The Deaths of Others

Americans are greatly concerned about the number of our troops killed in battle--33,000 in the Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam; 4,500 in Iraq--and rightly so. But why are we so indifferent, often oblivious, to the far greater number of casualties suffered by those we fight and those we fight for? This is the compelling, largely unasked question John Tirman answers in The Deaths of Others. Between six and seven million people died in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq alone, the majority of them civilians. And yet Americans devote little attention to these deaths. Other countries, however, do pay attention, and Tirman argues that if we want to understand why there is so much anti-Americanism around the world, the first place to look is how we conduct war. We understandably strive to protect our own troops, but our rules of engagement with the enemy are another matter. From atomic weapons and carpet bombing in World War II to napalm and daisy cutters in Vietnam and beyond, our weapons have killed large numbers of civilians and enemy soldiers. Americans, however, are mostly ignorant of these methods, believing that American wars are essentially just, necessary, and "good." Trenchant and passionate, The Deaths of Others forces readers to consider the tragic consequences of American military action not just for Americans, but especially for those we fight against.

Autorentext

John Tirman is Principal Research Scientist and Executive Director of the Center for International Studies, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His books include Terror, Insurgency, and the State: Ending Protracted Conflicts and 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World.

Inhalt

1 Introduction: Death and Remembrance in American Wars 2 American Wars and the Culture of Violence 3 Strategic Bombing in the Second World War 4 The Korean War: The Hegemony of Forgetting 5 The Vietnam War: The High Cost of Credibility 6 The Reagan Doctrine: Savage War by Proxy 7 Iraq: The Twenty Years' War 8 Afghanistan: Hot Pursuit on Terrorism's Frontier 9 Three Atrocities and the Rules of Engagement 10 Counting: A Single Death is a Tragedy, a Million Deaths are a Statistic 11 The Epistemology of War Acknowledgments Notes Index