Is it just me or would anyone else be amazed to see rumsfeld or any other major political figure of recent years admit this many things in a documentary. I think the world would end if a current politician said "we were wrong".
shareFirstly you are a fool. The world will end yea ok...........
This stuff isn't new, wait 30 or 40 years and people will admit anything. I'm waiting for the docu on Iraq to come out, it will show the US admin has learnt nothing in its short history. Mind you us Brits arent much better and we have along one.
Its a fine piece of work. I cant wait till there are similar pieces taking in Rwanda Bosnia and Salvador etc etc etc......we all know whats happening or happend, why the *beep* do we wait till this sh** is confirmed by a state.
Bless all the poor bastards that died for nothing!
This happened 35 years after his active political career. Rumsfeld or some other political figure of today could do something similiar after 35 years, at least I believe so. That's a lot of time to think about the mistakes. I think anyone can admit they were wrong, but did what they felt was right at the time, after such a long time. And that's all McNamara says.
shareA couple of things come to mind.
I seem to recall some probity by the Clinton admin regarding U.S. policy in central and south america in the post-war era. I seem to recall having read that an official apology for some of our wrongdoings (e.g., Guatemala) was tendered.
Also: Recent news! Colin Powell characterized his dog'n'pony show before the U.N. as "the lowest point" of his career (http://noquestionsasked.org/blog/index.php?p=17).
Well, to my thinking that's a little like a surgeon saying that inadvertently doing an autopsy on an anesthetized patient was "the lowest point" of their career. People are dying--Americans and Iraqis--and billions are being flushed down a rathole because of this little "low point" and thousands of other low points of light. So it's nice that someone can admit they were wrong, and mayhaps a tad egregious, but it'd be nicer for someone to give a *beep* and arrange a little trip to the hanging tree with these officious malefactors.
There is however a fundamental difference between the pretense used to intervene in Viet Nam and the reasons invoked to justify the invasion of Iraq. The "Tonkin Incident" was actually two distinct events as explained in the documentary. On August 2, 1964, it is quite likely that the Maddox was indeed fired at by NVA patrol boats although one must consider the strong possibility that the NVA may have thought they were under attack themselves.
At the time there was a discrepancy between what we considered international waters and what North Viet Nam considered international waters so there is a strong possibility that the NVA thought that the Maddox was much too close for comfort. The fact that this was reported as an unprovoked act of agression doesn't mean that the Administration was actually convinced it was one, but at least they could invoke confusion. And the same confusion could be invoked again two days later even though it is now pretty clear that there was no attack at all on August 4.
No such confusion exists with regards to Iraq. Ideally, the Administration would have liked to have been able to use the 9/11 attacks as a reason to invade Iraq but even for this Adminstration that would would have been overstretching its credibility beyond reason, but at least it gave us reason to deal once and for all with the Taleban regime in Afghanistan, which was without a doubt necessary.
But no matter how hard they tried the Administration couldn't convincingly link Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda so the pretense used to start a war in Iraq was a fabrication elaborated for that specific purpose and Powell's comments about his speech at the UN reflect his opinion that he knew he was conveying a fraud and he knew that most people knew it wasn't true. For such an honest man (for a politician) as Colin Powell this situation must have been unbearable. Yet he could not refuse lest he provoke a major crisis that could have lead to impeachment.
Let's say that McNamara had it much easier; there was a real incident and all they had to to do was to dress it up properly, they didn't have to make one up.
I do not know the creditability of the source but here is an interesting article on state's military behavior.
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/feb98herman.htm
I believe that countries kill civilians because the citizens are presumed not innocent. Citizens build the weapons and weave the uniforms and discover new technologies to kill effectively. Though not seen in the field of battle, were McNamara and his staff innocent citizens?
