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Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam Nick Turse Metropolitan Book, 2013
One hesitates to generalize about readers' reactions to a book based on laudatory blurbs cited by the book itself, but it is worth noting that a number of prominent commentators on the Vietnam War are quoted as speaking very highly of Kill Anything That Moves. Some of these are on the left of the American ideological spectrum, others on the anti-war right. The latter include Andrew J. Bacevich, a contributing editor to The American Conservative. A review by Chase Madar in The American Conservative is highly favorable, and accepts the book's thesis.
What is that thesis? It is best summarized by the book's author himself: "From the start of the American War to its final years, from the countryside to the cities, Americans relentlessly pounded South Vietnam with nearly every lethal technology in their arsenal... The logic of overkill exacted an immense, almost unimaginable toll on Vietnamese civilians." "...[T]hroughout South Vietnam, the attitude of American forces was characterized by an utter indifference to Vietnamese lives - and, quite often, by shocking levels of cruelty."
It would seem unnecessary to point out that the literature on the Vietnam War is by no means unanimous in this perception. Polarized opinion raged during the war and has continued for the more than four decades since American troops were pulled from the country in 1973. There has probably never been a war in which ideological predisposition has had a greater impact on how the war was, and is, perceived. The Turse thesis is hotly contested by such commentators as Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr., whose views are apparent in the title to his article "Deliberate Distortions Still Obscure Understanding of the Vietnam War";1 and as Gary Kulik, who served in Vietnam as a medic, who reviewed Turse's book in the April 22, 2013 issue of The Weekly Standard.2
In the present review we won't try to resolve the substantive issues, even though they are important. The literature is voluminous, and each conscientious reader can delve into it at length to reach his own conclusions. As to the substance, we can only say that if Turse's overall perception is correct, it is a devastating critique...