Coverup, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his work. He never actually went there. 47 years later he traveled to my lai for the first time and writes about his trip in a new piece titled the scene of the crime. Then we go to texas where thousands of immigrant mothers and children are locked up in privately run Detention Centers. Renee they told us we would stay with our family, but then we were separated from our children. Only children under eight years old could stay in our room. Amy e will air a report from democracy nows renee feltz and get an update on how family detention is expanding despite a judges order that using it to deter mass migration is illegal. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President obama has again delayed the withdrawal of u. S. Troops from afghanistan. Obama had vowed to remove half of the 10,000 troops currently in afghanistan in the coming months. But following a request from visiting afghan president ashraf ghani, obama announced he will leave 9,800 soldiers at least through the end of 2015. Obama said the u. S. Will still meet its goal to consolidate forces in kabul and remove all but 1,000 forces by the end of his term in early 2017. President obama the date for us to have completed our drawdown will not change, but it is my judgment, the judgment of general campbell and others on the ground that providing this additional time frame during the fighting season, for us to be able to help the Afghan Security forces succeed, is well worth it. Amy according to the New York Times, Administration Officials say the delayed pullout will preserve secret u. S. Drone strikes and other paramilitary operations. Cia personnel, contractors, and special Operations Forces will continue operating out of a base in kandahar and another in jalalabad. Thousands of people have marched in the Afghan Capital of kabul to protest the brutal killing of a woman by an angry mob. The 27yearold victim was beaten with sticks and set on fire after being falsely accused of burning the koran. Demonstrators gathered in front of the Afghan Supreme Court to demand justice. It was one of the most brutal acts. We have never seen Something Like her. It was close to police officers. There were hundreds of people watching her being killed, but nobody helped. Those that endorsed this barbaric action have to be brought to justice. Those that have endorsed it knowingly or unknowingly should be brought to justice. The 27yearold amy the 27yearolds name was farkhunda. Heidi has asked for Security Council intervention. There are reports that saudi arabia is moving heavy weaponry near its border with yemen. A new report found the iraq war killed about one Million People. The International Physicians for the prevention of nuclear war and other groups examine the totals from the socalled war on terror in three countries iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan, and the investigators found the war has directly or indirectly killed around one Million People in iraq, 220,000 people in afghanistan, and 80,000 in afghanistan pakistan. Not included are further war zones such as yemen. The figures are approximately 10 times greater than decisionmakers are aware. This is a conservative estimate, they wrote. They say the true tally could be over 2 Million People. President obama says he continues to evaluate his approach to the israelpalestine conflict following Benjamin Netanyahus rejection of a two state solution. U. S. Officials might take steps including no longer vetoing resolutions critical of israel. Speaking to reporters obama said a peace deal is unlikely while netanyahu is enough is. President obama i will continue to do whatever i need to do to make sure that our friends in israel are safe. That is what i have done since i have an president , and that is not going to stop. So, the israeli people need to know that, but i am required to evaluate honestly how we manage israelipalestinian relations over the next several years. What we cannot do is pretend that there is a possibility of something that is not there, and we cannot continue to promise our Public Diplomacy based on something that Everybody Knows is not going to happen, at least in the next several years. Amy in his News Conference tuesday, president obama addressed the ongoing talks over and over an Iran Nuclear Deal and said any deal he would richard be a good one. President obama i am confident if there is going to be a deal it will be a good deal for american security, israeli security, and the regions security. If it is not, there probably will not be an agreement. There will be significant transparency in the process. Amy indonesia in tunisia hundreds have marched to protest the shooting rampage at a museum last week. 21 people, mostly Foreign Tourists were killed when gunmen opened fire. The selfproclaimed Islamic State has claimed responsibility. On tuesday, participants from more than 120 countries opened the social forum opened the talk to bring groups together to discuss grassroot struggles for political change. Well bring you a report tomorrow. In the u. S. , the only Abortion Clinic left in mississippi has been attacked by a vandal. On monday, staff arrived at the Jackson Womens Health organization to find their outdoor security cameras destroyed and their electric generator seriously damaged. Surveillance video appeared to show a masked intruder carrying a longhandled tool. The clinic is nicknamed the pink house, since it was painted bright pink as a symbol of defiance against repeated republican