Steve Walt eulogizes McNamara. This one's hard to excerpt:
Unlike the American soldiers who fought in Indochina, or the millions of Indochinese who died there, McNamara did not suffer significant hardship as a result of his decisions. He lived a long and comfortable life, and he remained a respected member of the foreign policy establishment. He had no trouble getting his ideas into print, or getting the media to pay attention to his pronouncements. Not much tragedy there.
McNamara may have been a gifted analyst and corporate executive, blessed with a lot of raw smarts, but he was also one of those people who could not imagine being wrong or resist the desire to tell the world what to do. Failure in Vietnam did not teach him humility; he ran the World Bank with same ego-driven sense of infallibility he had brought to the Pentagon (and with predictably mixed results). Yet this second experience with failure did not temper his love of the limelight or his desire to prescribe How Things Should Be Done. He spent the last decades of his life offering high-profile advice on various aspects of nuclear weapons policy — with the same degree of self-assurance he had always displayed — and he sought the spotlight once again with a belated memoir on his role in Vietnam. As always, however, it was filled with "lessons" for others; to the last, McNamara retained an unwarranted confidence in his own ideas as well as an inability to keep quiet.
Overall, McNamara's post-Vietnam behavior raises a broader question about the role of former officials who have led their country into major disasters. Ordinarily, we should respect the men and women who have devoted years of their lives to public service and listen carefully to the counsel of those who have the benefit of long experience. Moreover, someone who is no longer competing for a job in Washington may be more likely to give honest advice than someone who is still worrying about the questions she might face at a confirmation hearing.
But in some cases — and a lot of former Bush administration officials come to mind here — the failures are of sufficient gravity as to render all subsequent advice suspect. And when a government official's repeated errors have left thousands of their fellow citizens dead or grievously wounded, along with hundreds of thousands of other human beings, it would be more seemly for them to remain silent, in mute acknowledgement of their own mistakes. And if they persist in pontificating — as Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, and Dick Cheney are now doing — a nation that understood the importance of accountability might have the good sense to pay them the attention and respect they deserve. Which is to say: none.
Related posts:
- Neocons– read McNamara’s obit. Reread. Again. Repeat, for 40 years
- Perle (and Frum) Dismiss Possibility of 3,000 American Deaths in Iraq
- Neoconservatism Is Apparently Still a Resume-Builder
- How Being Wrong About Iraq Became a Resume-Builder
- Axelrod twice invokes ’special relationship,’ nothing about Palestinian deaths
{ 21 comments }
when the world is essentially run by a corrupt banking system in cahoots with the numerous military complexes and the media moguls agreement as well, it's hard to break apart the smug arrangement… mcnamara was seen as on of their own… someone who speaks out against this mafia type family will be treated very differently..
a nation that understood the importance of accountability might have the good sense to pay them the attention and respect they deserve. Which is to say: none. A nation that understood the importance of accountability would have the good sense to shoot a few of these bastards from time to time as an example to anyone who might want to follow in their footsteps.
This a very good McNammar eulogy. He was talented and moved quickly up the career ladder. He performed exactly as was expected once he reached the top. If that meant supporting policies that resulted in 50,000 dead American soldiers and 3 million dead Vietnamese it was OK, as long as he continued to promote his career. After the Vietnam fiasco, which he spent the last 40 years spilling his tears of regret, he was rewarded with running the World Bank. He was always so careful. Not to say anything once it was politically relevant. He had a chance after 1967 to come out but he did not. In 2003 he knew the war in Iraq was a mistake but he remained silent. He is the perfect model for the loyay careerist. I knew this for years, but one thing I thought is that he might break down after his careerist ambitions, was to give us some insight into the Israeli attack on the Liberty. He clearly knew what happened then but even to the day of his death he was so loyal that he supported that coverup. (neither did he admit his role in the Gulf of Tonkin incident coverup, but that story is well known today.)
Neither did he repent his failure to defend the USS Liberty, nor to hold accountable the Israelis who attacked it with intent to sink it and kill everyone aboard. Accountability is the soul of responsibility and efficacy, and without it, systems rapidly skid off the tracks. America's system of checks and balances can be seen as tools to ensure accountability, since the scissors, rock, paper of three branches provides a check on power wherever it resides. Without an effect check, without accountability, there are no consequences for error, and decline is inevitable. Those who enable this failure of accountability are enabling the decline of America. Through Cheney, and guys like Abrams, we can see a direct link from the mistakes of Viet Nam, through Iran Contra, to Iraq. They, of course, see other lessons, about unitary executive, etc., but they are wrong. We the People need to demand accountability now, in order to ensure America's continued endurance.
Some shithead on MSNBC was mad that our culture has gone astray because the massess are upset about Michael Jackson's death and no one seemed to notice that a great "hero", McNarma, (I don't even know how to spell his name, or care to), had also died. I don't care for a man who killed millions in unjustified wars.
His name is not worth spelling correctly. The other thing about him is that in spite of all of his public wailings, is that basically he was unhappy that the US lost the war — it was not the loss of 58,000 US soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese, it was the fact that he failed. He knew how many were dying at the time, it was just that he believed that was acceptable as long as we won. Once we lost, and it was politically irrelevant. he expressed his regret.
