"...With the Vietcong wiped out in the Tet offensive, North Vietnamese regulars moved south down the Ho Chi Minh trails through Laos and Cambodia to continue the war. Even Giap admitted in his memoirs that news media reporting of the war and the anti-war demonstrations that ensued in America surprised him. Instead of negotiating what he called a conditional surrender, Giap said they would now go the limit because America's resolve was weakening and the possibility of complete victory was within Hanoi's grasp."

(the rest of the article can be seen here
and here

Genearl Giap, commander of the North Vietnamese Forces, admits here and in his memoirs that had it not been for the American media, he would have surrendered.
The American People, who base much of their opinion on what the media shows them had at one time been with the Kennedy administration saying, "failure is not an option."
after all the negative coverage, body bags, and the wishy-washy, self glorifying johnson, the resolve changed and we were pulled out of a victory that was in our grasp.

i have posted several topics on the blatant bias in teh media and utter slant in war coverage and even FOX doesnt show much else.
i posted a letter written by i Commander Tim Ryan who is fed up with this coverage.

This media knows nothing of war. in deed many of them report the news from the international zones, up in ther hotels getting reports of American deaths sent their so they can report the "woe is us" from the safety of their hotel rooms.
whatever hapened to the viper pit of fallujah and mosul? did you ever notice that coverage on them all of the sudden stopped? why?
because no more negative things were happening there.
There is the media maxim "If it bleeds it leads."
THen why do they not show the death toll of the insurgents? sure six soldiers might have died but how many insurgents died? well no one knows why? because it isnt covered.
THe media rewards the enemy by being a posterchild for the American Defeat or their success, which i might emboldenes them to keep on fighting and helps them recruit more terrorists to their cause.
i think we should uproot all journalists out of there so that the soldiers can get their job done.

What are your thoughts?

have you ever heard of an educated guess a.k.a an estimate?

quote:

they estimate all the time.

They estimate what? And who for that matter?

quote:

on the rare incedent that i did see a casualty report for insurgents, it estimated 300 were killed.

American soldiers are always wearing uniforms and American government keep official statistics on casulaites at all times. On the other hand I don't know of any record that shows how many insurgents have died. And if so I doubt it is close to accurate because of the difficulties I mentioned below.

they estimate all the time.
on the rare incedent that i did see a casualty report for insurgents, it estimated 300 were killed.

quote:

notice they didnt reprt how many insurgents those soldiers killed or anything.
its quite interestin. i never hear about the death toll of insurgents just Americans.

There is no death toll of insurgents. Look it up! It's infinetly times harder to find a death toll of insurgents because they're very hard to classify and count. If you see a dead man on the side of the road how do you know it is an insurgent or a civilian?

really and what kind of text book was this? was this a reviosnist text book?
the signature is merely a means to raise a bit fun thats all.
i should have explained better. i meant in this situation and with teh current state of the American media, we shouldnt allow journalists into war coverage. as of right now, currently, the media only serves as a means to be the enemies' mouthpiece. the media could be very useful if they tolde verything and not only one part of the truth. i just got done watching a segemnt on FOX on the current situation in Iraq and all they bantered about was how the death toll kept rising. yes FOX the supposed "Bush netowrk". notice they didnt reprt how many insurgents those soldiers killed or anything.
its quite interestin. i never hear about the death toll of insurgents just Americans.

And another thing, I don't know what your talkign about when you say the vietcong were wiped out in the Tet offensive, becasue they definitely were not. We just barely finished a unit in my social studies class abou the vietnam war, and the vietnamese gained major ground during the Tet offensive, because we were caught unawares. Where did you get this article from? I suggest you check your sources better next time.

Ok, a couple of things. First of all, what is with your signature? I take great offense to that. Along with other similar translations, peace means, "freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions". Why do you have souch an objection to this? Peace is not a sign of cowardice, it is the wish to be tranquil in surroundings of chaos. I find it sad that you morally object to that.

Second, the actions you tlak of here are merely symptoms of a bigger problem, one that needs to be addressed more than simply these. We must have the citizens of our country able to see what is happening in the world, especially when it has to do with them. The reason that "America's resolve weakens" whenever the media shows on a wide scale what actually happens in war, is because we American citizens (as well as most other citizens of the earth) find the mass killing of people for any reason morally offensive. That is a good thing, it means that we have hearts, and consciences. The journalists shoudl be kept in the battlefield for as long as they are willing to be there, because we need to know whats going on, whether it's good or bad.