Split Thread BBC news reporting

[Emily's Cat]

It's not getting on my while horse. There was an insinuation in your post that was stupidly ridiculous. Followed by a clear rejection that you didn't seem to understand. Which itself is doubling down on the previous stupidity.

In complete seriousness, I don't know how you got to this inference.

What insinuation do you think I made, and in which post? What rejection do you think was clear (I won't disagree that I didn't understand it). What previous stupidity did I double down on?

 

[catsmate]

. Cronkite famously got the Tet Offensive completely wrong.

No he didn't. He pointed out that the government's optimistic claims were rubbish and that the war was stuck in a bloody deadlock.
He was right.

 

[Ziggurat]

No he didn't. He pointed out that the government's optimistic claims were rubbish and that the war was stuck in a bloody deadlock.

You got it wrong too. The Tet Offensive was a failure, and it broke the insurgency. South Vietnam later fell to a conventional invasion from the North after we abandoned them, but the insurgency within South Vietnam largely ended after the Tet Offensive.

 

[jimbob]

You got it wrong too. The Tet Offensive was a failure, and it broke the insurgency. South Vietnam later fell to a conventional invasion from the North after we abandoned them, but the insurgency within South Vietnam largely ended after the Tet Offensive.

My understanding is that it was a tactical failure but a strategic (political) victory.

 

[Ziggurat]

My understanding is that it was a tactical failure but a strategic (political) victory.

Why was it a political victory? In part because Cronkite (and others) helped make it one, by portraying it as a tactical victory.

 

[steenkh]

Why was it a political victory? In part because Cronkite (and others) helped make it one, by portraying it as a tactical victory.

… which still makes it a political victory. I doubt if the U.S. had lost the war without the Tet offensive.

But you are right, the Viet Cong was crushed, never to materialise as a fighting force again.

I was only a child at the time, and living in Denmark meant that Walter Cronkite had no presence or importance whatsoever. My thinking as a child was already mixed: the U.S. were the good guys, but their allies the South Vietnamese generals were bad guys. When the Tet offensive took place, our television showed an execution made by a South Vietnamese police chief of a Viet Cong rebel, and I was so shocked about the brazen extrajudicial killing that I lost all sympathy for South Vietnam and the U.S.

So Walter Cronkite was perhaps instrumental for changing people's attitudes, but it was also the first time that television brought war directly into the living room, and people didn't like what they saw.

Since then militaries have been more careful to control the presentation in the press. In Russia, for example, people generally think that Russia is advancing and winning, and the dead are mainly Ukrainian Nazis.

 

[Ziggurat]

… which still makes it a political victory.

I didn't say it wasn't. But Cronkite treated it like a tactical victory, and he was completely wrong about that. Which, again, helped turn it into a political victory.

When the Tet offensive took place, our television showed an execution made by a South Vietnamese police chief of a Viet Cong rebel, and I was so shocked about the brazen extrajudicial killing that I lost all sympathy for South Vietnam and the U.S.

He executed a war criminal. Brutal to see on TV, but perfectly legal. The Geneva Convention requires soldiers to fight in uniform for a reason, and that guy didn't wear a uniform. Summarily executing him is actually the normal war-time response, the only thing unusual was seeing it on TV.

 

[steenkh]

He executed a war criminal. Brutal to see on TV, but perfectly legal. The Geneva Convention requires soldiers to fight in uniform for a reason, and that guy didn't wear a uniform. Summarily executing him is actually the normal war-time response, the only thing unusual was seeing it on TV.

Actually, I now know that the police chief also had a personal reason to shoot the VC fighter, because that same man had just killed the police chief's wife. And as you say, it was perfectly legal. But my point was that scenes like that brought the brutality of war to the forefront, and changed people's attitudes.