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 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.