After reading a post on the Iraq War by an individual who thinks the war was moral and just, I left a comment on that Blog, and then decided to continue the discussion here.
The author of that post is an advisor on Foreign and Security Policy and a fellow at The Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy. Julie holds a BA in European Politics and an MSc in Conflict Studies (Comparative Politics) from the London School of Economics. Source: Julie’s Think Tank.com
Julie says, “It is important to learn the right lessons from Iraq.”
But I say, “Why do we have to learn from the Iraq experience when we have thousands of years of history to learn from?”
Julie clearly says that she “strongly supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and still maintains the same position.”
And I’m one of those people that changed his mind after the truth about WMDs came out revealing that it was another fabrication used as an excuse to start what many in America still consider to be a just and noble war.
Of course going to war to remove a dictator considered a monster such as Saddam could be seen as a moral and just cause, but why do so many Americans see the United States as the global force to do that and then not continue this in other countries that were listed by The Atlantic Wire as ruled by dictators?
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy, a suspense thriller. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Follow”.
Jane Fonda visited Hanoi, North Vietnam in July 1972 at age thirty-five. At that time, the anti-war movement was at its highest point and sentiments against the war were running loud and strong in the United States.
In fact, on April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capital building. The next day, antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, making this the largest antiwar demonstration since the November 1969 march.
In addition, by May 1971, public support for the war had reached 28%. This was the last time Gallup polled this question: “In view of developments since we entered the fighting in Vietnam, do you think the U.S. made a mistake sending troops to fight in Vietnam?”
If you subtract 28 from 100, what is the answer that shows the percentage of Americans that were against the Vietnam War in 1971?
The highest rating for public support of the war was in 1966, the year I was there and that was 59%.
During her 1972 trip, Fonda made ten radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as “war criminals”.
Fonda’s visits to the POW camps in North Vietnam led to persistent and exaggerated rumors repeated widely in the American media, and decades later have continued to circulate on the Internet. Fonda has personally denied the rumors. Interviews with two of the alleged victims specifically named in the emails found these allegations to be false as they had never met Fonda.
Because of her time in North Vietnam, the ensuing circulated rumors regarding the visit, and statements made following her return, resentment against her among some veterans and those currently serving in the U.S. military still exists.
Snopes.com has this to say about Jane’s Fonda’s visit to Vietnam:
“Although Fonda’s actions in visiting North Vietnam were sufficient to earn her the wrath of many Americans, in the years since those events took place they have been embellished to the point that the one tale most commonly associated with her Vietnam Trip is an incident that never took place—a tale about U.S. POWs who furtively slipped messages to Fonda while she was meeting with them and whom Fonda promptly betrayed by turning those messages over to the POWs’ North Vietnamese captors (resulting in several of those prisoner’s being beaten, tortured, or killed). The fact is that while in North Vietnam, Fonda met with only a single group of seven U.S. POWs: all seven of those POWs agreed to meet with her, no POWs were tortured for declining to meet with her (or for behaving inappropriately during the meeting), and no POWs secretly slipped Fonda messages which she turned over to the North Vietnamese. The persons named in inflammatory claims about this apocryphal incident have repeatedly and categorically denied the events they supposedly were part of.”
There’s more at Snopes.com, and I urge you to read that entire entry. In fact, Snopes says, “Some of the POWs who did meet with Fonda have spoken out on the record to disclaim the apocryphal story about her alleged betrayal …”
Then there are these facts reported by the New York Times (also worth reading) that supports Fonda’s claim that America’s political and military leaders were “war criminals”.
The evidence that supports Fonda comes from the architect of the Vietnam War, Robert S. McNamara, the United States Secretary of Defense for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from January 21,1961 – February 29, 1968.
The NY Times reported, “The war became his personal nightmare. Nothing he did, none of the tools at his command—the power of American weapons, the forces of technology and logic, or the strength of American soldiers—could stop the armies of North Vietnam and their South Vietnamese allies, the Vietcong. He concluded well before leaving the Pentagon that the war was futile, but he did not share that insight with the public until late in life.”
