Best of TomDispatch: Jonathan Schell, Seeing the Reality of the Vietnam War, 50 Years Late

Best of TomDispatch: Jonathan Schell, Seeing the Reality of the Vietnam War, 50 Years Late 
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175928/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_jonathan_schell%2C_seeing_the_reality_of_the_vietnam_war%2C_50_years_late/#more

How Did the Gates of Hell Open in Vietnam?
A New Book Transforms Our Understanding of What the Vietnam War Actually Was 
By Jonathan Schell
For half a century we have been arguing about “the Vietnam War.” Is it possible that we didn’t know what we were talking about? After all that has been written (some 30,000 books and counting), it scarcely seems possible, but such, it turns out, has literally been the case.
Now, in Kill Anything that Moves, Nick Turse has for the first time put together a comprehensive picture, written with mastery and dignity, of what American forces actually were doing in Vietnam. The findings disclose an almost unspeakable truth. Meticulously piecing together newly released classified information, court-martial records, Pentagon reports, and firsthand interviews in Vietnam and the United States, as well as contemporaneous press accounts and secondary literature, Turse discovers that episodes of devastation, murder, massacre, rape, and torture once considered isolated atrocities were in fact the norm, adding up to a continuous stream of atrocity, unfolding, year after year, throughout that country.
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