Why are Australian officials commemorating the Battle of Long Tan?
The Allied soldiers may have won the Battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966, but there can be no doubt we lost the war.
Estimates of the cost of the Vietnam war to the Allies exceed $1 trillion.
Like other imperialist wars, the war in Vietnam was another war of atrocities.
Many Vietnamese civilian detainees died from torture.
Young civilians also were murdered and women raped.
Unfortunately no one was prosecuted for these war crimes because Vietnam veterans who spoke out about the truth were branded traitors and liars.
Rather than commemorating the Battle of Long Tan, we should be compensating the Vietnamese for war crimes and commemorating the real heroes: the anti-war movement and those who opposed war crimes and military conscription.
What happened to many Vietnamese people was not unlike what happened to many Polish and Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz concentration camps.
The Allied powers refused to believe the early reports of Nazi atrocities at Auschwitz.
Today Australian and American politicians turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed during the Vietnam war.
John Glazebrook,
Endeavour Hills.