In the United States, official silences regarding the Vietnam war have recently been augmented by something more dangerous. The government is currently in the midst of a 13-year “Vietnam War Commemoration” — a series of traveling exhibits, symposiums and other public events celebrating veterans and “highlight[ing] the service of the Armed Forces.” All of this is accompanied by online educational materials and an interactive timeline — a Pentagon-approved history of a conflict that cost the lives of nearly four times as many people, twice as many civilians, as the slaughter in Indonesia. Instead of truth-telling, however, the effort — which will have cost taxpayers about $15 million by the end of this year — is devoted to advancing a counterfeit history of the Vietnam War, ignoring the civilian costs right down to a whitewash of its one well-known massacre.