Bobby on Vietnam in 1965

Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.

.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

19efppp

2020-12-16 13:03:05 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Well, they did blow out his brother's brains, you know.

John Corbett

2020-12-16 19:30:41 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Well, they did blow out his brother's brains, you know.

That dastardly "they".

Anthony Marsh

2020-12-21 02:30:17 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Well, they did blow out his brother's brains, you know.

Well, Jackie did pack up and leave because They werre shooting Kennedies.

Jason Burke

2020-12-21 03:49:41 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Well, they did blow out his brother's brains, you know.

Well, Jackie did pack up and leave because They werre shooting Kennedies.

Oops. Shoulda passed this one by the gals.

19efppp

2020-12-21 13:33:38 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Well, they did blow out his brother's brains, you know.

Well, Jackie did pack up and leave because They werre shooting Kennedies.

No. Jackie just moved along to Project Ari.

Steve M. Galbraith

2020-12-16 19:30:44 UTC

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

This wasn't just RFK spinning things; internally there wasn't (as far as I
know) any serious discussion about leaving, certainly not among the senior
people in the Administration. McNamara, Bundy and Rusk all said the same
thing in their memoirs/biographies: there was no suggestion *at that time*
to simply leave.

There's a terrific chapter in the Pentagon Papers that says that during
the Buddhist crisis and the inability to get the Diem government to change
policies (mid-to-late '63) that that should have been the time for a
serious re-examination of our involvement in South Vietnam. But none was
planned and none was undertaken.

Longish passage from the Pentagon Papers:

"In the course of these policy debates [i.e., how to deal with Diem],
several participants pursued the logical but painful conclusion that if
the war could not be won with Diem, and if his removal would lead to
political chaos and also jeopardize the war effort, then the war was
probably unwinnable. If that were the case, the argument went, then the
U.S. should really be facing a more basic decision of either an orderly
disengagement from an irretrievable situation, or a major escalation of
the U.S. involvement, including the use of U.S. combat troops. These
prophetic minority voices were, however, raising an unpleasant prospect
that the [Kennedy] Administration was unprepared to face at that time. In
hindsight, however, it is clear that this was one of the times in the
history of our Vietnam involvement when we were making fundamental
choices. The option to disengage honorably at that time now appears an
attractively low-cost one. But for the Kennedy Administration the costs no
doubt appeared much higher. In any event, it proved to be unwilling to
accept the implications of predictions for a bleak future. The
Administration hewed to the belief that if the US be but willing to
exercise its power, it could ultimately have its way in world affairs.

That last sentence is critical. Link here: https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-5.pdf

John McAdams

2020-12-25 19:42:46 UTC

On 16 Dec 2020 19:30:44 -0000, "Steve M. Galbraith"

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

This wasn't just RFK spinning things; internally there wasn't (as far as I
know) any serious discussion about leaving, certainly not among the senior
people in the Administration. McNamara, Bundy and Rusk all said the same
thing in their memoirs/biographies: there was no suggestion *at that time*
to simply leave.
There's a terrific chapter in the Pentagon Papers that says that during
the Buddhist crisis and the inability to get the Diem government to change
policies (mid-to-late '63) that that should have been the time for a
serious re-examination of our involvement in South Vietnam. But none was
planned and none was undertaken.
"In the course of these policy debates [i.e., how to deal with Diem],
several participants pursued the logical but painful conclusion that if
the war could not be won with Diem, and if his removal would lead to
political chaos and also jeopardize the war effort, then the war was
probably unwinnable. If that were the case, the argument went, then the
U.S. should really be facing a more basic decision of either an orderly
disengagement from an irretrievable situation, or a major escalation of
the U.S. involvement, including the use of U.S. combat troops. These
prophetic minority voices were, however, raising an unpleasant prospect
that the [Kennedy] Administration was unprepared to face at that time. In
hindsight, however, it is clear that this was one of the times in the
history of our Vietnam involvement when we were making fundamental
choices. The option to disengage honorably at that time now appears an
attractively low-cost one. But for the Kennedy Administration the costs no
doubt appeared much higher. In any event, it proved to be unwilling to
accept the implications of predictions for a bleak future. The
Administration hewed to the belief that if the US be but willing to
exercise its power, it could ultimately have its way in world affairs.
That last sentence is critical. Link here: https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-5.pdf

I assume the editors (whom you are quoting) are by this point
staunchly anti-Vietnam War.

