VIETNAM VETERANS FOR ACADEMIC REFORM -

Leonard Magruder - Founder/President
Former professor of psychology, Suffolk College, N.Y.

V.V.A.R. COMMENTARY : ANOTHER MEDIA COVER-UP ?
WHAT THE SACRIFICES OF OUR SOLDIERS HAVE GIVEN IRAQ

The article reproduced below begins, "Open up almost any American or European publication these days, and you'll be bombarded with grim news about "horrific" conditions in Iraq - and America's "poor handling" of the post-war reconstruction effort. "
If the media is again playing this game, then perhaps we better first review how the media lied to America about the Tet Offensive. Is the national media once again hiding from us what the sacrifices of our soldiers have given to an oppressed people ?

The Tet Offensive, which was portrayed by the New York liberal media as a defeat for the U.S. was in fact, as Westmoreland and all historians agree , an almost disastrous defeat for the North Vietnamese. Not only did they lose half of the 90,000 troops they had committed to battle , the Viet Cong was virtually destroyed. (by 1970 95% of South Vietnam had been pacified. The American people were never told about this either)
Contrary to the expectations of the North, the people of the South took not one step to assist the invaders. Instead , they rose up in revulsion and resistance, with the government and the people galvanized into unity for the first time and volunteers for the South Vietnamese army almost doubling.
In the U.S., the facts made clear by the Tet Offensive, that the war was not just a “civil war”, that the South clearly did not wish to live under Communist rule and welcomed American aid, and that it was the North Vietnamese who were engaged in “genocide” and “aggression” with the mass murders at Hue and the rocket attacks on helpless civilian populations, should have ended the arguments of the “peace” movement. It was the moment of truth for those in the universities and the media. They failed the test. The lying continued with renewed fury.
The New York media, recognizing an opportunity to manipulate the news to effectively impose its view of the war on the American people now created, and deliberately sustained, an image of “disaster”, even in the face of incoming battlefield reports that contradicted that image.
This image was taken seriously by advisors to President Johnson , totally altering the outcome of the war at the very moment when victory might have been possible. The liberal media robbed the United States government and the American people of the ability to make critical judgements about their most vital security interests in a time of war.
The true reason for the tragic change in policy after the Tet offensive is seen in what Johnson now told Westmoreland, that to pursue the war more aggressively was politically unfeasible, that he had “no choice but to try to calm the protestors lest they precipitate an abject American pull-out.” (America in Vietnam , Levy , l978) In one of the most incredible phenomenon in the history of warfare, there was during this period, thanks to the media, no logical connection between what was actually happening in Vietnam and response on the home front. The response to victory was despair. This is what the media calls the “psychological victory,” which they themselves created.
And to their everlasting shame, the “peace” movement responded to any hint of success by American forces at Tet with panic, fearing that their own country might win the war. As presidential candidate George McGovern said to Vietnam vet and former Sec. of the Navy James Webb, “What you don’t understand is that I didn’t want us to win that war.” (American Enterprise Mag. May/June l997)

from The New York Post:

Open up almost any American or European publication these days, and you'll be bombarded with grim news about "horrific" conditions in Iraq - and America's "poor handling" of the post-war reconstruction effort. All of which, it is claimed, is made all the more tragic - because President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maliciously exaggerated the threat from Iraq.
Author and Middle East expert Amir Taheri spent several days on the ground in Iraq last week and found reality to be starkly different from what is being reported. Here is a first-hand account of an Iraq that is rapidly moving forward in nearly every aspect of life - political, economic and cultural. And a people that, while understandably skeptical after decades of tyranny, is nonetheless hopeful - and grateful for their liberation.

