In 1995, he took a stand against his own conduct of the war, confessing in a memoir that it was “wrong, terribly wrong.” In return, he faced a firestorm of scorn.
“Mr. McNamara must not escape the lasting moral condemnation of his countrymen,” The New York Times said in a widely discussed editorial, written by the page’s editor at the time, Howell Raines. “Surely he must in every quiet and prosperous moment hear the ceaseless whispers of those poor boys in the infantry, dying in the tall grass, platoon by platoon, for no purpose. What he took from them cannot be repaid by prime-time apology and stale tears, three decades late.”
Your world view is so fucked Seth up it's hilarious......
Daily KOS nailed it...
The Republicans are TRAITORS - Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/03/3 ... re-TRAITOR...
Mar 31, 2006 - It is patently clear that the Republicans hold partisanship above all else -- above truth, above country, above the Constitution. They are traitors.
Ho Chi Min defended his homeland against an invader...successfully
..you should be admiring such a survivor instead of living in your myth of American exceptionalism that got trashed by Vietnam.
If McNamara is to be condemned, given that he at least eventually saw and admitted the failings of his policies, then how much more condemnation is required of those right wing lunatics of his generation who still cling to their absurd beliefs that their war was justified?
rainbow wrote:Silly me. I forgot about the war that stopped Communism from taking over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Nonetheless, while it was protest that ended the waf, Fondacunt gave aid and comfort to the enemy while our troops were in the field, which qualifies as treason.
She should have been tried.
Tried for what?
No war was declared against North Vietnam, so technically they were not the enemy.
The people who sent innocent teenagers into battle to be killed and maimed ought to be the ones tried.
Jane Fonda should have been a national treasure.
She proved that an american accent CAN sound sexy.
But fuck-me, have you heard her lately? Where did that sexy voice go? She sounds like a crow with a sore throat. Forget the facelifts, get that voice fixed !
While there is a market for shit, there will be assholes to supply it.
Great topic. Romano Alonso di Toldjaso is my hero. What a man!
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould
rainbow wrote:Silly me. I forgot about the war that stopped Communism from taking over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Nonetheless, while it was protest that ended the waf, Fondacunt gave aid and comfort to the enemy while our troops were in the field, which qualifies as treason.
She should have been tried.
Tried for what?
No war was declared against North Vietnam, so technically they were not the enemy.
The people who sent innocent teenagers into battle to be killed and maimed ought to be the ones tried.
I dont necessarily disagree, but so should Fonda.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
There is an important distinction to be made when discussing wars with murky motives such as Vietnam (and many modern examples). One can argue that it was an unjust and/or unnecessary war, without in any way disparaging the courage and efforts of the troops on the ground (war criminals like Calley excepted).
Calley was justly afraid of his own lads. He was the kind of weak fuckup officer that got people needlessly killed, something troops will not tolerate on a battlefield.
This as opposed to, say, war criminals like Lt. "Breaker" Morant, who was firmly in control of his troops when they gunned down noncombatants in cold blood.
JimC wrote:If McNamara is to be condemned, given that he at least eventually saw and admitted the failings of his policies, then how much more condemnation is required of those right wing lunatics of his generation who still cling to their absurd beliefs that their war was justified?
We won the long war against authoritarian Communism. The lives of billions have been permanently improved in the process. The shirt I'm wearing was made in Vietnam.
piscator wrote:Calley was justly afraid of his own lads. He was the kind of weak fuckup officer that got people needlessly killed, something troops will not tolerate on a battlefield.
This as opposed to, say, war criminals like Lt. "Breaker" Morant, who was firmly in control of his troops when they gunned down noncombatants in cold blood.
piscator wrote:Calley was justly afraid of his own lads. He was the kind of weak fuckup officer that got people needlessly killed, something troops will not tolerate on a battlefield.
This as opposed to, say, war criminals like Lt. "Breaker" Morant, who was firmly in control of his troops when they gunned down noncombatants in cold blood.
JimC wrote:If McNamara is to be condemned, given that he at least eventually saw and admitted the failings of his policies, then how much more condemnation is required of those right wing lunatics of his generation who still cling to their absurd beliefs that their war was justified?
We won the long war against authoritarian Communism. The lives of billions have been permanently improved in the process. The shirt I'm wearing was made in Vietnam.
I don't disagree that the disappearance of authoritarian communism was a good thing for the human race.
However, its demise was more the result of its own inefficiencies and internal contradictions than a heroic effort by the US for truth, justice, and they American way of life, although the inherent arrogance of American exceptionalism demands the romantic delusion of heroism...
JimC wrote:If McNamara is to be condemned, given that he at least eventually saw and admitted the failings of his policies, then how much more condemnation is required of those right wing lunatics of his generation who still cling to their absurd beliefs that their war was justified?
We won the long war against authoritarian Communism. The lives of billions have been permanently improved in the process. The shirt I'm wearing was made in Vietnam.
I don't disagree that the disappearance of authoritarian communism was a good thing for the human race.
However, its demise was more the result of its own inefficiencies and internal contradictions than a heroic effort by the US for truth, justice, and they American way of life, although the inherent arrogance of American exceptionalism demands the romantic delusion of heroism...
