Lessons from Rs Mcnamara

Walking Along a Familiar Path In Errol Morris documentary film Fog of state of war Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, we follow the life and generation of former United States Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. The insightful piece follows his life from affinity during World war I, his success at college, cunning business charge at Ford Motor Company, to his involvement in World War II and his contr everywheresial political cargoner during the Kennedy and Johnson presidential terms.Morris highlights the documentary somewhatwhat these eleven lessons that McNamara passes through during an interview for the film. In my opinion some of these lessons atomic number 18 merely some opinions of McNamara and some seem to be spurred along by Morris, who is asking the questions in the background. I commit it is through some of these lessons that Morris uses McNamaras success and failures to relate them to current issues such as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and how we seem to be treading down a familiar path.LESSON 5 PROPORTIONALITY SHOULD BE A GUIDELINE IN WAR? In order to pull in a war should you kill 100,000 people in one night, by firebombing or any other way . . . Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nu undefendable bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve. Robert McNamara This comment by McNamara resonated through out the film. I knew that at that place was some bombing in Japan but not to this extent.Morris puts away one of the most powerful uses of imagery to captivate the audience and train these death tolls to a whole other level. McNamara resentfully cites a series of Japanese cities that were partially or largely destroyed and matches them to Ameri bed cities of comparable to(predicate) size, and asks us to imagine those U. S. communities similarly ravaged. Its a strong p oint, graphically back up by Morris on screen by flashing names and statistics at accelerating speed. In that single night, we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in capital of Japan men, women, and children. McNamara. Through this outrages example, I believe Morris was alluding to the large deployment of troops launched to fight piddling forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Having twenty-five thousand troops fighting insurgent forces do up of small groups of guerrilla factions can be scene in some eyes as excessive and ill proportioned.LESSON 6 kick the bucket THE DATA and LESSON 7 BELIEF AND SEEING ARE BOTH often WRONG. At one point, the commander of the ship said, Were not certain of the attack. At another point they said, Yes, were absolutely positive. And then finally late in the day, Admiral Sharp said, Yes, were certain it happened. So I reported this to Johnson, and as a result there were bombing attacks on targets in spousal relationship Vietnam. McNamara The imp ortant fact from McNamara is that the escalation of the Vietnam War started based on a misinformed from a single crew thinking they had been torpedoed. This seemed to be a decent cut to start bombing runs, mobilize troops and deploy them in to entropy East Asia.The parallels between these chain of events leading to the Vietnam War and the actions taken by the US government in launching campaigns against Afghanistan and Iraq are very similar. go the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were a violent catalyst to the affair in Afghanistan, it was an isolated attack by a handful of terrorist. The US turned 9/11 into a raid on Afghanistan harboring factions of these terrorists, in conclusion overturning the government in power. some other similar lesson in which McNamara states we should Get the data, can be strongly related to the US governments little excuse to invade Iraq.The speculation that Iraq was in the process of making or in possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was larg ely fabricated ordeal backed by speculation and no quantifiable evidence. Since 2003, the US has hush up not found WMDs and have quickly skirted this issue under the carpeting while they change their war song as an action of independence against tyrannical Iraqi government. LESSON 8 BE PREPARED TO REEXAMINE YOUR REASONING. ?Were those who issued the plaudit to use Agent Orange criminals? Were they committing a crime against humanity?Lets disembodied spirit at the law. Now what kind of law do we have that says these chemicals are acceptable for use in war and these chemicals are not. We dont have clear definitions of that kind. I never in the world would have authorized an ineligible action. Im not really sure I authorized Agent Orange. I dont remember it but it certainly occurred, the use of it occurred while I was Secretary. Another one of McNamaras strong comments that relate to that there is a payoff to every action we take and that we must live with that consequence.His job was tough, and he had to make some critical decisions for the ware fare of millions in which he, neer had hindsight in making decisions at the clock time. This, I believe, was Morris big punch in the mouth to the powers of the George W. Bush administration and their actions surrounding the invasion of Iraq. Now, at the time of release of this documentary the Iraq war was still in the infant stages of development- Morris had no clue how the war would turn out but left us with a strong statement that someone would have to be responsible for starting an unjust war.I was once told in a high groom history class that, History is written by the victors. McNamara sums this quote up with a brilliant look back into some of his actions during World War II General Curtis LeMay said if we had lost the war, we would have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think hes right . . .. What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win? Morris alludes through this lesson that s omeone will have to answer to these actions and wash the origin off their hands. Can we tick off from history? Are we fated to reverberate the mistakes that weve made in the past, again and again?Or can we take aim from history and from the past? These are some serious questions I believe Morris forces us to ask ourselves. I believe that Morris was trying to bring up similarities of the past rather than actually relating the Vietnam War specifically to the Iraqi War, viewing us that we are still treading upon our past mistakes. If we dont learn from history and the events that pass we will be doomed to repeat history, over and over again. Dont make the same mistake doubleone mistake can destroy a nation. Robert Strange McNamara