Propaganda is a movement put out by an organization or government to spread and promote a policy, idea, doctrine, or a cause. One can see nothing wrong with this, but the other definition of this word seems disturbing:


The objectives of a war may vary from war to war, but they all boil down to the annihilation of the enemy to promote superiority. Winning a war and carrying out its objective takes more than improving military arsenals, developing new tactics and strategies plus training more skillful soldiers. Nations at war not just fight the war in the field, but it also fights the media and publicity war. In this form of war, propaganda's second definition would be most effective and destructive.

One of the wars that the US has fought was the US-Vietnam War. By merely looking at the countries involved, one may actually think---or most probably conclude that the United States has claimed victory over this war because it is regarded as a world superpower. To think that it has won in this war would command no inquiry from others or from the rest of the international community for that matter. But the interesting catch to this war is that it turned out to be what was never expected---the most powerful country in the world was defeated by a small third world country.

So what does it mean to the US then, if it loses a war? For one, its reputation as a superior country would face the danger of ridicule. Two, it is the ultimate insult. It was tantamount to saying that the US is a jock---big and burly but weak. For the US, a reputation stain is far worse than having to lose soldiers in Vietnam. This stain is worth all the trouble of creating a bad propaganda to clean up.

Bad propaganda took on many forms. Essays, stories and novels, museum exhibits, comics, movies, and even TV sitcoms has sent the message to the public that the US army has never faced the danger of annihilation nor did they deal with defeat in encounters with the Vietnamese. In fact, the ratio of the successful ambushes made in the battlefield was eight is to five in favor of the Vietnamese. The US army soldier numbers came dwindling down because of malaria and their tactics were no match for the Viet guerillas'. They knew the forests too well for the Americans to beat them in their own terrain. It is also a curious fact that most of the forms of propaganda stated above (especially the movies) were funded by the Pentagon and written and designed by soldiers and military aficionados who had never set foot in the Viet battlefield.

The Pentagon's retort called this accusation of bad propaganda an innocent "information program". But information programs are supposed to inform and not to deceive. This deception is an insult to the memory of the soldiers who fought bravely and risked their lives fighting for their country. It was like throwing their efforts away and masking it with a feigned one.

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this is for my English 11 class.
we were limited to only 509 words.
it's hard to shut up when you have so much to say...well in this case...to write.

i'll edit this essay when I get a chance...i haven't finished the book on vietnam yet.