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Which makes it very easy to understand why some people just soon adopted a "kill everything that moves mentality" -- that and the fact that McNamara set bodycount as a metric for progress.mikewint said:In Vietnam everything was so alien and one never knew exactly who the enemy might be. The 8YO shoeshine boy might have a pound of C4 in his box or the young mother with the C4 under her baby or the grandmother selling Coke.
I certainly can understand. The challenges you faced were far more difficult than mine. The values learned in the first eighteen years of my life accompanied me into military service. By the same token the values learned in military service, there were many, stayed with me on departure. The combination of the two became the footing of my life's walk. I was very lucky.Bill, I'm so glad that you were able to accomplish that feat. In Vietnam everything was so alien and one never knew exactly who the enemy might be. The 8YO shoeshine boy might have a pound of C4 in his box or the young mother with the C4 under her baby or the grandmother selling Coke. The US and the life style of the mopes became increasingly remote and alien.
When I returned to the world it was more remote and alien than Vietnam had ever been and its residents just as hostile
Which makes it very easy to understand why some people just soon adopted a "kill everything that moves mentality" -- that and the fact that McNamara set bodycount as a metric for progress.
Why were they so ineffective?Our intelligence, however, just seemed to never have a clue as to where, or who our supporters were.
I'm curious about several things: Why the media were actively sabotaging the war-effort? Why they were allowed such unrestrained access that they never had before?Now we try to blame our failure on Walter Cronkite, the press, or a bunch of whimpy students.
Mike, You did what you were supposed to do. You, like the other returning veterans didn't get the respect and support that you should have.Bill, I'm so glad that you were able to accomplish that feat. In Vietnam everything was so alien and one never knew exactly who the enemy might be. The 8YO shoeshine boy might have a pound of C4 in his box or the young mother with the C4 under her baby or the grandmother selling Coke. The US and the life style of the mopes became increasingly remote and alien.
When I returned to the world it was more remote and alien than Vietnam had ever been and its residents just as hostile
That's not what I meant: In the past the media had more restriction on what they could post in wartime...Maybe the media didn't see a lot of sense in the Churchill saying " the truth has to be protected by a bodyguard of lies"
No, that's not it: Cronkite made it look like the Tet Offensive was a massive failure where we actually won...Maybe the media was just calling it as they saw it, you know, it's called "telling the truth"
If they're not classified, can you venture a guess?And why was our intelligence services so poor? I have no idea really, just my own theories , from my own observations.
Which was obviously a shock... but we did defeat them and he made it look like we lost though.tyrodtom said:What turned Cronkite around is up until the Tet offensive, if you listened to US Army press briefings, and releases. We were killing VC in such massive numbers there should have been almost no VC alive and organised enough to stage such a outbreak.
I wasn't alive then...Did you not understand it ?
The Viet Cong was ruthless, they would kill your entire family, right down to the pets sometimes, if you were a Saigon supporter.
But their intelligence was usually good enough to know who supported them and who didn't.
Our intelligence, however, just seemed to never have a clue as to where, or who our supporters were.
YesWhile the American press has a tradition of national loyalty, it has a competing role as "watchdog" of government.
Makes sense, I wonder how many were executed as spies. Essentially, the media is basically a spy organization for the public (I don't like WikiLeaks because I don't trust Assange as a person and his loyalty, and I figure it's probably more to China than claims of Russia these days).Prior to World War I, reporters either found their own way into a war zone, or, at the discretion of the commander, attached themselves to a military unit. If they were found in a war zone without permission, they were often arrested.
I remember that George Orwell actually said that much of the censorship in WWII was voluntary interestingly.the press was granted routine access to the front in exchange for formal accreditation and censorship by the military. The threat of losing accreditation or being jailed, their knowledge that copy and film would be censored anyway, and their underlying patriotism meant that journalists often engaged in self-censorship.
Makes senseThis system of accreditation, access, and censorship, remained largely in place through the Korean War. The mobilization of public support for a war is as critical as the mobilization of troops. From the government's perspective, the press needed enough freedom to report back frequently to the public, but enough control to assure that what was reported boosted rather than hurt morale. During the Korean conflict the press was forbidden to make any derogatory comments about United Nations troops.
Why?The accrediting of journalists continued in Vietnam but formal censorship did not for a number of reasons:
(a) The military believed it gained more by limiting the access of journalists than by giving them complete access in exchange for censorship.
Korea wasn't a declared war either...(b) Since the United States' involvement in Vietnam fell short of declared war, full censorship and its enforcement were politically and legally difficult.
That I never knew...In late 1961, General Maxwell Taylor, the president's military advisor, had concluded that South Vietnam could not survive the Vietcong and North Vietnamese "insurgency" without the help of more than the 685 American advisors permitted by the 1954 Geneva agreement.
How did we envision the war to be fought by them?the political turmoil following Diem's assassination, coupled with the inability of the South Vietnamese army to conduct the war as envisioned by the U.S.
That's right, the second attack was basically illusory. The weather, the hyper vigilance of the crew, and the radar systems basically lead to a fight in the dark with nothing. The Captain even figured that was the case and told LBJ. It didn't matter because LBJ wanted a war and that's what it took to get it going.The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was President Johnson's key to unlocking public and congressional support for greater U.S. involvement in Vietnam . . . Contrary to the New York Times report that the U.S. destroyer "was on a routine patrol when an unprovoked attack took place" the destroyer Maddox was on an intelligence gathering operation near an area where the U.S. had twice attacked North Vietnam the day before. In fact, evidence suggests that the second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats never happened.
Why did these younger journalists feel this way? There were journalists throughout WWII to Vietnam that didn't act like this...Increased U. S. military presence in Vietnam led to parallel increases in television's coverage of the war. Television gave the war an appearance of order and progress where often there was none. . . . Film footage was also government influenced, as TV crews were shunted by helicopter from one operation to another by military press officers who wanted to show off American initiative. When battle scenes were available, they were edited according to explicit guidelines barring the use of graphic film of wounded American soldiers or suffering civilians. However a conflict was brewing within the press corps. To a small but growing number of journalists, government and media accounts did not jibe with their own experiences in Vietnam. This view cut against the grain of "official policy" and so was met by subtle and not so subtle censorship by editors and producers.
I remember in a documentary (not long ago) about the Vietnam War, which showed USMC personnel burning down a village. I did not know it was called Cam Ne.More disturbingly, it also reflected direct political intervention by the government. For example, President Johnson had intervened directly to stop a 1965 Time article by Frank McColloch revealing that U.S. troops were preparing to assume an active combat role. But even in this pre-Tet period cracks were beginning to appear.
It's a sad fact that politicians often lie to gain power; then use said power in ways they said they wouldn't.Crack #2 came from the government itself. William Fulbright was the senator who had, based on Jonson's promise that no U. S. ground troops would be committed to Vietnam, shepherded the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress. By early 1966 he felt betrayed, as the administration's line on Vietnam received exclusive media coverage.
How did it attack the administration?Thus, in late January 1966 Fulbright used committee hearings on a supplemental foreign aid bill as a platform to attack the administration.
And they were, of course, correct.Then came the Tet offensive and the house of cards came crashing down. . . "upbeat" messages were presented in ways that led one to doubt their accuracy. For example, the New York Times reported on February 2 that the "latest propaganda line is that we are now seeing the enemy's 'last gasp'." . . .The press remained dependent on government sources, but no longer fully believed them.
With the restraints imposed, it wasn't really winnable. I'm surprised we didn't do one of the followingThe growing perception was that the U.S was unable to win the war