Just a blogging guest looking to get the Pragmatic Pundit's interpretation on Robert McNamara...
If you ask anyone over the age of 40, they may likely tell you the McNamara was a war criminal. If you ask anyone over 60, and they will tell you that the escalation in Vietnam was part of a bigger picture, and that we had not choice to escalate. Looking to read something on this.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
To be honest with you, when I saw that McNamara had died, my first thought was "he was still alive!?"
However, once that thought had passed, I immediately thought of the fact that he reigned supreme over two of the largest failures of the past 40 years--The Vietnam War, and General Motors. I can't solely blame him for either debacle, especially GM. However, it is quite an interesting point in his life.
Here was a man who took a principled stand in the Vietnam conflict, but soon learned the harsh reality of War--that in the end, War just isn't a numbers game. It doesn't matter how many more you've killed than they have. People don't like when you drop bombs on them--whether to preserve Democracy (in vietnam), or to...well...preserve Democracy (in, say, Iraq). It's a shame we didn't learn from his mistakes in Vietnam. However, I think we may finally be learning that proactive, "pre-emptive" war never seems to achieve desired results. And land wars in Asia specifically seem to come with disasterous consequences. McNamara learned this the hard way.
It was GM...? I though it was Ford... Also.... Wasn't he the one who brought Ford back from the grave?
You are correct. It was Ford. Overall, I didn't have a strong point of view on McNamara. I think it may be a sign of my age that I didn't really pin the sins of the Vietnam war on McNamara like many who may be of a certain age, and have personal memories of his actions in that matter.
I think what would be interesting would be comparing the War in Vienam to the War in Iraq.
Couple of points (in no particular order)
Both wars were civil wars, but Iraq was a civil war that we started.
There is no segregated enemy location. There was a "North Vietnam"... in Iraq, the enemy is everywhere, and for the most part... We don't know where they are.
We cannot carpet bomb Bagdad as we did Hanoi.
Vietnam War started because the French occupationalists were forced out by a comunist regime. It was a war of independence.
We did actually "win" the Vietnam War. This is a tough argument to make, but.... Did communism spread into the rest of Southeast Asia? We can "win" the Iraq war in the same manner. It isn't about body count. It's about regime change, and establishment of security.
I would love to see a new posting comparing and contrasting the two wars.
AH! I see the last reader has been reading the Wall Street Journal lately. I saw the same argument about America "Winning" the Vietnam War, with the same rationale. While it's true that Indonesia, and other parts of Southeast Asia were not brought under Communist rule, people forget that Afghanistan was invaded just 4 short years after we pulled out of Vietnam, and (oh by the way), Saigon fell not too far after we pulled out in 1975 as well, to the communists. There are some pretty good Conservative talking points about Vietnam, but that argument wasn't one of the WSJ's better pieces...
Perhaps a better argument for defeating Communism would be the Mujahadeen fighters in Afghanistan than Vietnam.
My point about body count was the fact that people BELIEVED that killing more of their guys was the path to victory. This notion is hopefully gone forever (but I fear it will resurface at some point in the near future in some war somewhere).
As far as the Iraq war goes, I am not I want to relitigate those decisions. But I'd argue that regime change for change's sake hasn't really gotten us any closer to peace in the Middle East. I'd argue that the recent events in Iran coupled with a (hopefully) serious effort to tamp down tensions in West Bank and Gaza would have a better chance at a real peace.
I think your point about regime change is not one to dispute, as it relates to Iraq, though. Saddam is gone, and I think the world is a better place for it. But spending a trillion dollars, destabilizing a region for years, spilling blood, and stretching our military thin to take out what was a dictator who had been reduced to a powerless, toothless tyrant (and who was NOT involved in 9/11, and did no more sponsoring of terrorism than, say, our pals in Saudi Arabia) has NOT led to much of an establishment of security.
Yes, New York has not been hit again since 9/11. But terrorist attacks went up for much of Bush's first term worldwide. And why hit Americans in America, when you have a free shot at them walking around Baghdad? The Pro-Iraq arguments are pretty weak, and jingoistic.
I don't write much about Iraq on this site, primarily because it's a debate that we can't redo. We can't go back to 2003, with hindsight, and change things. I'd rather try to learn what mistakes we made, and make better decisions next time. People forget the feeling in America, right after 9/11. There was a thirst for revenge, and Afghanistan had gone so well. There was a feeling that perhaps Iraq was NOT the logistical nightmare people said it would be. We weren't right in that assessment, but I think if we had had an exit strategy, and gotten out early, we could be looking back on that time as a rousing success.
I can appreciate the desire to compare Iraq and Vietnam, but I guess I see far more differences than similarities. Terrain, heterogeneous population, our military makeup, Republican vs. Democratic leadership, use of weaponry, underlying rationale, etc. All different. The only similarity is the unconventionality of the wars. I can't even tell you who the "enemy" has been in Iraq. Al-Queda? The Sunnis? The Shiites? Don't you have to be fighting AGAINST someone to really have a war? Otherwise, it's really just a police matter of restoring order.
In all, Iraq is a non-sensical mess of ideology that doesn't even match up with reality, and people getting shot at. It's time to leave. You can call it victory if you want, but I don't really know who the vanquished is.
Long ramble...
Post a Comment