne, a king forced to renounce his kingship, because his majesty was no longer acknowledged by his people. He bore the name of Caesar; only in his tongue it was called Tsar. His abdication would cause civil war in Russia, war that would parallel the First World War, and eventually result in his and his family's assassination at the hands of Bolsheviks.

This abdication effectively sealed the fate of the Russian Empire, as the world had known it then, but heralded the dawn of a new force: Communism and the Soviet Republic. A force that would define the way we see our world for the remnant of the 20th century and beyond.

One man was killed to prevent a republic from becoming a monarchy, but in vain, for the process had already begun. Another abdicated to prevent a monarchy from becoming a republic, which again was something predestined. Two men, Gaius Julius Caesar and Tsar Nicholas II, separated by ages and yet the twain joined by a date in time. A date that would change their worlds. A date that would cause great violence and bloodshed. Not for nothing did the seer say, "Beware the Ides of March".