Robert McNamara - RIP

Well, not in peace, hopefully.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?hp

yeah, not even particularly R, let alone IP

at least he "got it" before he went.

like Darth Vader!

I'm sad to hear this.

I will be perfectly fine with his restless and tormented ghost visiting Rumsfeld every night now.

He really was a complete bastard.

He was less of a bastard than Rumsfeld, by a large margin. And, for better or worse, Vietnam War policy was much more driven by LBJ than McNamara. Still, his failure to appreciate his own weaknesses led to huge gaffes in Vietnam and whatever humility he acquired, he acquired too late to make a difference to his legacy.

LBJ took all his cues from McNamara the Wonder Boy, and it was the latter's purported statistical and logistic innovations that led to the escalations in the first place.

Critics mocked McNamara mercilessly; they made much of the fact that his middle name was "Strange."

St. Peter will let him in for getting seatbelts in cars.

do I even have to say it

rip heaven needed another statistically supported firebombing of hell

"He was less of a bastard than Rumsfeld, by a large margin."

Bullshit.

Critics mocked McNamara mercilessly; they made much of the fact that his middle name was "Strange."

― Pleasant Plains, Monday, July 6, 2009 1:31 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Wow, that's really merciless of them -- it's almost like the verbal equivalent of firebombing civilians.

Let's keep in mind that McNamara supervised a war in which more than 50,000 soldiers died – much more than combat deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars – and for being such a technocrat was stubbornly resistant to empirical data. Again: fuck him.

much more than combat deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars

this is pretty hard to quantify

No it's not, almost 60,000 US soldiers died in Nam, far surpassing the number in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, by like a factor of 10.

usually there's two sides in a war

what I'm getting at is that quantifying the number of Iraqis who died (and whether that outnumbers the number of Vietnamese who died) is pretty difficult, and that just counting American deaths - as if they are the only ones that matter - is wrong.

Only America matters.

Also, the number of deaths has been greatly reduced due to advances in battlefield medicine and in protective measures.

Are we talking about civilian deaths? Because I don't think that's what the term "combat deaths" means. Regardless, all categories of casualties were so much higher in Vietnam than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined that you sound kind of foolish arguing the "tough to quantify" angle.

usually there's two sides in a war

― And the biggest self of self is, indeed, self (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, July 6, 2009 3:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You'll notice I said US soldiers.

(xpost)

"that just counting American deaths - as if they are the only ones that matter - is wrong."

When you are trying to analyze who is "worse" , Rumsfeld or McNamara, (an admittedly trivial exercise), using casualty numbers you can quantify is as decent a starting point as any.

Regardless, all categories of casualties were so much higher in Vietnam than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined that you sound kind of foolish arguing the "tough to quantify" angle.

considering both of these wars are more or less still going on I'll stick with my "hard to quanity" angle

can we at least say Rumsfeld was funnier?

besides McNamara's worst crime to me - in terms of sheer brutality and numbers killed - seems to be not Vietnam, but the firebombing of Germany and Japan

"considering both of these wars are more or less still going on I'll stick with my 'hard to quanity' angle"

Cool. Have fun with that.

hard 2 believe that even in death this man would be a source of conflict

Shakey, the Vietnam war resulted in millions of civilian deaths. Even the high estimates for Iraq now are around 100,000.

is the war in Iraq over when we leave and the real killing begins?

anyway I'm not really trying to deny that the scale of military destruction in Vietnam far outpaces more recent conflicts - Rumsfeld stirring the hornets' nest in the middle east just depresses me more because its part of this larger conflict that started way back when Iraq invaded Iran and has just been grinding on forever and will probably continue to grind on long after I'm dead.

and for being such a technocrat was stubbornly resistant to empirical data

The military wasn't exactly telling him or LBJ the true story, at least for the first 5 years he was Defense Secretary. Pretty much everyone in any position of authority in Vietnam was either clueless or delusional or both.

That's not really much of an excuse.

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/06/in-retrospect-or-not/

I don't know if it really serves any purpose to compare McNamara to Donald Rumsfeld, irresistable as the comparison is. But it's always been striking to me how much Rumsfeld appeared to want to avoid what he considered to be McNamara's chief mistakes. Concede that troop levels in Iraq were too low? Why, that merely sets the stage for an endless and politically untenable series of escalations. Concede that strategy had gone off-course? Why, that merely sets the stage for the press picking the strategy to death. Concede that you made mistakes? Why, that merely positions you as a vain and irresponsible know-nothing. None of this is to say that Rumsfeld's errors look better than McNamara's -- judging which of two train wrecks is the worse one is academic -- only to warn that an attempt to avoid the disasters of the past can steer us into disasters of our own, because the world is an evil and inscrutible place.

