Bernard Weiner: Robert S. McNamara, Colin Powell and "The Fog of War"

[Wetzelbill]

Robert S. McNamara, Colin Powell
and "The Fog of War"

By Bernard Weiner, Co-Editor,
The Crisis Papers
January 27, 2004

Secretary of State Colin Powell should be required to view the new Errol Morris "Fog of War" film. You may have heard about it: a documentary interview with former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, plus lots of historical film footage and dynamite audiotape recordings of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson talking frankly with McNamara and other advisors about Cuba and Vietnam.

In "Fog of War" -- which opened recently nationwide -- McNamara, in his mid-80s, speaks agonizingly of his moral culpability in World War II and later in Vietnam in the '60s and early-'70s.

McNamara saw himself as a loyal soldier, who told the truth to his boss, the President of the United States -- that the Vietnam war was unwinnable, that the best thing the U.S. could hope for was an endless stalemate -- but who was overruled. Rather than resign in protest, as a way of perhaps saving tens of thousands of American (and many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilian) lives, he stayed on as a technocrat, positively spinning the war news while leading a disastrous campaign he knew made no sense. His soul was forever tarnished.

http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/powell.htm

[Faygo Kid]

1. Great post, and article. Does Powell have a conscience?

I look forward to seeing "Fog of War" next week, sounds like a must see for all DUers. Powell is the one guy in this administration who could end this neo-con madness; O'Neill's revelations didn't stick. I remember yelling at the TV before the 2002 elections that the decision to go to war had already been made since day 1 of the Bush administration, and that it had nothing to do with WMDs, terrorism or liberating the Iraqi people, and everything to do with the mad neo-con dream of controlling the Middle East. Everything that has happened since then has confirmed this. These people won't stop there, mark my words. Powell must come forward.