Posted by Benjamin on: 03.23.2007 /
I think the human race needs to think more about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good? We saw Vietnam as an element of the cold war–not what they saw it as– a civil war. We were wrong. We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should *ever* apply that military, economic, or political power unilaterally. -Robert S. McNamaraWe have declared war on tyranny and aggression. -LBJ
To the best of my understanding, a lot of people think that Robert McNamara is, to use his own words, a son of a bitch. As secretary of defense during the Vietnam War, McNamara oversaw some really horrific stuff. I had the great privilege 16 months ago of taking part in a 15 credit multidisciplinary class in which we spent 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for 10 weeks looking intensely at the modern history of “southeast Asia”, specifically at Vietnam. Near the end of the course, we watched McNamara’s 2003 movie. After having immersed ourselves in the darkness of that conflict for weeks, many of my fellow students expressed a sense of being unconvinced that McNamara’s frank discussion of what he has learned and where he and the U.S. were wrong, along with the ‘good works’ he has done since that time with the world bank and other organizations were anywhere close to enough to exculpate him.
The movie is mostly in the form of an interview with the former secretary of defense, with various clips of phone calls between him and JFK and LBJ and footage of WWII and what the Vietnamese call “The American War”. It’s organized as a series of 11 lessons from McNamara’s life.
In the class I spoke of, and again watching the movie this week, I was astounded again and again at the similarities between the conflict in Vietnam and the current Iraq War.
I found some of the things McNamara said both outrageous and amazingly compelling at the same time. Overall, I’m really glad that the movie was made. It seems fairly gutsy and … excellent to me that at the age of 85 he was willing to both take the time to think back through his life and see what could be learned and then frankly share. I rather suspect that if we could have more conversations like this, maybe we wouldn’t have to see so much killing around the world.
A couple of the “lessons” from the movie and the DVD. You can read the whole list at this wiki article
How can a leader possibly make amends/make up for the evil committed under their leadership?
What similarities or lack thereof do you see between the Vietnam War and the current Iraq War?
How can we better empathize with whose with whom we are currently at war?
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Comment by: Rachel
1 03/25/07 10:43 PM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I watched “The Fog of War” for the first time a few days ago. I truly respect Robert McNamara for being willing to be so honest and transparent about the lessons he has learned. But I agree with your classmates that he stopped short of taking full responsibility for the extreme suffering caused by his decisions. His wording reminded me of that uniquely Washington phrase we hear so often today from the lips of politicians, “Mistakes were made.”
Benjamin, I also took note of the LBJ quote, “We are declaring war on tyranny and aggression.” Declaring WAR on AGGRESSION?! How the hell does that work??
One McNamara quote I jotted down: “The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.” I backed up the DVD to hear that statement again and yes, he did say WILL destroy. Wow, what a terrible and solemn prediction.
It was very striking when McNamara talked about some of the tactics employed against Japan in WW2, not just the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also the fire bombing of Tokyo in which 100,000 Japanese civilians were burned alive! McNamara said, “We were behaving as war criminals. What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?”
Later in the film, as he continued to agonize over American atrocities, McNamara asked “What is morally appropriate in a war time environment?” I noticed that he did not attempt to give an answer to his own question.