"Delusional" is what I implied. Apart from the sanity of extending a war without regard to historical tensions between the Chinese and the Vietnamese and ignoring clear Russian signals in the early sixties that it wasn't interested in Indochina, the casualty reports and the resilience of the NVA and Vietcong should have told the war's architects that mere military superiority was no longer enough.

xp Alfred: but the thing is, the people that knew this, that had that intelligence weren't listened to - until perhaps it was too late. All I was saying is that these facts that you know, and I know, weren't taken seriously by the military and the State Department command, and weren't seriously considered - not just by MacNamara - but by everyone else involved.

I don't want to excuse the man completely -- but he wasn't the only villain in the Vietnam War, if that's what we're calling them.

Rumsfeld wasn't the only villain in the Iraq War either. Both of them were plenty villainous enough though to deserve the scorn that gets heaped on them.

I guess I see MacNamara as more of a tragic figure than a villain. I don't think the guy was evil. But we could probably have semantic arguments about "villainy" til the troops come home.

not that i think this is a bad thing, but it seems to be that the world has lost its stomach for wars in which tens of millions of people die.

can we at least say Rumsfeld was funnier?

Can I answer this question in the form of an unnecessarily rhetorical question? Absolutely.

McNamara was directly (yes yes and not solely) responsible for actions which can only be described as "evil". I don't give a shit whehter or not he was personally "evil" or whatever.

not that i think this is a bad thing, but it seems to be that the world has lost its stomach for wars in which tens of millions of people die.

I agree this has been a pretty interesting development, but honestly I wouldn't place bets on it lasting very long

r.i.p. an american hero

McNamara used to hang with my grandpa, back in their World Bank days. From my dad's memoir:
------------------
Initially, the Bank’s loans to poor countries were conservative, concentrating on high-profile projects like dams and steel mills. The attitude of the Bank changed when President Johnson fired Robert S. McNamara as Secretary of Defense and nominated him as President of the Bank in 1968. McNamara thought that the most urgent task facing low-income countries was not so much to establish big new industrial plants as to fight poverty. What mattered to McNamara was health care, nutrition, elementary education, potable water and housing, and he shifted the Bank’s emphasis to those sectors. McNamara is one of the most ambiguous figures of modern American history, and there are wildly different interpretations of his role in the Vietnam War. His commitment to fighting poverty during his World Bank years seems, however, to have been genuine.

Dad joined the Bank during the McNamara years, and it was an exciting new world for him. The position of Board member at the Bank could be treated as a sinecure, and was by some members, since it carried with it no staff responsibilities. That is not how Dad treated it. He threw himself into the work, doing everything he could to learn about the Bank’s worldwide projects and to help shape policy. He was particularly interested in development in Africa and in the Caribbean, and took many trips to those regions. He became a close colleague of McNamara’s and a personal friend.

As the world’s biggest provider of foreign aid, the Bank is a controversial institution. Critics on the right see no reason why their money should be sent to ungrateful foreigners, while critics on the left think that the money is used to prop up despotic and self-serving regimes. Environmentalists decry the ecological consequences of some of the big projects, while representatives of the recipient countries sometimes object to the controls and conditions that are put on the aid. All the critiques (except those from the right) are serious, but the conclusion that some come to, that the Bank should be closed down and foreign aid terminated, is just wrong. That was Dad’s opinion, and it is mine too, even after I have managed to separate myself from many of his opinions on other subjects. What is needed is not the end of aid but the reform of aid, as well as its expansion. Aid is one of the most tangible expressions of solidarity among the world’s people; it should, and can, be directed so that it helps ordinary poor people to create somewhat better lives for themselves. From my many conversations with him, I have no doubt that this was Dad’s commitment during his years at the Bank and afterwards.

It is interesting that the two most powerful political figures to whom Dad attached himself in his life were C.D. Howe and Robert McNamara, both of them reviled by wide sections of the left in Canada and the United States, respectively. Dad’s relationships to both of them were close, respectful and affectionate. I can’t say with certainty what that meant. Maybe it meant that deep down he was a (small t) tory; this interpretation is consistent with the evident difficulties I observed when he and Mom had their political differences. Or maybe it was the opposite, that he could recognize what many on the left could not, that Howe’s industrial development was in the best interests of low-income Canadians and that McNamara’s focus on global poverty was genuine, whatever his role in the Vietnam War had been. I think the core of Dad’s political commitment was that he was determined to see that the Depression not return, and this determination made him uncomfortable with the positions of both left and right. The closest he ever came to explaining himself was when he once told me, “My political persuasion is economics.” In any case, he never wavered from his loyalty to those two.
-------------------------

McNamara is more pitiable than tragic, and more reprehensible than either.

regardless of how much you can detest/loathe/wish him ill for the remainder of eternity, the guy has some pretty useful insights into american and world history.

