Robert McNamara dies

[Torplexed]

Robert S. McNamara died in his sleep at his home in Washington early this morning, family members said.

McNamara, who served as secretary of defense during the Vietnam War under presidents Kennedy and Johnson, was 93.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Oh, him. From what I know later on in his life he regretted a lot of the things he did and was a part of, in WW2 and in the Vietnam war, the bombing campaings etc.

[Max2147]

The Fog of War is a great documentary about McNamara. The whole thing is on Youtube, and it's extremely interesting.

Part 1:

McNamara's 11 lessons from the film:

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 often both 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

[Tchocky]

Aye, a fantastic film.

[SteamWake]

This guy was the architect of the Vietnam war. Un utter quagmire if there ever was one.

He was an abject failure.

He was also an east coast elitist democrat.

A few months after McNamara told Lyndon Johnson that the war was unwinnable, McNamara did his part to make Vietnam America's greatest class war with his brainchild, Project 100,000. At the same time, McNamara knew but remained silent about the highly toxic effects of Agent Orange. What the former Secretary of Defense omits in his book and during his talk show interviews bears review, particularly since there is the danger that the next generation will study McNamara's self-serving version in America's schools.

In 1966, McNamara initiated the "Moron Corps," as they were piteously nicknamed by other soldiers. Billed as a Great Society program, McNamara's Project 100,000 lowered military enlistment requirements to recruit 100,000 men per year with marginal minds and bodies. Recruiters swept through urban ghettos and southern hill country, taking some youths with I.Q.s below what is considered legally retarded.
In all, 354,000 volunteered for Project 100,000. The minimum passing score on the armed forces qualification test had been 31 out of 100. Under McNamara's Project 100,000, those who scored as low as 10 were taken if they lived in a designated "poverty area." In 1969, out of 120 Marine Corps volunteers from Oakland, California, nearly 90 percent scored under 31; more than 70 percent were black or Mexican. Overall, 41 percent of Project 100,000 volunteers were black, compared to 12 percent of the rest of the armed forces. Touted as providing "rehabilitation," remedial education, and an escape from poverty, the program offered a one-way ticket to Vietnam, where these men fought and died in disproportionate numbers. The much-advertised skills were seldom taught.

Certainly not some one to be admired.