OPINION & EDITORIAL
The government must stop lying about war progress
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by Alexander Nguyen
Thursday, November 15, 2001
(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES — After 1975, every time American forces get involved in armed conflicts abroad, the phrase, “Not another Vietnam” inevitably permeates out of almost every anti-war coalition. What haunts America about the Vietnam War is that no one really knows why American forces were there and what they were doing. Fueled by governmental misinformation that led to the belief that America was winning, only to lose in the end, the country’s psyche was deeply wounded. Up to that point the United States had never lost a war.
Though the current war bears little resemblance to the Vietnam War, and though we know why we are fighting in Afghanistan, the same government propaganda tactics are being employed yet again.
Case in point: on Oct. 20 more than 100 Army Rangers parachuted into a Taliban-held airbase 60 miles southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. A military cameraman captured the action with a night-vision lens and the grainy, green-tinted footage dominated the evening news that day.
On the same day, a second Special Operations unit, made up of largely Rangers and reinforced Delta Force squadron personnel, struck a complex outside of Kandahar, including a house used by Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban. In a Pentagon briefing later that day, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers told reporters that the mission was successful.
“(Special Operations Forces) were able to deploy, maneuver and operate inside Afghanistan without significant interference from Taliban forces,” he said.
He added, “The mission overall was successful, and we accomplished our objectives.” That, however, was a lie. What Myers failed to inform the public about was that the mission was a near-disaster. Delta Force, an elite Army unit that prides itself on stealth, had been counterattacked by the Taliban. According to the New Yorker, some of the American forces had to fight their way to safety. Twelve Delta members were wounded, three seriously. “As they came out of the house, the s*t hits the fan,” one senior officer told the New Yorker. “It was like an ambush. The Taliban were firing light arms and either RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) or mortars.”
In the wake of this, the Pentagon is seriously considering the future of all Special Forces operations in the area, the New Yorker reported. The government needs to stop misinforming the public, especially during times of war. The American public has a right to know what happened, how it happened and what went wrong. The government doesn’t want the public to know what went wrong “because it doesn’t want to appear that it doesn’t know what it’s doing,” one military man told the New Yorker.
If the Pentagon made a mistake, it should have the balls to admit it instead of hiding behind a curtain of misinformation. According to the New Yorker, some Delta Force members refer to the Oct. 20 event as a “total goat f
We have seen this over and over again. During Operation Desert Storm, the Pentagon reported that all U.S. bombers hit their targets, only to find out later that a large percentage of the bombs missed. “This is the same M.O. that they’ve used for 10 years,” one senior military officer told the New Yorker. The American public is more educated than ever, and we do not need to sugarcoat it. We can handle the truth. We do not need to be lulled into believing that the United States is winning a war that it is not.
Although admittedly the United States, thus far, is not losing the war, this is the fear that “Not another Vietnam” is referring to.
While American patriotism after the Sept. 11 attacks is exponentially higher right now, this can only last so long. The public needs to be well informed about everything the military does, within reason, if the government wants continual support for the war effort of the American people.
Lying to the public and hiding the truth is not indicative of a society that prides itself as the defender of freedom and democracy.