McNamara recalled, “‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ and I’d say I—were behaving as war criminals.”
Then McNamara was quoted asking, “What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”
“We are the strongest nation in the world today,” McNamara said in The Fog of War, released at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “I do not believe that we should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there. None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better re-examine our reasoning.”
“War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend,” McNamara concluded. “Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.”
Speaking out and protesting dramatically as Jane Fonda did in 1972 brands her as a true patriot and hero—not a traitor. It takes courage—or stupidity—to stand up and tell millions of trained killers they were wrong and were being led by war criminals, and the truth—of course—hurts those who refuse to hear it.
Patriots and heroes speak out when his or her government is wrong, but those who do not speak our may be as guilty as their leaders.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Before calling someone—anyone—a “traitor”, especially Jane Fonda, you should do your homework first.
I fought in Vietnam too (1966, field radio operator, U.S. Marines), but I do not blame Fonda for what she did when she went to North Vietnam, because when she spoke out, she was the voice of America’s conscience and she was not alone—at the time, a vast majority of Americans may have felt the same way she did.
After I came out of my PTSD shell in the early 1980s and stopped drinking, I started to learn the truth about the Vietnam War.
Most American troops went to Vietnam in honor, some came back tainted with innocent blood but many came back untainted but damaged physically and/or mentally as I did with PTSD.
The Vietnam War was based on a lie about the Tonkin Gulf Incident. You may want to read “30-year Anniversary: Tonkin Gulf Lie launched Vietnam War” by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon published July 27, 1994. The conclusion of that report says, “We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”
On October, 2005 the New York Times reported that Robert J. Hanyok, a historian for the U.S. National Security Agency, had concluded that the NSA deliberately distorted the intelligence reports that it had passed on to policy-makers regarding the August 4, 1964 incident. He concluded that the motive was not political but was probably to cover up honest intelligence errors.
In addition, before President Kennedy was assassinated, his brother Robert later said he was planning to pull out of Vietnam, because he saw it turning into quagmire if we stayed.
Then there is the fact that South Vietnam was ruled by a brutal dictator possibly worse than the leadership in North Vietnam.
And during most of the war, the U.S. leadership ran the war with the concept that we could win the war by killing as many people as possible. and to achieve that goal, the U.S. dropped more bombs than it dropped in all of World War II.
Pete Larson reports that the United States dropped 280 million bombs in Laos alone and that 80 million never exploded. Today, the population of Laos is estimated to be 6.5 million. That equals about 43 bombs dropped for each of today’s citizens in Laos. Do you know how many people lived in Laos during the Vietnam War?
If you click on Yale.edu, you will discover a map of Cambodia that shows where the bombs were dropped on 113,716 sites in 230,516 sorties dropping 2,756,941 tons of ordnance (explosives).
Libcom.org reports, “By the end of the war, 7 million tons of bombs had been dropped on Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – more than twice the amount of bombs dropped on Europe and Asia in World War II.”
Then there is the history of Vietnam. For one thousand years, Vietnam was occupied by the Chinese (221 BC – 928 AD) and the Vietnamese resisted and fought to be free.
Then the French arrived in 1859 and occupied Vietnam, and eventually the Vietnamese fought to rid themselves of the French and the Japanese in the first Indochina War (1941 – 1954)
When the French left, the Americans moved into Vietnam in the late 1950s and stayed for almost 20 years. When the U.S. left, the soil was drenched with Agent Orange and millions—in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam combined—had been killed.
Vietnam is America’s shame and it took courage for someone like Jane Fonda to speak up and confront America’s leadership for this crime. The only honorable Americans in Vietnam were troops like your husband and me that went there as patriots believing we were fighting for freedom when the truth is that we were being lied to by our corrupt leaders.
Then there is the CIA and Air America. To this day the CIA denies that Air America was running drugs into the U.S. and supplying weapons to drug lords in the Gold Triangle with the design of creating an armed buffer between Communist China and Southeast Asia.
