Further to yesterday’s post, there are one or two things to point out about the discussion of the Tet Offensive on the Today programme. (For now you can listen here but this link will change.)
- First go to the 0717 clip. “President Bush admits for the first time that there are parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.” Note that “admits.” That’s exactly the sort of thing this site is about.
- This was revealing: Justin Webb said, “Commentators here have been trying to work out why President Bush broke with previous practice and accepted a comparison between Iraq and Vietnam.”
The fact that it was something that the commentators that the BBC staff hang out with had to puzzle over tells us how little contact they have commentators outside their own political circles. Conservatives have been lamenting for years about how an offensive that the North Vietnamese thought had been a disaster for them was converted into a success by Walter Cronkite and the rest of the US media.
- Naughtie’s phrase “…violence in contemporary Iraq could be similar to the once- famous Viet Cong Tet Offensive” has a couple of things wrong with it.
1) The Tet Offensive was not carried out primarily by the Viet Cong. This Wikipedia article says that it involved “battalion strength” elements of the Viet Cong but “divisional strength elements” of the North Vietnamese Army. The left always overplays the role of the Viet Cong in the Vietnam war because it prefers the picture of the Americans being brought low by peasant guerilla fighters springing from the people to what actually happened, which is that the North conquered the South by conventional military means. The North was supported by the Soviets. The South was abandoned by the US.
2) Our Department of Snark wishes to ask “Violence in contemporary Iraq” would refer to, what, the Ba’athist coup of 1968 in which Ahmad Hasan al Bakr overthrew Abdul Rahman Aref?
- Lee Moore comments: “We also get an expert introduced as “Lawrence Korb is a writer on defence issues, he is also a former Assistant Defence Secretary under Ronald Reagan and a Vietnam veteran” from which one would naturally assume that he is likely to be sympathetic to Mr Bush (and so you would be particularly swayed by his criticism of Bush’s policy – candid friend and so on)…so long as you don’t know anything about Lawrence Korb. He was indeed an Assistant Defence Secretary under Ronald Reagan, but he had a very public bust up with the Reagan administration in 1986. He is a long standing anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war pundit, who works for a left wing pro-Democrat think tank, and who has utterly reliable opinions for a progressive media outlet like the BBC.”
- Now scroll down to the 0830 clip. “We speak to US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried about parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.”
I thought that Fried was mealy-mouthed and did not put up much of a fight. But, as commenter archduke says, listen to the change in tone between that part of the clip and the interview with John Pilger that follows afterwards. Friends all round it is now. Listen to how the two BBC interviewers chuckle along with Pilger when Pilger says, “who knows what he meant?” Then in comes Naughtie with, “Can he remember?” What wit. Pilger then says that he doubts if Bush knew what country he was in or has even heard of the Tet offensive and the merriment is shared once again.
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Then Pilger finishes up by saying, twice, that the Americans have built fourteen secret bases in Vietnam. Tell me this is a mistake, Vietnam for Iraq. Whatever it was it was weird. You’d think someone would pick him up on it. The BBC response to this astonishing statement? “John Pilger, thank you very much.”
- There is a discussion called “Vultures of Vietnam” going on at the BBC website here.
Hi Natalie,
Arguing over whether the offensive was succesful or not is slightly irrelavant, it was the fact that the enemy forces were able to mount a major, country-wide assault in the first place that was the “propaganda” victory. It called into question public reports of the progress being made in the war and had a significant psychological effect on the South Vietnamese civilians.
That this latest violence in Iraq has come close to another US election means that it’s not a huge leap to draw parallels between the two. Whether its useful or not is another matter.
Whether Bush was accepting the Tet offensive analogy in terms of media misrepresentation of events and the disastrous effects on public support for the war this caused, I’m far from convinced about.
Richard, a contributor to the debate on Matt Frei’s linked site wrote:
“Hitler had an incredibly fine tuned propaganda machine, but never in his dreams did he imagine the power of the liberal media as it exists today… ”
Sums it up, really.
Is it me, or is Osama Bin Ladin working for the BBC in Washington under th enom de guerre “Richard Green?” (picture at top left)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/
Bijan Daneshmand:
Is it me, or is Osama Bin Ladin working for the BBC in Washington under th enom de guerre “Richard Green?” (picture at top left)
Well, Richard’s certainly come a long way since the days when he used to prance around in Sherwood Forest: done quite well for himself, really.
