The Rest is History Episode 579 The Irish War of Independence: Showdown in London (Part 4) This episode looks at the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed in December 1921. “Deals” are all the go with Donald Trump, and this episode reveals the intransigence and craftiness of ‘deal-makers’, in this case Lloyd George. David Lloyd George was a Welshman, from a non-conformist background (although he personally lost his faith). He despised Catholics, and as a Welshman couldn’t understand why Ireland objected so much to the United Kingdom. He was radical and charismatic, but he was dependent on the Conservatives (who were protestant and anti-catholic) to maintain his position. For some reason, Éamon de Valera refused to go to London to negotiate the treaty, sending instead a team including Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, with instructions not to sign anything without checking with him first. But Lloyd George was a masterful negotiator who separated out Collins and Griffith from the rest and dealt with them individually, and Griffith was too quick to sign a document of agreement made as part of this separate negotiation. The ‘deal’ they came up is encapsulated in the border which lasts till today, and Lloyd George came out the winner, achieving his two ‘red lines’ of maintaining the unity of the empire, and devising a solution that was acceptable to the Conservatives on whom his government depended. De Valera was furious, especially over the oath that had been agreed to, and walked out when the deal was backed by the unofficial Irish government. On 14 April 1922 the armed IRA occupied the Four Courts in a challenge to the Collins/Griffith government.
Shadows of Utopia Tet Part 2: the My Lai Massacre This long episode doesn’t start with My Lai but instead with the village of Ha My on 25 February 1968, a few weeks before the My Lai massacre. By this time, the fighting was petering out, and the NLF flag had been taken down at Hue. A troop of soldiers, mainly South Korean but also with Australian and Thai soldiers called a meeting of the villagers to be addressed by the South Korean commander. The villagers, mainly women, old men and children, gathered hoping to receive some of the lollies that the US-aligned troops handed out. 135 villagers were shot.
By the time My Lai occurred, Westmoreland was confident of victory. There were 500,000 US troops in Vietnam, mostly draftees. They had a 12 month stint there, which Lachlan Peters emphasizes as it was too short to gain any real expertise or experience, and there was a constant churn of men eager to do their time and get home. My Lai was in a ‘free fire’ zone, where ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ was the modus operandi. Charlie Company was led by William Calley, who had benefitted from the churn of personnel to be promoted beyond his modest abilities. The troops were not trained in how to deal with civilians and non-combatants. On 16 March 1968 he led over five hours of pandemonium, arriving at 7.30 in the morning and killing between 350-500 villagers by lunchtime. The divisions had been split up from each other, but there was no attack on them by the Viet Cong. There was an immediate coverup. There’s not many heroes here, but one was helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson who challenged Calley, rescued the few people he could, and reported the action to his superiors. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross, but threw it away.
Lachlan then embarks on a (long) reflection on why the My Lai massacre occurred.
NY Times The Daily Parenting a Trans Kid in Trump’s America. A policy which might (and that’s a big ‘might’) seem acceptable on the face of it can be challenged when it comes down to an individual person and their family. This podcast features two parents, both ministers in Christian churches in the South, who become increasingly conscious of their child’s unhappiness as she (they use the preferred pronoun ‘she’) approaches puberty. To give some breathing space for their child Allie to make up her mind, they begin to search for puberty-blocking hormones, only to find the options becoming increasingly narrowed as Trump’s policies on trans people take effect. Even moving to a ‘blue’ state sees the options dry up, out of fear of penalty and retribution.
Witness History (BBC) The Father of E-Books In 1971 Michael Hart had access to an ARPANet computer at a university for one week. He typed the Declaration of Independence into the computer and emailed it on to the 100 people who had access to the network. This was the genesis for his plan to make the world’s literature available online, starting with 100 books, then going on to the next 100. Project Gutenberg was born!
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 