In these chapters Greiner has created a microcosm of the Vietnam War that illustrates how the war over the population soon became a war against civilians. Yet rather than pointing the finger at the 'grunts' fighting a dirty war on the ground, Greiner argues that the responsibility for these atrocities extends all the way up to the White House and the Pentagon such as: a political leadership frightened for the United States to lose its credibility and unable, against better advice, to stop the war; a military that devised a strategy of attrition based on 'body counts' as the only way to defeat an enemy skilled in unconventional warfare; officers who were badly trained, lacking in motivation and interested only in furthering their careers; soldiers who realised they were utterly disposable and sought to empower themselves through random killing - all these factors lead to an escalation of violence on the ground: the torture, rape, maiming and murder of countless Vietnamese civilians. Impeccably researched, multi-layered in its analysis, and balanced in its conclusions, this is an important book: it is the comprehensive, and arguably final, indictment of the American war in Vietnam.



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