Worth a look: The Fog of War

The War in Iraq has been on my mind a lot today for some reason - I guess it's because it's all over the news. It got to me thinking about a stunningly insightful film I saw a few months ago - The Fog of War. Normally, I only bring you movie trailers about current or recently released films, but I decided to post this one because it relates so well to Iraq. It's an amazing film, centered on Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who served in that capacity under JFK's entire administration and nearly all of Lyndon Johnson's.

A brilliant man, McNamara's arrogance and hubris got the best of him, his president, his nation, and the lives of thousands of young American men who died in Vietnam, over a civil war that we had no business butting our noses into. But, under the guise of fighting the Cold War, that's precisely what we did.

Sound familiar? Just substitute Donald Rumsfeld for McNamara, Iraq for Vietnam, and War on Terror for Cold War, and you could shoot another documentary, with the cooperation of Rumsfeld. Of course, you have a better chance of President Bush resigning than getting Rumsfeld to admit a mistake.

Anyway, the film is absolutely apropos to contemporary thinking about American military might and our disastrous foray into Iraq, all in the name of fighting terror and spreading Democracy.

The film is excellent for other reasons, too. McNamara takes the viewer on a historic tour of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and of course, Vietnam. It's very instructive about the perils of glorifying war, which America has a monopoly on.



And I couldn't resist to bring you one more clip from the movie - it's McNamara's take on the nuclear bombing of Japan. I'm not sure I totally agree, but he's got a whole lot more expertise on the subject than I could ever dream of. Regardless of your point of view, it is thought provoking.

After watching it, still think war is all glory? I sure as hell hope not. Japan had it coming, no question, and in the end, I think dropping the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the right decision, because Japan wasn't going to surrender unless it was absolutely forced to do so. However, the firebombing of Tokyo, killing 100,000 civilians? I'm not sold on that one. McNamara offers up a stunner at the end of this clip, saying Curtis LeMay thought American generals would have been prosecuted as war criminals had we lost the war. Wow.

My point in bringing this up now is that war should absolutely be the last resort, not the first one. World War II had to be fought. Iraq did not and does not.