If we had won the "war" (it was never declared by Congress) in Vietnam, we could have prosecuted them for war crimes. Torture of prisoners is a war crime, but as we didn't win, it would be a bit difficult to bring them to justice. Dropping bombs from the air is not the same as putting handcuffs on an accused criminal.
Many of the people who attend the VVA meetings seem to me to believe that the Vietnam war was just and that we should have won and could have won but for the activities of war protesters in the USA. In fact, as I stated in an earlier Presidents's Remarks, we could not have ever won so long as we didn't have the national fortitude to sink the Soviet Union ships supplying the SAMs, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, etc. What's doubly criminal about that colossal waste of human life was that we knew, or should have known, that fact back then, and either done what was necessary to win, or immediately pulled out of a known lost cause.
So now we are repeating the unlearned lessons of Vietnam, only this time it is we who are the torturers, and the criminals are going unprosecuted, not because we are physically unable to get to them, but because we don't have the national fortitude to bring them to justice!
Rick Wagner, member
Vietnam Veterans of America
Chapter 53