Soldier atrocities are shaped by our society, culture, and political fabric. Preventing them will require a comprehensive rethinking of policies, attitudes, and approaches to war.
June 8 marks the 50-year anniversary since Associated Press photographer Hyung Cong ‘Nick’ Út captured one of the Vietnam War’s defining images.
Terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, near Trang Bang, Vietnam, after a South Vietnamese plane on June 8, 1972, accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on its own troops and civilians.
AP Photo/Nick Ut, File
The ‘Napalm Girl’ photo is much more than powerful evidence of war’s indiscriminate effects on civilians. It also shows how false assertions can get traction in the media.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
During World War II, the US and USSR fought together to defeat the Nazis. When the war ended, the two superpowers began fighting each other.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, right, talks with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders in his White House office in Washington, D.C., Jan. 18, 1964.
AP Photo
An ‘orderly departure program’ similar to the one set up after the Vietnam War could offer a vital pathway out of Afghanistan for refugees over the next several years.
U.S. soldiers stand guard along the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. Hundreds of Western nationals and Afghan workers have been flown to safety since the Taliban reasserted control over the country, but still in hiding are Afghans who tried to build a fledgling democracy.
(AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani)
The Vietnam War was the defining issue for Joe Biden’s generation. His botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan could be the defining act of his presidency.
On Aug. 16, 2021, thousands of Afghans trapped by the sudden Taliban takeover rushed the Kabul airport tarmac.
AP Photo/Shekib Rahmani
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the US Afghanistan pullout is not a repeat of failures in other recent wars. “This is not Saigon,” he said. A seasoned foreign policy expert disagrees.
The U.S. military is handing the keys over to Afghan forces.
Joe Marek/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
For much of the country’s history, Americans won their wars decisively, with the complete surrender of enemy forces and the home front’s perception of total victory.
Ex-service people protest the visit of US President Lyndon Johnson, December 1966.
Picture courtesy the Waddington family
A short history of the Ex-Services Human Rights Association of Australia: a group of brave returned servicemen and women who protested the Vietnam War.
Navy veteran Faron Smith Jr. reacts as he receives a COVID-19 vaccination at a Veterans Administration pop-up vaccination site on April 17, 2021, in Gardena, Calif.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
Released at the height of the Vietnam War, Marvin Gaye’s hit-heavy album explored themes of race, environmentalism and conflict. It also marked a new direction for the Motown record label..
A guard outside the National Convention Center in Hanoi, January 26, 2021.
Manan Vatsyayana/AFP
Hien Do Benoit, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM)
In a new book, Hiên Do Benoit looks at Vietnam’s society, culture and political and economic history, and provides us with the keys to understanding this state unlike any other..
The yellow-and-red striped flag of the defeated American-backed Republic of Vietnam flies at the U.S. Capitol insurrection Jan. 6.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Onlookers who recognized the flag wondered why the mostly white mob had ‘coopted’ Vietnamese history. But Vietnamese Americans are Trump supporters, too, some driven by a potent fear of socialism.
Richard Nixon, celebrating his election on Nov. 7, 1968, campaigned against a backdrop of racial inequality, civic unrest and polarized politics.
AFP via Getty Images
There are similarities between the law-and-order language used by the 1968 and 2020 presidential candidates and the racial tension and political polarization both years. But much is different.
Lots could happen before the next one.
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Speculation is mounting about an impending October surprise in the 2020 race. What does that mean?
U.S. President Donald Trump waves a Vietnam flag as he meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, waving an American flag, in Hanoi in February 2019.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Despite the racial unrest that has rocked the U.S. for months, President Donald Trump finds support among some racialized communities, including Vietnamese Americans. Why?
Congresswoman Bella Abzug, left, and Sen. Kamala Harris, right.
Abzug: Pictorial Parade / Staff; Harris: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
Before vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, before presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, before Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, there was Congresswoman and firebrand Bella Abzug.