God save us.
not in a million years- McNamara was an s.o.b., but at least he is the kind of guy years down the line to do a movie like this. I could never see Rumsfeld doing this kind of film (I know McNamara said 'never say never', I'm saying never).
shareI would not be amazed if Rumsfeld admitted to anything, let alone of wrong doing, simply because he'll never do it.. The differences between Rumsfeld and McNamara are that Rumsfeld is soley motivated for his own self serving needs (reaching at least as far back the Reagan years), a sycophant, and a failed civil servant. McNamara, on the other hand, is all that Rumsfeld is not, though not without qualification. A brilliant mind, a logician by trade, used his analytical skills for unhonorable tasks. He should have been a university professor.
shareI'd LOVE to see Morris do something like this in, say, another 10-15 yrs when Rummy is as old as McNamara & he's (HOPEFULLY) retired. I'd like to believe that Morris' technique would be effective enough to catch Rummy off-guard so he'd be more willing to admit facts that he would never talk about otherwise.
What you gotta remember is that Morris uses an elaborate camera setup w/mirrors that forces the subject to look directly at him & not the camera. It has the effect of making the subj more relaxed, or so I've read.
Also, a couple of faculty members at the college I work for showed this film as part of a staff workshop & they brought in an expert from another local college to talk about McNamara. This guy knows McN personally & says that the person you see in this film is actually NOT the public figure he knows. McN is still very surly & even confrontational in person to this day. Also, try speaking to someone who actually lived thru McN's reign as Sec of Defense.
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Protect your civil liberties -- IMPEACH BUSH NOW!!
are you kidding? Rummy tried to resign twice during the Abu Ghraib scandle, he would definatily do something like this down the line
shareNo, Rumsfeld will never do a documentary such as this. And why? Because he's a sociopathic monster with no regard for anyone in America except himself, has been all his life, and will be until he dies. He has no concept of "making a mistake" or "being wrong" let alone admitting to those mistakes or wrongdoings. The word "overconfidence" doesn't even come close to accurately describing the disturbing level of self-assuredness this man demonstrates. He sees the rest of America as a land full of idiots who need to have all our decisions made for us in order to save us from ourselves. And he sees much of the rest of the world as a bunch of "lesser peoples" who need to be made more civilized by "superior American culture". He has no respect for or understanding of human and civil rights and is quite simply a crusader bent on reshaping the world in a purely American image. Or at least his idea of America.
To put it bluntly, Rumsfeld is a fascist. And I don't throw that word around casually. Ever.
McNamara on the other hand is just a Defense Secretary who made a lot -- a lot -- of dumb decisions. He was very qualified for the job (whereas Rumsfeld has a long history of ineptitude going back to the Ford Administration), but he just didn't achieve what was expected of him. I see him as a consierable disappointment, but I forgive him. Rumsfeld, on the other hand, is a massive criminal and beyond all forgiveness. Honestly, I can't understand why he wasn't assassinated years ago -- aside from the fact that it's become too hard to get rid of people who need getting rid of due to the so-called "War on Terror". Oh well, we can still hope.
I love hearing people talk about the Iraq war, seeing as the majority knows absolutely nothing about Iraq, Saddam Hussein, or Osama bin Laden.
Perhaps you people should learn all you can about a man named Abu Nidal. Then I want you to come back here and tell me that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with any of the 7, yes, 7 attacks against the US starting in February 1993 at the WTC. People tend to have short-term memories. For example, many believe that Saddam is actually a product of the CIA, placed in power in 1979. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Saddam had actually been around since 1958, when he personally botched the assassination attempt on then-president Qassem.
People also like to point out the picture of Rumsfeld with Saddam in the mid 80's. Well, people, we were both fighting Iran, which had just held Americans for 444 days. People also claim that it was the US that armed Saddam which he ultimately used on the Kurds. True, we did aid Saddam and did give him biological and chemical weapons, but nothing that he didn't already have. We never increased Iraq's technology. You people will be surprised to learn who actually helped start Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs way back in 1974, when Saddam was the #2 man under President Bakr. It was FRANCE under then-premier JACQUES CHIRAC. Yeah, that's right!!!! good ole JACQUES CHIRAC. France also sold Iraq the Osiraq Nuclear Reactor in 1976, which, thank God, was destroyed by Israel in 1982, but not before some fissionable material had already been extracted. This was proven by the foremost authority in the world on the Iran-Iraq war, Ephraim Karsh. Try reading his book "Saddam Hussein: A Politcal Biography.