Terry Gross: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106302175

interview with mcnamara and errol morris

and:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?_r=1&hp

why do ppl always fall over themselves to talk about how much they loathe these dudes? living or dead... like how morbs is always ready to shit on (x) (too many to list).... what is that impulse to demonstrate that you have like SERIOUS BELIEFS about a politician or whoever. i mean, i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam, i was born in 85 and mcnamara's transgressions don't mean much to me - it just seems kinda phony how demonstrative some of u are about it. also it's just a really uninteresting way to frame things and some of u are hecka smart, to the point where i feel like u would realize this...

otoh maybe it's just that nobody has anything to say besides 'fuck this dude'

Oh no, it's just fun, dear boy. I meant everything I said and won't lose a lick of sleep over Bob. Also: my dad was drafted in '70 and almost went to Vietnam because of McNamara's silly little war; no doubt I'm not the only one on this thread with the experience. So if it's "uninteresting" to support opinions with facts, well, don't read the thread then.

(no strike intended through "fun")

You were a boy when Cobain killed himself and Bill Clinton was president. No sense having an opinion about them either.

my old man's number was about to come up right before the war ended in 73 doggie

also c'mon that is a willful misreading of what i was saying, it's the opinions themselves that guzzle balls

haha i dont have an opinion on cobain!

(owned much)

i shouldve checked when the war ended before putting the year there. WHATEVER

i saw the best minds of my generation...

xp Alfred: my dad was drafted in '69 and did go to Vietnam -- even though he opposed the war. I think we probably watched almost every Vietnam movie that came out in the 80s, as well as that network TV series that had "Paint it Black" as the theme song (I forget the name of the show). Maybe it's because of his intelligence, and largely because of his remorse and learning from his mistakes, as well as reading up on the context of those decisions - that I have some sympathy for McNamara. I don't have any for Rumsfeld, who strikes me as about as dumb as George W. Bush and with equally little shame.

My dad got a doctor to say he had severe asthma in order to avoid the draft, as I understand it.

xp - Are you thinking of China Beach? I don't think that used "Paint It Black" but something similar.

I think the China Beach theme was "Reflections" by The Supremes.

my dad got a big "i told you so" from his father because he slacked off so much in college his grades were too mediocre to get him into grad school. My grandfather was really big on academic achievement.

xp China Beach was the one about the nurses with Kim Delaney(?) -- this was a bunch of dudes in the jungle.

Just checked - it was but apparently this show http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Duty_(TV_series) is the one Sarahel must be talking about.

Er . . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_of_Duty_(TV_series)

:-(

yes! Tour of Duty! I think the only time I ever saw my dad cry was watching Full Metal Jacket.

Bro:

i'm far to young to remember the vietnam war, or mcnamara's involvement in it, but i do remember his biography becoming newsworthy with his admission that the escalation in se asia was a mistake. and i was really impressed with the fog of war doc especially in light of the iraqi war. so his passing is something i can't help remarking on.
besides, i don't necessarily share the "fuck this dude" with respect to old bob.
more generally, i don't think i'm self-consciously demonstrative about my opinions regarding so-called "serious beliefs". i think it's the desire to share with others and work through my opinions that are often thorny and not so straightforward - thanks to ilx for that!

tour of duty

I'm so unaccustomed to denunciations that it felt great to say "fuck this dude."

"i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam, i was born in 85 and mcnamara's transgressions don't mean much to me"

Does anything mean much to you? And if it did why should we give a shit?

Errol Morris on McNamara.

His refusal to come out against the Vietnam War, particularly as it continued after he left the Defense Department, has angered many. There’s ample evidence that he felt the war was wrong. Why did he remain silent until the 1990s, when “In Retrospect” was published? That is something that people will probably never forgive him for. But he had an implacable sense of rectitude about what was permissible and what was not. In his mind, he probably remained secretary of defense until the day he died.

I think Morris has a whif of Stockholm Syndrome about him when he talks about McNamara, frankly.

McNamara held him hostage and forced Errol Morris to make a movie about him.

The Fog of War is one of my favorite movies.

I hope he does rest in peace. His work here is done. History won't remember him kindly, and it shouldn't. I hope his name becomes one of those go-to American references that's shorthand for hubris and failure, like Custer.

"Don't worry, I have a plan."

"Yeah, so did McNamara."

""i don't think any of u are old enough to remember nam"

Bad assumption there. I was 14 years old in 1968, when McNamara left the DOD for the World Bank and the USA had roughly 550,000 soldiers in Vietnam. I remember him rather well, especially since I was draftable before that futile, criminal war ended. His trangressions could have cost me my life. Not easy to forgive, when the purpose of the war was so utterly feckless and ill-conceived.

[imghttp://media.caglecartoons.com/preview/%7Bd7e47fe4-04e7-4a4f-bae4-c789b3899144%7D.gif[/img]

oh bugger

http://media.caglecartoons.com/preview/%7Bd7e47fe4-04e7-4a4f-bae4-c789b3899144%7D.gif