My Lai

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the contents and the shortcomings of this book which offers a brief history of the massacre and its aftermath with documents from the era illustrating certain aspects of the case. The brief history includes some analysis of the Vietnamese War itself leading to the events of the massacre and what happened after.

From the Paper:

"The My Lai massacre raises a number of issues related to how warfare is conducted and specifically to how it is conducted by a democratic nation like the United States. For such an event to occur in the Vietnam War made it all the worse, for that war was already under suspicion by much of the public. A segment of the public had long been opposed to the war, and the size of that segment was growing as the war was shown every night on television, leading to concerns about what was seen on screen and about the reasons why America was in this war at all. The massacre only added one more element--now the terrible war was turning young Americans into killers."

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