Surely the real point here isn't that there was a massacre of non-combatants, but that the people who carried it out, without meaning to, reported what had happened honestly, and it was covered up by a lying war-machine for political reasons, and they've kept it covered up all these years, like they have kept far worse things covered up.

The people who pulled the triggers were young men obeying orders and in fear of their lives. The people who told the lies and ordered the cover-up, and gave the orders were sitting in offices, safe and warm and a long way from the shooting. Making up euphemisms like "collateral damage" that helped people like Timothy McVeigh psych himself up for his freelance massacre.

"We wouldn't be in these kinds of messes if people wouldn't talk." That's completely the wrong way about. The best hope of keeping out of those kind of messes is for the truth to come out. (And aside from that cover-ups and denying the truth causes enormous damage to vets who got caught up in this kind of thing. But the authorities don't give a damn about what happens to them.)