I refuse to condemn Jane Fonda for standing up to the corruption and lies of America’s leaders. More evidence that supports my opinion will appear in Jane Fonda: a real American Patriot! – Part 3 on February 12, 2013 or you may return/start with Part 1.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Nazi war criminals, who worked for Hitler during and before World War II, used what is now known as the “Nuremberg Defense” during the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 and 1946. Basically, the defendant claimed he or she was “only following orders and was therefore not responsible for his or her crimes”.
The “Nuremberg Defense” brings up questions about patriotism to one’s country. After all, Nazi’s were German patriots who were only following the orders of their leaders.
Is patriotism blind obedience to government and political leaders?
Is patriotism defense of country and family?
Is patriotism dictated and guided by the political correctness of a vigilante citizen mob?
The Free Dictionary by Farlex says patriotism is:
love of and devotion to one’s country
devotion to one’s own country and concern for its defense
a devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty
love of country and willingness to sacrifice for it
Did you see anything in those four meanings of patriotism that says we have to blindly obey and support the actions of our leaders when we suspect they might be telling lies?
Regarding Jane Fonda patriotism: the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
However, the 1st Amendment does not stop a politically correct mob from stepping in and attempting to deny an individual of her rights or branding her as a traitor because she dared to speak out against America’s leaders and the Vietnam War.
For example, recently I received an e-mail from an old friend from my youth. I haven’t seen her in probably more than fifty years. That e-mail was titled “Queen of Traitors”, and it was about Jane Fonda.
The old childhood friend wrote, “I almost threw up when I read this !!!!! She is going to be honored ?????? No wonder her father cried and hung his head in shame when asked about the political activities of his daughter. Poor Henry Fonda. We have always been forbidden to say the name Jane Fonda in our home, even to this day. My husband served in Vietnam. He will never forget or forgive!!!!! He gets so angry he can’t even talk about it. The damage she did, the lives she cost will never be undone. She will be judged by God, as will we all. God have mercy on us.”
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Jennings’s review was posted the day after Turse’s book, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam, was released on January 16. I seriously question Jenning’s claim that he read this book and wrote his long criticism in such a short period of time. I suspect that he may have skimmed the book and then wrote what is obviously a biased review. In fact, he did buy the book, but the odds say he posted the review before the book reached him through the mail.
Of the fifteen, five-star reviews, five were verified Amazon purchases and four of those were posted seven to twelve days after the release, and a sixth was from a Vine Reviewer that was posted the day the book was released, which may mean he or she got the book free through the Amazon Vine program—advanced review copies are available through Amazon Vine. I know this because I am an Amazon Vine reviewer.
One of the five-star reviews—not a verified Amazon purchase—posted on January 17 copied and pasted an interview with Turse at Democracy Now. I doubt if HCI read the book.
Five of the one-star reviews appeared on the same day, January 21. Three appeared on January 22. I think this was an organized posting by a group—that did not read the book—with a goal to discredit and hurt the book’s sales. None of these reviews came from verified Amazon purchases.
My reading list is rather long so it may take several weeks/months to read and review Kill Anything that Moves.
In conclusion, I suspect that most of the civilian deaths in Vietnam were caused by bombs dropped by American aircraft and atrocities by American ground troop did take place but were not common as Turse claims—the anti war crowd has a loud voice and always will.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Less than one percent of Americans currently serve in the US Military defending their nation and fighting for its interests in foreign lands. Between 1964 – 1968, I was one of those troops serving for America wearing the uniform. I put my life on the line just like the others that wore similar uniforms in the US Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.
In 1964, I joined the US Marines and went to boot camp at MCRD in San Diego, California. While I was in boot camp, the Tonkin Gulf Incident took place and President L. B. Johnson used this as an excuse to go to war in Vietnam, where I served in 1966. I came home with a bad case of PTSD and still suffer from it. I cannot sleep without weapons close at hand. One of those weapons is a seven-inch bowie knife with a razor sharp blade. Another is a 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver loaded with hollow points. Remove the weapons, I cannot sleep. Every night sound brings back memories of Vietnam.
In Vietnam, my battalion, while it was there during the war, took 50% casualties and earned a Presidential Unit Citation.
