From Vietnam to Iraq: SPIEGEL ONLINE's Cynical Revisionism

(By Ray D.)

In a recent article on the Vietnam War and the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident entitled "The Torpedo Attack that never was", SPIEGEL ONLINE draws some sinister historical parallels to modern day Iraq. That should not come as a big surprise, of course, since deep-down the magazine and its anti-American readership would desperately like to see the Iraq War develop into another humiliating defeat for the United States.

The article, written by Joachim Hoelzgen, starts off with the following:

"The Vietnam War divided the USA in the seventies - and the nation is still dealing with it. American historians have now found out that tricks and cover-ups already played a big role at the beginning - a parallel to the Iraq war."

There is absolutely no attempt to hide the intent of the article: America is still supposedly haunted by Vietnam and the war's "beginning" is parallel to that of the current Iraq conflict.

Never mind that the Vietnam conflict hardly began in 1964. Never mind that US involvement in Vietnam stretched back well into the 1950s. Never mind that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was hardly the only factor that drew America into Vietnam.

The piece then goes into historians' work on the Gulf of Tonkin incident and discusses findings that the naval encounter that was reported to have occurred between the USS Maddox and North Vietnamese patrol boats never actually happened. It is at this point that the dubious comparisons to Iraq begin:

"Now parallels to the Iraq War are being drawn that suddenly make the happenings in the Gulf of Tonkin interesting again. Because in both cases the claims of the intelligence services played a role that collapsed like a house of cards, but were still used to justify a war.

In the USA a debate is swirling about the responsibility of the President. George W. Bush sees himself accused of lying, since no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. At the same time an old trauma has returned to the populace: The Vietnam War."

Of course. Hoelzgen wants desperately for us to believe that an "old trauma" is returning to the United States. And for SPIEGEL ONLINE readers that translates into one simple thing: Iraq = Bush's Vietnam.

Nothing could be more pleasant to the ears of SPIEGEL ONLINE readers than the wishful thinking of author Joachim Hoelzgen, who naturally never informs them that another side to the debate exists. Hoelzgen never mentions the view, held by many, that there is no good evidence that Bush lied or covered-up anything related to going to war. In fact, many Germans simply assume that Bush lied because they rarely - if ever - hear the "other side" of the story and simply believe what their media is telling them. The result is a transatlantic canyon of misunderstanding marked by conversations that take place on completely different wavelengths.

But let's be honest. We know the German media by now. Why would Mr. Hoelzgen want to challenge himself or his readers by mentioning the other side or bringing up differing viewpoints? It would ruin the wonderful premise of his piece that his readers so crave: Iraq = Bush's Vietnam. And besides, predicting American doom is a tried and tested formula for selling books and magazines in old Europe, so why disturb the lucrative status quo and rock the boat for a little thing like the truth?

The Revisionist View of Vietnam

And just as with Iraq, SPIEGEL ONLINE primarily focuses on American wrongdoing and defeat when discussing Vietnam. The article continues:

"And like John F. Kennedy, Johnson and Richard Nixon initially, McNamara clung to the belief that Vietnam was a cornerstone of the free world which, if it came loose, would mean the Communists would take over all of Southeast Asia as a result. They didn't realize that the main goal of Ho Chi Minh and his generals was in no way the conquest of neighboring countries, but instead the reunification of Vietnam."

What pious historic ignorance. So what, exactly, were the objectives of the Soviet leaders in Moscow were who were bankrolling Ho Chi Minh and supplying his armies with billions in weapons and aid Mr. Hoelzgen? I'm sure that they were only interested in the peaceful "reunification" of Vietnam as well and had no further ambitions, just as they were only interested in bringing "peace" and "unity" to Afghanistan not long thereafter.

