Noam Chomsky Quotes

Much of the conventional wisdom associated with Vietnam was highly inaccurate. Far from an inevitable result of the imperative to contain communism, the war was only made possible through lies and deceptions aimed at the American public, Congress, and members of Lyndon Johnson's own administration.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

We we’re wrong, terribly wrong [about the Vietnam war.]

A storm swept the world in 1968. It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by the U.S. against a poor southeast Asian country was seen every night on television.

Every book that comes out, every article that comes out, talks about how - while it may have been a "mistake" or an "unwise effort" - the United States was defending South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression. And they portray those who opposed the war as apologists for North Vietnam. That's standard to say. The purpose is obvious: to obscure the fact that the United States did attack South Vietnam and the major war was fought against South Vietnam.

The Vietnam War was a tragedy waiting to happen, but one made much worse by countless errors along the way, in many of which I had a part.

United States policy [concerning Vietnam] was marred by a lack of candor and by misinformation.

Neoconservatives and the Pentagon have good reason to fear the return of the Vietnam Syndrome. The label intentionally suggests a disease, a weakening of the martial will, but the syndrome was actually a healthy American reaction to false White House promises of victory, the propping up of corrupt regimes, crony contracting and cover-ups of civilian casualties during the Vietnam War that are echoed today in the news from Baghdad.

When campaigns use one-word labels, typically it's meant to distract and destroy.

In politics, not all lies are all lies. And not all truths are complete.

The Cold War had become a battlefield marked by doublespeak. Disguise, distortion, and deception were accepted as reality. Truth was promised in a serum.

Vietnam was as much a laboratory experiment as a war.

There are people who cannot forget, as neither do I, the lesson of the years of the Indochina War. Which was, first, that the state is capable of being a murderer. A mass murderer, and a conspirator and a liar.

Everything about the left is perception, manipulation, and lies. Everything. Everything is 'Wag the Dog.' Everything is a structured deception.

The venerable Robert E. Lee has taken some vicious hits, as dishonest or misinformed advocates among political interest groups and in academia attempt to twist yesterday's America into a fantasy that might better service the political issues of today.

The spin overwhelms the substance. That's very clearly what happened.

The homes of America are horrified and the intelligence of Americans is insulted by weird television advertising by which this Administration threatens the end of the world unless all-wise Lyndon is given the nation for his very own.

Lyndon Johnson WAS the Vietnam War. Without the paranoia of Johnson there would never have been a Vietnam.

Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies.

It looks to me like we’re getting into another Korea …. What the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is it worth to this country?

Propaganda is that branch of lying which often deceives your friends without ever deceiving your enemies.

We were lied into both wars in every aspect - the reasons for going in, the prospects, the length, the scale and the probable costs in lives and dollars

There are no American combat troops in Cambodia. There are no American combat advisers in Cambodia. There will be no American combat troops or advisers in Cambodia.

The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology

The Big Lie: Hitler Invented It. Stalin Perfected It. Nixon Uses It.