Iraq Special Intelligence Estimate

[oboe]

Toad,

Just started watching "Fog of War" with Robert McNamara, and he backs up your assertion that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was sheer luck that a nuclear exchange between US and USSR was avoided.

Can't get any closer to the horses mouth than the SecDef who lived through it.

[Toad]

McNamara is a jack ass; I've nothing good to say about him.

I despise him the way you probably despise Bush.

I'm glad he managed to notice the Cuban Missile Crisis through his continual Fog of Life.

My father was still in the USAF during that affair. I remember the preparations that were made in the family assuming he was going off to war once again. It was luck.

[oboe]

Sorry if I struck a nerve.

Previously I thought of McNamara as a cold-hearted, number-crunching warmonger but the Fog of War dispells that notion.   Maybe he was that way in his forties but now in his eighties he seems to have gotten softer (admitting errors) and more reflective.

I didn't know he fought with LBJ and wanted to reduce our involvement in Viet Nam, and that LBJ ended up sacking him and awarding him a Medal of Freedom.

FoW has 11 life lessons he learned about war- I was going to post them in a discussion about how they might apply to Iraq but if you can't stand the guy I'll defer.

[Hap]

It's a great documentary.

One I must buy.

All the Best,

hap

[Toad]

Here's a life lesson he never learn in time to save ~50,000 American soldiers:

Don't try to micro manage a war from half a world away. What a dipshirt.

A very large number of names on that wall are there because Robert STRANGE McNamara was one stupid, pighead dipshirt that couldn't find his bellybutton with both hands in his back pockets.

Someday I'll tell you how I really feel about him.

[Holden McGroin]

McNamara ruined the T Bird too.

[oboe]

Originally posted by Toad
Here's a life lesson he never learn in time to save ~50,000 American soldiers:

Don't try to micro manage a war from half a world away. What a dipshirt.

A very large number of names on that wall are there because Robert STRANGE McNamara was one stupid, pighead dipshirt that couldn't find his bellybutton with both hands in his back pockets.

Someday I'll tell you how I really feel about him.

I understand you despise him, but are you implying that the U.S. would've only suffered roughly 8,000 casualties in Viet Nam had McNamara not been SecDef?    (assuming total US casualties were apprx 58,000)

I don't think 3 years as a statistical analyst for the AAF qualified him to be SecDef, even considering his experience as President of Ford Motor.

EDIT:   Here's a thought that just occurred to me, related to our discussion of Just War Theory, imminent threat, the Bush doctrine of preemptive war and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What do you think the result of the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been if instead of Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara, the U.S. leadership was Bush Jr, Cheney and Rumsfield (with of course Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith adding their counsel as well)?

It makes me wonder about the differences in the motivations and wisdom of politicians today versus those from the greatest generation.

[WhiteHawk]

Does anybody else think this war is more about oil than WMD's?

[john9001]

do you think there would have been a Cuban Missile Crisis  if Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara had not screwed up the bay of pigs invasion so bad that it led castro to ask russia for defensive missles to be put into cuba?

[VOR]

Oh, I didn't realize those missiles were defensive. That changes everything!

[Hap]

Originally posted by oboe Here's a thought that just occurred to me, related to our discussion of Just War Theory, imminent threat, the Bush doctrine of preemptive war and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

What do you think the result of the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been if instead of Kennedy, Johnson and McNamara, the U.S. leadership was Bush Jr, Cheney and Rumsfield (with of course Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith adding their counsel as well)?

The image comes from about 10 years after the Missle Crisis, but the end of the original Planet of the Apes springs to mind with little or no effort.

All the Best,

hap

p.s.  All the Department heads work for the President to carry out his policy.  I'm not a lover of Rumsfield, but I know the buck doesn't stop with him.

[bj229r]

The girl was hot, PLUS she couldn't talk! Rather balances everything out, I think

[Toad]

Originally posted by oboe
are you implying that the U.S. would've only suffered roughly 8,000 casualties in Viet Nam had McNamara not been SecDef?    

No, I'm saying outright that his absolutely idiotic rules of engagement cost a lot of men their lives as he tried to prove his idiotic theories on how to conduct warfare.

This clip from globalsecurity.org suffices as an example:

The ROEs in place for the air campaign over North Vietnam included restrictions on where aircraft could fly, what conditions aircraft could attack enemy forces (when they were considered hostile), and what degree of force could be used both in self-defense and attack.3

Another part of the ROEs restricted pilots from attacking certain types of targets that were off limits; some of these were: enemy airfields, SAM sites, power plants, naval craft in some areas, a 30 mile area around Hanoi, and a 10 mile area around Haiphong.4

The inability to attack certain targets made it difficult to stop the flow of men and material into South Vietnam, and the requirements to spare North Vietnamese civilians limited the use of certain types of munitions, such as B-52s and napalm.

Until early 1967, in many instances U.S. pilots were not allowed to engage enemy fighters unless they themselves had been attacked first.

What a dip****.

[john9001]

toad is absolutely right, McNamara is a fool , he prolonged the war and cost the lives of many Americans , he should be writing his books from a jail cell.