And of course Mr. Hoelzgen forgets to mention how entire North Vietnamese divisions occupied swaths of Cambodia and Laos during the war while so-called peace demonstrators in the West screamed about every American incursion into those supposedly "neutral" areas. Mr. Hoelzgen conveniently forgets to mention the massacres, torture and terror implemented on a mass scale by "Ho Chi Minh and his generals" during and after the war. Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions the incredibly brutal occupation of Cambodia by Communist forces and the mass murder of 2 million of that nation's 7 million inhabitants, something that would have never happened had US troops remained in Southeast Asia. Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who fled, drowned, were imprisoned, tortured, starved and murdered by "Ho Chi Minh and his generals" during and after the war, (a process that continues to this day, largely ignored by the European Left.) Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions that the US lost not the war but the peace in Vietnam by failing to aid the South Vietnamese on a level proportionate to the aid the North received from the Soviets after withdrawing in 1973-4.

Instead, readers are presented with the usual one-sided view of Vietnam and again fed the fallacious comparison to Iraq, not because the comparison is true or particularly accurate, but because it represents the magazine's desired outcome: Defeat for the United States.

And, as a finishing touch on this revisionist hack job, SPIEGEL ONLINE includes a series of 9 images to further reinforce the left's own revisionist stereotypes of Vietnam, Iraq and the USA.

Above: The Photo Series Link as Displayed on SPIEGEL ONLINE

Below is a selection of some of those images. And, for every SPIEGEL ONLINE image, we have included an additional image forgotten by the German media establishment and the Angry Left:

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

Terrified Vietnamese Children with GI's in Background

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

The Remains of Vietnamese Civilians after they were massacred by the thousands by North Vietnamese forces at Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

An American Bomber over Vietnam

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

The Cambodian Killing Fields of the 1970s: Millions Shared their Fate after the US Withdrew from the Region

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

George W. Bush: "Ready for War"

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

An Iraqi Man Holds All that Remains of his Relative from one of Saddam's Mass Graves: Hundreds of Thousands Died While Most European "Leaders" and Media Looked the Other Way...

In closing, we at Davids Medienkritik would like to suggest a new title for this latest SPIEGEL ONLINE article on Vietnam that more accurately reflects its cynical revisionist view: "Vietnam: The Communist Atrocities that never were."

And, in a very real sense, the magazine's willful decision to gloss-over Communist atrocities in Southeast Asia is remarkably similar to its willful decision to largely gloss-over Saddam Hussein's repeated campaigns of mass murder and invasion.

So clearly: When one objectively tallies the number of articles the magazine has published on real and alleged American transgressions in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq and then compares that total to the number of articles the magazine has published on Communist genocide in Southeast Asia or Baathist atrocities in Iraq, the proportion will reveal a staggering revisionism completely out of whack with historic reality but entirely in sync with the political leanings of the magazine's readership. Sadly enough, SPIEGEL ONLINE is largely representative of most German media in this respect.

This phenomenon is not unlike the German peace movement's keen hatred of President Bush and remarkable tolerance for Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. Ignorance of history and hypocrisy go hand-in-hand...

Endnote: In related news, SPIEGEL ONLINE is currently celebrating "Europe's Peaceful Revolutionaries" as the inheritors of Che Guevara and Gandhi on its most recent magazine cover.

"The Inheritors of Gandhi and Guevara: Europe's Peaceful Revolutionaries"

Here again, the magazine is overlooking Che's less than "peaceful" history as a Communist leader in order to glorify the European Left.

Update: In a letter to the editor, David Harnasch writes (in German) that Gandhi must be turning over in his grave.

Update #2: This isn't the first time Der Spiegel has featured Che in heroic pose on its cover either...

(By Ray D.)

In a recent article on the Vietnam War and the 1964 Tonkin Gulf incident entitled "The Torpedo Attack that never was", SPIEGEL ONLINE draws some sinister historical parallels to modern day Iraq. That should not come as a big surprise, of course, since deep-down the magazine and its anti-American readership would desperately like to see the Iraq War develop into another humiliating defeat for the United States.

The article, written by Joachim Hoelzgen, starts off with the following:

"The Vietnam War divided the USA in the seventies - and the nation is still dealing with it. American historians have now found out that tricks and cover-ups already played a big role at the beginning - a parallel to the Iraq war."

