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Rather than talk directly about McNamara, I want to take a moment to plug an outstanding documentary by Errol Morris, called
The Fog of War, in which McNamara sits in an empty room, staring into a camera, answering questions posed by Morris. It's one of the most powerful documentaries I've ever seen, at times absolutely heartbreaking, sickening, searching, reprehensible. Like most viewers, I imagine, McNamara spends a portion of the documentary in tears, voice quavering at what he's done.*
It's hard to argue that what McNamara did wouldn't qualify him as a war criminal, and his attempt (sometimes reluctantly) to approach full transparency and a full mea culpa is absolutely engrossing. It's hard to not root for him and empathize with him in parts. At others, anger for him can be overwhelming. Midway through the documentary, McNamara recalls the observation that Curtis LeMay once made, that had the U.S. lost WWII, they'd have been tried as war criminals for their firebombing campaign in Japan. As he tells it, the Philip Glass soundtrack pulses with greater urgency as dozens and dozens of images of destroyed Japanese cities flash on screen with their names and the numbers of dead in each, along with an American city of corresponding population: Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc.
And while the full mea culpa never quite comes, McNamara admits the failure to know the intentions of the enemy (in Vietnam: a war for independence over ideology) and the iron mandate for all warring powers to exercise their might proportional to both the threat and the goal. The lessons are immediately resonant for the present day, and if there's one injunction McNamara's commentary issues repeatedly, it is that we have failed to learn these lessons, and we must be accountable for this failure.
Here's a link to the trailer for those curious. Again, I just can't recommend it enough:
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* - Probably the most powerful bit is actually in the DVD extras, where McNamara tries to read the Dylan Thomas poem "The Hand That Signed a Paper Felled a City," where he repeatedly almost breaks down and has to choke out the words:
The poem goes on for a few more verses and can be found here.
Robert S. McNamara, perhaps the most influential defense secretary of the 20th century, who helped lead the nation into the maelstrom of Vietnam and spent the rest of his life wrestling with the war’s moral consequences, died early Monday at his home in Washington, the Associated Press reported, citing his wife, Diana. He was 93, and according to the news agency, had been in failing health for some time.
Rather than talk directly about McNamara, I want to take a moment to plug an outstanding documentary by Errol Morris, called
It's hard to argue that what McNamara did wouldn't qualify him as a war criminal, and his attempt (sometimes reluctantly) to approach full transparency and a full mea culpa is absolutely engrossing. It's hard to not root for him and empathize with him in parts. At others, anger for him can be overwhelming. Midway through the documentary, McNamara recalls the observation that Curtis LeMay once made, that had the U.S. lost WWII, they'd have been tried as war criminals for their firebombing campaign in Japan. As he tells it, the Philip Glass soundtrack pulses with greater urgency as dozens and dozens of images of destroyed Japanese cities flash on screen with their names and the numbers of dead in each, along with an American city of corresponding population: Detroit, Philadelphia, San Francisco, etc.
And while the full mea culpa never quite comes, McNamara admits the failure to know the intentions of the enemy (in Vietnam: a war for independence over ideology) and the iron mandate for all warring powers to exercise their might proportional to both the threat and the goal. The lessons are immediately resonant for the present day, and if there's one injunction McNamara's commentary issues repeatedly, it is that we have failed to learn these lessons, and we must be accountable for this failure.
Here's a link to the trailer for those curious. Again, I just can't recommend it enough:
___________________
* - Probably the most powerful bit is actually in the DVD extras, where McNamara tries to read the Dylan Thomas poem "The Hand That Signed a Paper Felled a City," where he repeatedly almost breaks down and has to choke out the words:
The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.
The poem goes on for a few more verses and can be found here.
Choisya wrote:
Thanks a lot Monty - very informative and somewhat chilling. I guess that Iraq proves that the 'Shock and Awe' of Iraq proves that the lesson was not learned.
Yes, but in the case of the "lessons" per se, we naturally haven't learned them, otherwise they wouldn't be brought up. By that, I mean that the lessons were framed both by Morris and McNamara in such a way as to address the Iraq conflict. If we'd already internalized those lessons and stopped making those mistakes, the lessons wouldn't be very entertaining or compelling. McNamara himself was extremely critical of the US's rationale for war, its evidence and its strategy, so that comes through when he's reflecting on Vietnam, because he's drawing both from his errors and also from errors that he sees as continuing up to the present. There might be an exculpatory impulse at work — "See, people are still doing this, so I can't be all that bad" — but it seems almost too obvious for him to be going for that.
As an aside about the lessons, Morris actually wrote them himself, drawing what he saw as 11 core themes of his talks with McNamara. When he presented them to McNamara, ol' Bob disagreed with their wording, so he came up with his own lessons. If I remember correctly, they are also on the DVD, but you can read them here.
