Fog of War 2004 documentary (1 Viewer)

[Currahee Chris]

Hey Fellas:

I saw this documentary on/by Robert MacNamara regarding his involvement in Nam. Very very good- provides some interesting insights to the time. You guys should check it out.

 

[MCKENNA77]

Hey Fellas:

I saw this documentary on/by Robert MacNamara regarding his involvement in Nam. Very very good- provides some interesting insights to the time. You guys should check it out.

I couldn't agree more with this comment. This was great insight on MacNamara's life and the Pentagon during Vietnam. I thought it was rather interesting to hear him talk about how he would have been tried as a war criminal if America had lost WWII.

Take Care

 

[Shannon Reuss]

I have to laugh--I read the thread title as "Frog of War 2004 documentary."
Has a bit of a ring to it...maybe Treefrog Treasures should change our name to
Frogs of War.
We can give our treefrog mascot a helmet and perhaps replace his grass blade with an M1 carbine rifle...



or maybe not.

 

[Currahee Chris]

I say do it!! Frogs of War would be pretty awesome- actually, inspires a potential future diorama!!

Instead of an M1 give him an M16, and have a bayonet clinched in his mouth.

 

[UKReb]

Hey Fellas:

I saw this documentary on/by Robert MacNamara regarding his involvement in Nam. Very very good- provides some interesting insights to the time. You guys should check it out.

Chris/McKenna

Agree with your comments and I believe this documentary-little seen by the public at large- should be part of the national curriculum. I watched it a couple of years ago and there are a few scenes that still remain vivid in my mind.

Although McNamara played an important part in Kennedy's "New Frontier" administration it's obvious in this film that although no doubt a brilliant statesman he was a flawed man who regrets that "in order to do good you have to be willing to do evil". He was the main purveyor of statistical analyses that seemed to show the US could not possibly be losing the war highlighted by the newsreel clip when he is addressing the press after returning from a fact finding trip to Nam "The military operations are showing very substantial progress" (Where have you heard that recently) Reminds one of Disraeli's famous quote about lies and statistics.

But then comes the incident when the Quaker-Norman Morrison- sets fire to himself right outside McNamara's office. That was his turning point, a personal experience that didn't fit into the war expert's carefully drawn plans and it obviously shook him to his core and it's not difficult to see that it still haunts him today 40 years on.

Chris did you also notice right at the beginning-deliberately left in by the director....I think.... that it appeared to me that McNamara knows what he means to say and no more than that and off-screen some technical hitch has obviously interrupted the interview but McNamara is not going to retrack his comments because he says to the director
"fix it up some way" That made me shiver.
Reb

 

[jazzeum]

You may want to think about reading Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, a great book, a classic book about the time. Here's the Amazon link for those who may be interested.

I can't recommend this too highly.

 

[Currahee Chris]

Chris/McKenna
"The military operations are showing very substantial progress" (Where have you heard that recently) Reminds one of Disraeli's famous quote about lies and statistics.

Chris did you also notice right at the beginning-deliberately left in by the director....I think.... that it appeared to me that McNamara knows what he means to say and no more than that and off-screen some technical hitch has obviously interrupted the interview but McNamara is not going to retrack his comments because he says to the director
"fix it up some way" That made me shiver.
Reb

No Reb, I must have missed that part- running to get the popcorn out of the microwave probably. I am completely bewildered that more people of that generation haven't seen this movie. Could you imagine the furor it would have created if released in 1975 or so??

Today, our warfighters are not doing the bodycount statistic, well, they are not publicly using it as a benchmark anyway. This is a slippery slope and yes, I do believe there has been improvements there in the current situation

Interesting discussion on the body count statistic. I am in the midst of Steel my Soldiers Hearts by Hack. The book is rife of command errors and creation of faulty bodycount stats. There are many books that document that position as well- the model of Mac's was flawed in a number of ways, especially when one could argue that it turned into a garbage in/ garbage out model- stats are only as good as the data they are based upon.

I have made comments here on the forum about people jumping all over WW2 commanders and still hold that their criticisms are more applicable to Nam moreso than WW2. Guys like Hack have always been quite vocal about miscues in warfare and rightly so. THe problem with Nam was that the leadership was still trying to fight the nazis when the the VC/NVA were a completely different enemy. The commanders just were not trained to fight that fight- Field manuals were out of date, equipment was not fully mission adapted, etc and many many people unfortunately lost their lives because of it.