I often ask myself, who did I sacrifice for? Why did I put my life on the line and who did I put my life on the line for?
I’ll tell you. Out of patriotism, I served to defend the American way of life—the freedoms this country provides and the opportunities offered by a capitalist, consumer economy that is supposed to reward merit and hard work.
My wife was born in China. She experienced severe hunger during the famine of the Great Leap Forward (1959 – 1961) and she lived through the insanity of Mao’s Cultural Revolution (1966 -1976). In the mid 1980s, she came to the United States on a student Visa, earned an MFA from the Chicago Art Institute and went on to write her memoir, which became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award. As an immigrant and a naturalized US citizen she benefited from what America had to offer to all immigrants and citizens that live and hopefully work here.
Therefore, I served in the US Marines and fought in a war to preserve the right of immigrants to come to the United States and succeed. Since less than 2% of the US population are North American Natives, that means 98% of the population in America are either descended of immigrants or immigrants.
According to Index Mundi in 2012, 79.96% of Americans are white, 12.85% are black, 4.43% are Asian and 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic (Latino). Note – there is a separate listing for Hispanic since the origin may be white, black, Asian, etc.
For example, I fought for Jessica Sanchez (age 16), so she could have a chance at the American dream. Her father, a Mexican-American born in Texas and a US citizen served in the US Navy and wore the uniform, so he also served for his daughter and others just like her.
In fact, Jessica’s grandfather (a Filipino), who wasn’t a US citizen, joined the US Navy and wore the uniform. When a Navy transport carried my battalion from Okinawa to Vietnam in 1966, Jessica’s grandfather could have been serving on the crew of that ship. In addition, the United States, out of gratitude, offers citizenship to foreign nationals that serve in the American military and are willing to fight and even die for this country.
If you do not know who Jessica Sanchez is, I’ll tell you. She started singing at the age of two and her dream is to become a professional singer. For fourteen years, she competed until she became a finalist at the age of 16 on Season 11 of American Idol where she came in second place losing out on $300,000 and a guaranteed recording contract.
Another young American, a white boy, may have cheated Jessica from achieving her dream. In fact, this other young American who never wore the uniform, may have cheated others out a chance to win too, because he claims that he is responsible for the person that won the contest. He admits that he rigged it and he did it legally because there is no law against what he did.
The American military is not a white-man’s club. In January 1948, President Truman ended segregation in the armed forces. The most decorated unit in the US military during World War II was the 442nd Infantry Regiment—the Nisei, Japanese-Americans born in the United States. This unit became the most highly-decorated regiment in the history of the US Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients.
In fact, during World War II, over 250,000 to over 400,000 Filipinos served/fought in the US military. In addition, the US army reported in an Army Profile in September 2005, that 17.4% of the troops were female, 60.8% were white; 21.6% were black (African-American); 10.5% were Hispanic (Latino), and 4% were Asian. Source: http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/docs/demographics/FY05%20Army%20Profile.pdf
The US even offers citizenship to foreign nationals that serve in the US military because so many Americans are not willing to serve or are not qualified for one reason or another.
However, one white boy is so proud of being the creator of “Vote for the Worst.com” that he boasted on his site, “We did it, Worsters! 132 million votes were cast last night, and in the end, we helped the fifth straight white guy with a guitar win American Idol… we succeeded yet again and helped make sure Pinoybot Jessica Sanchez was left in the loser’s circle.”
The week before, only 90 million votes were cast to decide who the final 2 would be.
This white boy’s name is David Della Terza, and he launched “Vote for the Worst.com” in 2004. To discover his alleged influence rigging votes on American Idol and other TV talent contests, it helps to understand that an active Website-Blog often doubles its viewers annually, and a recent Alexa Ranking shows that Terza’s infamous Blog is ranked in the top .01% of all global Website and Blogs.
For a comparison, we will use my iLook China.net Blog. In 2010 (the first year), there were 28,341 total views; in 2011, there were 126,557. So far in 2012, there have been 95,050. The average per day views in 2010 were 84 with 347 for 2011, and 645 for 2012 (that number could go up or down before the end of the year).
