Finally rented "THE FOG of WAR", thank you to those that recommended the film . . .
What a weighty piece of work, it had me fully engrossed in it. McNamara comes across as a very stately ambassador to the world. I was too young to really know much of him during his time, but what an eloquent, calculated and candid presentation put forth in this film. Everyone that participates on this board should really take the time to see it. Get the DVD and view the extra features as well.


THE FOG OF WAR,
"Eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara" *
===================================
1)  Empathize with your enemy.
2)  Rationality will not save us.
3)  There’s something beyond one’s self.
4)  Maximize efficiency.
5)  Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6)  Get the Data.
7)  Belief & seeing are Both often wrong.
8)  Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9)  In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10) Never say never.
11) You can’t change human nature.

* These 11 taken as a summary and derived through the interpretation of the films director, Errol Morris. McNamara originally came into the film project with these following 10 lessons.

1). The human race will not eliminate war in this century, but we can reduce the brutality of war – the level of killing – by adhering to the principles of a "Just War", in particular to the principles of "proportionality".

2). The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of Nations.

3). We are the most powerful nation in the world – economically, politically and militarily – and we are likely to remain so for decades ahead. But we are NOT omniscient.
If we cannot persuade other nations with similar interests and similar values of the merits of our proposed use of that power, we should not proceed unilaterally except in the unlikely requirement to defend directly the continental US, Alaska and Hawaii.

4). Moral principles are often ambiguous to foreign policy and defense policy, but surely we can agree that we should establish as a major goal of US foreign policy and, indeed, of foreign policies across the globe: the avoidance in this century of the carnage – 160 million dead – caused by conflict in the 20th century.

5). We, the richest nation in the world, have failed in our responsibility to our own poor and to the disadvantaged across the world to help them advance their welfare in the most fundamental terms of nutrition, literacy, health, and employment.

6). Corporate executives must recognize there is no contradiction between a soft heart and a hard head. Of course, they have responsibilities to stockholders, but they also have responsibilities to their employees, their customers and to society as a whole.

7). President Kennedy believed a primary responsibility of a president – indeed "THE" primary responsibility of a president – is to keep the nation out of war, if at all possible.

8). War is a blunt instrument by which to settle disputes between or within nations, and economic sanctions are rarely effective, therefore, we should build a system of jurisprudence based on the international court – that the US has refused to support – which would hold individuals responsible for crimes against humanity.

9). If we are to deal effectively with terrorist across the globe, we must develop a sense of empathy – I don’t mean "sympathy", but rather "understanding" – to counter their attacks on the US and the western world.

10). One of the greatest dangers we face today is the risk that terrorist will obtain access to weapons of mass destruction as a result of the breakdown of the non-proliferation regime. We in the US are contributing to that breakdown.


Additional sources of info:
---------------------------
Robert Strange McNamara

- Graduated University of California at Berkeley in 1937
- Graduated Harvard University Graduate School of Business in 1939
- Taught at Harvard from 1940 until 1943
- 1943 received a Captain's commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps, released from active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1946.
- 1946 joined the Ford Motor Company as part of a team of statistical control experts. At Ford his rapid rise culminated in his appointment as president of the company in 1960.
- Former United States secretary of defense for President’s John F. Kennedy & Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968
- Former President of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, know as "THE WORLD BANK" 1968 - 1981

Movie Link, Student Lesson Plan to guide viewing the Movie:
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http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/_media/pdf/lessonPlanFOG.pdf


Slate article about the Movie and the Man:
----------------------------------------------
http://slate.msn.com/id/2092916

NOTE: Suggest if you’ve seen the movie read the slate piece, if not, see the film first.

Book’s written by McNamara:
-------------------------------
-  IN RETROSPECT "The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam"

-  ARGUMENT WITHOUT END "In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy"

-  WILSON’S GHOST "Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century"

=======================================================

Robert McNamara is a classic example of a super brain with no intuition or even common sense.

Hopefully, the one lession we learned from Vietnam is that if (IF) you go to war, you go to war to win and you do everything possible to win decisively and quickly.

Vietnam was a tragedy in so many ways. 1st, if Kennedy hadn't been assasinated, he would have supplied some intuition/common sense to McNamara and there would have been some other path taken.

2nd, Lyndon Johnson was/is the worst wartime president the U.S. has ever had.  The tet Offensive in 68 was a MILITARY VICTORY for the U.S.  We kicked there ass.  Johnson was so shaken that N.Viet. attacked conventionally that he stopped the bombing of N. Vietnam and N.Vietnam only had one more days supply of surface to air missiles.  The U.S. would have had total air control over N. Vietnam.  We could have done pin point bombing.  With out a doubt, Lyndon Johnson was the worst wartime president we've ever had.

I say no; scrap that McNamara model.  You go to war only as a last resort. If you go to war, you have a specific objective and you do everything to obtain that objective as quickly as possible.  Basically, DO NOT LET POLITICIANS RUN THE BATTLEFIELD. Give the generals their objectives and let them do it.  

