The Fog of War directed by Errol Morris is a documentary that focuses on the life and actions of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. In the film McNamara talks about his childhood during WWI, his days as Ford Motor Company’s President, and his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The documentary is broken up into eleven parts based on McNamara’s lessons. Although many of these lessons pertain to war, they can be applied to real life occurrences. The lessons are as follows:
Lesson #1 Empathize with your enemy.
Lesson #2 Rationality will not save us.
Lesson #3 There’s something beyond one’s self.
Lesson #4 Maximize efficiency.
Lesson #5 Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
Lesson #6 Get the data.
Lesson #7 Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
Lesson #8 Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
Lesson #9 In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
Lesson #10 Never say never.
Lesson #11 You can’t change human nature.
After watching the film it is evident that McNamara uses this film as a way to rationalize and explain many of the policies he carried out, especially in terms of the Vietnam War. There were many times he was asked to explain something like why the United States used Agent Orange. In response to these questions he said that he did not know or that he was just following orders. Later on in the documentary, McNamara is asked to apply his lessons to the Iraq, but refuses to do so because he believes a former Secretary of Defense should not criticize another man's policy.
The rules that McNamara provides do not just deal with the Vietnam War, but pertain to all wars. Lessons 1, 4, 5, and 6 provide guidelines for the logistics of war, and are self explanatory. When talking about lesson 5 McNamara parallels cities that were destroyed in Vietnam to what their American counterparts would have been. Lessons 2, 3 and 7 are philosophical lessons that make the audience look deeper in what he is saying. In lesson 7 McNamara says, “Belief and seeing are both often wrong”. In the film he says that even though the American public was told various things by the government it may not have been right because those who were in power did not even know what was going on. Lessons 8, 9, 10 and 11 are based on opinion. Lesson 9 says that “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil”. Many people would disagree with this statement, and to an extent McNamara disagrees with it in the documentary because nothing good came out of all the evil and destruction that occurred in Vietnam.
Although the lessons compose most of the movie, there are two points that McNamara brings up at the end that are extremely important. The first point is the idea of hindsight. McNamara goes on to talk about history and how everything that happens could have been fixed or altered in hindsight. At the present moment, one solution may have appeared right, but five or twenty years later it could be seen as the completely wrong decision. The second point pertains to the title The Fog of War. The fog of war is the idea that “War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all of the variables” (The Fog of War, Morris). The lessons are a means to explain and rationalize war, but in the end war can never be fully explained because there are too many levels and details of it to understand.
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The Fog of War directed by Errol Morris is a documentary that focuses on the life and actions of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. In the film McNamara talks about his childhood during WWI, his days as Ford Motor Company’s President, and his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. The documentary is broken up into eleven parts based on McNamara’s lessons. Although many of these lessons pertain to war, they can be applied to real life occurrences.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the film it is evident that McNamara uses this film as a way to rationalize and explain many of the policies he carried out, especially in terms of the Vietnam War. There were many times he was asked to explain something like why the United States used Agent Orange. In response to these questions he said that he did not know or that he was just following orders. This shows that McNamara was not willing to take full responsibility for the policies he carried out. Later on in the documentary, McNamara is asked to apply his lessons to the Iraq War, but refuses to do so because he believes a former Secretary of Defense should not criticize another man's policy.
The rules that McNamara provides do not just deal with the Vietnam War, but pertain to all wars. Lessons 1, 4, 5, and 6 provide guidelines for the logistics of war, and are self explanatory. When talking about lesson 5 “Proportionality should be a guideline in war” McNamara parallels cities that were destroyed in Vietnam to what their American counterparts would have been. Lessons 2, 3 and 7 are philosophical lessons that make the audience look deeper into what he is saying. In lesson 7 McNamara says, “Belief and seeing are both often wrong”. In the film he says that even though the American public was told various things by the government it may not have been right or true because those who were in power did not even know what was going on. Lessons 8, 9, 10 and 11 are based on opinion. Lesson 9 says that “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil”. Many people would disagree with this statement, and to an extent McNamara disagrees with it in the documentary because nothing good came out of all the evil and destruction that occurred in Vietnam.
Although the lessons compose most of the movie, there are two points that McNamara brings up at the end that are extremely important. The first point is the idea of hindsight. McNamara goes on to talk about history and how everything that happens could have been fixed or altered in hindsight. At the present moment, one solution may have appeared right, but five or twenty years later it could be seen as the completely wrong decision. The second point pertains to the title The Fog of War. The fog of war is the idea that “War is so complex it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all of the variables” (The Fog of War, Morris). The lessons are a means to explain and rationalize war, but in the end war can never be fully explained because there are too many levels and details of it to understand.