FF Coppola was what was referred to as "a student of the Vietnam War", and as such collected all the newspaper clippings, as we all did, for no particular purpose other than to hope that one day we might "tell the world" about this American genocide, even though we knew "nobody was at home".
But Coppola was the only "lucky one" to have the money and guts to make a movie about it, and you can see he even got to use his clippings [
"don't lose them, we can talk about them later"].
From the point of view of the soldier, the Frenchman explains the war as America fighting for the
"biggest piece of nothing in history".
From the point of view of the "Grocery Clerks" who NEEDED the war, that is best explained by another film, The Pelican Brief - 1993:
Note the skillful transition from the screeching pelicans in their sanctuary to the screeching J Doe in his sanctuary [now pronked as his closet] with HAL sitting back laughing at how well his strategy [pronked as polarization or pitching Tweedle Dee Party against Tweedle Dum Party] is working to keep him in that Oval Office.
