Some Praise For The NYT & Criticism of Right

The New York Times’ leadership on many MSM memes is dependent on others’ agreement and interest. However, when the New Yprk Times presents an important report that doesn’t fit the wider themes of the Left, they are largely ignored. Indeed, unless fitting some current theme of the Right, they are largely ignored in its alternative media as well.

An example, before proceeding to this Sunday New York Times magazine feature about US treatment of the Hmong.

In August 2006, the NYT’s reported on the “authoritative” report from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) deflating the theme that’s haunted Vietnam vets’ reputations for a generation, that PTSD was widespread and long debilitating. Aside from some papers picking up the report via NYT’s wireservice, it was largely ignored. The theme of PTSD becoming a new scourge upon our forces in Iraq continued to dominate.

I wrote about the report here. I, also, had a column about it at Military.com, which elicited many emails attacking me for daring to question those receiving compensation, although the column made clear that the AAAS study found little exaggeration in compensation claims from Vietnam veterans. I haven’t had a column at Military.com since.

The New York Times report of a new study of PTSD, the NYT’s summary remarking the new study is “viewed by experts as authoritative,” knocks the air out of the Vietnam war and Vietnam veteran punching bags that stress disorders among our combatants was especially severe, long-lasting, and extraordinary. This canard is currently used to similarly undermine the U.S. war effort in Iraq, a war similarly often without clear-cut fronts and enemy….

Contrary to the widely reported figure of a third of Vietnam veterans having developed PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, this more careful study reports a, nonetheless serious, occurrence of 18.7% having temporary symptoms and 9.1% having lasting symptoms 10+ years after the end of the war. At the same time, the study points out “the majority of the veterans with high and very high MHM [military historical measure: “probable severity of exposure to war-zone stressors"] did not develop war related PTSD.”…

Another notable result in the study itself is that:
T]he trajectory for most veterans with war-related PTSD that causes substantial impairment is toward amelioration or complete remission. This tendency toward improvement is present even for ~10% [approximately 10%] of veterans who still had impairing current PTSD at follow-up; the impairment most of them showed by this time [10+ years after the end of the Vietnam war] was not severe. The functioning of the veterans who had developed war-related PTSD but who no longer met criteria for the disorder at follow-up differed little from that of veterans who did not develop war-related PTSD.

In April 2006, I had a column in Editor & Publisher (E&P archives not available, so see here) about American media “covering Iraq on the cheap.” Some elements were edited out that raised questions about Iraqi stringers, but most of my draft appeared.

When even the conservative alternative media wasn’t interested in the NYT’s report on PTSD, I wrote a follow-up questioning the “strange silence in the blogosphere.” E&P’s editor Greg Mitchell, ever vigilant to critique the US in Iraq but less interested in debunking the PTSD meme, strung me along for weeks. So, I published it here at Democracy-Project.

It wasn’t until the NYT’s featured the first of its despicably undocumented 4-part series on our “War Torn” Iraq/Afghan war veterans that the blogosphere exploded in indignation, although I think I’m the only one to closely examine all four parts in my posts. (here, here, here, and here)

When the NYT’s could be attacked, the conservative blogosphere did so. Earlier, when the New York Times published good science, it was ignored. This is a pattern that does not reflect to the credit of the conservative side of the blogosphere.

Now, on to this Sunday’s New York Times.

The magazine has a 5088 word recounting of the abandonment and cruel plight of our Vietnam war allies in Laos, the Hmong, and of the weakness of the case against Hmong leader Vang Pao for involvement in a plot for violence against the current Lao government.

There’s a paragraph paralleling the weakness of the case against the Sears Tower plotters. It is gratuitous, and may have been inserted by an editor or the reporter to fit NYT’s anti-Iraq war memes. But, it is irrelevant to the strong factual reporting in the other thousands of words.

The NYT’s, in December 2007, published another strong front-page feature about the plight of the Hmong, hunted like animals by the Laotian government, aided by the Vietnamese. I wrote about it here. The week before, the Washington Post carried an op-ed about their persecution. The Huffington Post has carried several excellent reports by Rebecca Sommer. My posts on the extermination policies and programs against the Hmong in Laos and Montagnards in Vietnam are too many to list, so go to the Search in the left margin and input Hmong and then Montagnard. I even praised Senator Patrick Leahy for taking an interest. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have, also, been forthright in their condemnation of the Hmong’s treatment.

One would think that those on the Right, many of whom served in Vietnam, who are quick to point out the US’s moral obligation to Iraqis who have stood with us and for themselves against our common foes, would be more interested in the US abandonment and lackadaisical treatment of our former Hmong and Montagnard allies. There is no subject I write about more ignored among other conservative blogs. It is quite rare indeed when any notice is taken of these abandoned allies.

Why? Is it because others in media and NGO’s who are usually attacked have taken some interest? Is it because it doesn’t fit a current meme or brouhaha of the day? Is it because the Right blogosphere has lagged in creating original reporting of its own? Is it simple lack of interest?

Regardless, it does not reflect well on the Right side of the blogosphere.

P.S.: I emailed Glenn Reynolds that I couldn't find any posts at Instapundit that contained the word "Montagnard" or "Hmong." Glenn promptly replied with this good post from 2002. (Nothing since then.)

THE WAR CRITICS, as I've noted before, learned nothing since Vietnam. The U.S. military, as Jim Dunnigan notes learned a lot:

During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Special Forces used the same techniques they applied in Afghanistan. It was in Vietnam that the Special Forces actually developed the tactics that worked so well in Afghanistan. The Vietnam experience was even more dramatic. For most of the 1960s SOG (Studies and Observation Group) Special Forces LRRPs (Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrols) operated in Laos. The Special Forces (and CIA) had organized a 10,000-man army from among the local Hmong tribes in Laos. The LRRPs went in (about 23,000 times) to find North Vietnamese troops and installations, whereupon devastating air strikes were called in. Another 50,000 tribesmen in the central highlands of Vietnam were organized into military units.

Some of these fought in Laos as well. However, the North Vietnamese (and Laotian communist Pathet Lao) troops were more numerous and determined than the Taliban, so the "American Tactics" didn't work out as well in Laos. The technique did work better in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese were not able to capture the Central Highlands until the Special Forces and American air power left. And, OK, they didn't have as many smart bombs in the 1960s, but they didn't need them to do the deed.

Posted 3/26/2002 03:54:30 PM by Glenn Reynolds