Why did the Army want Kurtz killed so badly?

Maybe he was becoming so mysterious and powerful with his ever-expanding army that he was becoming a threat to the U.S. Government.

Kurtz didn't care for euphenisms or bother with putting up a civilized veneer to hide his atrocities - which were only a marginal, if grotesque, exaggeration of what was going on allover the place.



"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

Kurtz was an officer who was AWOL and disobeying orders. He was also killing people who were designated as allies. All of those were crimes for which he would be punished. He wasn't going to submit to being arrested without a fight and, as murder was one of the charges, they sent assassins to take him out.

On a broader level, he was pursuing the war in his own way and in a manner that did not conform to the civilian political agenda that the military was tasked with carrying out.

Did yar watch the movie yet? It's pretty well explained at the beginning.

The way I saw it he was an embarrassment to the US military not to mention that he was disobeying orders and refused to come back.

"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine

What's interesting is Kilgore also pretty much just does whatever he wants which makes me wonder "if that's how Kilgore fought the war I was beginning to wonder what they had against Kurtz".

This might help with the OP's question:

The trip up the river led by Capt. Willard exposes him to two extreme viewpoints of war represented by the two colonels he encounters on his long journey, both of whose names start with 'K,' which is no accident:

COL. KILGORE (Duvall) is a romantic who embraces war as a lifestyle and even feeds off it, i.e. glorifies it. The fact that he's a romantic can be observed in the air-raid on the village where he literally plays Wagner as a prologue. He feeds off the war to the extent that he "loves the smell of napalm in the morning." War is just another day to him so why not go surfing? Since he lives off of the war there's no way it can kill him or even give him a scratch. Kilgore naturally has the support of the top brass because he's part of the system and plays the game of war.

COL. KURTZ (Brando), by contrast, sees through this hypocrisy. He realizes that being in a state of war is humanity gone mad. It's horror itself and therefore must be ended through the quickest means possible, whatever cost. He refuses to play the game of war as he expertly takes out double agents, etc. Of course the brass can't have this so they put out a hit on Kurtz via Willard. The existential Kurtz becomes increasingly disillusioned -- even crazy -- after jumping ship from the system and now has no sanctuary. Death is the only way out. His consolation is that Willard will tell his son the truth.

Was Kurtz really insane or just enlightened, even genius? General Corman informs Willard: "He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops." Yet Kurtz was accomplishing what the US military couldn't or wouldn't do because of political complications and niceties; in other words, playing the game of war.

JOURNAL OF SE ASIAN AFFAIRS, Vol II, April 7th 1965.
Commitment and Counter-Insurgency by Col Walter E. Kurtz

As long as our officers and troups perform tours of duty limited to one year, they will remain dilletantes in war and tourists in Vietnam. As long as cold beer, hot food, rock and roll and all the other amenities remain the expected norm, our conduct of the war will gain only impotence. The wholesale and indiscriminate use of firepower will only increase the effectiveness of the enemy and strengthen their resolve to prove the superiority of an agrarian culture against the world's greatest technocracy...

At present we are building a strategy that is suited only to our national temperament but to nothing else, least of all the realities of the terrain. Our posture in such a war should be essentially offensive since we have virtually nothing to defend. (for offens***) seek and destroy"; long, loud, clumsy ***

Our relience on large bases and installations grows with each ***, and the bases themselves are a waste, of mis-spent ***, they suck on our energies and resources generate nothing but waste and keep us from ***. Even in combat the ground we choose to *** hold us, *** is invariably *** usually suggested to use by the enemy himself, where a regiment keeping whole divisions in place as we are hypnotized by our own strategic rethoric.


...The central tragedy of our effort in this conflict has been the confusion of sophisticated technology with human commitment. Our bombs may in time destroy the geography, but they will never win the war...

...We need fewer men, and better; if they were committed, this war could be won with a fourth of our present force......as weak in commitment as we are great in arms...