for nearly ten years the u.s. sprayed more than one thousand million gallons of agent orange which contains the lethal chemical dioxin on vietnam cambodia laos and thailand not just jungles were sprayed three thousand one hundred eighty one villages and as many as fifteen million people were also directly sprayed this spring continued long after vietnam the east and american doctors began reporting the destructive effects on the kids and for nearly two years after american scientists proved the agent orange connection to birth defects general william westmoreland was picked to run the war . i can say categorically that he never and the history of warfare certainly never in this trail of the use of american arms as more

attention given to the avoidance a civilian casualty is way did it not. from the top down the orders came and then the body count became the most important statistic of the war and search and destroy became the operational method for increasing it. if a battalion commander or a company. failures am we're told that everybody's enemy. and we can get this big body count which was the number one career enhanced meant statistic in vietnam. for example we get this report of a v.c. . though we don't have any evidence that it was at the scene no weapon no equipment no nothing you know just a suspicious situation. if it's just counted which it is

counted and condoned then there are elements of people down at that level that would figure hey that's an easy way to get a body can. testimony at the winter soldier hearing in one thousand nine hundred seventy one revealed some of the atrocities this policy led to. some testimony here on the burning of villages cutting off ears coming up with korean artillery on villages for games women raped napalm on villages could you go into just a few of these to let the people know how you treat to be enemy civilians. the calling of artillery for games the way it was work would be the mortar forward observers would call in art with big out certain houses and villages fairly bullish and border forward observers would call in orders until the point that house and

then. artillery forward observer would call it artillery until he destroyed another house and whoever used the least amount of artillery they won when we got back someone would have to buy something else fear that. in this video we used testimony from many sources to bring home the ground truth of the war in vietnam this is what it was like on the receiving end of an artillery game. i'm safe how they directed artillery fire into the area where i live. yeah to that really need. all the houses and trees were destroyed them. down i am. also to. keep. peace kerosene and gasoline and so their homes first into flames when they were hit

by the rockets from the yellow but some do you know look. i'm not here now. yeah. old folks children and pregnant women who could not sleep in their home. computer. do you waste tax dollars going directly to increasing the body count to the be at nummi and became the currency of the kill kerry camp some of you may have seated scary looking individual i think i've ever seen in my life. he was a mercenary and. they got paid by the ears that they produced pairs of years as a navy seal p.r. you advisor makes clear these rules were set from the top p.r. you was the in force mint on of the phoenix program and the phoenix program was the

cia organized program of assassination and terror in vietnam among other things americans on these teams would often carry out operations while dressed to look like the viet cong they brought back a gun they got paid for it if they brought back a prisoner they got paid for if they didn't bring back the whole prisoner they used to get paid for bringing back identifiable parts ok i didn't set these rules up this is the rules that they're that they played by when you try to change those rules you're going to resistance i didn't want people bringing me back years and me having to pay for it. i don't want to live people dead people on top. here's a story from a cia agent in vain long. i was sitting in there and we had an old french villa we. were these irregulars came in with the district girl as she

just you know. just been come back from a battle they had five or six weapons and they threw the weapons down and they were just discussing with the whole situation they were going to prove something came up through a bag on the table and the bag had eleven ears on it and he said you don't need to try. and. well. the winter soldier hearings looked into the treatment of the. prisoners. i've never seen him. since. we had a couple of guys. from philadelphia. used to blindfold the guys with safety wire and pull. out the light.

and safety. and contest to see if they could throw the bodies out of the airplane and throw out a price again and. the american soldiers they took care of p.o.w.'s in vietnam like to take pictures so the winter soldier hearings involved a few slides. ok there is an interrogation going on here it's a big production and these are all the marines sitting around giving their various cheers this man here is a warrant officer. typical. these are national field police this man came over. and put a. i can spoon it's a vietnamese bone and he put it in my fire and he's burning the skin off the back of the man's neck. and finally the man in fear of his life method that one

time he had given tex to the v.c. but you can't prove that i heard earlier today that they used c.s. well marines used about a c.s. this particular man wouldn't come out of the hole and they threw to c.s. going to say that i personally a squirt of this man back to division and he died of gas doesn't kill i don't know what killing. this issue of in the us did you really want to say. the first slide you can see. he shows a prisoner of war in a way that they try to get him to talk. by make him stand in front of a pile of combine that we picked out the same p.o.w. was forced to set. for probably from six to eight hours by the pile of bodies

