[thunderous_funker]

• We misjudged then -- and we have since -- the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries . . . and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
  
• We viewed the people and leaders in terms of our own experience. . . . We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
  
• We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
  
• Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
  
• We failed then -- and have since -- to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine. . . . We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
  
• We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement . . . before we initiated the action.
  
• After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course . . . we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
  
• We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
  
• We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action . . . should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
  
• We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions. . . . At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
  
• Underlying many of these errors lay our failure to organize the top echelons of the executive branch to deal effectively with the extraordinarily complex range of political and military issues

Spooky.

[FeLiZeCaT]

looks like someone has grown up there...

spookier: I was listening to "Golden Boy", by Nathalie Merchant while reading this!!!!

lyrics are there:

http://www.natalie-merchant-online.c...ics&id=116

I was really moved for a moment.

what a darn mess...

thanks thunder_funk for bringing this up...

maybe there is hope...

[thunderous_funker]

McNamara breaks silence on Iraq.

He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.

"We're misusing our influence," he said in a staccato voice that had lost none of its rapid-fire engagement. "It's just wrong what we're doing. It's morally wrong, it's politically wrong, it's economically wrong."

You might also enjoy This peice that makes an interesting point about how McNamara and Co represented the the emergence of the "CEO-style" executive branch and it's implications. I found it quite interesting.

[FeLiZeCaT]

You might find this interesting as well:

http://www.thecorporation.tv

I thought that documentary was quite enlightening.

On top of "Manufacturing Consent" which was also pretty good in reflections for me.

[zigzag]

Excellent links re: McNamara, and worthwhile lessons.

Good intentions don't always overcome questionable methods.

[mr. natural]

Ahhh, yes, I feel much safer now knowing we are not repeating history, don't you?

After all, isn't the road to heavenly bliss of peace loving democracies (or is it plutocratic Republics like us) on earth paved with good intentions.



Beam me up, Scotty.

[voodoo]

I finally saw this documentary. It was very good and eerily accurate. Especially in light of very recent events.

V

[yakkiebah]

US-Vietnam: From enemies to friends

[...]

Drawn together

The volume of trade already tops $8bn a year and the US is a substantial investor in Vietnam.

One of those investors is Henry Nguyen.

Henry's father is a civil engineer who worked for the Americans and who escaped to the US, just before Saigon fell in 1975.

Henry was a tiny baby at the time and grew up "an all-American kid".

But in his 20s, he was drawn back to his roots and now runs a major venture capital business in Vietnam.

Both the US and Vietnam, he said, are drawn together by trade but there are also very clear political and security issues relating to China.

"Vietnam... doesn't want too much influence from China and, at the same time, tries to balance out with the US and vice-versa," he said.

What with trade, geo-politics, kinship, tourism and the generation gap, the direction of Vietnam/ US relations seems irreversible.

Something good has come from this war, as horrible as it was, something that might not have happend without it. And in the end it's capitalism that brings peace. Not communism.

[Kevin]

[analogika]

Captain Non-Sequitur, more like, Kevin.


WTF?

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by yakkiebah

Something good has come from this war, as horrible as it was, something that might not have happend without it. And in the end it's capitalism that brings peace. Not communism.

Let's try this one again. Something good is happening between the US and Vietnam now. Something that may well have happened decades sooner if we had not faked the Gulf of Tongkin incident and launched a senseless 10yr involvement in a war that killed 2 million civilians in Vietnam and nearly 60,000 US servicemen causing decades of bitterness that is only now being bridged. Remember, our side LOST in Vietnam and our current relations with them is as a Capitalist country that is dealing with a country that moved organically from communism to a market based economy (i.e. whatever capitalism is occurring in Vietnam did not come from our involvement there ... the Vietnamese, through perseverance and blood, soundly rejected the "American way" that was being pushed on them in the 60s and 70s).

Back on topic. Those Macnamara points are unbelievably apropos. Especially the first two points. As long as we pretend to ourselves that Iraqis (and middle eastern muslim's in general) are just one-dimensional, "freedom hating" (bwahaha) robots, we will never, ever "win" there. We'll eventually, through popular demand, quit there in the same manner that Nixon quit Vietnam.