some of you sound like DU’er talking about Dick Cheney. Maybe I only see the parallel because I didn’t live through the 60s. And my experiance locking horns with some nutty liberals on campus in Athens. Hate is their trademark. But, it is important we hold ourselves to a higher standard.
McNamara was responsible for the deaths of 50,000 young Americans and countless Vietnamese, both North and South......
Nice sentiment, sonny.
Conservatism demands informed opinions and positions, not some shallow "sounds-like" analysis.
When conservatives said Bill Clinton should be impeached because he broke the law, it was because he'd committed perjury...and that's an awkward position for the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.
When leftys said W should be impeached because he broke the law, there was no accusation that survived even a shallow legal analysis.
Yet, they were saying the same thing.
Spin is not a source of facts. You need to know the facts before you can know who's spinning...and that's what makes "sounds like" a laughable method of analysis.
Well, I lived through the 60's and you're absolutely right that we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and not be filled with anger and hatred.
But the unfortunate truth is that some of "us" are as ugly and mean as some of "them."
Just not ALL of us. I hated what he did. I did not hate him. Prayers for his family.
I am tired of people on FR saying this. Would you say that about Stalin? This guy was responsible for thousands of deaths of our own soldiers. Why should anything nice be said about him?
The historians here will tell you my namesake had rigid standards of proper behavior. I’m absolutely certain the Peer would agree that McNamara is a man whose name will deservedly be scorned for centuries to come among warriors.
I am not a veteran but during the Vietnam War my academic advisor told me an earful about Robert McNamara.
McNamara treated warriors the way he treated that car he tried to weld together to save money: They were nterchangeable and readily replaced spare parts. Traditional notions such as valor, unit pride and cohesion and brotherhood were a nuisance to him. The idea that military leadership is something quite different from business management was simply alien. He was clueless that you adapt the weapons the fit the circumstances, not the other way around. Thus he repeatedly sent bands of strangers into battle with the wrong tools and then blamed them when they could not perform to his unrealistic expectations. The man was simply odious, a technocrat who might serve as an adequate technical advisor but who was way out of his depth as a commander. Lacking the insight to know his own limitations and the humility to admit that his plans did not work, he repeated all his mistakes, killing more and more young men in the process. Even in his dotage, he could readily say the war was a mistake but he never could admit that he had been an utter and complete failure.
McNamara was also a supercilious elitists who knew that having gone to Harvard was far more important that what you had actually done afterwards. My advisor was a W.W.II mustang who had taught himself several foreign languages and had taken enough courses over the years to have earned an MA in foreign policy had they all been at one university. But he didn’t have a college degree, so he knew he would never get another promotion with McNamara as Sec of Defense. “The Colonel” had the last laugh. When he resigned from military service, a decidedly non elite university saw how smart he was and awarded him an advanced degree in record time. He then got tenure at a decidedly non elite college. He never did get that bachelors degree McNamara thought was crucial in turning a man into a proper officer.