Category: Media Beat column

After he died on Monday, front pages focused on the failures of William Westmoreland as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Overall, the coverage faulted him for being a big loser, not a mass killer. The Washington Post noted that Westmoreland “was called a war criminal.” But the deaths of thousands of Vietnamese people each…

During the Vietnam War, one of the peace movement’s more sardonic slogans was: “War is good business. Invest your son.” In recent years, some eminent pundits and top government officials have become brazen about praising war as a good investment… And so, it was fitting when the New York Times reported days ago that Powell…

Am I the only U.S. citizen who finds the annual Fourth rituals to be cloying and deceptive? Yeah — just me and probably tens of millions of other people. Ever since the Vietnam War, the Fourth of July has seemed to be a celebration of the past in the midst of a distinctly un-glorious present.…

On the propaganda front, it’s been another tough week for Washington’s war makers. But for them, where there’s hope there’s death. Let’s address the Iraq war directly: It’s too soon to know whether the Bush administration’s new PR offensive will do anything for you in terms of public opinion. But rest assured that the U.S.…

You wouldn’t know it from the media focus on Deep Throat last week, but the lies that Richard Nixon told about the Watergate break-in were part of his standard duplicity for the Vietnam War. It wasn’t just that the Nixon administration engaged in secret illegal actions against a wide range of peace advocates — including…