And a dandy way to discredit the war would be to make it out to be a
project of the Military Industrial Complex.

The yahoo leftists did exactly that.

But these editors, who were pretty intimately familiar with the
documents, declined to do that.

.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

ajohnstone

2020-12-26 15:13:54 UTC

Simplistic rationalizations such as placing the cause upon the
industrial-military complex for the American war in Vietnam, are naive,
after all, its roots go back to the French empire. But so are the other
explanations of defending "democracy".

In fact, Noam Chomsky places it in its proper geo-political context and
accuses the liberals of supporting it.

"...Let's take the Vietnam War - the biggest crime since the Second World
War. You couldn't be opposed to the war for years. The mainstream liberal
intellectuals were enthusiastically in support of the war. In Boston, a
liberal city where I was, we literally couldn't have a public
demonstration without it being violently broken up, with the liberal press
applauding, until late 1966..."

Howard Zinn also explains it as strategic decision to protect a
puppet-state.

Socialists like myself are well-aware of the decades of struggles against
the French colonial regime that preceded, many of which had no connection
with Ho Chi Minh's Communist Party who were ultimately victorious only
after they systematically destroyed all the other opposition.

How many know of the Trotskyist 1945 Saigon Commune when the British armed
Japanese POWs to suppress the rising with the cooperation of Ho Chi Minh
forces who executed scores of insurrectionists.

John Corbett

2020-12-26 16:43:33 UTC

I remember as late as 1966 our history teacher passed around a petition in
support of our involvement in Vietnam. Only one kid refused to sign it. He
suffered no repercussions for that. Everyone including the teacher seemed
to respect his dissent. But it does show the level for support well into
the mid-1960s. It was just two years later that it became a wedge issue
within the Democrat Party with anti-war candidates Kennedy and McCarthy
driving LBJ from office and Humphrey becoming the establishment candidate
in support of the war.

Post by ajohnstone
Howard Zinn also explains it as strategic decision to protect a
puppet-state.
Socialists like myself are well-aware of the decades of struggles against
the French colonial regime that preceded, many of which had no connection
with Ho Chi Minh's Communist Party who were ultimately victorious only
after they systematically destroyed all the other opposition.
How many know of the Trotskyist 1945 Saigon Commune when the British armed
Japanese POWs to suppress the rising with the cooperation of Ho Chi Minh
forces who executed scores of insurrectionists.

In the early part of the 20th Century, Ho Chi Minh lived and worked in the
US as a cook at the Parker House Hotel in Boston whose guests at one time
included Charles Dickens and John Wilkes Booth. He long admired the US and
the first line of his own declaration of independence from France was a
direct quote from our own DOI.

"All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness."

OSS agents parachuted into the Vietnamese jungles during WWII to assess
Minh's objectives. They determined he was more of a nationalist than a
communist and that we could work with him. He sought our help in driving
the French from his country. It was only after we replaced the French that
he turned against us.

Ho Chi Minh along with his top general Vo Nguyen Giap formed a war plan
against us modeled after Washington's plan against the British. Fight a
war of attrition while avoiding any catastrophic defeats. It worked for
both as their super power enemies lost their will to continue to fight a
costly war with no end in sight.

Steve M. Galbraith

2020-12-26 21:09:13 UTC

Post by ajohnstone
Simplistic rationalizations such as placing the cause upon the
industrial-military complex for the American war in Vietnam, are naive,
after all, its roots go back to the French empire. But so are the other
explanations of defending "democracy".
In fact, Noam Chomsky places it in its proper geo-political context and
accuses the liberals of supporting it.
"...Let's take the Vietnam War - the biggest crime since the Second World
War. You couldn't be opposed to the war for years. The mainstream liberal
intellectuals were enthusiastically in support of the war. In Boston, a
liberal city where I was, we literally couldn't have a public
demonstration without it being violently broken up, with the liberal press
applauding, until late 1966..."
Howard Zinn also explains it as strategic decision to protect a
puppet-state.
Socialists like myself are well-aware of the decades of struggles against
the French colonial regime that preceded, many of which had no connection
with Ho Chi Minh's Communist Party who were ultimately victorious only
after they systematically destroyed all the other opposition.
How many know of the Trotskyist 1945 Saigon Commune when the British armed
Japanese POWs to suppress the rising with the cooperation of Ho Chi Minh
forces who executed scores of insurrectionists.

