Propaganda 101 – How the Pentagon is Trying to Rewrite Vietnam War History

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In case you weren’t aware, the Pentagon is set to roll out a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. Personally, it’s hard to get excited about commemorating an event that led to the death of over 58,000 American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese, particularly since much of it was the direct result of well documented lies and deception, such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

What’s worse, the Pentagon intends to rewrite history by whitewashing this period of civil unrest and government shame from American history. The propaganda is so blatant that it has resulted in many of the era’s most well known protestors and activists to come together in order to stop it.

The New York Times reports that:

WASHINGTON — It has been nearly half a century since a young antiwar protester named Tom Hayden traveled to Hanoi to investigate President Lyndon B. Johnson’s claims that the United States was not bombing civilians in Vietnam. Mr. Hayden saw destroyed villages and came away, he says, “pretty wounded by the pattern of deception.”

Now the Pentagon — run by a Vietnam veteran, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel — is planning a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. The effort, which is expected to cost taxpayers nearly $15 million by the end of this fiscal year, is intended to honor veterans and, its website says, “provide the American public with historically accurate materials” suitable for use in schools.

But the extensive website, which has been up for months, largely describes a war of valor and honor that would be unrecognizable to many of the Americans who fought in and against it.

Leading Vietnam historians complain that it focuses on dozens of medal-winning soldiers while giving scant mention to mistakes by generals and the years of violent protests and anguished debate at home.

In one early iteration, the website referred to the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which American troops killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, as the My Lai Incident.

The glossy view of history has now prompted more than 500 scholars, veterans and activists — including the civil rights leader Julian Bond; Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers; Lawrence J. Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan; and Peter Yarrow of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary — to join Mr. Hayden in demanding the ability to correct the Pentagon’s version of history and a place for the old antiwar activists in the anniversary events.

Mr. Hayden, 74, and other 1960s-era activists who helped him gather signatures, say they do not quarrel with honoring the sacrifice of soldiers. But they object to having the military write the story.

“All of us remember that the Pentagon got us into this war in Vietnam with its version of the truth,” Mr. Hayden said in a recent telephone interview from Berkeley, Calif., where he attended a rally to mark another 50th anniversary, that of the free-speech movement. “If you conduct a war, you shouldn’t be in charge of narrating it.”

He promised “educational materials, a Pentagon exhibit, traveling exhibits, symposiums, oral history projects and much more.” The mission, he said, is to “help the nation take advantage of a rare opportunity to turn back to a page in history and to right a wrong, by expressing its honor and respect to Vietnam veterans and their families.”

Many of the longtime activists also see the petition as deeply relevant today.

“You can’t separate this effort to justify the terrible wars of 50 years ago from the terrible wars of today,” said Phyllis Bennis, a Middle East expert who has known Mr. Hayden since the early 1970s. “When I saw this, I thought immediately, ‘We’ve got to stop this.’ ”

This problem of people in power rewriting history to serve their own ends has been an issue throughout human history, something Julian Assange recently discussed and outlined here: Video of the Day – Hologram Julian Assange Talks George Orwell, Bitcoin and Preserving Human History.

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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16 thoughts on “Propaganda 101 – How the Pentagon is Trying to Rewrite Vietnam War History”

  1. With all due respect to we veterans the story of veterans whatever the war cannot be told with any amount of truthful balance unless the mind control program ran and managed by veterans is told. Regrading the Vietnam War the mind control program and its abusive application of the state secrets privilege and related doctrine, act, regulation, executive order and policy abuses occurred throughout this period. While some improvements have been made more needs to be done like getting Senator Pat Leahy’s USA FREEDOM Act passed into law.

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  2. It’s one thing to honor the valor of the soldiers, but I think even more importantly, the resistance within the military should also be highighted and studied.

    There was a great deal of anti-war activity and anti-military activity within the ranks, on the battlefield, and in the veterans community. This is being totally ignored, and it was probably one of the most defining aspects in that period of American history. Without that back ground, much of what happened in the 70s does not make sense.

    The Sir No Sir documentary on YouTube is a good place to start.

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  3. they don’t really have to re write history. time will do its job of having people forget just about everything.

    there are only winners and losers. the 2008 bailouts happened. no one involved in them will ever be held to account. what more proof do you need that crime pays!

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  4. Usually the victors write the history but I guess the Vietnamese have better things to do. By the way, how are our recent adventures in Africa and the Middle East any different than Vietnam?

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  5. ‘Your comment is awaiting moderation’ – what??? You whine about the government controlling the message with Vietnam and you’re doing the same thing with this article????

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  6. I don’t see much distance between these Pentagon Vietnam lies and the pitiful excuse for the news of the day (lies) about Lybia, Gaza, Ukriane, MH360, MH17 (breathtaking), JFK, RFk, MLK (still lying about old news)… by the corporate presstitutes!

    RIP America.

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  7. Michael:

    As a point of disclosure, I come from a military family who has served in every major war (including Vietnam) and more than a few small ones since the Spanish American. I am a combat veteran of the Persian Gulf War.

    How exactly is DoD “rewriting” the history of the Vietnam War by providing a military history of that war that appears to be basically accurate?

    Why exactly should DoD waste any time mentioning that war’s anti-military movement, whose members ranged from the ignorant to those attempting to avoid service to outright traitors like Ellsberg who provided material support to a wartime enemy?

    I will try to stay polite here. These “useful fools” (to borrow the real life communist term for them) deserve to have their reprehensible activities fully detailed and condemned by DoD. However, no Democrat administration is going to permit its DoD to tell the truth and call out the members of that anti-military movement who still populate the Democratic Party. Thus, the DoD limiting itself to a military history.

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    • Bart, we veterans for sure believe that the veterans that were involved in the mind control program, MKULTRA etc., “deserve to have their reprehensible activities fully detailed and condemned by DoD.” Again regarding the Vietnam War the mind control program and its abusive application of the state secrets privilege and related doctrine, act, regulation, executive order and policy abuses occurred throughout this period. While some improvements have been made more needs to be done like getting Senator Pat Leahy’s USA FREEDOM Act passed into law.

  8. Given that the effects of indiscriminate use of chemical warfare like agent orange are still being felt to this day by the people of vietnam, and likely will be for generations, I would have thought that war crime would be the inescapable descriptor for the US’s conduct. Shame.

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  9. The My Lai incident. Indeed. It actually was the first news story that got me involved in the anti-war movement … back then. And those who perpetrated it did not, as far as I am aware, serve as long a sentence as Manning is intended to for an, albeit botched, attempt to prevent more of those “incidents”.

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  10. In all due respect to Phyllis Bennis ( I have no respect for such vile hypocrites), she is a Middle East expert and my name is Napoleon Bonaparte.

    Bennis is twisted leftist who hates anything good and honorable and loves everything bad such as drugs and respects gangster dictocrats.

    Bennis was born on Chumash land known as LosAngeles California and she and her family have benefitted greatly from the deportations and loss of territory by the Chumash and Tongva people.

    She has no tears for them of course nor for Arab Christians. Only tears for the Palestinian Muslims.

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