[lbo-talk] Extraordinary LA Times War Crimes Series

[Auguste Blanqui]

This is the first article in an LA Times series by Nick Turse on war
crimes during the Vietnam War.  It's based on his doctoral dissertation,
which will come out as a book in a couple years.  It is really quite
extraordinary and upsetting -- and I wouldn't be surprised to see it win a
Pulitzer, if that Toledo Blade series did.  The argument of the
diss/series is that incidents like My Lai and Tiger Force were far more
systematic and regular than the
writing on My Lai/Tiger Force suggests.  He stumbled upon the govt
documents used to write this thing by accident.

Also, this series is appearing in the LA Times.  For all the endless left
and liberal whining about the "mainstream media," it seems that all the
major
exposes I've read in the past five years, whether on Enron, Guantanomo,
Abu Gharib, etc., have come out of the detested "mainstream media"
outlets.  Maybe if the amateur couch-potato media critics spent less time
writing blog entries and commentaries stating the obvious, more of this
would be appearing in the
stack of left magazines I have sitting in my apartment, untouched for
months.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 20:27:57 -0400
From: Nick Turse <nat9 at columbia.edu>
To: Nicholas Anthony Turse <nat9 at columbia.edu>
Subject: re: war crimes series

Hello,

    I hope this note finds you well.  I generally do not send out mass
emails anymore, much less ones about my own work, but I'm breaking that rule
to let you know about a series that I am co-writing for the Los Angeles
Times, because it means a great deal to me to get the word out about
it.  You can find the first installment of series, on previously unknown U.S.
war crimes in Vietnam, at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines;
on the
latimes.com homepage
or the front page of tomorrow's paper if you're in greater LA area.

    I'm specifically contacting you because I either: worked with you on a
Vietnam-related project; know the Vietnam War (or the issue of war crimes)
has special meaning to you; at some point I pledged to send you word when
the series was finally published; or I know you have a large, diverse list
of colleagues that I hoped you might share this link with.

    As it looks now, we'll be publishing further installments over the next
several weeks, so if you're interested please check back in on the LA Times
website or let me know and I'll send the links along as the stories are
published.

    Thanks!

All best wishes,
Nick

Nick Turse, PhD, MPH
Social Psychiatry Research Unit
Department of Epidemiology
Columbia University
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