ying. This illusion, also allowed Harkin's and Westmoreland's war of attrition to continue for many years absolutely devastating the Vietnamese people and their country. The really horrible thing about all of this is that people believed that the war of attrition was a good thing. People tried to inform them that this policy of attrition was not working and it was mainly killing civilians and destroying their property, but U.S. leaders failed to listen. The saying, "lets bomb them back to the stone-age," sums up the attitude of American officials at the time. The result of all of this in my opinion is the second biggest commitment of war crimes, second only to the holocaust. This novel opens the eyes and makes you look at the truth of what America did in Vietnam. It dispels lies that have existed since the war and makes you deal with the mistakes we made. The most ironic things, however, are the reasons why we believed we had to fight this war. After WWII, Wilson and the U.S. government sounded out against colonialism. When it came time to act, however, they decided that they couldn't afford to upset France because they needed military bases there to counter the potential threat from Russia. It was during this time that Ho Chi Minh went to France to try and gain the support of the U.S. for Vietnams independence. While in France, Ho discovered that the only political party that was against colonialism was the socialist party. It was from this that the myth that Vietnam was really about communism arose. The power of lies are truly amazing when you take time to look at them and their results....
