Watch the media as carefully as you watch the war

Around thirty years ago a brutal communist dictatorship won the Vietnam War. It won the war against forces that wanted to maintain a Western style democracy for the people of Vietnam. That war was won not on the battlefield (for the Vietcong were being defeated there despite the political ball and chain Western forces had to drag behind them) but on the field of propaganda.

The Vietcong prevailed through the treachery of the Western media and the betrayal of the Left. Since 1975 the people of Vietnam have been under the heel of a form of governmental dictatorship that history has proven morally corrupt and economically disastrous. While communist regimes all around the world collapsed to reveal their moral bankruptcy, Communist Vietnam has been given a free passage by the media. That was despite thousands fleeing the communist regime to settle in places like Australia and tell stories of brutality the media would not listen to.

The propaganda coming from the Iraqi Information Minister at the moment sounds remarkably like the sort of propaganda that issued constantly from Hanoi to be recycled throughout the West by compliant, grovelling reporters. Some of these reporters of treachery have risen to the heights in multinational media groups.

The few reports coming through CNN and BBC World on the media in the Arab world reveal an Arab media unabashedly in favour of the Iraqi regime and unashamedly prejudiced against the West.

Keep an eye on how the Western media reports the Iraqi War.