Poor McNamara is such a failure that he has gone crazy trying to extricate himself from his  failure.  But make no doubt about it.  It was his failure.

Again, I recommend it highly.

"Hopefully, the one lession we learned from Vietnam is that if (IF) you go to war, you go to war to win and you do everything possible to win decisively and quickly."

    I agree with you that McNamara was a failure as Sec. Of Defense during Vietnam.  Political concerns ruled too often and tied the hands of the officers who were on the ground.  A similar, but more brief (but no less tragic) failure took place during the Clinton administration when Defense Sec. Les Aspen pretty much decided that special forces and Rangers who were assigned to capture the cheif Somali warlord did not need heavy firepower such as the AC-130 gunship to assist in their mission - the result was a horrific waste of brave soldiers.

    But is not the Bush adminisrtation forgetting the lessons of Vietnam in their administration of the wars in Afganistan and Iraq?  Those lessons, in my view are:

1.Go into a conflict with over-whelming force.
2.When occupying captured territory, allocate the number of soldiers needed to properly police the territory.  Supply those soldiers with state of the art personal protection and weaponry.
3.Never leave your fate or the fate of your soldiers in the hands of local politicians or military personnel whose alliance is questionable.
4.Be forth-right and honest with the american people.  Clearly explain THE reason why a war is needed.  The reason for the war in Afganistan was obvious and supported by all americans.  The reason for the war in Iraq is less obvious - I for one, feel that it was needed but could have waited until we had fully stabalized Afganistan.
5.Focus ALL the energy of your department heads on the mission once war is justified.

  Like McNamara, president Kennedy, and president Johnson, president Bush and Donald Rumsfield have essentially failed on all five of the Vietnam lessons that I laid out above.  



-- Modified on 7/5/2004 4:10:05 PM

-- Modified on 7/5/2004 4:11:54 PM

I don't think we failed in Afganistan.  I think Bush gets a B or B- at worst.  Afganistan and the world is much better off now that the Taliban are out of power.  The terrorist camps are gone in Afganistan at least (There are reports that Iraq  trained terrorsts too).  

In Iraq, I'd give Bush a C.  I get frustrated w/Bush for the progress that could have been.  But I'm not going to be an armchair General and totally rip him.  I believe that the people in this country who hate him (especially ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN) are wearing him down and taking away his will to prosecute the war aggressively in the Sunni-middle part- triangle.  Tactical mistakes were made but they're being overcome and  in 90 days things will be more stable for the Iraqis.  That's my prediction.    

I do think Iraq will prosper and that this is a plus for the whole world.  I do believe the world is safer now that Saddam is out of power.

The taliban still control unacceptably large pieces of Afganistan.  There are reports of Al Qaida people training on the border with Pakistan in some regions of Afganistan.  The president of Afganistan is referred to constantly as the "Mayor of Kabul" because he controls so little of that vast nation.  The upcoming free elections may be postponed due to "instability".  The military plan should have been to saturate Afganistan with well armed US and alied troops immediately upon invading the country.  The situation in Afganistan and how it was handled and is being handled does not fit you self-professed maxim of applying overwhelming force, if I can paraphrase your basic position.  The situation does conform to the application of "acceptable" force and hoping for the best result - which almost never happens in a war situation.  
    If you look at all great military victories, the victors applied massive force against their adversaries and never let up until to ultimate goal of overcoming their adversaries was accomplished.  If you want to read about a great military effort, read up on Ulysses Grant's and the union navy's seige of Vicksburg, Mississippi.  The confederates who took shelter in the fortress at Vicksburg were hungering for a fight, but Grant surrounded them, blocking all land escape and supply routes while the union navy pounded the shit out of them from the water and blockaded water supply routes.  Those confederate fighters, so brave and valiant at the start of the seige, surrendered as a broken shell of what they were when Grant's armies chased them into the fort.  This my friend is how to fight a battle and finish off an enemy.
    I hope that you are right that Iraq will be more stable in 90 days, because if it is not we very well will be looking at a situation where we will have to call upon vast collective will as a nation to carry on the effort there to a successful conclusion.  I for one hope that we succeed grandly because the price of anything short of that will be a high one for us to pay.  Terrorist from all over the world are arraying themselves against our troops in Iraq, there is no logical alternative but to succeed against them - this is why I have repeatedly stated that we should not have taken on such an effort until we had stabalized Afganistan and made it a model of how well a western nation can work with a muslim, middle eastern one to help it better itself and rid itself of the scurge that  killers of innocent people are.

-- Modified on 7/6/2004 6:52:18 PM

I want them to go after the Taliban and destroy them.  I want them to pursue Taliban in Pakistan.
The Taliban's funding has to be cutoff.  They should not have been allowed to get away in the initial victory.
I hope that my predictions on Iraq and Pakistan are not just wishful thinking.

Once you've seen it, you will know why I don't want any Democrat's in charge of our defense!