My Lai War Essay

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“If we do not end war — war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything”. -H.G. Wells. The two wars, My Lai and Abu Ghraib changed history forever. The My Lai war oversaw the torching of a whole village. They killed innocent people to obtain information leaving the rest of their population frightened. Leaving merely nothing left of the village and the civilians in it. Many of the soldiers involved got away with their war crimes. Abu Ghraib went to extreme measures, to obtain information but with unspecified but surely ruthless methods of obtaining such information, which the prisoner had known nothing about. My Lai and Abu Ghraib we’re similar in the way they were torturing innocent civilians, …show more content…

March 16th 1968 oversaw a unit of highly trained US soldiers savagely execute several hundred Vietnamese civilians. They killed majority of the South Vietnamese Hamlet of My Lai. The My Lai massacre is remembered as one of the most vicious episodes of the Vietnam War. The victims of this merciless attack ranges from men, women to even small children. Many of these civilians were additionally sexually assaulted, tortured or injured severely. The plan was put into motion once the “Charlie” Company proposed a plan to torch the village that we’re suspicious of the Viet Cong. “The Viet Cong is a member of the communist guerilla movement in Vietnam that fought the South Vietnamese government forces along with the support of the North Vietnamese arms and opposed the South Vietnamese and US forces in the Vietnam War”( My Lai Massacre. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2014, from http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre). Their mission was to burn houses, kill off livestock, spoil crops, and pollute wells. Thus denying them of food, water, and shelter. The massacre of My Lai was ruthless and downright illegal, breaking the basic rules of Internal Humanitarian Law. Later on in the year of 2003 a similar massacre to My Lai took …show more content…

The Universal Declaration provides that everyone without discrimination has the right to: be free from slavery, be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile ((The Universal Declaration of HUMAN RIGHTS, UDHR, Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Declaration, Human Rights Charter, The Un and Human Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2014, from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a1). History has been repeated an enormous amount of times degrading people of their human dignity. Some examples listed above. Situations such as slavery and torture rip a person of their human dignity. To fix this problem we add two new players to the field. Adding observation officers can allow problems from being captured and forced for slavery, also torture to be limited. Adding officers in battle to enforce the rules is a lot more beneficial then written laws. Incorporating officers in battle will enforce the rules intimidating the two sides to follow them. Officers will have the power to terminate their position of being a soldier if they’re wish to break any rule that has been clear and performed. Also, another example is no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. This means that there will be no random arrest. Although this usually does not

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