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Remembering the late Robert McNamara
July 6, 2009I have respect for Robert McNamara.
In life he oversaw one of the most demoralizing war conflicts in the history of our nation, the vietnam war.
5 years ago, however, that same man spent some time with filmmaker Errol Morris and his crew and gave us Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
The Fog of War was and still is one of the best examples of a man attempting to make sense of a controversial life, filled with controversial decisions. I say controversial because there are those who think that with the information that he had available and in the political climate of the time, Bob McNamara made the best decisions he could. I beg to differ and history has also proven him wrong.
But my respect for the man surfaced after watching this documentary. His poignant "we were wrong" when referring to the widely accepted opinion that vietnam was another domino piece to fall on the side of the communists during the cold war still is perhaps the closest thing we will ever get to an official "I messed up, and we messed" from a former public servant. (It was after all, a civil war in the minds of the vietnamese)
I can only wonder if in 20 years or so, a similarly downtrodden Dubya might do the same when speaking of his misadministration.
Here's a few of my favorite quotes from that documentary:
"I think the human race needs to think more about killing...how much evil must we do in order to do good."
"The conventional wisdom is don't make the same mistake twice, learn from your mistakes. There will be no learning period with nuclear weapons. You make one mistake, you're going to destroy nations."
And from the additional ten lessons from R.S. McNamara:
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 principle of "proportionality."
The indefinite combinations of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of nations.
Moral principles are often ambiguous guides to foreign policy and
defense policy, but surely we can agree that we should establish as a
major goal of U.S. foreign policy and, indeed, of foreign policy across
the globe: the avoidance, in this century of the carnage--160 million
dead--caused by conflict in the 20th century.
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.
RIP Mr. McNamara, owning up to your mistakes and sharing what you have learned from them is perhaps one of the most human things you did in your lifetime.
Posted by Maurel Merette at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