Cheers.
Seek professional help…now before its too late.
Has anyone ever questioned Cronkite about his portrayal of the Tet offensive.
I can’t help wondering how he really feels about it. I mean, when he gave the VC the will to keep fighting, the number of US dead were less than 10,000. By the time the US finally managed to pull out they’d lost almost 60,000.
50,000 more fatalities, that’s a lot of blood on anyone’s hands. I wonder if he regrets snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
My mistake. JUst had a closer look … Its not OBL.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/
Its Richard Reid (he of the mighty RoP Shoe) … I should have known that with his CV he would have been given a job at the BBC.
Herculean efforts by forces on the point of collapse are so well known as to be de rigeur.
From the German campaign against the fresh forces from the US at Meuse/Argonne;
to the Germans (again) in the Ardennes offensive;
to the incredible defence of the assorted Pacific islands by the Japanese and the final expression of defiance in the form of the Kamikaze.
Not a collapse, but as an example of major actions taking place close to a ceasefire.
Hill 255 Korea. (Pork Chop Hill)
http://www.historynet.com/magazines/military_history/3034286.html
I was drawn to this bit;
‘”When the Chinese seized Old Baldy there was good military logic to abandon Pork Chop,” S.L.A. Marshall wrote. “That concession would have been in the interest of line-straightening without sacrifice of a dependable anchor. But national pride, bruised by the loss of Old Baldy, asserted itself, and Pork Chop was held.”
A lull fell over the area while the Chinese 47th Army was resupplied for its next objective — Pork Chop. Back in the United States, the press lambasted the 7th Division for the loss of Old Baldy and described the division as weary, slipshod and demoralized. Unwittingly, the American press supplied the Chinese with a propaganda tool — during the April and July fighting, 7th Division troops would hear those same caustic criticisms loosed at them from Chinese loudspeakers.’
“Arguing over whether the offensive was succesful or not is slightly irrelavant, it was the fact that the enemy forces were able to mount a major, country-wide assault in the first place that was the “propaganda” victory. It called into question public reports of the progress being made in the war and had a significant psychological effect on the South Vietnamese civilians.”
The point is the public reports of progress were correct – the NVA admitted such – the American Media ‘snatched defeat from the jaws of victory’
Jokes are all very well, but don’t let’s stray into personal abuse, people.
Compare these two BBC Headlines
US ‘arrogant and stupid’ in Iraq
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6074182.stm
Hamas pays the price of principle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6045720.stm
So the BBC is saying that the US is arrogant and stupid for attempting to introduce democracy in Iraq at great cost to the lives of its own, but Hamas is “principled” for continuing with its genocidal stance against Israel and the right of a Jewish State to be recognized and exist.
The close connections that Alan Johnston and the whole BBC team have with the most radical Palestinian factions is common knowledge.
What is outrageous is that the BBC feels confident and arrogant (not to mention stupid) enough to proclaim its bias so blatantly.
JewBoy,
You’ve hit the nail on the head there. The BBC claims to be occupying some kind of imaginary neutral ground between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli victims of terror. That would be bad enough, but the BBC leans so far to the point of view of the terrorists it’s practically falling into their lap.
Alan Johnston’s “journalism” is reprehensible. He’s one of the worst of a bad bunch.
Then Pilger finishes up by saying, twice, that the Americans have built fourteen secret bases in Vietnam. Tell me this is a mistake, Vietnam for Iraq. Whatever it was it was weird. You’d think someone would pick him up on it. The BBC response to this astonishing statement? “John Pilger, thank you very much.”
I haven’t re-listened to the recording, but I think Pilger was referring to 14 ‘permanent bases’ in Iraq. This is quite a common claim. IMHO it’s a term which begs a few questions – of course the US is going to want to have well-fortified bases to protect its troops wherever it deploys them, and it’s not clear to me how that differs from a ‘permanent base’. And, you know, US troops can be withdrawn from countries, even where it has ‘permanent bases’ – I believe this has been happening in Germany in recent years.