The Pentagon Papers - and other documents - show that the US was fearful
of a Chinese takeover of Southeast Asia. We mistakenly believed that China
was behind Hanoi's aggression and JFK believed that preventing a communist
ta= keover was vital to US interests.

There was nothing about imperialism or protecting a "puppet regime" in our
involvement. If the North had left the South alone and not tried to take
it over the US would have had nothing to with the South Vietnam regime. We
couldn't care less whether that government was friendly to the US or
hostile. As long as it didn't endanger the rest of the region.

Mr. Zinn's tendentious and one-sided history of the US, especially when it
comes to foreign policy, is utterly worthless. In his account of the
Vietnam war he says not one word - not one - about the North's aggression
on the South. If you view such an account as a worthy history then I
disagree. I'll just add that again nowhere in his "People's History" does
Zinn explain - or try to - why millions of women, minorities of all races,
and migrants of a wide mix of ethnicities and nationalities come to
America to make a life for themselves and their children. The America that
Zinn describes would be a place where they would want to flee from and not
flee to. So why do they risk their lives to come here? Zinn can't explain
it.

John McAdams

2020-12-27 03:08:14 UTC

On 26 Dec 2020 21:09:13 -0000, "Steve M. Galbraith"

The Pentagon Papers - and other documents - show that the US was fearful
of a Chinese takeover of Southeast Asia. We mistakenly believed that China
was behind Hanoi's aggression and JFK believed that preventing a communist
ta= keover was vital to US interests.
There was nothing about imperialism or protecting a "puppet regime" in our
involvement. If the North had left the South alone and not tried to take
it over the US would have had nothing to with the South Vietnam regime. We
couldn't care less whether that government was friendly to the US or
hostile. As long as it didn't endanger the rest of the region.
Mr. Zinn's tendentious and one-sided history of the US, especially when it
comes to foreign policy, is utterly worthless. In his account of the
Vietnam war he says not one word - not one - about the North's aggression
on the South. If you view such an account as a worthy history then I
disagree. I'll just add that again nowhere in his "People's History" does
Zinn explain - or try to - why millions of women, minorities of all races,
and migrants of a wide mix of ethnicities and nationalities come to
America to make a life for themselves and their children. The America that
Zinn describes would be a place where they would want to flee from and not
flee to. So why do they risk their lives to come here? Zinn can't explain
it.

Zinn is a child of the New Class. That's people (the group that now
dominates the Democratic Party) who believe they should rule America.

They are resentful that they don't. Their beef with the US is not
about inequality, it's about equality. It's that ordinary people can
live where they want, travel around in cars, eat what they want, and
elect Donald Trump president.

.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

John Corbett

2020-12-28 17:36:36 UTC

If Lincoln had left Confederacy alone there would have been no American
Civil War. He did not want the United States divided into two countries,
North and South so it is understandable why those in North Vietnam did not
want their country divided in two. When the French signed the treaty with
the Viet Minh dividing the country into North and South, there was an
accompanying agreement for a unification vote to be held. When the French
withdrew, neither the United States nor the newly created South Vietnam
republic honored that part of the agreement. There's no way of knowing how
such a unification vote would have gone and if the North would have
respected it if they had lost, but an opportunity was missed to avoid what
would prove to be a very bloody conflict. As things turned out 55,000
American troops died and many more Vietnamese on both sides also lost
their lives and in the end, Vietnam became unified under the Hanoi
government. It was a tragic waste of life and treasure.

ajohnstone

2020-12-29 03:29:35 UTC

Post by John Corbett
was a tragic waste of life and treasure.

Up to 3 million Vietnamese were killed. But for what?

Doi Moi has turned the nation into a sweat-shop where it joins other SE
Asian nations in trying to under-cut one another in production costs.

