"It's shades of Vietnam again, folks: body counts"
- Seymour Hersh
About this Quote
This quote by Seymour Hersh is describing the Vietnam War, which was a dispute in between North and South Vietnam that lasted from 1955 to 1975. In this quote, Hersh is recommending that the US is repeating the same mistakes it made throughout the Vietnam War. Particularly, he is referring to the US armed force's reliance on body counts as a measure of success. Throughout the Vietnam War, the US military utilized body counts to determine the number of enemy contenders killed, however this was an incorrect procedure of success as it did not take into account the variety of civilians killed or the number of enemy combatants who were not killed. By stating "It's shades of Vietnam again, folks: body counts," Hersh is recommending that the US is repeating the same error of counting on body counts as a step of success, which is most likely to result in the same disastrous results as it did throughout the Vietnam War.
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