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 <<a href="mailto:nat9@columbia.edu">nat9@columbia.edu</a>> To: Nicholas Anthony Turse <<a href="mailto:nat9@columbia.edu">nat9@columbia.edu</a>> 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: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines">http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines </a> ; on the <a href="http://latimes.com">latimes.com</a> 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