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Episode 181: US Media's 5 Most Popular Revisionist Tropes About the Iraq and Vietnam Wars

Added 2023-05-10 15:04:43 +0000 UTC

"Charting a different course in the Vietnam War to fewer deaths and a better end," muses a book review in the Washington Post. "The Vietnam War was begun in good faith, by decent people," a Ken Burns PBS documentary tells us. "The Iraq War Reconsidered," reads a headline from The Atlantic.

Often, especially when an anniversary of a U.S. invasion or withdrawal rolls around, we're told that the devastation wrought by the US war machine was complicated, flawed, but ultimately necessary if not beneficial. Sure, the United States has killed millions, destabilized power structures, wrecked communities and economies, lied about the reasons for doing it all, and drawn the ire of people throughout the world. But, in hindsight, many in U.S. media insists, a horrible act of war from a world superpower wasn't an unequivocal, deliberate, and needless crime against humanity, but somewhere between a misunderstood righteous cause and a bumbling, good faith mistake motivated by humanitarian concerns.

An ideological system of reassurance therefore emerges. Once wars are broadly viewed as either wrong or a quote-unquote "failure" in the popular imagination — as in the case of Vietnam and Iraq — a cottage industry of punditry and pseudo-history emerges in the subsequent years designed to soothe the egos of elites and muddy the waters of both memory and reality for casual media consumers.

Put another way: we all see a dead body on the floor, no one can doubt this. No one can reasonably argue the destruction of Vietnam and Iraq didn't happen. So, this cottage industry springs into action, on behalf of those that caused the death, working to get the guilty party a charge of third degree manslaughter rather than murder. It was an accident, they were mistaken, they had bad intelligence, they were driven by concerns for freedom and human rights.

After all, those who destroyed Vietnam remained in power well into the 2000s. And those who destroyed Iraq currently run our major publications, universities, nonprofits, and think tanks. They still even run the country itself. So the incentive to make sure they all plead guilty to third degree manslaughter rather than first degree murder is tremendous, otherwise, we’re just a country led by war criminals — and this simply cannot be. We need absolution. We must remain, when all is said and done, innocent.

On this week's episode, we’ll explore the war revisionism industry, breaking down five ways in which media seek to sanitize and justify even the most notoriously unpopular and horrific U.S.-led and backed wars — namely Vietnam and Iraq — as unpleasant, imperfect, mistaken, but ultimately incidental byproducts of a noble and righteous empire that, above all, meant well.

Our guest is The Intercept's Jon Schwarz.

Guest

Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) is a senior writer for The Intercept. Jon's amazing archive of commentary, analysis and criticism can be found at A Tiny Revolution.

Show Notes

The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now?

Jon Schwarz | March 15, 2023 | The Intercept

US Media's Iraq War Pushers 20 Years On: Where Are They Now? Rich and Influential.

Adam Johnson | March 17, 2023 | The Real News Network

20 Years On, a Question Lingers About Iraq: Why Did the U.S. Invade?

Max Fisher | March 18, 2023 | The New York Times

Iraq War Apologism Is Alive and Well

Branko Marcetic | March 21, 2023 | Jacobin

Whatever They Say Now, America’s Political and Media Elites Overwhelmingly Supported the Iraq War

Joe Renouard | March 21, 2023 | ZNetwork

A Known and Unknown War

Michael Brenes | March 20, 2023 | Contingent Magazine

How to Write an Iraq War Apologia

Elspeth Reeve | March 20, 2013 | The Atlantic

All History Is Revisionist History

James M. Banner, Jr. | Summer 2022 | Humanities

20 Years After U.S. Invasion, Iraq Is a Freer Place, but Not a Hopeful One

Alissa J. Rubin | March 18, 2023 | The New York Times

Penance Before Absolution

Charles P. Pierce | Mach 20, 2013 | Esquire

Mistakes, Excuses and Painful Lessons From the Iraq War

Ezra Klein | March 19, 2013 | Bloomberg

Revisionism as a Substitute for Victory

Mark Atwood Lawrence | July 6, 2018 | The Common Reader

Vietnam Revisionism and the Ugly American

Mark Atwood Lawrence | June 5, 2018 | Lawfare

Max Boot’s Vietnam

John Ganz | February 20, 2018 | The Baffler

Another Warmonger Rewarded for Being Wrong on Iraq War

Adam Johnson | February 1, 2018 | FAIR

Why Are We in the Middle East?

Richard Beck | Fall 2016 | n+1

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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