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Sat 10 Oct 2010The United States' great shame
WAR: TOM CLONANreviews The Untold WarBy Nancy Sherman, Norton and Co, 338pp. £21 and None of Us Were Like This BeforeBy Joshua ES Phillips, Verso, 256pp. £16.99
AS THE United States draws down its forces in Iraq and prosecutes a renewed military surge in Afghanistan, its troops have been in continuous combat for almost a decade. In keeping with literary tradition, US soldiers have been publishing memoirs and first-hand accounts of their country’s so-called global war on terror. A recurring motif in these accounts has portrayed the combat soldier as an idealistic “noble warrior” whose moral courage is constantly tested by the vagaries of asymmetrical warfare.
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