Here's some 'just war' theory for y'all: 'The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman.' - Theodore Roosevelt: The Winning of the West, 1894. 'The savage wars of peace' - Rudyard Kipling: The White Man's Burden, 1899.

Great observations on My Lai from @drchrisdeutsch.bsky.social

This week: US foreign policy and imperial violence in the Cold War. The discussion will be imformed by @kimatiwagner.bsky.social's critiques as well as that of other southeast and east Asian scholars. To be paired with @jasonhiggins.bsky.social's brilliant history.

We need a Robert Langdon to explain the figure in the middle...

Preparing a lecture on US empire for tomorrow and about half the slides are just going to be screenshots of tweets from within the last few months...

Your daily reminder that American exceptionalism requires a hefty dose of deliberate amnesia. #AmericanExceptionalism101

Just wrote up my interview with Trần Nam who was 6 years old in 1968 and saw his entire family killed at My Lai. Only those who were 10 or older at the time of the massacre are formally considered as survivors, since younger children are not presumed to remember much. But he remembers everything.

Kathryn Johnson interviewed Lieut. Calley in March of 1971, just before he was found guilty of the premeditated murder of 22 South Vietnamese civilians. This was the headline:

Four years ago, I finally managed to get to the Southern Philippines and climbed Bud Dajo where American troops killed 1000 men, women and children in 1906. Just like Leonard Wood's expeditionary force, I took the overnight boat from Zamboanga. Bud Dajo is in the distance, half-covered by clouds...

As someone with a deep suspicion of the legal framework for understanding/dealing with 'war-crimes', this is nevertheless very good news. (Historically, the law enables violence as much it restrains it and I believe we should be able to denounce atrocities regardless of their legal status)

From yesterday's trip to Canterbury

'Troops are neither helpless victims nor killing monsters.' - American exceptionalism, going strong since forever...

This is just ridiculous and - ironic given the message - deeply contradictory...

Your daily reminder that while the existence of photos from My Lai made the massacre more difficult to cover up, the existence of photographic evidence is in and of itself no guarantee that an atrocity will receive public attention or be recognised as such...

Belated birthday present from my Dad - an original and signed woodblock print by Hiroshi Yoshida: 'Kagurazaka Street at Night after Rain' (1929)

Staring in historian of imperialism... Don't get me wrong, I often agree with @adamserwer.bsky.social, but I simply don't think this is true.

Interesting to see so many references and comparisons to Wounded Knee, My Lai or Haditha atm - yet no-one talks about Bud Dajo in 1906, where more men, women and children were killed than all the other massacres combined. I'm not really convinced that Americans are serious about their own history.

I see the 'just following orders/disobeying illegal orders' discourse is still going strong when Americans talk about My Lai. Do they not realise that the legal context was but one small part of the massacre? US soldiers killed and raped irrespective of the orders they had been given...🤦🏼‍♂️

"Indeed, his book is a brilliant - illuminating, in the words of Du Bois - guide for how to analyze photographs out of the margins of historical accounts as more than mere illustrations" Very generous review of my last book by @susieprotschky.bsky.social in American Historical Review🙏🏻

Here's the clip of me speaking about my new @manchesterup.bsky.social book 'Make cheese not war' on @en.france24.com this morning: www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/...

'Operation Exterminate All The Brutes' was right there...😑 www.thecanary.co/global/world...

God I hate this AI slob...

Atrocity fact of the day: At the memorial for the My Lai Massacre, the site of the mass-shooting in the ditch that was carried out by Calley and Meadlo (and others) is off by approx 50 meters. The actual site is just outside the memorial and the ditch itself has long since been covered up.

@michaelgvann.bsky.social and I made it into Vietnamese TV during their coverage of the 58th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre last week. As far as 15 minutes of fame goes, I'll take it...

After two weeks' fieldwork in My Lai - during which I got to talk to the last living survivors, mapped all the graves, established for the first time the complete dead-count, and even witnessed a Buddhist exorcism - I am now back to teaching and this week's seminar is fittingly on 'Apocalypse Now'.

My work-desk on the last day in Vietnam. It has been an incredible experience...

Memorial to the Viet Cong sappers who were killed during the attack on the US embassy in Saigon on January 31, 1968, as part of the Tet Offesnive. The original building was demolished in the 1990's.

Continental Hotel Saigon - where Graham Greene and the likes of Michael Herr used to stay - is looking particularly good this afternoon.

It hits differently to visit the War Remnants Museum in Ho chi Minh City today...

It's my last day in My Lai and I just met a survivor who has never been interviewed before. He showed me where his family was buried in a makeshift grave right after the American left in the afternoon of March 16, 1968. Unlike most of the victims, they have not been moved to a proper grave.

Last day in My Lai

Just gave a guided tour at the My Lai Memorial to a couple of US veterans - now I can cross that off my bucket-list...

I present to you the absolute worst - and historically most illiterate - take on My Lai (atrocities more generally). However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Jeff Flake for providing material for my book... www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Good morning from My Lai

Praying for the victims of the My Lai Massacre alongside the few living survivors is probably one of the most powerful experiences I've so far had as part of my research.

As part of the anniversary commemoration at My Lai, Ron Haeberle's photos have in recent years been displayed before the memorial.

Starting the day at My Lai with coffee with my friend Truong Tat, who at the age of 6 survived the shooting at the trail along with his mother Le Thi Em, now 97. They still live right next to the trail where Ron Haeberle took the photo of the group of bodies.

Today, on the 58th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, people will post about Calley or Thompson or draw frivolous comparisons that illuminate nothing. No-one will get the number of dead right, and no-one will name any of the victims. My Lai has been reduced to an empty metaphor...

Dawn at My Lai, March 16, 2026

I don't usually post selfies but it's an absolute privilege to be at My Lai with one of my favourite people in the world - @michaelgvann.bsky.social

Beach at My Khe, site of the second massacre on March 16, 1968

Hill 85 - known by locals as Elephant Hill

Not every day that a My Lai survivor shows you their scar from a bullet wound...

Graves at My Lai

My Lai by night

Today was a special day. As I walked through My Lai, just after sunrise, an old man called out and invited me inside his house. It turned out to be Do Ba - the small child that Hugh Thompson, Larry Colburn and Glen Andreotta saved on March 16, 1968.

The killing of Iranian schoolgirls is a horrific atrocity - but it is not comparable to Wounded Knee, Tulsa, My Lai or Abu Ghraib in any meaningful way. Different circumstances, different forms of violence, different logic, different justification. These comparisons obscure more than they illuminate

My Lai has become the go-to comparison and golden standard for American war-crimes - yet you guys can't even be bothered to get the facts right. It's probably the only massacre of its kind where we actually know the exact number of victims (504), but apparently such details are irrelevant...