Winter Soldier
March 5, 2008
Confessions of Vietnam Vets. Want a true account of what happens in war?
“I would kill anyone I could whether they were innocent or not just to make sure I wouldn’t get killed and that was my philosophy. If I’d go into a village and I’d have to kill a hundred people just to make sure there was no one there to shoot me when I walked out thats what I did.” Trailer
One of the most powerful documentaries I’ve seen.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands now, deserves the thanks of man and woman.” Thomas Pain
Part 2 | Part 3| Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
Wintersoldier.com: Winter Soldier documents the “Winter Soldier Investigation” conducted by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in Detroit, Michigan in the winter of 1971. A call went out from VVAW to veterans all over the country saying, in effect, ‘everyone is talking about the war that you know from the inside. If you want to have anything to say about it, come to Detroit and tell it like you saw it.’ At the investigation, over 125 veterans representing every major combat unit to see action in Vietnam, gave eye-witness testimony to war crimes and atrocities they either participated in or witnessed. The purpose of the investigation was to bring to light the nature of American military policy in Vietnam.
I don’t have one ounce of sympathy for these monsters.
You don’t go and torment and kill people in a faraway land, then come back, grow long hair and a beard, cry and say “Don’t let your government do this to you”
My response to him would be: F*** you, you should have thought of this while you were out there. If you didn’t like what you were doing, you should have NEVER done it.
You should never have gone. You should have sat in jail with a clear conscience.
Well I kinda see where you’re coming from with you’re comment, but the fact that they came forward and spoke out about the atrocities, proves they still have some consciousness and humanity left within.. or we really wouldn’t be here discussing it now.
Same with the current quagmire in the Middle-East, we only know of the horrors there from the insiders.. NOT from the embedded media (as if…)
As I commented on the original link:
[..] One cannot help but compare the parallels in military attitude and culture, to current events in the middle-east. The commanders just turned a blind eye to the horrors, and the young soldiers immersed in the pathological deviant culture, completely lose any humanity they once may had.
This Pathological phenomenon has been extremely well documented by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, Ph.D in his book Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes:
Pathocracy is a disease of great social movements followed by entire societies, nations, and empires. In the course of human history, it has affected social, political, and religious movements as well as the accompanying ideologies… and turned them into caricatures of themselves…. This occurred as a result of the … participation of pathological agents in a pathodynamically similar process. That explains why all the pathocracies of the world are, and have been, so similar in their essential properties.
-Identifying these phenomena through history and properly qualifying them according to their true nature and contents – not according to the ideology in question, which succumbed to the process of caricaturization – is a job for historians. […]
The actions of [pathocracy] affect an entire society, starting with the leaders and infiltrating every town, business, and institution. The pathological social structure gradually covers the entire country creating a “new class” within that nation. This privileged class [of pathocrats] feels permanently threatened by the “others”, i.e. by the majority of normal people. Neither do the pathocrats entertain any illusions about their personal fate should there be a return to the system of normal man [..]
In other words, some elements of society are easily persuaded to commit atrocities, support extreme fascist causes (from Nazism to Neo-Con to Zionism), and this has been well studied and documented by the above author.
This book was nearly never published, and that tells a lot about the information within, and what is teaches people about their pathocratic rulers:
” From using his detailed memory on scientific research and data, Polish Psychologist Andrew Lobaczewski wrote a paramount work titled “Political Ponerology,” which was published in 2006. This book drives the readers to experience the hidden aspects of ponerology and to understand the importance of this book. The author Lobaczewski has lived and studied the nature of psychopathy under the harsh condition of the Soviet Union control. And, he has written this work to bring forth the most important study one has ever undertaken.
This book is a third manuscript, and the first two manuscripts did not reach the public’s humble mind because the first copy went into the fire before it could be confiscated by the secret police and the second copy (with all of the scientific data) was never accounted for when it was on route to Vatican. By looking at what is political ponerology, the issue of psychopathy, how normal people are being affected by the pathocratic rule, one can gather an understanding why political ponerology is greatly important and how it would help the humanity.
[..]years ago the publication of the book in the US was killed by Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski in a very cunning way. What was his motivation, I may only guess. Was it his own private strategy, or did he act as an insider of the “great system” as he surely is? How many billions of dollars and how many human lives the lack of this science has cost the world. [..]
“I don’t have one ounce of sympathy for these monsters.
You don’t go and torment and kill people in a faraway land, then come back, grow long hair and a beard, cry and say “Don’t let your government do this to you””
Of course, it’s very difficult to have sympathy for them – though I don’t think that’s what they’re asking for, they know they don’t deserve it.
Let’s remember that these were young kids, and they were CONSCRIPTED. All they knew of history was from school textbooks – i.e. how great the U.S. was. This, of course, doesn’t justify anything that they did. We have to remember, though, that the returning vets made up the hard-core of the anti-war movement. They were the most militant against the war, and many of them came back professing solidarity with the Vietnamese people. They played a very important role in radicalizing the American public during the late 60s and 70s. Some even joined revolutionary organizations like the Black Panthers.
Winter Soldier Part II
“From March 13-16th, U.S. veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan will testify to what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground in these occupations.”
Here is a short promo video for this amazing event
http://ivaw.org/index.php
[...] 1, 2008 My two favourite documentaries on Vietnam are Winter Soldier and this one, Hearts and Minds. Its hard to say which is better the former giving a very accurate [...]