Lewy contends that the US actions in Vietnam had been neither illegal nor immoral and that tales of American atrocities were greatly exaggerated in what he understands as a "veritable industry" of war crimes allegations.
[3][4][5] Lewy argues, It is the reasoned conclusion of this study ... that the sense of guilt created by the Vietnam war in the minds of many Americans is not warranted and that the charges of officially, condoned illegal and grossly immoral conduct are without substance.
To measure and compare the devastation and loss of human life caused by different war will be objectionable to those who repudiate all resort to military force as an instrument of foreign policy and may be construed as callousness.
I hope that this book may help demonstrate that moral convictions are not the exclusive possession of persons in conscience opposed to war, and that those who in certain circumstances accept the necessity and ethical justification of armed conflict also do care about human suffering.
[4] In recalling the 1971 congressional testimony of some US veterans who were critical of the war, one of whom compared US action in Vietnam to genocide, Lewy suggests that some "witnesses sounded as if they had memorized North Vietnamese propaganda.
[10] Chomsky replied to the criticism with an article entitled "On the Aggression of South Vietnamese Peasants against the United States", in which he suggests that "Lewy is not writing just military history but a moral tract."
These are treated with antiseptic brevity, and Lewy takes pains to put them into a context of the "frustration resulting from fighting an often unseen enemy, the resentments created by casualties," etc.
In dealing with Communist inhumaneness, however, he gives a plenitude of detail, with an unconcealed moral indignation totally absent from his grudging admission of US-Saigon torture, and factors that might explain such acts by the enemy are treated with sarcasm.
He even matter-of-factly explains Saigon torture: "The police were not highly professional, prison guards were underpaid, and South Vietnamese have a low regard for human life.
"[13] Among adherents of the text, Mark Moyar wrote in his 2006 Triumph Forsaken that "Lewy's superb book was the best history of the Vietnam War when it was first published, and ... remains one of the best.
[15] The political group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth utilized some of Lewy's work in their 2004 publication Unfit for Command,[16] and Norman Podhoretz has often cited America in Vietnam and written extensively in its defense.
A black marine who agreed to be interviewed was unable to provide details of the outrages he had described at the hearing, but he called the Vietnam war "one huge atrocity" and "a racist plot."