There are entire schools breeding each entire classes of mini McNamars. Harvard and Yale to name two.
Basically, the more educated into stupidity a youth is, the more he/she needs a tour as a infantry grunt, or some other esteem,,,’testing’...education, rather than the little mono cultured hot houses of academia.
This may not be very collaborative but I tend to think the rabid contempt for McNamara is the beginning of the Left’s departure from global reality.
It is at this point that the Left begins to generically employ a traiterous rhetoric of ‘American war fighter’ is the worst person the Earth has ever known.
I think McNamara might have been weak but it seems so obvious that he was not the worst person ever. The hyperbole so regularly directed at him and now all associated with the Iraq war seems to be a function of efforts to insulate ourselves from how bad the world is.
The ugly reality is that Communists and various iterations of radical statism are profoundly evil and malicious to the general human condition. These radical statists are determined and difficult to overcome but the confrontation with them is inevitable.
The psychological retreat into a world where re-considering our domestic choices causes the enemy to vaporize as a fiction created by our own flawed internal characters remains a steady feature of the left.
It also seems that this radical neo isolationist world did permeate McNamara in the end of it all and lead him to reconfigure himself as someone who “knew” the war was always lost. He had to because — nothing is worse than War according to the neo isolationist Left.
Its plainly ridiculous, but it seems to be where we are.
Another reason I so deeply admire Bush. He stared right into the pathological derangement of this Movement and said, I will not withdraw but instead choose to escalate the war. That so infuriated this ridiculous movement and yet proved thus far— to be brilliant.
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I can only add: our neighborhood nice guy, carted off to fight in “McNamara’s War” woke up in a rice paddy with both his boots (and legs) lying next to him, his body made useless, his brain and hearing destroyed and when he came home the demonstrators mocked his disabling injuries and spat on him. He died in a great deal of agony after drinking what remained of himself to death.
I hope McNamara gets to play General for an eternity of unwisdom.
This happened because the F-111 was built in LBJ's backyard, Fort Worth, Texas. The B-70, made by a company based in California, didn't stand a chance.
McNamara was first and foremost a bean counter, and I mean that in a very derogatory way. It was he and his whiz kids who were responsible for the early problems with the M-16 and resulting deaths. It was he who dictated the same B-52 bombing tactics day in and day out. Every raid was flown the same pattern every time, and North Vietnamese missiles were stationed accordingly. He’s dead and not a great loss either.
He was arrogant, and he thought he was smarter than he actually was - a very dangerous combination - just like our current president.
I remember in 1968 going to Chu Lai (after the Tet Offensive) to conduct a raid in the DMZ to establish that the North Vietnamese were occupying it in force. Of course we on the ground perhaps 500 meters away did not notice this, but a few fat fellows with various devices came and assured us that they had electronic documentation that this was so, and the orders to violate the DMZ to prove it came down from on high. Three Arc Lights (B-52 strikes) were delivered as the initial prep. Considerable artillery and five dozen tanks followed that up with further prep fire. A reinforced battalion of Marines was helilifted into the area where the hostiles were supposed to be. The subsequent sweep found nothing at all. The fat fellows went away. This was about what you’d expect any time McNamara or the DC political crowd intruded on operations. May McNamara rest in peace wherever he should repose for eternity. I suspect, however, that he will merit no more respect in the hereafter than he would ever get from me. Smart asses are not worth much, sez I. So burn, baby, burn as you and your sort were so fond of saying back then.
There was a competition to replace the M-38A1 Jeep. Willis won the competition, hands-down, but Ford, MacNamara's old employer, got a sweetheart deal to provide the vehicles dirt cheap as long as they were never resold, but torched.
The 4-wheel, independent suspension was designed without thought to what would happen when too sharp a turn occurred. The M-38 and M-38A1 would give the operator a warning, but the M-151 just folded the inside wheels under and executed a snap roll, killing the occupants instantly.
But, all that mattered was that MacNamara took care of his old employer!
There's always McNamara's Project 100,000, aka the New Standards Program, requiring the branches to accept a defined number of recruits and draftees who wouldn't normally meet physical or mental standards. So as not to deprive them of serving. Some good sites out there with extensive details of the program and results, none significant, but I can't find them in a quick search.
*ping*
Lots of lessons here, but Hayek’s book comes to mind: THE Fatal Conceit. LeMay had the right attitude.
Thanks for this post.
I lived in the WDC area when McMnamara was still alive.
Every time I was in the downtown area, I kept a sharp eye out for him — I was hoping to see that a$$hole walking down the street.
Had I laid eyes on him, I was going to punch his lights out, old man or not. One shot — all I wanted was one shot — to express my rage and fury for all of his major screw-ups while SECDEF. And to partially avenge the Vietnam WIAs, KIAs and MIAs.
58,000 good Americans died because that miserable sonofabitch made one bad decision after another, and no one successfully called him on it.
I could go on and on, but I won’t, except to say that if I ever come across his grave, I’m gonna pi$$ on it! It will be real soggy, but I’m gonna pi$$ on it anyway!
My water will not put out the fires of Hell that surely are tormenting him for eternity, but I will feel much better for doing it!
and turning it into this
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