Ken Burns’ "The War" Teaches False History Lesson

And it is accounts of World War II that still dominate the U.S. media more than sixty years later. Think that’s an accident? Then you probably believe that PBS would have approved a 7-part, 15-hour Ken Burns series on the immoral Vietnam War in the midst of a national debate over Iraq, rather than yet another rehashing of The Greatest Generation.

I will not be among the millions watching the Ken Burns documentary, “The War.” I’m tired of this endless rehashing of a struggle that teaches an entirely false lesson about the United States role in the world, a role that, contrary to World War 2, has sought to undermine freedom and the principle of self-determination for all peoples.

The lessons of World War 2 have not only been lost on Americans, but they have been so maliciously twisted that we have President Bush comparing that righteous struggle for the preservation of freedom to the United States invasion of Iraq. Neo-conservatives have cited the “appeasement” of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the face of Hitler’s ambitions to justify Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and the overthrow of democratically elected governments in our hemisphere.

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