Pacific Views

Fog of War

Last weekend, I finally got around to seeing the documentary about McNamara. It was a compelling, yet chilling piece. The cinematography is powerful, with an 84 year old Robert McNamara speaking directly to the camera interspersed with original footage that covers the life of McNamara.

In this film, McNamara explains his lessons learned. One of those lessons is to have empathy with your enemy because otherwise you are totally blind and can make mistakes that cannot be rectified. He used the Cuban Missile Crisis to illustrate how empathy with the enemy created the opening that allowed Kennedy and Khrushchev to back away from the brink and save the world from a nuclear holocaust. Only because Rusk, one of the participants in the meetings had had a personal relationship with Khrushchev could they have enough imagination to find a different solution than outright war. Rusk expressed his view (very strongly) that Khrushchev would be willing to negotiate as long as he could have something to bring back to his people -- and Kennedy heard this message despite the hawks that believed his only choice was to escalate. McNamara makes the point that the Cuban Missile Crisis was potentially one of the worse crisises we would have faces. But because of Rusk, and Kennedy who was open to hearing different input, a war did not result.

McNamara followed this up with a discussion that showed that in Vietnam, we could not empathized with them - and because of that, completely misread the enemy. Decades later in the 90s McNamara had the opportunity to meet with his counterpart in the VietCong and found out that the American perspective on that war was totally wrong on the motives of the Vietcongs - who were willing to fight to the last person for their freedom. McNamara clearly thought the Vietnam war was unwinnable and had been a terrible mistake, and even more so after his meeting his Vietcong counterpart.

McNamara is viewed sympathetically in this film. And he also believes he was misjudged and was perceived as being bad when actually he was trying his best. One incident he talked about was the self-immolation of Norman Morrison, a Quaker, outside his office in 1965. This incident shocked McNamara and he uses it in the film to associate himself with those who were too sensitive for this brutal business of war. Eventually, he was fired by Johnson, because he didn't believe the war could be won by force alone and certainly no amount of firepower was going to change the "hearts and minds" of the people who would have to live with the outcome of the war.

I found his claim to be too sensitive disengenuious. He was capable of making decisions that had awful consequences unlike Morrison who found himself unable to live with the hypocrisy of the war. However, I also found his axiom on empathy for another person very good advice. As Natasha wrote the other day,

I'd like to say that I'd do the right thing. But what does that mean, and how do I know if my alleged virtue isn't simply the product of never having been faced with such a choice? What would I say after a life of notable accomplishement, eating fine food, calmed by cigarettes and alcohol, sitting comfortably in a well appointed room across from someone who could get away with having me killed and no questions asked?

I don't know. And I hope I never have to find out.

McNamara was faced with choices that most of us will never face. Would we do better than him? I certainly don't know and I also know it is easy to be consumed by the moment and not even consider the consequences.