On War Crimes Part I: Coming to Grips With Atrocity

Vancouver - - Earlier this year former US Senator, and now president of the New School University in New York, Bob Kerrey (D-NE.) went public with a startling proposition that he committed some awful things while on duty in Vietnam in 1969. Gregory L. Vistica wrote a disturbing article in the New York Times Magazine in April about an event 32 years earlier prompting Kerrey to address the issue.

Kerrey was a 25-year-old lieutenant leading a commando unit on a mission in a hole in the wall village called Thanh Phong. Although there are differing accounts to what happened that night, it is somewhat clear that Kerrey and his men killed at least 13 unarmed women and children.

Kerrey maintains that his platoon was under fire that horrible night and under the rules given at the time and under the circumstances they acted correctly-not morally right, but within the rules. The area surrounding the village was classified as a “free-fire zone” where it was understood that any man was a target. Complicating matters for soldiers in Vietnam was the inability to distinguish between combatant and non-combatant. As Vistica suggests, “clearly, the official rules of war were abstract for a terrified Seals squad operating in the anarchy of the Vietnam War.”

In a Wall Street Journal Op-ed Senate colleague John McCain (R-AZ), also a Vietnam veteran suggested that Kerrey “was sent into a free-fire zone to kill for his country, and he helped kill the wrong people. Those who now judge him must follow the dictates of their conscience. But unless you too have been to war, please be careful not to form your judgment of him on your understanding of what constitutes a war hero.”

Kerrey has been haunted by the experiences that night every day since. Only a few weeks after that terrible night, Kerrey would lead his team on another dangerous mission. This time it would cost him part of his right leg and earn him the Medal of Honor for his bravery.

The question asked when the story came out was simple. Was Bob Kerrey a war criminal? Had he violated the rules of war or was he within the rules of engagement given the nature of the guerilla war in Vietnam?

In combat there is certainly a gray area between atrocity or war crime and permissible or necessary military act. Given the evidence in Kerrey’s case we must conclude that there was no systematic attempt by Kerrey. Sure there were cases of acts that were outside the rules of war. Between 1965 and 1973 201 soldiers and 77 marines were convicted of serious crimes against the people of Vietnam.

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