That’s what we do in advertising, sell stuff and anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.
Selling a doctrine isn’t any different.
If you are a student of communist era posters you will have admired the graphics and chuckled at the simplistic and naive headlines.
This is communist propaganda and shouldn’t be compared to clever marketing spin.
I have just spent 3 hours wandering through the War Remnants Museum in Saigon.
Most of the descriptions on the exhibits fall into the area of jargon. For example the Australian forces were described as: “The mercenary forces of the American puppets.”
It was the final exhibition that demonstrated how sophisticated their selling has become.
This exhibit compared war efforts, in WW1, WW2 and Korea, of the elite US regiments, with their achievements, or lack of, in the Vietnam conflict.
Their atrocities were also highlighted, like the massacre at My Lai, as well as the date they were prematurely pulled out of the conflict.
In all instances these forces were shown to be left wanting.
They lost more men and had fewer victories than those who went before them.
This was sophisticated spin and confined all the party jargon to the dark ages.
As our guide Frong said, there are two sides to every story and here you are getting our side.
In my opinion this chapter in history was sold particularly well.