efforts to shut it down. It has recently been targeted by the extreme antichoice groups survivors of the abortion holocaust and operation save america. In an online statement, the clinic wrote quote the goal of the antiabortion terrorists is to transform a legal, safe, and common medical procedure into a fearful, and traumatic experience for everyone involved. But we will always do whatever it takes to make sure our doors open every single monday morning, they wrote. And some of the nations top museums are facing calls to sever all ties with billionaire funders who profit from global warming. In an open letter, a coalition of climate scientists and environmental groups says science and Natural History museums should no longer accept money from fossil fuel corporations and individual donors like the koch brothers. The brothers Koch Industries has Extensive EnergyIndustry Holdings and has funded climate denial. David koch is a board member of both the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian National museum of Natural History. The letter says quote when some of the biggest contributors to Climate Change and funders of misinformation on Climate Science sponsor exhibitions in museums of science and Natural History, they undermine Public Confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge. This Corporate Philanthropy comes at too high a cost. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now, democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Juan i am juan gonzalez. Welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world. 50 years ago this month, 3,500 u. S. Marines landed in south vietnam, marking the start of the u. S. Ground war in vietnam. The date was sunday march 7, 1965, the same day Alabama State troopers beat back civil rights protesters in selma. By 1968, the u. S. Had half a million troops in vietnam. The war would go until april 1975. Scholars estimate as many as 3. 8 million vietnamese died during the war. Up to 800,000 people died in perished in cambodia. Another 1 million in laos. The u. S. Death toll was 58,000. Amy one of the most horrific massacres of the vietnam war took place in the village of my lai. On march 16, 1968, an american contingent of about a hundred soldiers, known as Charlie Company, attacked a village of civilians. Women were raped. Houses were burned. More than 500 villagers were murdered, most of them women children and the elderly. The world didnt find out about the massacre until november 1969. Thats when freelance journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story about the massacre and its coverup after tracking down soldiers who took part. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his expose. Seymour hersh recently traveled to my lai for the first time and writes about his trip in the new issue of the new yorker. his piece is titled the scene of the crime. Seymour hersh, welcome back to democracy now what was it like to go to the place that has defined so much of your life 47 years after the massacre . Seymour you cannot imagine. It is not creepy. It was inevitably moving. I only went, to be honest, because my family, my wife, my children, even my dog, cat, and the gerbil wanted me to go and have been nagging me for 20 or 30 years to go to see where it started. I finally did go. I had been invited by the government officially years ago to come, but it was hard. It was hard to see the ditch. It was hard to see how so Many American boys could do so much and how it could be so thoroughly covered up by the government, not only up until that time i wrote about it, but even afterwards. There were investigations that could not cope with the reality. As you mentioned in your deduction, one of the massacres was on that day the same unit, three tasks forces, Charlie Company, led by William Calley one of three, but he was the fall guy. They did the killing in my lai with the same task force. The army, when it began to look seriously into what i had written about discovered the second massacre in their own interviewing, and, of course just could not cope with it. They simply buried that fact. My lai, yes, it was terrible, much worse than other incidents, but incidents killing 100 20 that should not have happened. Juan the irony is you did not cover the war. You talk about how you track down the story. Can you talk about that. Seymour Richard Nixon defeated office. Humphrey would not go against the war. Nixon won by claiming he had a secret plan to end the war and by the middle of 1969, or late1969, his secret plan, it was clear, was to win it. [laughter] not end it. I got a tip. There were desertions and there were also hearings and investigations, one in detroit michigan, where a group of gis had gone public with story after story of horrific incidents taking place. I read all of those things. I guess, i believe, you cannot really write if you do not read. I knew how much there was an underbelly of very ugly stuff in that war that was not being reported. So, when i got a tip in 1969, late1969, i was a freelance writer, i worked for the Associated Press etc. , and i had covered the pentagon, and i had were learned ojt promotions were being driven by body count, how much did you kill . Inevitably, soldiers eager to get more killings would stop differentiating in many areas particularly the particularly my lai, areas known to be engaged and committed to opposition to the south vietnamese government. We call them the outcome. Many of them are not communist they were nationalists against the war. Unless, we carried