THE REAL IRAQ
By AMIR TAHERI

"Neither the wishful thinking of part of the Arab media, long in the pay of Saddam, nor the visceral dislike of part of the Western media for George W. Bush and Tony Blair changes the facts on the ground in Iraq. One fact is that a visitor to Iraq these days never finds anyone who wants Saddam back. There are many complaints, mostly in Baghdad, about lack of security and power cuts. There is anxiety about the future. That does not mean that there is popular support for violent action against the coalition.
Another fact is that the violence we have witnessed, especially against American troops, in the past six weeks is limited to less than 1 percent of the Iraqi territory, in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," which includes parts of Baghdad. Elsewhere, the coalition presence is either accepted as a fact of life or welcomed. On the 4th of July some shops and private homes in various parts of Iraq put up the star-spangled flag as a show of gratitude to the United States."We see our liberation as the start of a friendship with the U.S. and the U.K. that should last a thousand years," says Khalid Kishtaini, one of Iraq's leading novelists.
In the early days of the liberation, some mosque preachers tested the waters by speaking against "occupation." They soon realized that their congregations had a different idea. Today, the main theme in sermons at the mosques is about a partnership between the Iraqi people and the coalition to rebuild the war-shattered country and put it on the path of democracy.
Yet another fact is that all 67 of Iraq's cities and 85 percent of the smaller towns now have fully functioning municipalities. Several ministries, including that of health and education , have also managed to get parts of their operations going.again. The petroleum industry, too, is being revived with plans to produce up to 2.8 million barrels of crude oil a day before the year is out. There is no famine - in fact, the bazaars are more replenished with food than ever, since the late 1970s . Most hospitals are functioning again with essential medical supplies coming in for the first time since 1999. Some 85 percent of primary and secondary schools and all but two of the nation's universities have reopened with a full turnout of pupils and teachers. The difference is that there no longer are any secret police agents roaming the campuses and sitting at the back of classrooms to make sure lecturers and students do not discuss forbidden topics. Nor are the students required to start every day with a solemn oath of allegiance to the dictator.
There has been no mass exodus anywhere in Iraq. On the contrary, many Iraqis, driven out of their homes by Saddam, are returning to their towns and villages.
In Iraq today there are no "displaced persons," no uprooted communities and no long lines of war victims in search of a safe haven.

For the first time in almost 50 years there are also no political prisoners, no executions, no torture and no limit on freedom of expression. Iraq today is the only Muslim country where all shades of opinion - Islamists, liberals, socialists, Arab nationalists and moderate Islamists - all have full freedom to compete in an open market of ideas. Better still, all are now represented in the newly created Governing Assembly Iraq is also the only Muslim country where more than 100 newspapers and weeklies, representing all shades of opinion, appear without a police permit and are subjected to no censorship.
A stroll in the open-air book markets of Rashid Street reveals that thousands of books, blacklisted and banned under Saddam Hussein, are now available for sale. Among the banned authors were almost all of Iraq's best writers and poets, whom many young Iraqis discover for the first time. Stalls, offering video and audiotapes for sale, are appearing in Baghdad and other major cities, again giving Iraqis access to a forbidden cultural universe.
The flower stalls along the Tigris are also making a comeback. "Business is good," says Hashem Yassin, one florist. "In the past, we sold a lot of flowers for funerals and placement on tombs. Now we sell for weddings, birthday parties and gifts of friendship." The free-market economy is making its first inroads into Iraq's socialistic system in a number of small ways. Hundreds of hawkers are offering a variety of imported goods and making brisk business by selling soft drinks, often bottled in Iran, and biscuits and chewing gums from Turkey.
Some teahouses, in competition to attract clients, offer satellite television as an additional attraction. Every evening people pack the teahouses to watch, and discuss, what they have seen in an atmosphere of freedom unknown under Saddam. It may be hard for Westerners to understand the Iraqis' exhilaration at being able to watch television of their choice. This is a country where, under Saddam, people could be condemned as spies and hanged for owning a satellite dish.
The portrayal of Baghdad as an oriental version of the Far West misses the point. It ignores the fact that life is creeping back to normal, that weddings, always popular in summer, are being celebrated again, often with traditional tribal ostentation. The first rock concert since the war, offered by a boys' band, has already taken place, and Iraq's National Soccer Squad has resumed training .
There are two Iraqs today: One as portrayed by those in America and Europe who wish to use it as a means of damaging Bush and Blair, and the other as it really exists, home to 24 million people with many hopes and aspirations and, naturally, some anxiety about the future.
"After we have aired our grievances we remember the essential point: Saddam is gone," says Mohsen Saleh, a geologist in Baghdad. 'A man who is cured of cancer does not complain about a common cold.' "

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