From Pinkville to “Redville”: A State Secret

From Pinkville to “Redville”: A State Secret
Information is a powerful weapon and withholding it can be an even more powerful one. This weapon, when used by the state, is called by its official name – a “state secret.” There are cases in which keeping events or facts a secret from the general public are justified, since it is for the public’s own good. However, there are cases in which the state misuses this weapon not entirely for the public benefit, but for the benefits of its rulers. Sometimes the secret is kept very tight and the truth is so hard to believe, it takes a drastic peace of evidence to reveal it.
The pictures taken by an army photographer, during a routine operation by US ground troops in the Vietnam War on May 16, 1968 were the main part of such evidence. This evidence helped to reveal to the world a year and a half after the event that the routine operation in the Vietnamese village My Lai 4, also nicknamed Pinkville, ended up in a massacre of hundreds...