Ellen Goodman: Clearing away the war fog

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/01/clearing_away_the_war_fog/

THERE WAS a moment in "The Fog of War" when I thought this sober film on the life and times of Robert McNamara should be required viewing for those who believe that even a good war is free of moral dilemmas. Remembering the firebombing of Tokyo, the death of 100,000 civilians in one night in World War II, McNamara asks: Would we have been tried as war criminals if we'd lost?

There was another moment when I thought the film should be viewed as well by those who believe that American vulnerability began on Sept. 11, 2001.

Remembering the Cuban missile crisis, the old Cold Warrior says: "At the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war."

But by the time the film ran through the aging whiz kid's schoolbook -- "Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara" -- I was convinced that it should be seen most of all by those who are too young to remember when the Vietnam War was called McNamara's War.

No, I am not someone who believes that Iraq is another Vietnam. Every war -- if I may mangle Tolstoy -- is unhappy in its own way. But you can't hear McNamara alternately justifying and apologizing for his role as secretary of defense, running his tongue across the painful tooth of his involvement again and again, without hearing echoes.

[KoKo]

1. Yes........what else can one say about this article?

It deserves a read. And, sounds like the movie is a must for DU'ers here who know nothing about why Vietnam was Important! AND, why we must NEVER FORGET the "lessons of Vietnam."