Well it can be argued that all war is an unnecessary waste. & one side or
another will often be unprepared for tactics used by the other side. I guess
my point was that (in my view) Vietnam got 'near live' coverage in colour
which was beamed directly into peoples homes for the first time. The average
person had very little left to the imagination & less of an excuse for not
knowing that when the guns come out its not only your enemies that get hurt.


Can anyone seriously say, now that the historians have sorted out much of
the propaganda from the facts, that the bombing in Europe during WWII was
not an ugly thing? What about the war on the Russian front? The partisan war
behind the Russian front? The island hopping campaign in the Pacific?
Yugoslavia? Chechnya?

I'm not saying there is no such thing as a 'just war' (YMMV), just making
the point that there really is no such thing as a 'good war'. Its always
been ugly. The troops always knew that (at least after a short exposure at
the sharp end) With Vietnam the people away from the front knew it too. So
while that war indeed had a reputation as an ugly one compared to others,
that may have been as a result of people being better informed while it was
still a live issue. (just my theory)

It is apparantly the case that the various militaries these days don't give
reporters as much freedom to move about as in Vietnam. Is this true? I
wonder does the practice of embedding reporters with military units have any
effect on the quality of the reporting we get now? 

Enough of this - back to work!

Joe

> -----Original Message-----
> From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu 
> [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf Of Alan B. Pearce
> Sent: 28 September 2006 15:51
> To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public.
> Subject: Re: [OT] 9/11 live: the NORAD tapes
> 
> 
> >Possibly one of the reasons is that media coverage was
> >much more extensive in Vietnam than in WWII & much of
> >the coverage was in colour?
> >
> >> I wonder how Nam got that image of being the ugliest war ever. It 
> >> seems the troops in Europe two decades earlier had a much uglier 
> >> time.
> 
> Possibly, but I think there is also a perception that it was 
> an unnecessary waste, partly caused by an unpreparedness for 
> a war against guerrilla tactics, and partly because the US 
> went to war without anyone attacking them directly.
> 
> -- 
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