Click to see the full-size image
Written by Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher
The American Conservative published an article that parallels the Vietnam War, considered the greatest military humiliation in US history, with what they point out is a campaign of deception carried out by the current US Government, which will lead to a defeat for Kiev and NATO.
According to the author James W. Carden, who served as an advisor on US-Russian affairs at the State Department during the Obama administration, the media campaign regarding Ukraine carried out by the White House was a copy of the actions of successive US governments in Vietnam until the Nixon administration withdrew troops and concluded the intervention in 1973. He relates the Vietnam War with the lies with which President Joe Biden and his collaborators have tried to deceive citizens about the progress of the Ukraine conflict and its origin, among other issues.
These false narratives, the article notes, have been put in place and presented to Americans with the help of the “most dutiful accomplices,” such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, media outlets that, until recent times, published the triumphalist comments of Biden and his administration without any type of questioning, in addition to analysis columns where Russian President Vladimir Putin was demonised and falsely stated that Ukraine was on its way to victory.
This falsification of reality, in which all the complexity of the conflict was eliminated, and the responsibility of the US and NATO in inciting it, was omitted. Instead, they presented the war as a simple confrontation between good and evil, which is similar to the deception that Washington and the establishment media consummated in the 1960s to justify the US invasion of Vietnam, the article states.
Now, notes The American Conservative, as it is “too obvious to ignore” that Russian troops are prevailing in Ukraine, the American media is finally realising what is really happening on the battlefield after having helped prolong the conflict with their lies.
“If we are being lied to about the progress of the war—and we are—what do you suppose are the odds we are also being lied to about the causes of the war?” the author questions.
For US politicians and journalists, the expansion of NATO, Ukraine’s post-Euromaidan nationalist agenda, the refusal to implement the Minsk Agreements, or threats by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made in Munich in February 2022 to acquire nuclear weapons had nothing to do with the outbreak of war, the article ironically states.
“If we are being lied to about the causes of the war, are we also then being misled about what is at stake in eastern Ukraine? Probably. Here the parallel with the government’s mendacity during the war in Vietnam period becomes too obvious to ignore,” Carden continues.
“Recall in the first case that the template, that of the Cold War, is essentially unchanged, even in some of the particulars, not least in the comparisons of (the Vietnamese anti-communist leader) Ngo Dinh Diem and Volodymyr Zelensky to Winston Churchill. The South Vietnamese government (avaricious, corrupt) had the right to American arms by virtue of its right ‘to determine [the nation’s] future,’ the article says, recalling the argument used by the US to justify its war against North Vietnam, which was part of its global operation against what Washington perceived as an expansion of communism that could threaten its interests and hegemony.
The same thing is happening now with Ukraine: President Biden publicly justifies launching a proxy war with Russia with the excuse that it is necessary to stop Moscow, once again invoking the theory of the domino effect, the long-discredited thesis that drove the US interventionist policy during the second half of the 20th century.
Following the publication of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, the philosopher Hannah Arendt observed during the Vietnam War era that “the policy of lying was hardly ever aimed at the enemy…but was destined chiefly if not exclusively, for domestic consumption, for propaganda at home and especially for the purpose of deceiving Congress,” Carden warns.
He concludes his article by saying: “Two years on, we citizens have been serially lied to by the Biden administration and the media about the war’s causes, its stakes, and its progress. The question that should, but of course will not, be addressed in the aftermath of this latest American misadventure abroad is: Will we ever learn?”
the us msm always back their military… not only in vietnam war but afghanistan, iraq, syria, libya and now ukraine.
20 years in afghanistan just to give the whole country back to the taliban… to the last moment the us msm was saying how well the us military was doing in afghanistan before running away… “the afghani army can stand for 6 months… pentagon btw”?not even 6 weeks.
hamas done a better job than the 20 years of the us occupation in afghanistan and afghan us backed army.
also, the us backed afghani army was against the taliban… not against zionist, gofundmy militray.
the article also questions the odds that us politicians and journalists are being lied to about the causes of the war? no one here really believe ukraine could fight back russia – beside these zionists and neo-nazis…
“will we ever learn?” nope…
elegant spus e usor obosit, uneori e fara orientare, e la frl ca un politician roman… a facut cariera in politica… n are vreo experienta de munca in apt domeniu
every literate person should read “a bright shining lie”. it is an astounding book as the author displays the cognitive dissonance that comes from the ridiculous, superstitious belief in american exceptionalism. everyone involved in us imperialism was, and is, lying to themselves and to everyone else. americans doing away with anyone who stands in their way in order to save everyone from reds who don’t value human life. the us is comedy gold.
“the american conservative published an article that parallels the vietnam war, considered the greatest military humiliation in us history,”
the ukraine war is going to be so much more humiliating and whatever war with china comes next. vietnam had a quick turn-around with the petrodollar scheme. 2023 turned this upside down and we’re not even at the end of the war yet.