Nick Turse

PRAISE

"Nick Turse's explosive, groundbreaking reporting uncovers the horrifying truth." (Vanity Fair on Kill Anything That Moves)

"Turse gives a sobering account of the horrific crimes against ordinary people that define South Sudan's conflict. He shows how efforts to count the dead, investigate the crimes, and bring perpetrators to justice have so far failed. His compelling account reminds us why accountability is both urgent and necessary."  (Kenneth Roth, executive director, Human Rights Watch on Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead)

"Gripping and meticulous, Nick Turse’s reporting on Africa sheds much-needed light on shadowy missions the U.S. military would rather keep secret. His investigations of U.S. military missions in Africa in Tomorrow’s Battlefield reveal a secret war with grave implications for Africans and Americans, alike. (Glenn Greenwald on Tomorrow's Battlefield)
 

"A searing and meticulously documented book...A damning account of the horrors the United States inflicted on civilians." (Financial Times on Kill Anything That Moves)

"The average journalist follows the herd of others. A bold one like Nick Turse goes to where the herd isn’t. His searing reporting in this book brings alive the suffering of a country that the United States, midwife to its birth, has largely forgotten." (Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost, on Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead)

There have been many memorable accounts of the terrible things done in Vietnam--memoirs, histories, documentaries, and movies. But Nick Turse has given us a fresh holistic work that stands alone for its blending of history and journalism, for the integrity of research brought to life through the diligence of first-person interviews... Here is a powerful message for us today--a reminder of what war really costs. (Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company, on Kill Anything That Moves)

"A dogged and intrepid journalist who won't take 'no comment' for an answer, Nick Turse has done a fantastic job of exposing the U.S. military's expansion into Africa and the proliferation of its secret missions on the continent." (Craig Whitlock, Pentagon correspondent, Washington Post)

"An indispensable, paradigm-shifting new history of the war... All these decades later, Americans still haven't drawn the right lesson from Vietnam." (San Francisco Chronicle on Kill Anything That Moves)

"Nick Turse, alone among war reporters, is the wandering scribe of war crimes. Reading Turse will turn your view of war upside down. In South Sudan, troops run amok, desperate civilians shelter in squalid U.N. camps, international officials fail to record evidence of atrocities, while military and political bigwigs battle for power at the cost of their country. No glory here in Turse’s pages, but the clear voices of people caught up in this fruitless cruelty, speaking for themselves." (Ann Jones, author of They Were Soldiers)

A powerful case…With his urgent but highly readable style, Turse delves into the secret history of U.S.-led atrocities. He has brought to his book an impressive trove of new research--archives explored and eyewitnesses interviewed in the United States and Vietnam. With superb narrative skill, he spotlights a troubling question: Why, with all the evidence collected by the military at the time of the war, were atrocities not prosecuted? (Washington Post on Kill Anything That Moves)

"In the first book length account of AFRICOM’s operations, Nick Turse chronicles how in a very short time, Africa went from the margins of US foreign policy—to be not just the warzone of tomorrow, but of today." (Sean Jacobs, international affairs faculty at The New School and founder of Africa is a Country)

In Kill Anything That Moves, Nick Turse has for the first time put together a comprehensive picture, written with mastery and dignity, of what American forces actually were doing in Vietnam. The findings disclose an almost unspeakable truth....Like a tightening net, the web of stories and reports drawn from myriad sources coalesces into a convincing, inescapable portrait of this war--a portrait that, as an American, you do not wish to see; that, having seen, you wish you could forget, but that you should not forget. (Jonathan Schell, The Nation)
 

"A masterpiece... Kill Anything That Moves is not only one of the most important books ever written about the Vietnam conflict but provides readers with an unflinching account of the nature of modern industrial warfare....Turse, finally, grasps that the trauma that plagues most combat veterans is a result not only of what they witnessed or endured, but what they did." (Chris Hedges, Truthdig)

"This is an essential book. Anyone interested, or living in, the continent needs to read it... Turse, has done the Lord’s work in uncovering the US military’s incremental expansion in its new African theatre." (Daily Maverick on Tomorrow's Battlefield)

"Explosive… A painful yet compelling look at the horrors of war." (Parade on Kill Anything That Moves)

"U.S. military training missions, joint exercises, military aid operations in many different countries, most ruled by repressive regimes... sound like the Middle East? The Arabian Peninsula? Think again. The indispensable Nick Turse introduces us to the rapidly expanding American military footprint in Africa. It is astounding how few other journalists have paid attention to this highly important story."  (Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918, on Tomorrow's Battlefield)

"'Horror shows are plentiful in a country at war,' Nick Turse writes in this painful, chilling account of the rapid descent of South Sudan from the birth of a new country, resurrected from the ashes of bitter conflict, to utter despair and possible genocide. 'But some are grimmer than others,' he adds, finding them wherever he turns in this vivid, gripping account of inhuman cruelty, laced with rays of hope and courage and dignity amidst the horrors.”  (Noam Chomsky on Next Time They'll Come to Count the Dead)

"Astounding…Meticulous, extraordinary, and oddly moving." (Bookforum on Kill Anything That Moves)

“This is a deeply disturbing audit of the Pentagon’s influence on American life, especially its subtle conscription of popular imagination and entertainment technology. If Nick Turse is right, the ‘Matrix’ may be just around the corner.” (Mike Davis, author of Buda's Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb on The Complex)