Some here will describe it as now a capitalist success story, like China

Article 25 of Vietnam's 2013 constitution guarantees the rights of freedom
of speech, opinion, press and information. It also enshrines in law the
rights to assemble, form associations and hold demonstrations. In reality,
Vietnamese citizens have no such liberties. Vietnam has not ratified the
United Nations Convention of 1948 concerning freedom of association and
protection of the right to organize, which came into force on July 4,
1950. Any gathering of five or more people requires permission from local
authorities. A decree passed in 2005 prohibits any gatherings in front of
state agencies, international conference venues, and the National
Assembly. Vietnam has many government-sanctioned organizations (GSOs) but
no independent non-government organizations. All GSOs, including religious
organizations, must belong to the government or be affiliated with the
state.

The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) is the sole national
trade union in the country. All trade unions in Vietnam are required to
affiliate with the VGCL, which is one of the mass movements of the
state-affiliated Vietnamese Fatherland Front. VGCL leaders at both
national and local levels are required by the state to be card-carrying
Communist Party members.

Wealth inequality has deepened. Pham Nhat Vuong is in Forbes top 300 with
a personal wealth of $6 billion. Then another example is Dang Le Nguyen
Vu, coffee king.

Vietnam is now witnessing the rise of a new generation of business-people
– the young 7X and 8X ones (who were born in 1970s and 1980s),
who, backed by the powerful politically-connected families, are managing
the enterprises capitalized at trillions of dong.

Just for the record, the socialist organization i belong to, opposed both
sides in the Vietnam War, predicting the workers and peasants would not
benefit materially from the victory of either camp. It was their
tragedy.

John Corbett

2020-12-29 17:48:01 UTC

Post by ajohnstone

Post by John Corbett
was a tragic waste of life and treasure.

Up to 3 million Vietnamese were killed. But for what?
Doi Moi has turned the nation into a sweat-shop where it joins other SE
Asian nations in trying to under-cut one another in production costs.
Some here will describe it as now a capitalist success story, like China
Article 25 of Vietnam's 2013 constitution guarantees the rights of freedom
of speech, opinion, press and information. It also enshrines in law the
rights to assemble, form associations and hold demonstrations. In reality,
Vietnamese citizens have no such liberties. Vietnam has not ratified the
United Nations Convention of 1948 concerning freedom of association and
protection of the right to organize, which came into force on July 4,
1950. Any gathering of five or more people requires permission from local
authorities. A decree passed in 2005 prohibits any gatherings in front of
state agencies, international conference venues, and the National
Assembly. Vietnam has many government-sanctioned organizations (GSOs) but
no independent non-government organizations. All GSOs, including religious
organizations, must belong to the government or be affiliated with the
state.
The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL) is the sole national
trade union in the country. All trade unions in Vietnam are required to
affiliate with the VGCL, which is one of the mass movements of the
state-affiliated Vietnamese Fatherland Front. VGCL leaders at both
national and local levels are required by the state to be card-carrying
Communist Party members.
Wealth inequality has deepened. Pham Nhat Vuong is in Forbes top 300 with
a personal wealth of $6 billion. Then another example is Dang Le Nguyen
Vu, coffee king.
Vietnam is now witnessing the rise of a new generation of business-people
– the young 7X and 8X ones (who were born in 1970s and 1980s),
who, backed by the powerful politically-connected families, are managing
the enterprises capitalized at trillions of dong.
Just for the record, the socialist organization i belong to, opposed both
sides in the Vietnam War, predicting the workers and peasants would not
benefit materially from the victory of either camp. It was their
tragedy.

It clearly is not the capitalist vision as championed by people like Ayn
Rand and Milton Friedman. They promoted unfettered capitalism. The Vietnam
you describe is a highly regulated nation.

Anthony Marsh

2021-01-03 02:51:20 UTC

Post by John Corbett

If Lincoln had left Confederacy alone there would have been no American
Civil War. He did not want the United States divided into two countries,

Excuse me? The North did not invade the South. How about if you declare
your house a soverign country? We we allow you to make your own rules and
break rhe law?

Post by John Corbett
North and South so it is understandable why those in North Vietnam did not
want their country divided in two. When the French signed the treaty with
the Viet Minh dividing the country into North and South, there was an
accompanying agreement for a unification vote to be held. When the French

You ignore the fact that South Vietnm violated the treaty and did not
allow an election.

Post by John Corbett
withdrew, neither the United States nor the newly created South Vietnam
republic honored that part of the agreement. There's no way of knowing how
such a unification vote would have gone and if the North would have
respected it if they had lost, but an opportunity was missed to avoid what
would prove to be a very bloody conflict. As things turned out 55,000
American troops died and many more Vietnamese on both sides also lost
their lives and in the end, Vietnam became unified under the Hanoi
government. It was a tragic waste of life and treasure.

