Does Vietnam still haunt Americans? Forever wars in the Middle East and Donald Trump’s war of aggression against Iran – which began with the killing of scores of young school children in Minab before moving on to casual threats of genocide from the US president – suggest otherwise.
Americans continue to vote for leaders who enmesh them in imperial undertakings that eviscerate the populations of targeted countries and leave the American soldiers participating with devastating physical and psychological scars.
I thought in recent days of the war crime perpetrated by Vietnam veteran Bob Kerrey, the former president of The New School as well as former Democratic governor and US senator for the state of Nebraska. His former university has recently received attention for Palestine-related efforts in the student senate and the resulting backlash against the attempt to stop student and university complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide.
In 2001, The New York Times Magazine reported on Kerrey’s involvement in the 1969 massacre at Thanh Phong.
Gregory L. Vistica wrote of the massacre that “around midnight on Feb. 25, 1969, Kerrey and his men killed at least 13 unarmed women and children. The operation was brutal; for months afterward, Kerrey says, he feared going to sleep because of the terrible nightmares that haunted him.”
Other reports put the number of civilians killed at 20 and emphasize that Kerrey only spoke of his being “haunted” by the incident after decades of silence, suggesting political expediency. Bao Anh Thai, a lawyer in Vietnam, wrote on Facebook of Kerrey’s 2016 appointment to be chair of the board of Fulbright University Vietnam: “Please tell me the name of any prestigious university in this world, where a killer in cold blood of women and children – he admitted it and he is not charged for it – could be the president.”
The New School answered that question years earlier, part and parcel of a country that has never properly reckoned with the war crimes its military has committed. (more...)
Muzzling goes to new extremes on US campuses
At a time when antisemitism remains prevalent on campuses, the New School Student Senate’s vote to defund Hillel was obscene. Though the school’s reversal is welcome, the initial vote signaled more than insensitivity - it reflected hostility toward Jewish student life.
— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) May 3, 2026
Every… https://t.co/ARbT6TcaP3
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