MY McNAMARA EULOGY: Good riddance!
Yes, he was one of the main cover up artists of the USS Liberty attack. In any case, there is little doubt that this act of betrayal and espionage put him in good stead with the powers that be.
Steve Walt wrote: "Failure in Vietnam did not teach him humility…." Just so as to shamelessly take advantage of this and once more beat the same horse that I have in a couple of other threads recently I think that this idea of having some intellectual humility and modesty is incredibly important especially on the red-hot issue of where Cosmic Justice lies in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Certainly, for instance, the *mode* of Israel's way of doing things can grate on us Americans, but we ought not forget that the mode of suicide bombers isn't pretty either, and Israel's partisans do have enough points and well-grounded fears that we ought to have a little humility and modesty too before stating our beliefs as if they were divinely-conveyed truths. It always worries me a bit when some complex issue seems so clear that I can't imagine anyone disagreeing with me in good faith. And it's a funny phenomenon that when we are confronted with someone who disagrees with us and who seems to lack any intellectual humility or modesty that our reaction isn't to double-check our own, but instead to grit our teeth even more vehemently around our beliefs. Walt is right; above all McNamara is an object lesson for the terminally certain. (Which, oddly enough, we all seem drawn to, perhaps because being so is so nice and easy and clear.)
Another recent death: [NYRB] Amos Elon (1926–2009)
Who won the GO game? After many close games that I've watched, and the game ends, the players shake hands, walk away, have a drink. I can't tell who won. I can't tell from counting the regions (as there are regions within regions within regions, that at a glance could be counted either way). I can't tell from the facial expressions of the players. I can't tell from the next game in the tournament.
Here's some additional perspective, comments by three historians on mcNamara's legacy, which made me think, where is today's Daniel Ellsburg? Did Chas Freeman even come close? Will he write a book now that he's been pushed to the curb? Is Carter the only former high government official with any moral intelligence? It's hard to come away from this subject without realizing government is run by a bunch of little Eichmanns, all career firsters (or Israel firsters on that issue): http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/7/vietnam_war_...
And here's McNamara's legacy regarding his initiation of the USS Liberty coverup, when the tail commenced to wag the dog, which it does down to this day–a vivid description of the birth of Uncle Sam's really "special relationship" with Israel: http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair1126.html Any MSM articles or TV news channel even mention this aspect of McNamara's legacy? It's actually most relevant to current times.
Indeed. The Six-Day War was "a turning point in our relationship with Israel," said former ambassador Richard Parker, political counselor of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in 1967. The war did more than double the size of Israel with captured lands still the focal point of Israeli-Arab turmoil: "Up to that point we had avoided being a major arms supplier to Israel. And afterward, the security of Israel became one of our strategic objectives, which it had never been . . ."
Yes Sin Nombre. And I believe we ought to use this same attitude that you present when we consider the second world war or the Inquisition or a myriad of other historical events. Certainly they were more complex then we are lead to believe. But at the end of the day we make judgements about them according to our values and that is what the world is doing in the case of the I/P conflict and in regard to Robert McNamara.
The gag order on the USS Liberty survivors is still in effect. Yet here's three of them speaking out 10 months ago, risking jail and steep fine: http://ussliberty.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/upcomi...
Another interesting comparison. I watched Fog of War on YouTube yesterday, its gone now, at one point he smiled proudly reporting that in one night they killed 100.000 Japanse with firebombs. His analysis showed that when the planes were too high they were secure but the hits, the results were also bad. Didn't look like a GO game to me. Brilliant documentary. What I find most frightening about this mindset is that it suggests the Nazi's would have come away with it, if only they had succeeded. I don't find this comforting.
Obviously the passage about Vietnam is the most important part. I honestly wonder how the image of a turned, a repentant McNamara could form. And it is all around me in fact. It's the first thing people say when asked about him. I didn't pay much attention to the leaders, more on the human wrecks I met that returned from Vietnam to stay in Berlin.
This mind set won the war for the Allies. Churchill was ruthless in his bombing. Eisenhower was ruthless in his peace. McNamara is their natural extension. We live with their legacy today.
Then those powers are corrosive to America's greatness, and need to disempowered.
SEE: "McNamara's Other Body Count, A Lethal Tenure at the World Bank", By JAMES BOVARD, 07/09/09 (EXCERPT) …McNamara’s favorite foreign leader was Julius Nyerere, ruler of Tanzania, which received more bank aid per capita than any other country in that decade. In the early 1970s, with World Bank aid and advice, Nyerere sent the Tanzanian army to drive the peasants off their land, burn their huts, load them onto trucks, and take them where the government thought they should live. The peasants were then ordered to build new homes “in neat rows staked out for them by government officials.” Nyerere wanted to curb his countrymen’s individualist and capitalist tendencies and make them easier to control. He even outlawed people’s sleeping in their gardens at night, which meant that monkeys were free to help themselves to their crops. In many cases, the new government villages were far from the farmers’ own lands, and so they simply gave up tilling the land, with the result that hunger in Tanzania soared… ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.counterpunch.org/bovard07092009.html
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