Robert S. McNamara dies at 93
06 July 2009 12:07 pm by Jane Austen
http://tinyurl.com/kt7vdq
I’m posting this article simply because for my generation who opposed the Viet Nam war no one exemplified what we hated so much as McNamara. He made, in my opinion, too many mistakes. He did make the following observation about the bombing of Tokyo.
From the NY Times –
In the film, Mr. McNamara described the American firebombing of Japan’s cities in World War II. He had played a supporting role in those attacks, running statistical analysis for Gen. Curtis E. LeMay of the Army’s Air Forces.
“We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” Mr. McNamara recalled; some 900,000 Japanese civilians died in all. “LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.”
“What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?” he asked. He found the question impossible to answer.
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I think he asked a very pertinent question.
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You simply cannot write the full story about Robert S. McNamara unless you saw “Fog of War”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er2xCn3_QcQ
What is so chilling and made my hair stand up on my neck is the way he talked about proportionality. I saw “Fog of War” and questioned how we weren’t seen as war criminals. I question today the war in Iraq.
Fog of War was an intense movie. I showed it to my high school history class. It was fascinating to watch such a powerful figure discussing his mistakes.