The reason they didn’t go for full on WW2 rationing or the draft or anything is they saw the public backlash after Vietnam. Wars need to be sold to the US public as some hazy far off thing that doesn’t directly affect their lives. They’re fine with people over there being killed for profit, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them personally.
Yes, and I remember how they didn’t even allow filming the caskets coming home like they did in Vietnam, to say nothing of actual combat footage on the nightly news. That’s how “over there” they tried to make it. Goddamn… it was so fucked up.
The prevailing theory regarding the media coverage (or lack thereof) is they felt ‘guilty’ over how they ‘altered the American people’s perception of the Vietnam War unfairly’, which…lol.
That is partly why a lot of things went unquestioned, why they started (and continue) to just swallow State Department talking points whole; it’s not like Vietnam was significantly better, but they actually reported on what was happening now and then, instead of just fobbing off the troops 24/7. Of course, they also took a wildly paternalistic view of the Iraqi/Afghani people, I remember when they helped pull down one of those statues of Saddam that he had near his palace (?), the whole tone was “oh these poor Iraqis need our help, they don’t know how to do this”.
The crowd around that statue when it got pulled down was like 90% journalists. It was pure theater. At the time I was laughing at the idea that Europe is full of statues of profoundly evil men but they just kinda deal with it. Like “oh that’s just Charles the Awful, he killed a thousand babies, now pigeons shit on him no big deal.” But the media had to have their “I’m doing my part!” gesture to the state department.
The reason they didn’t go for full on WW2 rationing or the draft or anything is they saw the public backlash after Vietnam. Wars need to be sold to the US public as some hazy far off thing that doesn’t directly affect their lives. They’re fine with people over there being killed for profit, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them personally.
Yes, and I remember how they didn’t even allow filming the caskets coming home like they did in Vietnam, to say nothing of actual combat footage on the nightly news. That’s how “over there” they tried to make it. Goddamn… it was so fucked up.
The prevailing theory regarding the media coverage (or lack thereof) is they felt ‘guilty’ over how they ‘altered the American people’s perception of the Vietnam War unfairly’, which…lol.
That is partly why a lot of things went unquestioned, why they started (and continue) to just swallow State Department talking points whole; it’s not like Vietnam was significantly better, but they actually reported on what was happening now and then, instead of just fobbing off the troops 24/7. Of course, they also took a wildly paternalistic view of the Iraqi/Afghani people, I remember when they helped pull down one of those statues of Saddam that he had near his palace (?), the whole tone was “oh these poor Iraqis need our help, they don’t know how to do this”.
The crowd around that statue when it got pulled down was like 90% journalists. It was pure theater. At the time I was laughing at the idea that Europe is full of statues of profoundly evil men but they just kinda deal with it. Like “oh that’s just Charles the Awful, he killed a thousand babies, now pigeons shit on him no big deal.” But the media had to have their “I’m doing my part!” gesture to the state department.