There is absolutely no attempt to hide the intent of the article: America is still supposedly haunted by Vietnam and the war's "beginning" is parallel to that of the current Iraq conflict.

Never mind that the Vietnam conflict hardly began in 1964. Never mind that US involvement in Vietnam stretched back well into the 1950s. Never mind that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was hardly the only factor that drew America into Vietnam.

The piece then goes into historians' work on the Gulf of Tonkin incident and discusses findings that the naval encounter that was reported to have occurred between the USS Maddox and North Vietnamese patrol boats never actually happened. It is at this point that the dubious comparisons to Iraq begin:

"Now parallels to the Iraq War are being drawn that suddenly make the happenings in the Gulf of Tonkin interesting again. Because in both cases the claims of the intelligence services played a role that collapsed like a house of cards, but were still used to justify a war.

In the USA a debate is swirling about the responsibility of the President. George W. Bush sees himself accused of lying, since no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. At the same time an old trauma has returned to the populace: The Vietnam War."

Of course. Hoelzgen wants desperately for us to believe that an "old trauma" is returning to the United States. And for SPIEGEL ONLINE readers that translates into one simple thing: Iraq = Bush's Vietnam.

Nothing could be more pleasant to the ears of SPIEGEL ONLINE readers than the wishful thinking of author Joachim Hoelzgen, who naturally never informs them that another side to the debate exists. Hoelzgen never mentions the view, held by many, that there is no good evidence that Bush lied or covered-up anything related to going to war. In fact, many Germans simply assume that Bush lied because they rarely - if ever - hear the "other side" of the story and simply believe what their media is telling them. The result is a transatlantic canyon of misunderstanding marked by conversations that take place on completely different wavelengths.

But let's be honest. We know the German media by now. Why would Mr. Hoelzgen want to challenge himself or his readers by mentioning the other side or bringing up differing viewpoints? It would ruin the wonderful premise of his piece that his readers so crave: Iraq = Bush's Vietnam. And besides, predicting American doom is a tried and tested formula for selling books and magazines in old Europe, so why disturb the lucrative status quo and rock the boat for a little thing like the truth?

The Revisionist View of Vietnam

And just as with Iraq, SPIEGEL ONLINE primarily focuses on American wrongdoing and defeat when discussing Vietnam. The article continues:

"And like John F. Kennedy, Johnson and Richard Nixon initially, McNamara clung to the belief that Vietnam was a cornerstone of the free world which, if it came loose, would mean the Communists would take over all of Southeast Asia as a result. They didn't realize that the main goal of Ho Chi Minh and his generals was in no way the conquest of neighboring countries, but instead the reunification of Vietnam."

What pious historic ignorance. So what, exactly, were the objectives of the Soviet leaders in Moscow were who were bankrolling Ho Chi Minh and supplying his armies with billions in weapons and aid Mr. Hoelzgen? I'm sure that they were only interested in the peaceful "reunification" of Vietnam as well and had no further ambitions, just as they were only interested in bringing "peace" and "unity" to Afghanistan not long thereafter.

And of course Mr. Hoelzgen forgets to mention how entire North Vietnamese divisions occupied swaths of Cambodia and Laos during the war while so-called peace demonstrators in the West screamed about every American incursion into those supposedly "neutral" areas. Mr. Hoelzgen conveniently forgets to mention the massacres, torture and terror implemented on a mass scale by "Ho Chi Minh and his generals" during and after the war. Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions the incredibly brutal occupation of Cambodia by Communist forces and the mass murder of 2 million of that nation's 7 million inhabitants, something that would have never happened had US troops remained in Southeast Asia. Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who fled, drowned, were imprisoned, tortured, starved and murdered by "Ho Chi Minh and his generals" during and after the war, (a process that continues to this day, largely ignored by the European Left.) Mr. Hoelzgen never mentions that the US lost not the war but the peace in Vietnam by failing to aid the South Vietnamese on a level proportionate to the aid the North received from the Soviets after withdrawing in 1973-4.

Instead, readers are presented with the usual one-sided view of Vietnam and again fed the fallacious comparison to Iraq, not because the comparison is true or particularly accurate, but because it represents the magazine's desired outcome: Defeat for the United States.

