Thursday, July 07, 2005

There's danger on the edge of town

The Scottish Sun have a photo of a chinook helicopter on the front page today (not online, but in England they're still going on about some game they've won or something). The helicopter was used yesterday to transport police reinforcements to trouble spots around Gleaneagles. I've said it before, but I don't think this sort of violent direct action is useful here.

Anyway, the S.Sun provides an example of what I mean. The photo of the military helicopter isn't enough, more propaganda is required. Gordon Brewer reported on Newsnight Scotland that the accompanying S.Sun article refered to yesterday's violence at Gleneagles and drew comparisions with the Vietnam War (military helicopter = Vietnam connection, y'see).

Update

I've seen the front page of todays Scottish Sun and there are not one but two references to Vietnam. These are from memory, as I obviously didn't buy it.
Byline (or sub headline or whatever it's called): 'Vietnam' airlift for Police...
Article: In scenes reminiscent of Vietnam...
Update ends.

Yes, the Vietnam War, in which millions of South-East Asians were killed. (The figures are disputed but then we all know how careful the US military gets when it comes to counting civilian casualties. We do know that 58,226 US military personel were killed.)

Yes, the Vietnam War, in which US troops murdered 300 - 500 unarmed civilians at My Lai. Here's a photo of the aftermath of that massacre.

Yes, the Vietnam War photographed here, and here, and here, and here.

Yes, the Vietnam War, with the faulty exit strategy:
The goal was to gradually build up the South Vietnamese Army so that it could fight the war on its own. This policy became the cornerstone of the so-called "Nixon Doctrine". As applied to Vietnam, the doctrine was called "Vietnamization". The stated goal of Vietnamization was to enable the South Vietnamese army to increasingly hold its own against the NLF and the North Vietnamese Army. The unstated goal of Vietnamization was that the primary burden of combat would be returned to ARVN troops and thereby lessen domestic opposition to the war in the U.S.
That sounds strangely familiar.

Anyway, the Vietnam War is what the S.Sun is apparently comparing yesterday's disturbances to.

Yesterday, less than 200 people were arrested. 29 policemen were injured, none of them seriously. No-one was napalmed.

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