At my iLook China.net Blog, daily views increased by 400% in 2011 over 2010. So far, in 2012, daily views have increased by about 180%, and there have been almost a quarter-million total views since the January 2010 launch.
If we use the conservative estimate that a Blog’s views will double each year and use the same number that iLook China saw in its first year, then “Vote for the Worst.com”, since it has been active for eight years, may have reached more than seven million views annually or more than 20,000 a day, and those numbers could be much higher.
If a white boy uses the media (a Website or Blog is media when it reaches these numbers) and called an African American by the “N” word, what kind of reaction would result?
One talented contestant that was voted off the week before the final round was Joshua Ledet, and I believed he was so good that he was a contender for first place. How would many in America react if David Della Terza’s ‘Vote for the Worst.com’ had posted, “We succeeded yet again and helped make sure ‘N-word’ Joshua Ledet was left in the loser’s circle.”?
How is that different from calling Jessica Sanchez, a Hispanic-American born in Chula Vista, California, a Pinoybot as he gloats that he rigged the vote on a popular TV talent show such as American Idol and possibly cheated her out of several hundred thousand dollars and a recording contract that might be worth millions?
The reason why I wore that uniform and put my life on the line was not for someone like David Della Terza.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
I’m sure that all governments do it—manipulate public opinion to support war. It doesn’t matter if the country has an autocratic government ruled by a dictator or a democracy ruled by elected public officials—the people must be convinced that the enemy is evil and war necessary.
If we follow public support for America’s largest wars, we discover the US government’s learning curve to use the media to drum up support of wars. This manipulation of public opinion may be explained by Abraham Lincoln who said, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
The idea is to fool enough people to start a war. After that, it’s easier to keep a war going even when public support turns against it—for a while anyway.
That learning curve started with the American Revolution. For example, many think that the American Revolutionary War (1774 – 1783) was a war fought with the unanimous support of the people for independence from Great Britain.
But in North America, the colonists generally considered themselves loyal British citizens, asserting rightful constitutional claims that had been previously established through their colonial charters or contracts. … Many colonists (and eventually foreign nations) had to be persuaded to join in this revolution. Source: GilderLehrman.org
Then “as the colonists discovered how difficult and dangerous military service could be, enthusiasm waned. Many men preferred to remain home, in the safety of what Gen. George Washington described as their Chimney Corner.”
In fact, Washington predicted that “after the first emotions are over,” those who were willing to serve from a belief in the “goodness of the cause” would amount to little more than “a drop in the Ocean.” And he was correct. Source: Smithsonian Magazine
But how did the colonial government drum up public support?
“American printers played a vital role in swaying public opinion in the years leading up to the American Revolution. A heavy use of propaganda, or the spreading of information and rumors, was used. American printers wrote a great deal against the British which helped to raise morale within the American colonies.” Source: VoicesYahoo.com
And what would have happened to America’s Founding Fathers if the Revolution had been lost? Well, pretty much what’s happening to Edward Snowden but worse. Snowden is a traitor for spilling American secrets, and if the U.S. catches him, he may spend the rest of his life in prison. In the 18th century, the Founding Fathers would have been hanged. Now you may understand why that propaganda and those rumors was so important to these future leaders of a fledgling country.
The contrast between the War of 1812, and the Mexican-American War demonstrates the important use of the media to manipulate public opinion—something America’s leaders were still learning.
The War of 1812 to March 1815 was also known as the Second War of Independence
The United States entered the war with confused objectives and divided loyalties and made peace without settling any of the issues that had induced the nation to go to war. Source: history.army.mil
Why? Because the prosecution of the war was marred by considerable bungling and mismanagement. This was partly due to the nature of the republic. The nation was too young and immature—and its government too feeble and inexperienced—to prosecute a major war efficiently. Politics also played a part. Federalists vigorously opposed the conflict, and so too did some Republicans. Even those who supported the war feuded among themselves and never displayed the sort of patriotic enthusiasm that has been so evident in other American wars.
