Monday, March 17, 2008

1968, Forty Years Later: My Lai Massacre Remembered by Survivors, Victims’ Families and US War Vets


Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman


"This weekend marked the fortieth anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, when US troops killed more than 500 men, women and children in Vietnam. We speak with investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the killings and the cover-up.....

AMY GOODMAN: And your reflection now, as you hear an excerpt of Winter Soldier—we’ll be doing these hearings all week on this fifth anniversary—no corporate media coverage of this weekend, remarkable gathering of hundreds of active-duty soldiers, as well as veterans, describing their own experiences, echoing back to ’71? The Winter Soldier hearings of Detroit, Michigan almost got no coverage, as well, at the time.

SEYMOUR HERSH: You know, I’m somebody who works in the straight press. I worked for the New York Times for nine or ten years in Washington, been doing a lot of good stuff, and I’ll tell you—I’ve been reluctant to come to it, but I have to tell you—the Main Street press in this administration, they’ve missed—they’ve failed the First Amendment. Jefferson would be turning over in his grave. They missed the great moral story of our time, which was the inadequate facts on which the President went to the war, extended the war from Afghanistan into Iraq. They’ve missed this complete—this is a presidency that—you know, we have a president who uses words, that, you know, we do not—we don’t torture. The economy is going great......"

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