Tet: Defeat or Victory?


If this post is dated before 2011, I almost certainly do not agree with its contents any more. I had a profound philosophical shift that began in early 2010, which ultimately left me somewhere left of center. Please disregard all right-wing, nutjob ramblings you may find here.



All I’ve ever heard about the Tet Offensive was that it was a massive failure for the Allies and that it signaled the beginning of the end for Allied forces in Vietnam. Over the past couple of years I’ve read several stories contradicting the conventional wisdom about Tet. From these readings, it seems that far from a defeat for Allied forces, it was actually a stunning, massive defeat for the Communists. Here’s the latest story from the Wall Street Journal explaining exactly that. Essentially, the media mis-reported what happened during Tet, and the American people swallowed it. Most still believe it. I believe the same thing is happening with media reporting in Iraq. Objective figures show the troop surge is working, but most Americans think we’re “in a quagmire.” Will it take 40 years before we see that the reporting on Iraq was wrong?

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