I hadn’t even realized he was still alive, but William Calley has apologized. What a strange thing that is…

There is no doubt that Calley was a bad man and a weak man — he was the lieutenant who led the My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians in 1968 — but at the same time, he was one of the pawns in a game dictated at the highest levels of American policy. Why was he convicted of a war crime, while Nixon and Kissinger were given a free pass? How can we still be in denial that our actions in Viet Nam were a shameful stain on our honor?

We became the bad guys, the villains in black hats, in that disgraceful war, and we’ve done it once again in Iraq. I don’t think Bush and Cheney will ever receive their just reward for that, either.