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The misleading character of the accident theory is evident from the fact that even now the “error” involved from the standpoint of U.S. policy-makers… - Edward S. Herman
" "The misleading character of the accident theory is evident from the fact that even now the “error” involved from the standpoint of U.S. policy-makers and American leaders generally is neither one of purpose nor method – it is strictly a case of unexpectedly large expense. For the U.S. leadership, in other words, Vietnam is simply another, painfully large “cost over-run.” In terms of basic U.S. objectives and methods employed, in the Third World – essentially establishment of reliable client states, increasingly managed by military elites, with generous financial and military support (arms, advisors, Green Berets, and more extensive military intervention when junta control is threatened, as in Santo Domingo) – Vietnam is a facet of a completely rational policy. The policy may be vicious and catastrophic, from the perspective of the Vietnamese; and it may be a sordid and disruptive waste of human and material resources from the standpoint of the real interests of the ordinary American; but to the Rostows, Westmorelands and Nixons, the Vietnam War is a noble endeavor (“one of our finest moments”) that we cannot afford to abandon without achieving our original ends. The evidence is compelling that this leadership is entirely capable of destroying every village in Vietnam (and in the process, every Vietnamese) if this is required to attain the original political objectives.
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About Edward S. Herman
Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania and a media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy. He also taught at Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He developed, with Noam Chomsky, the propaganda model of media criticism which seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social, and political policies is "manufactured" in the public mind due to this alleged propaganda.
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Edward Samuel Herman
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Additional quotes by Edward S. Herman
In short, once the RPF controlled the Rwandan state, it immediately turned its prodigious killing machine towards Zaire’s natural resources. This it may have done under cover of chasing the Hutu genocidaires, but the pillage of Zaire-the DRC worked out so well for the RPF that by the late 1990s it had “built up a self-financing war economy centered on mineral exploitation,” in the words of the UN Panel, with the pillage of resources so complete that it not only finances the RPF’s aggression, but generates annual surpluses back in Kigali as well. As the historian René Lemarchand sums up this system of blood and money: “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that by turning a blind eye to the profits drawn from the looting of the Congo’s wealth, the international community . . . is tacitly encouraging a colonial enterprise in the best tradition of European imperialism.” Of course, what is true of the “international community,” is true of academics as well.
The warfare in Syria is a follow-on to the attacks on Iraq and Libya. We may recall General Wesley Clark’s claim in March 2007 that shortly after 9/11 a Pentagon official had shown him a Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz list of seven Middle East and North African countries that were scheduled for attack and regime change. Iraq and Libya, both on that list, have been attacked and transformed into U.S.-destroyed states with new or unsettled leadership. The United States has been supporting regime change forces in Syria as far back as 2011, but the job has not been completed, in part because of Russian support for president Assad. Truce efforts by the U.S. and Russia have regularly broken down because the U.S. still aims at regime change and supports the rebel forces that Russia targets, many or most of which are Al Qaeda- or ISIS-related and whose victory would mean another Libya-like failed state.
On June 20, 2009, twenty-six-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan was shot to death in Iran while participating in a peaceful demonstration in Tehran. Her death became a “galvanizing symbol, both within Iran and increasingly around the world,” Rachel Maddow said on MSNBC. Video images of her plight circled the globe. The same day Roger Cohen denounced the killing on the editorial page of the New York Times. Only fifteen days later, nineteen-year-old Isis Obed Murillo was shot dead by the Honduran military during a peaceful protest in Honduras. Like Agha-Soltan’s, his death was recorded in video images that circulated on the Internet. The differential media interest in US newspaper coverage was 736-8 in favor of Agha-Soltan; the TV differential was 231-1 in favor of Agha-Soltan. The dramatic video images of Murillo’s killing never caught hold in the world beyond Honduras. The social media, which had displayed such potential for organizing protest in Iran, failed to come to life in Honduras. The Propaganda Model is as strong and applicable as it was thirty years ago. […] the performance of the MSM [mainstream media] in treating the run-up to the Iraq War, the conflict with Iran, and Russia’s alleged election “meddling” and “aggression” in Ukraine and Crimea, offer case studies of biases as dramatic as those offered in the 1988 edition of Manufacturing Consent. The Propaganda Model lives on. [the last published words in Herman’s lifetime]
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