If any of you need more enlightenment, feel free to respond. I'll check back regularly.........
I wish you all a Merry Christmas!!! and a happy New Year!!!!!!
"Perhaps you people should learn all you can about a man named Abu Nidal. Then I want you to come back here and tell me that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with any of the 7, yes, 7 attacks against the US starting in February 1993 at the WTC"
let me guess, you also believe Okalahoma city bombing was in part done by Iraqis, oh and wait do you think the TWA flight was shot down by Iraqi terrorists with RPGs from the coast of Florida?
I love how Conservatives, just like conspiratorial liberals, fall into the same trap. They attribute all terrorist attacks to Iraq, even if the leaps in logic are gigantic, in the same (but very different) way far left people think all terrorism is staged by the US goverment.
thank you conspiratorial conservative, your irony has put a smile of on my face
Irony.......?
you are hilarious.....
I'm not attributing all terrorist attacks to Iraq. If you would actually read my post, I said go learn something about Abu Nidal and then tell me that Saddam had nothing to do with "any" of the 7 terror attacks since the start of the 90's......It's also painfully obvious that you haven't familiarized yourself with Abu Nidal since you didn't care to even mention him. Abu Nidal is not a conspiracy theory, he was a fact. This has nothing to do with conservatives or liberals, republicans or democrats.
As far leaps in logic, how's this...
Saddam had Abu Nidal in Iraq since 1979. In the 80's, the UN made Saddam expel Nidal. He did, only to sneak him back in months later. He remained there till his murdered body was found in his Baghdad condo right after the US invasion in 2002. Why would Saddam kill a man he's protected for over 20 years......? explain that one to me.....Also, it takes cash to fund terrorism......Saddam had more of it than Osama ever dreamed of. Osama is not a billionaire. His father was and Osama is one of 57 children. Osama is a peon compared to what Saddam was capable of and did.
There's no doubt that Saddam was an exceedingly ruthless man who conducted some horrific crimes whilst in power. However, at the time that Geroge W. decided to invade, there's no evidence to suggest that he posed a strategic threat to the United States. To flout both the UN and ignore the unprecedented international condemnation of other countries, was a singular strategic error for a number of reasons.
(1) No country is an island anymore, the gunboat diplomacy of the past is no longer an option, as all of us are inextricably linked in so many ways, it's essential that we do things that enhance whatever fragile international cohesion that there is.
(2) Bin Laden may not be a strategic threat in his own right, but he has promoted an ideology that arguably is, by virtue of the way in which it has allied groups of disparate terrorists from many countries, who whilst previously no fans of the US, were not committed enough to form and sustain a united front with which to attack it. Invading Iraq only confirmed his political analysis, and make no mistake, Al-Qaeda may claim religous justification, but their aims by are political. Iran tried unsuccessfully for years to provoke the Muslim world into action based on our values. Bin Ladin's gripe is primarily based on our being "over there", so to play into his hands was an idiotic move.
Bush is a fool.
I personally believe that affliction has nothing to do with politics or religeon.......
shareI think Rumsfeld would end up doing something along the same lines. McNamara was in much the same position as Rumsfeld is now. From the movie, McNamara made many references to the fact that he was working for LBJ during the Vietnam War. The decisions he made were decisions he thought best for the nation, not what he believed. It many of the tape recording, it is evident that McNamara offered his suggestions, and not his beliefs. I believe Rumsfeld is in the same position with the current President. It would be naive to believe that every decision made on US Foreign Policy is made solely on Rumsfeld's beliefs. Some people may not recall, but it was Rumsfeld (as Sec. Def. for Nixon) who brought us out of Vietnam and the mess created by LBJ. It's easy to point fingers, as evident of the media portrayal of McNamara during his term and Rumsfeld's image in the media now.
share