Some people have all the luck.
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, 93, died in his sleep early Monday at his Washington home, according to media reports.
He died in his sleep at the age of 93. Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.
Some people have all the luck.
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, 93, died in his sleep early Monday at his Washington home, according to media reports.
He died in his sleep at the age of 93. Somehow, that doesn’t seem right.
he had his ‘Come to Jesus’ moment back in the ’90s, and came clean with quite the pile of bullshit fro his days in the DOD.
I realise this still won’t be enough, especially for those who fought in VietNam, or those who lost friends and loved ones there, but at some point one has to sit and think: are we looking for justice, or another pound of flesh? The dead of ‘Nam haunted McNamara until the day he died, and now he’ll stand before them and account for his errors….and let’s hope they’re more understanding than we’ve been, coz McNamara has a lot more ‘splainin’ to do, that we the living will now never get the chance to see…
Totally agree with this.
I don’t even call him by his given name anymore. To me, he’s simply McNamara.
Remember The Fog of War? I sent a copy of this to my stepdad. Of course, there were some things this guy REFUSED to talk about in that film, and that’s a crux, too.
Two quarters of the guys killed and maimed in Vietnam were under this guy’s tenure. And then Kissinger and Nixon did the rest.
Thx for that useful excerpt.
Not sure if you had anything specific in mind as to what he refused to talk about in that film. As I recall, though I haven’t seen the whole film in a while, he talked about plenty, including his errors in thinking re VN under LBJ. Perhaps not fully in some respects, no doubt.
Yet even in this one excerpt, we have the rather extraordinary admission, certainly for a high ranking former public official, that he engaged in conduct that would make him a war criminal. By contrast did LBJ, the man responsible for the VN War, ever come close to admitting he’d made a huge mistake, let alone make the sort of major admission against interest that McN does here? Or war hawk SoS Rusk?
Have you seen the film? The whole film? I have. I have a copy of it. I’ve seen it at least five times. He says himself that there are things that he refused to talk about in the film–that they were a waste of his time to dwell on.
Warmonger – check
Moneylender – check
But then there’s that latecoming remorse.
I’ll bet the gatekeeper is muttering “I hate Mondays.” to her/himself.
Thanks for the pissed off comment on this. Many other outlets just note the passing; this guy was TEH LOSER. True, there woulda been another if not him, but it was him.
Didn’t he help figure out how many bombs you needed to drop to create a Dresden firebombing inferno during WW2?
good, I hope he gets his reward in Hell and burns for eternity.
he and Rummy can share bunkbeds of coal.
and napalm showers with a white phosphorous spritz.
Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, wax mighty in power?
Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
Their houses are safe, without fear, neither is the rod of G-d upon them.
Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
They sing to the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity, and peacefully they go down to the grave.
Frickin’ war criminal. Man-that is so offensive. Died peacefully in his sleep. Sent how many to a premature grave? Screwed up so many, too. The rat-bastard. I hope he burns in hell-I hope the flames are napalm supplied. Under his watch enough of it sure got used.
.
Father of the Falcon. Iacocca took the same parts and created the Mustang.
“McNamara was the ultimate bean counter.” – Lee Iacocca.
.
See now my diary – McNamara, Faulty Analysis and Rand Corporation
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."you assume he died peacefully in his sleep….maybe he was having a kickass nightmare and lost a bloody battle.
either way dead is dead.
That’s like an epitaph of Augustus I once read. “He used men well, and died in his sleep,” as opposed to Caligula and all the other inbred, lunatic Caesars who were murdered.
As if a relatively benign dictatorship is preferable to a batshit insane one. But whatever. Lots of bad blood under the bridge these days, I guess.
“As if a relatively benign dictatorship is preferable to a batshit insane one.“
Actually, in my experience, it is. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that in some ways a benign dictatorship is preferable to a batshit insane elected head of state who rampages over people’s rights, and runs the country into the ground. The only advantage in that case to the elected head of state is that there is an orderly mechanism to replace him.