Thanh Phong: Another u.s. massacre in Vietnam exposed by 
mc17

On February 25, 1969 u.s. Lieutenant Bob Kerrey led a Navy 
Seal mission which resulted in the murder of at least 13 
unarmed Vietnamese peasants in Thanh Phong. This mission was 
not unlike much of the Vietnam War which involved the 
massacre of many villages of unarmed Vietnamese people as 
the u.s. military attempted to destroy a popular communist-
led guerrilla army. 

According to reports from squad members, 
Kerrey ordered women and children, whom they had taken 
prisoner, killed for fear that they would report the squad's 
location to the guerrillas. Kerrey and his immediate 
superiors reported these unarmed women and children as "VC 
KIA," or Vietnamese communists killed in action. This 
reflected the Amerikan military's conscious policy of 
indiscriminate killing in so-called "free-fire zones," as 
well as a back-handed admission that they were not fighting 
"insurgents," but a popularly supported revolutionary army. 

Peasants in the Amerikan-declared "free-fire zones" were 
ordered to leave their homes and relocate to government 
refugee centers or be considered "VC." The imperialist 
military then was authorized to fire on anyone they found in 
those regions. Young children, clearly unarmed, were 
massacred in the name of fighting communism. 

One Amerikan 
officer is infamous for admitting, "We had to destroy the 
village in order to save it." Kerrey received the Bronze 
star for his service in Vietnam and has been hailed a war 
hero. Details about Kerrey's Navy Seal mission like the fact 
that they had visited Thanh Phong a few days prior to the 
massacre and interviewed women and children, finding no men 
in the village, help to make clear the conscious massacre 
that took place. 

In fact, on their way into Thanh Phong 
Kerrey's men came across a few unarmed Vietnamese men, women 
and children who they killed. According to Kerrey he didn't 
have to order these killings: "Standard operating procedure 
was to dispose of the people we made contact with." 

None of this is unusual for the Vietnam war: what is unusual is the 
"exposure" of this individual massacre by bourgeois press. 
Apparently it makes a safe news story over 30 years after 
the event, so long as it is reported as an anomaly of the 
war. This massacre happened one year after the killings at 
My Lai which gained significant publicity and ultimately the 
conviction of Lt. Calley for the premeditated murder of 22 
(out of 350 murdered) unarmed civilians. Calley served only 
3 years under house arrest at Fort Benning. This token 
conviction and light punishment again underscore the 
attempts by the u.s. war machine to excuse massacres in 
Vietnam as anomalies. 

After the media made clear their 
intention to expose the Thanh Phong mission, Kerrey came 
forward to give his version of the story. He says he has 
felt tremendous remorse over the mission. Although his 
experiences in the war appear to have led to some anti-
Vietnam war activism after he returned home, Kerrey did not 
join the ranks of anti-imperialists opposing militarism from 
this experience. Instead he went on to become a u.s. 
Senator, serving as a part of the imperialist war machine 
that made massacres in Vietnam and in many other countries 
around the world an integral part of global domination. 

As MIM has explained before, during the Vietnam war the Yankee 
military killed 3.8 million Vietnamese, lost 58,000 
Amerikans and still did not persuade the Vietnamese people 
of the U.$. imperialist way of life. This is because 
domination by imperialism is not an acceptable way of life 
for the majority of the world's people.

Notes: New York Times Magazine, April 25, 2001.