It is this lack of success that may best explain why the war is so little remembered. Americans have characteristically judged their wars on the basis of their success. The best-known wars—the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II—were all clear-cut successes. Source: pbs.org
Then we have the Mexican American War (1846 – 1848) where public opinion was divided at first. Many accused President Polk of provoking a war. … The Mexican War was not popular among certain people, especially in the north. They thought it was meant to expand the territory of slavery. … In the end—thrilled by sensationalized newspaper accounts of American victories— the public embraced the war. Source: archives.nbclearn.com
As you can see, the government needs the media to popularize a war. It also helps if the war is short. Long wars tend to lose public support.
The American Civil War (1861 – 1865) “was absolutely an important moment in the history of the press,” says Penn State’s Risley. “The practices, technological development you begin to see during the war—the importance of the telegraph, the use of illustrations, for example—and the growth in demand for newspapers, so many of these things came together during this remarkable and tragic event.”
The demand for newspapers in both the North and South soared during the Civil War, says Risley, whose book is Civil War Journalism(Praeger, 2012).
This demand for information continued after the war and pushed more newspapers to broaden their readership. “America really became a nation of newspaper readers during the war.” The Civil War also showed officials how powerful the press could be in shaping public opinion, and government officials often struggled finding an even-handed approach in their handling of the press.
“Abraham Lincoln recognized that the press played a role in public opinion and he used the press effectively,” says Risley. “But, he wasn’t afraid to shut down newspapers, something that would not have been acceptable today.” Source: futurity.org
Perhaps more importantly, newspapers were responsible for editorializing the war. They were the propaganda machines of the day. Though not universally true, many newspapers published biased accounts of events, “factual” testimonials of enemy atrocities, articles proselytizing for specific political and military goals, and emotionally charged letters from citizens affected by the conflict. A quiet war for public support was waged both in the North and the South with the newspapers serving on the front lines. Issues like conscription, use of slaves as soldiers, and the validity of total war were hotly debated in the papers. The newspapers controlled the ebb and flow of public opinion and a particularly popular circulation could determine the outcomes of city or state politics. … Some newspapers were known to falsely report casualty rates or results of battle to bolster public morale. Source: OregonState.edu
But if the Civil War taught the government about the importance of the media, The Spanish-American War (1898) may have been the first true “media war”.
Today, historians point to the Spanish-American War as the first press-driven war. Although it may be an exaggeration to claim that Hearst and the other yellow journalists started the war, it is fair to say that the press fueled the public’s passion for war.Without sensational headlines and stories about Cuban affairs, the mood for Cuban intervention may have been very different. Source: pbs.org
World War One (1917 – 1918) was deeply unpopular. “once public opinion polling did start appearing in the 1930’s, early surveys on World War Oneshowed only 28% of the country thought entering the war was a good idea, while 64% opposed it.”
In the years after World War I Americans quickly reached the conclusion that their country’s participation in that war had been a disastrous mistake, one which should never be repeated again. During the 1920s and 1930s, therefore, they pursued a number of strategies aimed at preventing war. Source: neh.gov
And Support for World War II (1941 – 1945) was also not widely popular. Even as public opinion in favor of war increased after France fell to Nazi Germany during World War Two, only 42% of the country thought entry into the war was a good idea, while 39% of the country still considered it a mistake.
In fact, entering this war was unpopular until Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Then it was clear that the US couldn’t stay out of the Second World War.
Once the war began in earnest, America increased the flood of propaganda, utilizing especially the radio and visual media, most specifically posters. … Since American leaders realized that the best hope of winning the war was through increased production and labor, many posters were circulated urging increased labor and production as well as conservation of materials for the war effort.… During World War II, America produced some of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history. The pushes for increased production, labor, and conservation may well have won the war for America. Source: thinkquest.org
Next, the Korean War (1950 – 1953): When Americans were first asked (by Gallup), in August 1950, if deciding to defend South Korea was a mistake, only 20% thought it was, while 65% said it was not a mistake.
But by the following January, opinion had shifted dramatically, and 49% thought the decision was a mistake, while 38% said it was not—13% had no opinion.
