At least 347 and up to 504 civilians, almost all women, children and elderly men, were murdered by U.S. Army soldiers. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated, and some soldiers mutilated and raped children as young as 12.
only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., the leader of 1st Platoon in C Company, was convicted. He was found guilty of murdering 22 villagers and originally given a life sentence, but served three-and-a-half years under house arrest after his sentence was commuted.
Research has highlighted that the My Lai Massacre was not an isolated war crime. Nick Turse places it within a larger pattern of American atrocities enabled by deliberate policies from commanders, such as “free-fire zones” and “body counts”, as well as widespread racism amongst American military personnel. Many other atrocities were also covered up by commanders.
Why you should know about this: It is important to know about history so that we can learn from it, avoid the mistakes and atrocities of the past, and know which institutions have a history of performing atrocities, trying to cover them up, etc. and what that looks like.
So both are true. Humans are the most co-operative. But if you look at the achievements, most are done to better one group of humans over another. Rarely is something done for the good of all humans. I’m actually struggling to think of even one thing that was done for the good of all humans. There must be a few, but I just can’t think of any.
Yeah, I get it. The most modern examples I can think of are probably things like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. I guess you can make the argument that those ultimately benefit those in power too, which I would understand.
You are basically right that the problem we have is that we allow our society to elevate some people over others, which is why I am an anarchist. I believe that we should abolish all unjustifiable hierarchies, and make all humans equal, through a social revolution. If you’ve not encountered this philosophy before, I’d encourage you to check it out. I think it is a very comprehensive analysis of the problems we have, and the only ideology I’ve encountered which actually takes into account human nature to take advantage of any power they have to gain benefits over others.