in the house. the shadow of five or six. going through the body looking for souvenirs in this picture there's a lieutenant in a captain overlooking what's going on at. all for says were present at all times yet feel great officers were present were present. and the next slide is a slide of myself. i'm really shameful of and i'm showing and hope the new people never been involved ever let this happen to you don't let ever let your government do this to you come. to my mind if i want to do. the slaughter was organized from the top you can't defend a place like that by setting on your daddy box you've got to get out and aggressively patrol and that's what our people are doing and the one thing i am

precise to them all i was out there was to find these the common carrier. one time i went there to the headquarters for some reason and they had all these boards drawn up are showing the kill ratios in each brigade and seems to me like it was. and i don't know your neighbors and their. search terms people but you were going to territory he was trying to find them and kill him and listen to him from the trade and from our allies for some airliners. back and. hundred nine was the first big hill a copy of he war and that's how much of the killing was done i was a helicopter. a cobra gunships pilot. i worked with another aircraft at all times to know what was called a hundred killer teams. i was told. by the other pilots in the unit how to tell a v.c.

from a civilian. if they were running their obviously if they were standing there they were well just simple well disciplined v.c. sure many. self-will told me that when we were flying over a village or near a village if people started to leave the village civilians. it was a good sign that there were v.c. in the area said they were expecting a fight. while speaking with those with my future me she says when american helicopters come through people run they think they're going to be killed. so we put these two things together and see you know civilians are in kind of a bad spot. the offices go by helicopter support. the temperatures ninety five inside to the air

conditioned the music is always to. november of sixty eight in an area called the wagon wheel which is northwest of saigon when a routine search and destroy mission gunships were to be providing security and cover for us in case we had any contact or circling overhead no contact was made and the gunships got bored. so they made a gun run on a coach with many guns and rockets out when they left the area we found. one dead baby which was a young child. very young in his mother's arms and we thought. we found him

a baby girl about three years old they were dead. some people fell in love with the technomage. prisoners that. we captured are having as you say this is the most feared weapon are sad if it is. not evidence and we carry. it out of time we can say our station. as many u.s. soldiers in vietnam were infantry their main mission was search and destroy we were given orders whenever we moved into a builders to reconnoitre by fire this means to her we step into ability to fire upon our houses anything to our discretion it looks like there may be someone hiding behind behind or in a under well sometimes when we come to a village there was a bit mean to go on out of the bomb shelter you know for fear being caught so

consequently this surprise would startled any individual and they would automatically turn to fire thereby uselessly koen civilians but i'll give an image before he opposed the iraq war in the u.s. senate jim webb was a combat marine in vietnam people would flash you have really good people and one individual who was a terrific marine who. we were in one operation and his best friend was killed and we made a sweep two days later through a village and this guy killed a civilian sort of as payback and in his own mind he was sort of justifying it and one village we won't. women and kids going into the village and we got in there and we got in the village i mean another guy we were treating two unconscious babies babies like five six year old kid and a woman lying in a hammock and i told tenet these people have to be evacuated because they're not

evacuated this lady had shrapnel on and the kids had shrapnel in them they want conscious they've been evacuated out to die for get a doctor have time to stay and wait we went up on the hill read about this fifth same village we fired down on this village the next day while people trying to bury the dead we fired down on the village at the people while they were doing your a burial ceremony and we and they killed another face they ran obviously but another of perth in the village. also went down that same that same day to get some water and there were two little boys playing on the guy and one sergeant of congress and sixteen the shop where the guy the other boy tried to run the guy it's other. he shot this other little boy up. and like lying on the ground kicking they shot him again to make sure he's dead.

many of the refugees created ended up in the squalor of saigon where morny safer opened the c.b.s. news bureau in one thousand nine hundred sixty five. it first appeared that the marines had been sniped at and that a few houses were made to pay shortly after an officer told me he had orders to go in and leveled a string of hamlets that surrounds them neve village and all around the common daddy field that feeds these hamlets a range of five hundred fifty homes were leveled in retaliation for a burst of gunfire. on the first operation that i was on in country we went into a village called five fingers and it was a typical koran in search which is you surround a village and then you sweep through it and hopefully when you're sweeping if

anybody's running from you they're going to run into the of course the surrounding troops on the other side and they get wiped out but we received fire as we walked into the village and we took no casualties but we did end up with a body count no weapons were found so apparently they were civilians the next day in the morning should i say they rounded up the entire village. all of them. and marched them out you were all prisoners of war all of them men women children made no difference we built to do so the habs they were just relocated man just moved away. i have hardly ever heard the term vietnamese they were always. there is no difference between a good one and a bad one except the good one at the time is train no weapon but he still fair game . the games that some of the marines in my outfit played myself included would be