Over several months, as Gallup asked the public if “going into war in Korea” was a mistake, opinion remained relatively stable, with more Americans saying it was than saying it was not. Six months later, as truce talks were being conducted at Kaesong, Americans were feeling more positive—42% felt the war was a mistake, while 47% said it wasn’t. But the numbers shifted again six months later in February 1952, when a majority said the war was a mistake for the United States, soon after a POW exchange proposal by the United Nations was rejected, and riots in the United Nations’ overcrowded Koje-do prison camp resulted in the deaths of many North Korean prisoners.
Soon after Eisenhower was elected president in 1953 and truce talks began again, the American opinion shifted yet again, with half of Americans saying the war was not a mistake, while a low of 36% said it was a mistake.
For Vietnam (1953 – 1975): In 1965—soon after the so-called Tonkin Gulf Incident (the Vietnam War’s Pearl Harbor that was the propaganda to drum up support for war)—only 25% thought the war was a mistake. Source: DailyKos.com
In fact, Anup Shah writing for Global Issues, says it required massive propaganda to create the belief that U.S. involvement in Vietnam was because non-communist South Vietnam was invaded by communist North Vietnam and that the regime in the South was democratic—but there never was a democracy in South Vietnam.
This was all untrue. In addition, many think that the Vietnam War was lost due to the media revealing atrocities but this was also untrue. Noam Chomsky says the American elite typically regarded Vietnam as a “mistake” or tragedy.
Television news in particular was said to have helped America “lose” the war. Yet, television news coverage was arguably poor, and full of news-bites, rather than detailed documentaries. … The Vietnam experience highlights a multitude of factors that contributed to what can only be termed as propaganda for Cold War ideological battles: a mixture of ideological goals, geopolitical and military goals, and issues to do with the nature of reporting and the structure of the media and how it worked, combined with cultural norms, all impacted the way that things were reported, not reported, portrayed, or misrepresented, and this ultimately provided legitimacy for a war that saw millions killed. Source: Global Issues.org
Gallup reported that in 1965, soon after the so-called Tonkin Gulf Incident, 61% of American’s polled said that sending U.S. troops to fight in Vietnam was not a mistake. But by 1971, 70% would say yes—it was a mistake—to the same question.
Again, we hear the echo of President Abraham Lincoln’s words: “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” In 1965, the majority of the American people were fooled but by 1971, only a few were still fools.
For the Gulf War—also known as Operation Desert Storm (August 1990 – February 1991)—we learn that under the first President Bush short wars with decisive victories provide less time for the public to change its mind. … In addition, President George H. W. Bush (1989 – 1993), remembering the lessons of Vietnam, sought public support … and he got it. The vast majority of Americans and a narrow majority of the Congress supported the President’s actions. Source: Source: US History.org
But the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, had his Pearl Harbor on 9/11, and he squandered the public support by relying on false reports of Weapons of Mass Destruction to declare war on Iraq. But this false propaganda succeeded leading to Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003 – 2011).
“Being able to exploit the national anguish and anger over 9/11 was a critical ingredient, of course. But the success of the war-selling campaign was testimony to what a determined use of the opinion-molding capabilities of the government of the day, including the bully pulpit of the presidency, can accomplish.” Source: The National Interest
After Powell’s speech at the UN about WMDs in Iraq, a Gallup poll concluded that 79% of Americans thought the war was justified. However, by 2007, 65% would disapprove of the Iraq War thinking it was not worth fighting, and in March 2013, another survey found that 51.9% of the American public felt that the Iraq War had been a mistake—after all, you cannot fool all of the people, all of the time.
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (2001 to present): In 2001, Gallup reported that eight of ten Americans (80%) supported a ground war in Afghanistan. But by March 2012—more than a decade later—sixty-nine percent of Americans thought that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan.
His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.
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I read a powerful piece this week written by David Lamb in the June 2009 Smithsonian about Amerasians, The Children of the Dust. Another piece in TIME from May 13, 2002 also shows a chapter from the story about these children. Then there is the 1991 Broadway musical, Miss Saigon. I’ve seen this musical twice and I’ve always felt the tears.
