War Without Fronts: The USA in Vietnam

A groundbreaking investigation of the true extent of American war crimes during the American intervention in Vietnam.Based on extensive research in U.S. Army archives not previously utilized by historians, War Without Frontiers reveals the true extent of atrocities and war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam. Massacres, such as the infamous incident at My Lai, were far from being exceptions or aberrations; on the contrary, as Greiner shows in harrowing detail, they were commonplace. Yet, rather than placing the responsibility for war crimes solely with the “grunts” fighting a dirty war on the ground, he points the finger at the line of command reaching all the way up to the White House and the Pentagon.A political leadership frightened for the superpower USA losing its credibility and unable 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, demotivated and interested only in furthering their careers; and finally, soldiers who realized that they were utterly disposable and who sought to empower themselves through random killing. All these factors led to an escalation of violence on the ground: the torture, rape, maiming and murder of countless Vietnamese civilians.From the Hardcover edition.