The film Fog of War features former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In this documentary, McNamara, at age 85, attempts to explain and justify his actions in war, namely the Vietnam War. He understands that no matter what he says, he will always be criticized, yet he makes this film in order to give a clearer depiction of what was going on in America at the time. Through the film, he also wishes to prove how the Vietnam War was wrong. He provides the audience with numerous examples of what went wrong in the war. For example, killing was not minimized, but rather consisted of many more deaths than were necessary. Also, McNamara describes how even America's own allies did not agree with their actions in Vietnam. He asserts that when this is true, then America should "reexamine" its initiatives. He also discusses how he left his office under President Lyndon B. Johnson, after having served under President John F. Kennedy. McNamara urged Johnson to pull out of Vietnam, but Johnson was adament about staying in the war.
There is a point in McNamara's lessons when the ideas shift, which is when he goes from giving lessons about life in general, to giving lessons about war. Lesson #4, which is to "Maximize efficiency," and Lesson #5 is "Proportionality should be a guideline in war." During these lessons, McNamara begins going into detail about the deaths inflicted by Americans on their enemies. In one instance, American soldiers killed 100,000 people in Tokyo in order to get ahead in the war. The idea was to maximize deaths in order to make weakening the enemy more efficient. He argues that there was little proportionality in these killings, and he asserts that America should have tried harder to minimize deaths. He also argues that whether or not the U.S. won the war, soldiers' actions would have been immoral either way.
At around Lesson #7, which is "Belief and seeing are both often wrong," McNamara goes into discussion about the Vietnam War, specifically. He says that the American government and the military leaders who were for the war saw what they wanted to believe. For example, President Johnson urged on fighting and involvement in Vietnam, drawing out the inevitable loss for America. He also asserts that "You can't change human nature," which is his 11th Lesson. What he means by this is that humans will always be prone to war and fighting, but he urges people to minimize war when faced with it. His belief that the war was an unjust one, and that America should have come out of it much earlier, was the main reason for why he resigned during the Johnson Administration.
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The film Fog of War features former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In this documentary, McNamara, at age 85, attempts to explain and justify his actions in war, namely the Vietnam War. He understands that no matter what he says, he will always be criticized, yet he makes this film in order to give a clearer depiction of what was going on in America at the time. Throughout the film, he also provides the audience with numerous examples of what went wrong in the war. For example, killing was not minimized, but rather consisted of many more deaths than were necessary. Also, McNamara describes how even America's own allies did not agree with their actions in Vietnam. He asserts that when this is true, then America should "reexamine" its initiatives. He also discusses how he left his office under President Lyndon B. Johnson, after having served under President John F. Kennedy. McNamara and Johnson had different perspectives on the war. Johnson wanted to stay in the war because he thought that was what Kenndy would have done, but McNamara saw that the war was going downhill and believed that America should pull out of Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteThere is a point in McNamara's lessons when the ideas shift, which is when he goes from giving lessons about life in general to giving lessons about war. In Lesson #5, McNamara begins going into detail about the deaths inflicted by Americans on their enemies. In one instance, American soldiers killed 100,000 people in Tokyo in order to get ahead in the war. The idea was to maximize deaths in order to make weakening the enemy more efficient. He argues that there was little proportionality in these killings, and he asserts that America should have killed as much of the enemy without killing its own soldiers.
At around Lesson #7, McNamara discusses the Vietnam War, specifically. He says that the American government and the military leaders who were for the war saw what they wanted to believe. For example, President Johnson urged on fighting and involvement in Vietnam, drawing out the inevitable loss for America. He also asserts that you can't change human nature, which is his 11th Lesson. What he means by this is that humans will always be prone to war and fighting, but he urges people to minimize war when faced with it. His belief that the war was an unjust one, and that America should have come out of it much earlier, was the main reason for why he resigned during the Johnson Administration.
In these lessons about war, McNamara attempts to apologize for his actions, but at the same time, to make known what he did not know at the time about war. He says that his lessons about war are not necessarily moral, but that they are sometimes required in order to achieve a greater good. One could see this as an excuse for the evil actions McNamara took during the war, such as to use Agent Orange.