in reference to this thread:
http://professionalsoldiers.com/foru...light=mcnamara
I recently watched the same interview "Fog of War," which is more of an autobiographical journey of Mr. McNamara over the last 85 years. Despite several editing with left-wing/liberal antiwar overtone, I found any moral judgment in the interview presented more in an open-ended questions than a straight verdicts.
The 11 lessons dicussed are:
1. Empathize with your enemy.
2. Rationality will not save us.
3. There's something beyond one's self.
4. Maximize efficiency.
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.
6. Get the data.
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
10. Never say never.
11. You can't change human nature.
Having never seen the elephant, I like many, consider the 5th lesson to be the most chilling. It gives both respect and harsh take on General Lemay, who (in McNamara words) said "if we lost the war that we would have all been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right. He... and I'd say I... were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side has lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win? "
However, if anything, that part convinces me even more how crucial is the role of qualified personnel on the ground relative to bombing campaigns.
For BTDTs who have seen the film or read the book, how do you find the applicability of those lessons on the GWOT? For example, in the "are we at war with Islam" thread, we definitely emphatize (attempt to understand the enemy). However, that strengthen the resolve for war even more as opposed to the case of the Cuban missile crisis used in the lesson
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