Abstract

Minority Report

According to the author, he scanned all the cheap effusions that followed U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey disclosures, looking for just one mention of just one name, Vietnam War veteran Ron Ridenhour. Ron was the GI who got wind of the My Lai massacre, Vietnam followed up on what he'd heard, complained to the higher-ups and, when that didn't work, blew the whistle to the press. Ron was a friend of the author and by any known test an American hero. Except that there is a strong tendency in all cultures and all societies to hate people like Ron. By his simple and principled action, he destroyed all the excuses of those who say that war is hell and whaddayagonnado. Nobody troubled to report an even worse moment at Kerrey's press conference, which occurred when the invaluable author Amy Goodman asked him about the command responsibility for war crimes borne by the Nixon-Kissinger architects of the aggression.