to find the older power of the long whiskers and which i guess was a symbol of his identity in their culture and they would just be cut they would anybody who complained. we would move into a village and we would just step down we own the village while we're here these people would do what we told them or they wouldn't be allowed to stay in their own how are they would be beaten inside the house we were on our first operation and it was it was an operation so it just followed this procedure they were used to and we were just shown how you destroy a village and they just cried and carried on we don't know what happened to them that was the only village. in immediate vicinity so we clear the area more or less everything is set on fire my squad leader personally ignited the first two chairs and then just told us to take care of the rest. when we went out i would say fifty percent at least of the villages we passed through would be perm to the ground

there was no difference between someone we burned and the ones we didn't burn it just put some we had time and we burn. we came here today to begin an operation aimed at clearing this area and mopping up the hidden viet cong to bring security to all of you. we understand that among you there are some who have naively listened to the viet cong propaganda and have joined the rebels among them are some of your husbands your brothers so please advise them to come back we are ready. during this pacification program to admit them back to society and to assist them. in ninety one children around others did calm suspects. and the lieutenant around

him up as call the caps on the radio and he asked what should be done with them the captain simply repeated the order that came down from the colonel that morning the order they came down the colonel that morning was to kill anything that moves which you can take any way you want to take it and when the captain told lieutenant this then i rang off i got up and i started walking over to the captain thinking that the lieutenant just might do it because i had served in this petition for a long time and i started over there the captain i think the captain panicky thoughtfully time i do it too and this was a little more. atrocious and the other executions that our company participated in only because of the numbers. but to get them tried to call him up try to get him back on the horn and wouldn't he couldn't get a hold of him and i was walking over to my turn i looked in the area i looked to where the v.c.s. were supposed to be c.s.

. and two men are leading a young girl broccoli one thousand years old very pretty out of a hoot she had no clothes on. soon she had been raped which was pretty s.o.b. and there that's their operating procedure for civilians. and she was thrown out of the pile over one thousand women children and five men around the circle open up on full automatic with sixty. three through me and we're still here for a real interest here is a very very it's our right there's no currently really traitors to lay people really really inside really just really really like the newspaper said operations to recruit or to move either we set up their way to move. to any new group. or the americans well they burned and destroyed and killed. i didn't see

anything really. only believe. that out of one hundred seven villages in this area hundred and six were burnt to the ground some of them many times over. this area was a free fire zone. anything that moves could be shot. you saw stand at ten feet away we got in. these people are aware of one of our bodies doing so not sure if they try to hide the young girls. we found one night in a bomb shelter in sort of the basement of her house. she was taken out raped by six or seven people in front of her family. everybody most of the villagers.

are deceased this wasn't just one instance this is just the first one i can remember i know of thirteen or so as you just instances at least i was really i mean for goodness. oh. we didn't just call it a serial. all vietnamese were on our. air and also our they were inferior to us were markets where we were a civilized. and out it we don't give a shit about those people. sadly most americans are not aware of how many of the in these were killed in the us in series men you put numbers at less than a hundred thousand the shameful facts are that between three and five million vietnamese were killed in that and the vast majority of them were civilians.

after the first gulf war george bush sr announced that vietnam syndrome was buried in the desert sands of the arabian peninsula. to help us get over the vietnam syndrome presidents reagan and bush did a series of quick military victories against small countries in which thousands of civilians died in grenada panama nicaragua. and el salvador. in reality in the vietnam syndrome is a code for the need to induce a kind of national amnesia about the true history and facts of the vietnam. as witnessed a debacle of the iraq war has become we can see that they have been largely successful. and especially around. the results movement a million iraqis most of them civilians have been killed in another started with

law school and motivated by greed. and the policy that created continue. those who refuse to remember their history are condemned to repeat. this one must in. this coliseum this been for all time must not forget. we must learn from it and proceeds. ban.

culture is that so much to finish musician the powers to find the time to mark what came changes or bends continue to unfold in egypt what kind of middle east is coming into being and give democracy is indeed on.

the egyptian president clings to power as hundreds of thousands volunteers stay on the streets until he let's go join me here in a few moments for an update. very close to him but before. human rights activist accuse its social services of money making scams

after a russian woman living in sweden claims her daughters were taken from her by the country's authorities. also tainted tehran fear of all the ringrose in the u.s. as the mainstream media they are increasingly demonizes a rod often without having grounds for the early game against the islamic republic . and global financial challenges and russia's changing economic situation on the edge and of the n.l. russia for getting underway in moscow business archie is the. visitor to coming to live from moscow with joshua welcome to the program and egypt's president hosni mubarak has announced he won't seek reelection it's a tomorrow's vote after more than a week of violent protests across the country urging him to step down but the u.s.

president has called for him to begin.