John Corbett

2021-01-03 23:05:02 UTC

Post by John Corbett

If Lincoln had left Confederacy alone there would have been no American
Civil War. He did not want the United States divided into two countries,

Excuse me? The North did not invade the South. How about if you declare
your house a soverign country? We we allow you to make your own rules and
break rhe law?

The North didn't invade the South? Is that so? Did you ever hear of General
Sherman? Did you ever hear of Vicksburg? Do you know what part of the
country Vicksburg is in?

You ignore the fact that South Vietnm violated the treaty and did not
allow an election.

That is what I just said if you had bothered to read it.

Steve M. Galbraith

2020-12-26 21:09:23 UTC

Post by John McAdams
On 16 Dec 2020 19:30:44 -0000, "Steve M. Galbraith"

Post by John McAdams
http://youtu.be/ZmQ0BY8ak5w
Nobody suggests "packing up and leaving" says Bobby.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

This wasn't just RFK spinning things; internally there wasn't (as far as I
know) any serious discussion about leaving, certainly not among the senior
people in the Administration. McNamara, Bundy and Rusk all said the same
thing in their memoirs/biographies: there was no suggestion *at that time*
to simply leave.
There's a terrific chapter in the Pentagon Papers that says that during
the Buddhist crisis and the inability to get the Diem government to change
policies (mid-to-late '63) that that should have been the time for a
serious re-examination of our involvement in South Vietnam. But none was
planned and none was undertaken.
"In the course of these policy debates [i.e., how to deal with Diem],
several participants pursued the logical but painful conclusion that if
the war could not be won with Diem, and if his removal would lead to
political chaos and also jeopardize the war effort, then the war was
probably unwinnable. If that were the case, the argument went, then the
U.S. should really be facing a more basic decision of either an orderly
disengagement from an irretrievable situation, or a major escalation of
the U.S. involvement, including the use of U.S. combat troops. These
prophetic minority voices were, however, raising an unpleasant prospect
that the [Kennedy] Administration was unprepared to face at that time. In
hindsight, however, it is clear that this was one of the times in the
history of our Vietnam involvement when we were making fundamental
choices. The option to disengage honorably at that time now appears an
attractively low-cost one. But for the Kennedy Administration the costs no
doubt appeared much higher. In any event, it proved to be unwilling to
accept the implications of predictions for a bleak future. The
Administration hewed to the belief that if the US be but willing to
exercise its power, it could ultimately have its way in world affairs.
That last sentence is critical. Link here: https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/research/pentagon-papers/Pentagon-Papers-Part-IV-B-5.pdf

I assume the editors (whom you are quoting) are by this point
staunchly anti-Vietnam War.
And a dandy way to discredit the war would be to make it out to be a
project of the Military Industrial Complex.
The yahoo leftists did exactly that.
But these editors, who were pretty intimately familiar with the
documents, declined to do that.
.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

The writers/editors were a mix of Pentagon officers, academics and civilian
employees. Since the history was compiled, under McNamara's orders, in 1967
(and leaked in 1971 by Daniel Ellsberg) I would imagine most were if not
pro-involvement at least not anti-involvement. That's just a guess.

The history had a top secret appendix that included classified documents -
memos/cables/sources - used to compile the account. As I understand it,
the Nixon WH was afraid of the release of this appendix more than the
historical narrative itself. It's why they tried to prevent the NY Times
from publishing it. Apparently, the Times didn't have this appendix; just
most of the narrative.

In any event, this is additional evidence - for me - that by November of
1963 that the Kennedy White House had not even considered withdrawing much
less actually deciding to do so. They still thought that American power
could win there. So Oliver Stone's claim (among others) that JFK was
killed in large part because he was leaving has no basis at all. But we
already knew that.

Shorter me: Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK for reasons that went with him to
his grave.

ajohnstone

2020-12-27 02:54:00 UTC

Steve, the point of my post was that the suggestion that the left placed
the blame of the Vietnam War upon the Industrial-Military complex, a
version of a conspiracy theory that the armament industry and its
customers in the armed forces determine foreign policy and start wars, was
not the view of the contemporary left. They placed the war in its wider
geo-political context of world real politik that predated actual American
direct involvement. The disappearance of the French Empire created a power
vacuum and as we know, like nature, foreign policy makers do not like any
form of political vacuum.

