Death of the whiz kid: Robert Strange McNamara, 1916-2009.

http://www.slate.com/id/2222288/?from=rss

by terpua • 17 years ago

17 32 17 years ago

spitfire• 17 years ago

I have respect for McNamara after seeing the excellent documentry fog of war.

Many despise him for the things he had done during vietnam, but I have great respect for the wisdom he decided to share later in life. We need more people sharing the wisdom of their errors.

TriinT11• 17 years ago

I wonder if the relatives of the 2,000,000+ or so Vietnamese civilians who died during the war can also respect McNamara. Some mistakes are simply not excusable. LBJ was the commander-in-chief, but McNamara was his right-arm.

noonespecial3• 17 years ago

When I make a serious career level mistake in judgment, software projects might fail. Someone might even lose their job. When people of certain levels make the same order of errors, many people may die. We're both human. I haven't the fortitude to make those decisions (even if I was in the position to), but someone has to and sometimes they are wrong.

Some of them hang banners on aircraft carriers and pretend they are right anyway. Some of them humbly admit they were wrong. The people still die. Bummer.

callmeed• 17 years ago

So, there is a line somewhere between excusable and inexcusable mistakes. Who gets to decide where that line is drawn?

100k• 17 years ago

You should watch Fog of War if you haven't. It is an unflinching look at the man and what he did (with a big impact because of the camera that Errol Morris to get direct on shots of interviews).

McNamara tried to systematize warfare like a factory. He played a high stakes game that ended up killing millions of people. He thought he could control the monster. He was wrong and it spiraled out of control.

The movie takes an honest look at his life and it's something we have to understand if we want to avoid repeating his mistakes. Which we apparently haven't since we're stuck in two wars right now.

puzzle-out• 17 years ago

If experience is the name we give to our mistakes, McNamara had lots of experience.

TriinT11• 17 years ago

Chomsky on McNamara (1995):

http://www.chomsky.info/books/warfare01.htm

Chomsky is rather ferociously critical of McNamara, as expected.

tomjen• 17 years ago

May he rot and burn in hell, and may all the world forget he ever lived.

noonespecial3• 17 years ago

We went to Iraq, didn't we? I'd say we forgot him straightaway.

TriinT11• 17 years ago

Good point. Only fools fall into the same trap twice.

Millions of Americans served in Vietnam. I think the veterans will never forget nor forgive McNamara. He shall be remembered as the architect of one of the greatest crimes in History.

joeycfan• 17 years ago

Ho Chi Minh is responsible for the Vietnam catastrophe. He would have seen the Vietnamese people go extinct before losing that war.

And, like in North Korea, they run a big song and dance on how they have to reunify their country, but thats not it at all. It's Communism first. Have to reunify under Communism

Until then, the hell with the country.

The Vietnam war was a triumph of evil. The bad guys won, and lots of people here helped them.

Death of the whiz kid: Robert Strange McNamara, 1916-2009.

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