the war very hard to them. I knew all of that. I got a tip from a lawyer named jeffrey cohen, who was involved in antiwar issues, working in washington. He had heard about a massacre. I went looking. You know, i was a soldier, i was in the army. I cover the pentagon. There is an enormous streak of decency and goodwill among many officers and i always say this about the american intelligence community, too. Do not write them off. There are a lot of people with high integrity. I got nowhere on this story. One day i was in the pentagon, rolling around. I guess i was going through the legal offices. The fact that officers had been detained by the army on the suspicion of mass murder was not part of the record. [laughter] i had actually run across lieutenant calley thirds i was told he had massacred some prostitutes. I did not know that. I ran into a colonel who had just been promoted to general. He was limping. He had been shot in the war, and i just ended talking with him about it, teased him a little bit about taking a bullet to make general. Black humor is always very big in the military. I said what is this about some guy shooting up a lot of people, and the kernel, soon to be a general, slammed his hand against his wounded knee, and he said to me, that guy calley did not shoot anybody higher than that. At that moment, i knew there was something big. I found lieutenant calleys lawyer, and i eventually got to him. It was interesting. I had heard a lot about him. The pentagon had accused him of the killing of 111 oriental human beings. That was the charge, as if 10 whites equaled 100. I was not sure what the number was. They got rid of that as soon as i went public with the world. With the word. It was racism so dominant with that war, as it isnt other wars. You have to dehumanize the other person. From that point, i did see calley. As the new yorker, said, i expected to see satan, and i instead found a 56 obscure college dropout. The only thing i could find about him was that he had been a switchman one summer for a small Train Company in florida, and forgot to fill a switch, there was a collision, and he got fired. That was it. Into the army he goes. He becomes an officer. He made up for his incompetence and other issues by being very aggressive with killing, and juan sy, you pieced together not only did you talk to calley you talk to private first class paul meadlo about his involvement in the my lai massacre. In 1969, meadlo agreed to talk to wallace on National Television about what happened. Paul i might have killed nine. Mike men, women and children . Paul why did i do it . I felt i was doing the right thing. Mike you are married . Children . Paul two below. Mike how could a father kill children . Paul just one of those things. Juan you talked about those that gave the orders. Seymour paul meadlo was interesting. I could not get anyone to buy the story. I had a commission for life magazine. I had been in print a couple of weeks earlier, so i was not unknown in the press world, but nonetheless, nobody wanted to be the first to break the story, so i went to a little antiwar news agency called dispatch news service, and they handle the stories. Amazingly, they took off, and i began, as you said i went from calley i wrote a story about calley, and then i went and began to find people, kids that were involved with the help of a wonderful soldier named ronald who now has passed away, but he is one of the few people knew about my lai, and try to do something about it. Amy were going to take a break, and when we come back were going to ask you sy, to tell the story. Seymour hersh is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the new yorker magazine. His piece is titled the scene of the crime. [music break] amy pinckneyville helicopter. This is democracy now democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. With juan gonzalez. Our guest is Seymour Hersh. Seymour hersh is the Pulitzer Prizewinning Investigative Reporter who wrote this piece for the new yorker magazine entitled the scene of the crime. Piece it together for us tell us the day Charlie Company moved into my lai, and then what happened. Seymour that is the real thing. What i did about that story what happened that day, the massacres, they murdered everybody a lot of rape terrible stuff. Then, what i did, because i was so aware of how much had been covered up, how deep it went, i spent another year and a half see more people, and writing a second book. I wrote a book called my lai four right away, but then i wrote a second book. At the time, there was very bad intelligence. Intelligence was there was a battalion there, the 40th, and our boys were going to go in and kill them. There was going to be a big ambush, and when we went in, there was nothing but women and children. The intelligence was lousy, as it always was. They murdered everybody. They were told to kill everybody you see. God knows what the actual reality was. They went out of control, as they had many times before. What i learned was this was the big deal for the whole division. Charlie company was attached to a task force that was attached to a battalion, that was attached to a division. Were talking about 20,000 men led by a Major General and another deputy, and a kernel that was in charge of the regiment colonels, generals, lieutenant colonels, majors were flying above, and i could just tell you from what i know, you had to understand, when you saw that village with pits full of bodies, you knew something horrible had happened. They all knew it. They all cov