Perhaps a study of Indonesian independence may be of help in understanding
post-WW2 and the relationships to the Cold War

I was puzzled by the description "yahoo" left, unsure if it meant those
on the internet or of Gulliver's Travels fantasies.

I have just been reading the obituaries of George Blake, the KGB double
agent within the British secret service, and his reasons for being
so...being an eye-witness to the bombings of Korean villages by
America.

John McAdams

2020-12-27 03:03:02 UTC

Post by ajohnstone
Steve, the point of my post was that the suggestion that the left placed
the blame of the Vietnam War upon the Industrial-Military complex, a
version of a conspiracy theory that the armament industry and its
customers in the armed forces determine foreign policy and start wars, was
not the view of the contemporary left. They placed the war in its wider
geo-political context of world real politik that predated actual American
direct involvement. The disappearance of the French Empire created a power
vacuum and as we know, like nature, foreign policy makers do not like any
form of political vacuum.
Perhaps a study of Indonesian independence may be of help in understanding
post-WW2 and the relationships to the Cold War
I was puzzled by the description "yahoo" left, unsure if it meant those
on the internet or of Gulliver's Travels fantasies.

Have you seen the movie "JFK?"

.John
-----------------------
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Anthony Marsh

2021-01-03 02:51:24 UTC

What about My Lai?

ajohnstone

2021-01-03 23:05:07 UTC

Post by Anthony Marsh
What about My Lai?

Of the thousands of journalists who were in South Vietnam, many embedded
with the armed forces, none, AFAIK, reported on the massacre. Relying on
my memory and stand to be corrected, the incident was first reported by a
GI in a letter to his local small-town newspaper which was then picked up
by the national press.

Some say such slaughters were so common-place that the media did not
consider it news-worthy. Other commentators say that the press corps was
simply another military corps, parroting PR releases from the military and
suppressed atrocity reports.

It seems fake news goes further back than 2016. And, again, if IIRC, Colin
Powell's military role at the time concerning My Lai was one of
damage-limitation, distracting and deflection...as was his 2003 Iraq UN
WMD presentation.

Anthony Marsh

2021-01-05 01:33:15 UTC

Post by ajohnstone

Post by Anthony Marsh
What about My Lai?

What is the point of a cover-up if the press is there and openly reports
it? Remind me again what was the name of the reporter who was with the US
troops at My Lai and reporteed it that day? I think you are making up crap
again.

Post by ajohnstone
Some say such slaughters were so common-place that the media did not

OK, I like that much better. Minimize the horror by saying it happened
every day. Like Man Bites Dog.

Post by ajohnstone
consider it news-worthy. Other commentators say that the press corps was
simply another military corps, parroting PR releases from the military and
suppressed atrocity reports.
It seems fake news goes further back than 2016. And, again, if IIRC, Colin
Powell's military role at the time concerning My Lai was one of
damage-limitation, distracting and deflection...as was his 2003 Iraq UN
WMD presentation.

so, can you cite all the other times it happened?

ajohnstone

2021-01-05 15:20:47 UTC

Indeed as i alluded to in my post i was posting from memory which was
indeed faulty.

A clearer time-line here.

https://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/academics/SummerSchool/Dateien2011/Presentation_Handouts/Handout_-_Meigs_-_September_16_-_Toppe.pdf

In essence it does not contradict my claim that the Vietnam-based media
despite being on the ground failed in their task to report honestly the
war atrocities and were often complicit in the cover-ups.

There were indeed a photographer and reporter present. Both were members
of the military. The photographer, Ronald Haerberle is the person i
mistook as the source of the slaughter. My description of the newspaper he
contacted was also mistaken. It was the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Reporter
Sgt. Roberts initially described the slaughter as a "battle" in his
"reporting" changing his testimony later on.

Was My Lai unique? Another massacre was at Thanh Phong carried out by the
future state governor and Democratic Party nominee Bob Kerrey.

John McAdams

2020-12-27 03:01:36 UTC

On 26 Dec 2020 21:09:23 -0000, "Steve M. Galbraith"