Tuesday, January 30, 2018

BBC — News Eddie Adams' iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next


The BBC attempts to whitewash a murder.
Warning: This story includes Adams' photo of the moment of the shooting, and graphic descriptions of it.
It was an execution but war justified it, you see.

The article laments that the murder's career was (almost) destroyed by it.

Reminiscent of the many years of British colonialism, and why the Brits became hated even by their close neighbors, the Irish, who were also colonized. (Disclosure: I inculcated in the details of this as a child by the Irish side of my family.)

But the West is civilized, right? And Great Britain was the birthplace of liberalism as the foundation of the "Free World."

Inquiring minds wonder why this story was planted now.

BBC News
Eddie Adams' iconic Vietnam War photo: What happened next

8 comments:

Kaivey said...

That's a terrible photo. What a world to bring this about?

Noah Way said...

That was 50 years ago. Where have you been?

Matt Franko said...

Tom can you look in to what when on in the war of 1812 too sometime that is even further back.....

Then revolution.... maybe French-Indian next.... keep going.....

Tom Hickey said...

History books written by the victors usually omit the ugly, glorify it, or at least excuse it.

Bob Roddis said...

The "victim" had just committed an atrocity.

Heavy street fighting had pitched Saigon into chaos when South Vietnamese military caught a suspected Viet Cong squad leader, Nguyen Van Lem, at the site of a mass grave of more than 30 civilians.

Adams began taking photos as Lem was frogmarched through the streets to Loan's jeep.

Loan stood beside Lem before pointing his pistol at the prisoner's head.

"I thought he was going to threaten or terrorise the guy," Adams recalled afterwards, "so I just naturally raised my camera and took the picture."

Lem was believed to have murdered the wife and six children of one of Loan's colleagues. The general fired his pistol.

"If you hesitate, if you didn't do your duty, the men won't follow you," the general said about the suddenness of his actions.

Kaivey said...

I've seen it been before.

Tom Hickey said...

Extra-judicial execution.

Jeff65 said...

Bob, don't libertarians believe in due process?