"Meticulously documented, utterly persuasive, this book is a shattering and dismaying read." (Minneapolis Star Tribune on Kill Anything That Moves)

"Tomorrow's Battlefield is an urgently needed resource for all those seeking ways to end military intervention in Africa." (Lee Sustar, Socialist Worker)

"If you are faint-hearted, you might want to keep some smelling salts nearby when you read it. It's that bad...The truth hurts. This is an important book." (Dayton Daily News Kill Anything That Moves)

"Nick Turse’s investigative reporting has revealed a remarkable picture of evolving US military operations in Africa that have been concealed from view, but have ominous portent, as he demonstrates vividly and in depth." (Noam Chomsky on Tomorrow's Battlefield)

"Kill Anything That Moves argues, persuasively and chillingly, that the mass rape, torture, mutilation and slaughter of Vietnamese civilians was not an aberration--not a one-off atrocity called My Lai--but rather the systematized policy of the American war machine. These are devastating charges, and they demand answers because Turse has framed his case with deeply researched, relentless authority...There is no doubt in my mind that Kill Anything That Moves belongs on the very highest shelf of books on the Vietnam War." (The Millions on Kill Anything That Moves)

"Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead, offers a bracing—at times harrowing—account of South Sudan’s civil war from the perspective of those who survived the conflict and continue to struggle in the absence of accountability for wide spread human rights violations." ( Michael Busch, Warscapes)

“Nick Turse’s searing, investigative journalism reveals just how deeply embedded in our lives the war-making system is and why we should be viscerally alarmed. He exposes how, with a growing contingent of corporate/entertainment/academic/media collaborators, the Pentagon has not only garrisoned the globe, but come home to dominate the United States. For anyone interested in understanding the crisis this country is in, The Complex is indispensable reading.” (Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone)

"In the sobering Kill Anything That Moves, Nick Turse provides an exhaustive account of how thousands upon thousands of innocent, unarmed South Vietnamese civilians were senselessly killed by a military that equated corpses with results.…Kill Anything That Moves is a staggering reminder that war has its gruesome subplots hidden underneath the headlines--but they're even sadder when our heroes create them." (Bookpage on Kill Anything That Moves)

“Americans who still think they can free themselves from the clutches of the military-industrial complex need to read this book. For example, the gimmicks the Pentagon uses to deceive, entrap, and sign up gullible 18 to 24 year-olds are anything but voluntary. Nick Turse has produced a brilliant exposé of the Pentagon’s pervasive influence in our lives.” (Chalmers Johnson, author of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic on The Complex)

"An in-depth take on a horrific war…A detailed, well-documented account." (Publishers Weekly on Kill Anything That Moves)

"This book is an overdue and powerfully detailed account of widespread war crimes--homicide and torture and mutilation and rape--committed by American soldiers over the course of our military engagement in Vietnam. Nick Turse's research and reportage is based in part on the U.S. military's own records, reports, and transcripts, many of them long hidden from public scrutiny. Kill Anything That Moves is not only a compendium of pervasive and illegal and sickening savagery toward Vietnamese civilians, but it is also a record of repetitive deceit and cover-ups on the part of high ranking officers and officials. In the end, I hope, Turse's book will become a hard-to-avoid, hard-to-dismiss corrective to the very common belief that war crimes and tolerance for war crimes were mere anomalies during our country's military involvement in Vietnam." (Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried on Kill Anything That Moves)

“A pathbreaking synthesis of American and Russian perspectives on the illusions of empire and the impossibility of ‘victory’ in Afghanistan. As the contributors so eloquently emphasize, the only realistic and humane option can be spelled in three letters: O-U-T.”  (Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, on The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan)

"Nick Turse reminds us again, in this painful and important book, why war should always be a last resort, and especially wars that have little to do with American national security. We failed, as Turse makes clear, to deal after the Vietnam War with the murders that took place, and today--four decades later--the lessons have yet to be learned. We still prefer kicking down doors to talking." (Seymour Hersh, staff writer, The New Yorker on Kill Anything That Moves)

“A fascinating and essential guide which puts the war in Afghanistan in the context of its recent history and dispels propaganda stereotypes about how the US, Britain and their allies became involved.”  (Patrick Cockburn, author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq, on The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan)

"This deeply disturbing book provides the fullest documentation yet of the brutality and ugliness that marked America's war in Vietnam. No doubt some will charge Nick Turse with exaggeration or overstatement. Yet the evidence he has assembled is irrefutable. With the publication of Kill Anything That Moves, the claim that My Lai was a one-off event becomes utterly unsustainable." (Andrew J. Bacevich, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), and author of Washington Rules: America's Path To Permanent War)

"American patriots will appreciate Nick Turse's meticulously documented book, which for the first time reveals the real war in Vietnam and explains why it has taken so long to learn the whole truth." (James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers)

"Meticulously researched, Kill Anything That Moves is the most comprehensive account to date of the war crimes committed by U.S. forces in Vietnam and the efforts made at the highest levels of the military to cover them up. It's an important piece of history." (Frances FitzGerald, author of Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam)

"In this deeply researched and provocative book Nick Turse returns us to Vietnam to raise anew the classic dilemmas of warfare and civil society. My Lai was not the full story of atrocities in Vietnam, and honestly facing the moral questions inherent in a 'way of war' is absolutely necessary to an effective military strategy. Turse documents a shortfall in accountability during the Vietnam War that should be disturbing to every reader." (John Prados, author of Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945–1975)