One more point I'd like to expand upon, with reference to US atrocities in Vietnam:
During the entire war there were TWO cases of War Crimes by military personnel. March 1968, My Lai, 347 mostly women and children, by the 1st platoon of Charlie company, Lt Calley and February 1970, 16 women and children by 5 Marines from Bravo company at Son Thang. US Press accounts of My Lai never mentioned that Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from Company B, 123rd Aviation Battalion, Americal Division was flying over the village of Sơn Mỹ providing close-air support for ground forces. The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women, and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire on these soldiers. He found 12–16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups. Returning to Mỹ Lai, Thompson and other air crew members noticed several large groups of bodies. Spotting some survivors in the ditch, Thompson landed again. Thompson then reported what he had seen to his company commander, Major Frederic W. Watke, using terms such as "murder" and "needless and unnecessary killings". Thompson's statements were confirmed by other helicopter pilots and air crew members.
For the actions at My Lai, Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and his crew members Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn were awarded Bronze Star medals. As the DFC citation included a fabricated account of rescuing a young girl from My Lai from "intense crossfire" Thompson threw his medal away.
Both case resulted in court martial and all were found guilty. After 3 years, Calley was pardoned by Nixon.
Meanwhile the press never mentioned any of the widespread civilian murders committed by the VC/NVA. During Tet alone the VC/NVA murdered over 5,000 civilians, in Hue alone over 3,000 were tortured and murdered. Civilian USAID workers, missionaries and any other westerners were captured starved, tortured, and murdered with never a press comment.
In 1968 Eddie Adams an AP photographer took a photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Luan head of Saigon's Security Forces executing a VC prisoner. This photo won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 and was widely portrayed as evidence of Saigon's corruption, inhumanity, and injustice. These evils had caused the heroic Viet Cong to rebel and begin their civil war.
That the prisoner was the head of a terrorist squad, that he had just been captured in the home of one of Nguyen's top officers. That he and 5 others had just killed and tortured the officer, his mother and father, his wife and their 4 children was never mentioned in any American report. Adams protests, even to his dying day, that this act was "wholly justified given the nature of the crime and guerrilla nature of the War." were never given any press coverage.
On 8 June 72, AP photographer Nick Ùt (a Vietnamese national) covering an ARVN attack on the village of Trang Bang, which had
been captured and occupied two days earlier by NVA forces took a photo of 9 YO Kim Phuc running naked from the village where a VNAF Vietnamese pilot had dropped napalm. Media in the U.S. widely claimed this to be a U.S. atrocity, Evidence of the brutal way the US military conducted the War. While U.S. forces had supplied the napalm NO Americans were involved in any capacity whatsoever. Furthermore, U.S. forces had NO authority over any ARVN command.