And, as a finishing touch on this revisionist hack job, SPIEGEL ONLINE includes a series of 9 images to further reinforce the left's own revisionist stereotypes of Vietnam, Iraq and the USA.

Above: The Photo Series Link as Displayed on SPIEGEL ONLINE

Below is a selection of some of those images. And, for every SPIEGEL ONLINE image, we have included an additional image forgotten by the German media establishment and the Angry Left:

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

Terrified Vietnamese Children with GI's in Background

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

The Remains of Vietnamese Civilians after they were massacred by the thousands by North Vietnamese forces at Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

An American Bomber over Vietnam

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

The Cambodian Killing Fields of the 1970s: Millions Shared their Fate after the US Withdrew from the Region

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE wants its readers to see:

George W. Bush: "Ready for War"

This is an image SPIEGEL ONLINE does not want its readers to see:

An Iraqi Man Holds All that Remains of his Relative from one of Saddam's Mass Graves: Hundreds of Thousands Died While Most European "Leaders" and Media Looked the Other Way...

In closing, we at Davids Medienkritik would like to suggest a new title for this latest SPIEGEL ONLINE article on Vietnam that more accurately reflects its cynical revisionist view: "Vietnam: The Communist Atrocities that never were."

And, in a very real sense, the magazine's willful decision to gloss-over Communist atrocities in Southeast Asia is remarkably similar to its willful decision to largely gloss-over Saddam Hussein's repeated campaigns of mass murder and invasion.

So clearly: When one objectively tallies the number of articles the magazine has published on real and alleged American transgressions in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq and then compares that total to the number of articles the magazine has published on Communist genocide in Southeast Asia or Baathist atrocities in Iraq, the proportion will reveal a staggering revisionism completely out of whack with historic reality but entirely in sync with the political leanings of the magazine's readership. Sadly enough, SPIEGEL ONLINE is largely representative of most German media in this respect.

This phenomenon is not unlike the German peace movement's keen hatred of President Bush and remarkable tolerance for Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao. Ignorance of history and hypocrisy go hand-in-hand...

Endnote: In related news, SPIEGEL ONLINE is currently celebrating "Europe's Peaceful Revolutionaries" as the inheritors of Che Guevara and Gandhi on its most recent magazine cover.

"The Inheritors of Gandhi and Guevara: Europe's Peaceful Revolutionaries"

Here again, the magazine is overlooking Che's less than "peaceful" history as a Communist leader in order to glorify the European Left.

Update: In a letter to the editor, David Harnasch writes (in German) that Gandhi must be turning over in his grave.

Update #2: This isn't the first time Der Spiegel has featured Che in heroic pose on its cover either...

Comments

[joe]

Always find it interesting how Germans like to discuss America’s wars a lot more than they like to discuss their own. I some times wonder why.

[LC Mamapajamas]

Beimami, the web site I was referring to is no longer online :(. It was www.stolenvalor.com, and was set up concurrently with the publication of the book Stolen Valor.

The book itself, however, is still available, and comments about different things mentioned in it can be found on numerous web sites. It is, however, about myths surrounding Vietnam Vets, and not specific events like the "burning" of the village in the photo. (ie: It's about how many of the "Vets" who came out against the Vietnam War were never military, or if military, never went to Vietnam, and things like overblown stats concerning psychological problems, homelessness, etc. These are myths.)

I wish it was still there, but alas it is gone :(. I think it was done partially in response to Kerry running for president last year, and the reaction of several Vietnam Veterans groups against him.

I'll keep looking around, but I'm pretty sure that the Stolen Valor website was it.

[Doug]

In the late spring of 2002 I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included nearly 20 former inspectors from the UN Special Commission (Unscom), established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq.

Wasn't the original inspections regime UNMOVIC? I thought that UNSCOM came later.

They still constantly accuse the government of lying, nefarious undisclosed intentions, and automatically believe every outrageous story of alleged war crimes.

From '93 to '01, not so much. Odd, eh?