Posted on 07/06/2009 6:21:18 AM PDT by DFG
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara has died.
McNamara, 93, died at home in his sleep Monday morning, his wife Diana told The Associated Press. She said he had been in failing health for some time.
Known as a policymaker with a fixation for statistical analysis, McNamara was president of the Ford Motor Co. when President John F. Kennedy asked him to head the Pentagon in 1961.
McNamara worked for seven years as the defense secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, longer than any other person in that post. He headed the war department during the build-up of forces in Vietnam.
He is considered the architect of the concept of "mutual assured destruction," a key feature of the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I agree that's long overdue. Especially in light of the fact that the NorK's have been spreading nukes around to our enemies.
i think so! was it the book with clinton on the cover with a golf tee hanging out of his mouth?
“I seem to recall the same title pertaining to a Bill Clinton book also?”
You are correct, it was written by the guy who used to carry the “football”.
http://www.regnery.com/regnery/030318_dereliction.html
“If you think this thread is bad, just wait until Jane Fonda kicks off her mortal coil.”
Or John “paper cuts” Kerry for that matter ;)
I can’t agree with that.
His “enablers” were more than enablers. They had the power to remove him at any time. McNamara was simply doing what they wanted done otherwise they wouldn’t have had him doing it. McNamara served at their pleasure and that far exceeds the definition of “enabler”. When the powers that be pick an incompetent to do their bidding it is they who are solely responsible for the outcome, not the fool who took the job.
Yes, and he still kept making stupid decisions. I’m not absolving any other members of the Kennedy or Johnson White House, but McNamara made all the stupid decisions McNamara made and HE is the one responsible for ALL of his stupid decisions. you can’t absolve a moron just because he wasn’t the top of the food chain.
I’m not trying to be annoying...
If you put a fox in the chicken coop and all your chickens get destroyed who’s fault is it? The fox for being a fox or the person who put the fox in the chicken coop?
Now I’m not saying McNamara doesn’t have responsibility for what he did, clearly he does, but the powers that be put him charge to do what they wanted done. They had the power to remove him at any time and could have but they chose not to. The blame overall goes to those who had the authority and the knowledge of the situation to correct it and did not. That goes to McNamara’s boss.
Complete red herring question not actually an example of the situation.
Here’s an curate version of the question: if you screw up and lose the big account who screwed up? You or your boss? The answer of course is YOU. Yes your boss has some issues because he hired you, but YOU would still be the guy that LOST THE ACCOUNT.
McNamara’s bosses have some culpability because they put the idiot in charge but HE is still the guy that WASTED HUMAN LIVES. the blame over all goes to HIM.
If the people that work for me screw up, it is ultimately my fault and I pay the actual cost of what happened and not normally the employee. If they cost me more than they produce over the long term I have to replace them. Accidents happen, we are all human. I have to judge how many I'm willing to accept before replacing an employee. It is my decision, my responsibility and I normally bear the end consequences of what an employee does or does not do.
It is no different for a President. And it isn't as if the secretary of defense is some distant job position relative to the Presidency... It is a job directly under the President.
“McNamara was responsible for the deaths of 50,000 young Americans and countless Vietnamese, both North and South....”
Nice to be able to say that, make all the rest of us blameless.
“His and LBJ’s decisions to suspend (limited warfare) instead of carrying on the successful “Rolling Thunder” (which Nixon mirrored in “Linebacker II” to force the N.V.A. regime to the peace table) resulted to stymie a winnable war and cost American lives.”
How can you be certain that anything would force the NVA to the peace table? We killed 2-3 million of them. The NVA were fanatics who didn’t care how many Vietnamese died.
For that matter, why would forcing them to the peace table have changed anything? We had a “peace” agreement when Saigon was overrun. They just kept on regardless until they unified the country.
“Yup ~ McNamara and the firebombing of Japanese cities.
If we’d taken half the bucks that went down that rathole and thrown it into the nuclear weapons program, the war in Europe and East Asia would have been over much faster ~ and at far less cost in lives and materiele to the United States.
Almost forgot his part in that one ~”
You’re right, we firebombed most Japanese cities. How did that slow down the development of the nuclear bomb? I read “The Making of the Atomic Bomb”, which won a Pulitzer Prize, and there was no mention of anything slowing down the development of the A-bomb.
As to the firebombing itself, it was easier and more effective than strategic bombing, because Japanese cities were like kindling. It was also ruthless, because millions of Japanese civilians were burned to death as a result. General Curtis LeMay, who was in charge, told McNamara that if the US lost the war, the two of them would be prosecuted as war criminals.
“Part of this was due to Johnsons fear that the Soviets would jump in and the war would escalate into WWIII.”
Also he was worried about the Chinese, because of their intervention in the Korean War. Politicians and generals were always fighting the previous war. General Westmoreland believed that the NVA would surrender because he was sure that no country could tolerate the kill ratio that the US military was accomplishing.
“Reading Giaps book made me sick. We had them beat after Tet and we folded up and went home. Cost South Vietnam I do not know haw many lives.”
Where can you find Giap’s book? I looked on Amazon and they don’t seem to have it.
thanks
But they’re still the ones that screwed up. When I screw up I don’t turn to my boss and say “you shouldn’t have hired me”, I turn to him and say “I screwed up”. McNamara screwed up, period.
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