Those incidents are not 'alleged' o sung wu. They are absolutely factual, right down to the slashing of the vaginas and shooting the babies of Vietnamese mothers in the head (by christian soldiers from the USA).

Paul L. If you actually read my quote, I attributed nothing to Australian soldiers nor individuals of the army, though I have little doubt that some of them were war criminals from a probabalistic perspective. To think otherwise is naive or is deliberately tendentious.

If you actually cared for argument, rather than some idealistic mytholgising about the 'purity' of the Australian soldier in Vietnam, you would have noted that in (my last post) I wrote the Australian people were quite within their rights to jeer the troops, if they felt the desire to. And the soldiers were quite within their right to believe the words, or to recognise that they were talking about their allies and what the war represented.

Your talk of slander is more than ironic considering your categorical statements about "left-wing" Australians of the time, attributing those words to all of them. What citations did you provide for such claims? None.

For the record I know both quotes were from the same incident. Why did you assume I did not? This was also one of MANY incidents of similar nature. My Lai was merely the high profile one.

PaulL.>"Further, Lieutenant Calley (US Army Americal division) and his company were punished for their abhorrent actions. Many of them were sent to jail."

At least you've now provided me with a falsehood that indicates beyond question your high level of bias. And you call yourself an historian. No, you are nothing more than a western apologist:
-=-=-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai#Cover-up_and_investigations

"In the end, of the 26 men initially charged, Calley's was the only conviction."
-=-=-
And his sentence was reduced from life to 4 months.

Back onto Australian soldiers, it appears Australian soldiers executed wounded Vietnamese soldiers on many occasions. http://www.abc.net.au/am/stories/s319013.htm

STEEL

Look my friend, I'm certainly not going to argue the toss with you.

You seem to harbour a very overt abhorrence and loathing for Veterans of the Vietnam War, per se. I have no idea why ? Nor am I in any sort of position to dissuade you from the palpable malevolence you bare towards Vietnam Vets.

Sir, I don't know your age or circumstances etc..in fact I know nothing about you. Surely though, you don't direct your venom towards ALL soldiers who fought in SV ?

I realize there are some in our community with your intractable attitude, and that's sad. However, I'd bet you never served there.

You'd never had the opportunity to have known and experienced the very close bonds and friendships that were forged in such an hostile and inhospitable environment. We all went over there as fit young blokes. Though nearly all of us returned, as much older men.

STEEL, you can flounder in your own venom and enmity. Where you can continue to luxuriate with your occupation of 'sniping' at Veterans of the Vietnam War.

Myself, I'll take the immense comfort of being with my dearest and closest mates and in whose hands I'd willingly entrust my life.

Steel,

We were talking about ANZAC day and Australian troops. I actually asked you to find evidence of baby killing by Australian troops. You found none. I also said that there was no evidence, yet the "peace protesters" still abused returning soldiers.

You said “in the entire context of the conflict and the subsequent media exposure … people were quite within their rights to be outraged and decry returning troops”

I don’t mythologize; I’ve read the books and listened to accounts of Australian soldiers returned from Vietnam. I’ve read the books by journalists who were actually with the troops, rather than sitting in bars in Saigon regurgitating their preconceptions.

I don’t pretend that every single soldier behaved impeccably. But the vast majority did.

From a probabilistic perspective someone in your extended family is a child molester but I wouldn’t use that to accuse you of it, or your whole family for that matter.

I know you either a) didn’t know you were quoting the same massacre or b) were attempting to suggest that it was more than one incident that you were referring to. Why on earth would you reference the same event twice? Especially when you were trying to suggest that this was somehow widespread.

In any case, that is a US issue. None of our soldiers were involved. You did not come up with ANY evidence of baby killing by Australian forces. So calling the lot of them baby killers is not only slander, it is in extremely poor taste.

And it gets worse. You say “it appears Australian soldiers executed wounded Vietnamese soldiers on MANY occasion” yet you have provided a link to ONE, UNCONFIRMED, report of two Vietcong prisoners allegedly killed by Australian, or is it NZ troops.

I must apologize regarding Lieutenant Calley etc. I knew that many had been charged but I wasn’t sure if they were all convicted.

You should apologize for the fact that you have very little knowledge of the history of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam and that you have maligned the reputations of a lot of good men.

I have no need to apologise. You're misrepresenting my words and have been from the start. I quoted on one specific claim from a general perspective of the war and the allies. Yes your context was different, but I was selectively commenting/quoting on the "baby killer" claim as it applied to allied forces. If you can understand that miscommunication I do not need to quote some of your other claims about what i said.

Paul>"I also said that there was no evidence, yet the "peace protesters" still abused returning soldiers."

And I then provided an explanation of the public and it's reactions to the media, which I still believe were acceptable and within reason based on that context. Note, I never said I thought their words were correct...or accurate when applied to random individuals.

Paul>"So calling the lot of them baby killers is not only slander, it is in extremely poor taste."

I did not (as explained above). I also never claimed it applied to a whole group, ("a lot of them [allied soldiers] were...A lot were not").

On the executions... this single report was of one incident, but there is a wider context of behaviour hinted at. This is from that link:
=-=-
"JOHN MOLLER: .....I don't think it was all that uncommon in Australia - well in Vietnam I should say. You know, we have heard in recent times of Australian veterans who are quite open about despatching wounded Vietcong after various battles"
=-=-
So, indeed it does "appear" that on "many" occasions Australian soldiers did do this, based on this interview.

Steel,

You whine that I misrepresented your words, and then you say it again.

You say>> “ I did not (call them baby killers). I also never claimed it applied to a whole group,"

but then you say >> "("A LOT OF THEM [ALLIED SOLDIERS] WERE...”"

No steel, You haven’t provided any evidence that Australians were involved in “killing babies”. There isn’t any. So the Allied bit is nonsense.Yet you persist in slandering these people. It’s just like me saying the socialists are torturers, murderers and rapists because in some places Socialists have done those things. You haven’t even provided evidence that “A LOT” of Americans were involved in this type of behaviour. Out of over 3,000,000 US servicemen in Vietnam you have noted that 100 of them were involved in a massacre. That is 1 in 30,000 who were murderers. Thats exactly 0.0033 percent.

On the evidence you have provided to us, all you can say with ANY justification is that ONE company of AMERICAN soldiers committed a massacre in a Vietnamese village. That’s it. Nothing about Australians except for an allegation of execution of wounded prisoners. And a suggestion that it was not the only incident. I can find you people who are prepared to suggest that the US uses area 51 to store its UFO’s. Finding someone who will make a claim is not evidence of anything.

Talk about hearsay. Conviction by association seems to be a common method of all supporters of the left. It’s so hypocritical of people like you to whinge that Haneef was convicted by association and yet you are happy to do the same thing to 50,000 Australians you have never even met.

Finally the fact that there never was any evidence of Australian troops killing babies didn’t stop peace activists from labelling them as such. It was a despicable act and it is one reason why many of those who are against the war today are still prepared to support our troops.

Paul.L

"Talk about hearsay. Conviction by association seems to be a common method of all supporters of the left."

This was rather a stupid statement to post. On the basis of an argument with one or two leftists, you're making an accusation against "all supporters of the left". That in itself is a classic example of what you term in that very sentence "conviction by association". Talk about hypocrisy!

You're whole argument is pointless anyway. Of course no one has the evidence to prove all incidents of atrocities committed by Allied soldiers. And you know that. It's not like there's a camera on every corner in a war zone.

There's enough irrefutable evidence regarding bad soldier conduct though to suggest to most reasonable people that our soldiers are not necessarily any more noble than any others when exposed to the brutality and chaotic savagery of warfare.