Originally posted by: AndrewR
The BS is spewing from your fingertips, not his. It is far from BS to say that the media contributed to the failure in Vietnam when the communists helped organize the "home grown" anti-war effort. Read
here, about midway down under "What Went Wrong?" regarding the memoirs of a communist propaganda officer from the North.
I will make this simple for you since that's obviously on your level. If the media were to report the entire story with adequate weight given to good and bad, it would be apparent that our occupation and reconstruction efforts are being welcomed in Iraq by a vast majority of the people there, and it would discourage foreign fighters from intervening with the assumption that the population will support their attacks on the Coalition forces. Further, the revelation, to those who rely on the biased media at least, that the reconstruction is going well would likely change some people's opinions in the U.S. and reduce the amount of criticism being leveled at the White House and the Pentagon and would give our troops on the ground a better overall picture of what is happening since most are confined to particular areas and don't have the "big picture".
Sorry, I used some big words in there -- muddle through as best you can.
No problem, I can handle it just fine with the two graduate degree I have. It's not surprising that your so called "big picture" is a bit muddy if you truely believes in the memoirs of communist propaganda you quoted. You have no understanding of the political situation at Vietnamn during the 60s, and judging from that, you probably don't have any understanding of the situation at Iraq today too.
The reason US lost in Vietnam is simple, they were on the wrong side. The world to most American are simple, we are good and they are evil. American could never imagined that we would be on the wrong side. No, how can that be, communist are evil, and democracy are good, right? During the early 50's and 60's, Asia was ruled by democratic governments in name only. Country like China under Chiang Kai-Shek was suppose to be American's ally with a democratic government. But anyone with little Chinese history know, his regime was corrupted and brutal. The elite upper class colluded with the government and rich became filthy rich and poor couldn't even feed their children. That's the reason people of China believed and supported communism, there were too much injustice and inequality at the time.
Vietnam was similar. After the second world war, south vietnam had president who were basically a puppet of French government. Later on, a president who were so brutal to his own people that Kenney and CIA had to work with Vietnamese generals and start a coup to overthrow him. North Vietnam was the side that people of Vietnam chose because south Vietnam government were either corrupt or a puppet of a foreign power. American failed to see that and stubbronly stood against the Vietnamese people and that led to the defeat.
What made vietnamese fight even after millions and millions of casualty against American? In the face of extreme disadvantage in terms of technology and military firepower? was American Media going to make a difference? Were Vietnamese not going to defend their own country or their freedom even if American Media presented a United Amierca at the time? Millions of their country men already died for their country, were they going to retreat becasue of media propaganda?
It's understandable from American interest stand point that we didn't want communism spread, but did anyone ever asked what Vietnamnese's interest were and what those people wanted?
What you quoted is nothing more than a bitter old solder who refuse to see the world from the other side, refuse to admit defeat and refuse to admit being wrong. Hey, it's comman human reaction to refuse being wrong or accept defeat when he invested heart and soul into something, but it does not make it right.
Today's Iraq is a little more favorable because Saddam was not support by his people. But it doesn't mean that we are the side that Iraqi people chose. The war and the killing is there because we chose to get involved in this conflict at Iraq. People who fight us have their own idealism and that's not gonna change just because the media say something. People who fight us know what kind of odd they are facing, the most powerful military in the world, so a little propaganda is not going to make them more scared of us.
The propaganda is not gonna be used to affect the Saddam loyalist and Al-Qaeda, it's gonna be used for the foolish American people who refuse to open their eye.