Jim DiEugenio shows how distorted the lens is that CounterPunch writer David Schultz looks through to reach his own interpretation of the lesson of Vietnam that the U.S. should have applied to Afghanistan. The only lesson we learn from history is indeed that we learn nothing from it, if we rely on discredited sources like Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest.

Saving his best for last, Aaron Good finishes his review of Adam Curtis’ Can’t Get You Out of My Head with Part 3, dissecting the methods Curtis uses to muddle the truth and revealing his tendency to dissemble when dealing with very crucial aspects of state criminality, the dual state, geopolitics, Western imperialism, and the West’s adversaries.

Part 1  Part 2

Jim DiEugenio reviews Vincent Bevins new book The Jakarta Method by demonstrating how he fitted the facts to a pre-conceived narrative rather than fairly considering the actual facts regarding the development of the Cold War and JFK’s foreign policy.

With their defense of the Dulles brothers as “decent people” in Part One, the disappearance of Kennedy’s withdrawal plan and the championing of Vann and Sheehan in Part Two, so far the net value of this documentary is something less than zero, writes Jim DiEugenio.

How can one tell the story of American involvement in Vietnam without mentioning the Dulles brothers or General Edward Lansdale? With a full 18 hours at one’s disposal, I would have thought such a thing would be impossible. Yet with Burns and Novick, the impossible becomes the possible, writes Jim DiEugenio.