We of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations acted according to what we thought were the principles and traditions of our country. But we were wrong. We were terribly wrong.
Former Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, to Kennedy and Johnson has died aged 93 years. He will be remembered as the architect for the Vietnam War. Years later he had an attack of the mea culpa (see Oscar winning documentary, Fog of War).
McNamara’s Vietnam strategy killed millions of people, similar to war criminal Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, the imperialist enforcer, who intellectualises about the necessity of war mongering. Though I don’t think Kissinger has been plagued by a guilty conscience.
McNamara was maybe a complex flawed man riddled with guilt but he took his time in becoming public about his doubts and condemnation. And witnessing the repeating farce and tragedy of history, he opposed the Iraq War (“It’s just wrong what we’re doing. It’s morally wrong, it’s politically wrong, it’s economically wrong.”).
Though McNamara recanted he was still part of a war mongering cabal. I suspect that the likes of Kissinger, Blair, Thatcher, Bush (both senior and junior) will probably all die in their beds unpunished for their war crimes and global terrorism.
Justice doesn’t prevail.
July 7, 2009 at 12:56 am |
Oh, that there were a just god and a hot hell…
July 7, 2009 at 9:49 am |
The Australian media hasn’t said much about this guy. Let’s hope when it comes time for Bush and Co. to meet there makers, they’re as irrelevant here also.
July 7, 2009 at 11:13 am |
There was an extra large obituary In the Sydney Morning Hereald and McNamara prominent role in the Vietnam War was featured on Dateline about three years. So many of Nixon’s backstreet boys were questionable for years after and yet they still managed to hang on to some government position!