When Americans fled Vietnam at the end of that war, they left behind a tragedy—thousands of children born from romance, passion and lust. They also left behind a horrible legacy from the Agent Orange sprayed on the rainforests. Many of these children suffered a cruel fate at the hands of prejudice and hate.
A decade before Miss Saigon and all the rest, I wrote about one child of the dust—that one night became one chapter in an early memoir about my tour in Vietnam. Decades later, that chapter became a short story and was a finalist for the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards.
The fate these children faced was the result of a country without honor running from unfinished business. Don’t let that happen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
Fear can be like a bone chewing pit-bull full of worry that will not let go. For LBJ, after he was out of the White House, I believe his fear came from guilt. Years ago, I read a review about a book written by one of the Secret Service agents that guarded LBJ on his ranch after he left the White House. This agent wrote that LBJ had a chapel on the ranch where the 36th President went daily to pray. The agent reported that LBJ talked a lot about dying. I think LBJ wanted to die—his way to escape the people he gifted with death, those that haunted him.
Waiting for something to happen is worse than when it happens. During the first Gulf War when the older Bush was President, most Americans, through the media, had an up-close view of war at its best and that image was misleading.
Wars seldom work as well as that one did—with so few causalities and so many quick kills and victories leading to the gates of Bagdad where GWB’s dad knew when to stop. This morning, I read a great piece written by Christopher Torchia, an Associated Press reporter. In “Afghanistan battle shows war rarely fought to plan“, Torchia captured the atmosphere of warriors waiting.
It reminded me that when a night patrol, an ambush or a field operation came along, most of us wanted to get outside the safety of the barbed wire so bad, we drew straws hoping to get the short one—the one that would put us in harm’s way.
His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”
That was me in 1966, a trained killer. That was what I was trained to do at MCRD—to kill the enemy and not fight him—but to destroy him or her.
When I read the title,The Threat From Within, Some soldiers become murderers by Jim Frederick, Time Magazine, February 22, 2010; my first thought was that this issue was more complicated than that.
I read the piece, and then looked up theauthor’s bio. I saw no mention that Frederick served in the military or in a combat zone as a member of the military. No matter how many military men he interviewed or how much research he did, Frederick will never understand what it is like to be the hunter or hunted in a combat zone and what it does to that person.
The Threat From Within never mentions PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I have a PTSD VA rated disability from serving in combat in Vietnam in 1966. When I was in Vietnam, I knew men who did horrible things probably driven by PTSD. Current research shows that PTSD causes permanent brain damage. I’m sure that the reason the military handles incidents that would appear to be crimes in a civilian world the way they do, is because the officers know the horrible blood price that comes with winning a war and many people like Jim Frederick do not.
Frederick indicates that the military should find a way to root out these potentially dangerous individuals so these types of killings do not take place. It’s bad enough that our soldiers are put in harm’s way with rules that do not allow them to shoot unless they see the shooter with weapon in hand. They did that to us in Vietnam and America lost that war.
After years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and a military stretched to the breaking point, if every solider damaged by PTSD were pulled from combat, there wouldn’t be enough troops left to accomplish winning a war America cannot afford to lose. Consider that Al-Qaida and their allies have sworn the utter and total destruction of our entire civilization.
In war, the military has a job to do. If that means sending partially damage troops into combat still capable of fighting and killing, that’s what’s done.
From history, we learned that great military minds like Alexander the Great understood that war is hell and must be fought as if the battlefield is hell itself. America fought like that in World War II and won. In a war zone, there are no innocent people no matter what the media prints or says and only ignorant people and fools support putting limits on our troops doing their job. Even in the Korean conflict, the harsh reality of war existed.
If the rules that our troops fight under today existed during World War II, America would have lost and eventually been split between Japan and Germany. If you lived in the West, the flag to salute would have a rising sun and in the east a swastika.
In my opinion—Jim Frederick and people that think like him are ignorant fools. Let them have their say and politely ignore them.
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.
His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.
And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.
To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”
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