{"id":327120,"date":"2017-09-21T18:52:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-21T17:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pbs-vietnam-war-tells-some-truths\/"},"modified":"2017-09-21T18:52:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-21T17:52:41","slug":"pbs-vietnam-war-tells-some-truths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/pbs-vietnam-war-tells-some-truths\/","title":{"rendered":"PBS\u2019 \u2018Vietnam War\u2019 Tells Some Truths"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> The PBS 10-part Vietnam War series offers valuable insights into the horrific conflict but still treads lightly on U.S. leaders\u2019 guilt as they lied and connived to start and extend the slaughter, as war correspondent Don North describes.<\/p>\n<p>By Don North<\/p>\n<p>Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen observed in his 2016 book, <em>Nothing Ever Dies<\/em>, that \u201cAll wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.\u201d That is surely true of the Vietnam War, which \u2013 although it ended four decades ago \u2013 continues as a battle of memory, history and truth.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21234\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image502527x.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image502527x-300x169.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-21234\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image502527x-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image502527x-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image502527x.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-21234\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image502527x-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/image502527x-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image502527x-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image502527x.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Ut\u2019s famous photo of terrified South Vietnamese children fleeing from a napalm attack on the village of Trang Bang in 1972. The girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, has ripped off her burning clothes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>And, the stakes are still high since honest narratives about important past events can shape the future, even national destinies, and \u2013 perhaps most importantly \u2013 whether there will be more wars or possibly peace.<\/p>\n<p>When PBS announced that it was broadcasting a 10-part, 18-hour series, entitled \u201cThe Vietnam War,\u201d I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect. As a network news correspondent who covered the war for five years through many of its bloodiest chapters, I have had mixed feelings about some of the other attempts to recount and explain the war.<\/p>\n<p>Many of the previous efforts were colored by the political pressures of the moment, especially from policymakers and journalists who had career stakes in how assessments of the failed war would make them look. So, with some trepidation, I watched the entire 10-part series and read the companion book by writer Geoffrey C. Ward over the past week. To my pleasant surprise, I found many reasons to applaud the effort and my criticisms were relatively minor.<\/p>\n<p>In my view, the PBS series, directed by Ken Burns and Lynne Novick, represents the most honest and thorough account available to the general public. Over those 18 hours, the series reveals so much duplicity and mendacity that this real history makes even the most cynical movies about the war, such as \u201cApocalypse Now<em>,<\/em>\u201d and \u201cThe Deer Hunter<em>,\u201d <\/em>look tame by comparison.<\/p>\n<p>I think that&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/09\/20\/pbs-vietnam-war-tells-some-truths\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: The PBS 10-part Vietnam War series offers valuable insights into the horrific conflict but still treads lightly on U.S. leaders\u2019 guilt as they lied and connived to start and extend the slaughter, as war correspondent Don North describes. By Don North Vietnamese-American author Viet Thanh Nguyen observed in his 2016 book, Nothing Ever Dies, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}