MysteriousFaith

DVD Review: The Fog of War

For so many years McNamara no doubt was able to sleep only by justifying his actions through some complex idea of the “rightness” of decisions he had made. But as his life has progressed he has lost the ability to rationalize it all away, as his comments on proportionality betray. Do we have to do evil in order to do good? Perhaps here too the issue of proportionality should be introduced: few actions in war can be without the loss of innocent lives. I would suggest the more right the war the more likely it will be that you do not have to engage in evil to do good. When we accept doing evil to accomplish good we are no longer doing good, we are acting purely in the mode of self-preservation, a mode that holds selfishness up as a higher ideal than any good, a mode of thinking that rationalizes revenge all too easily.

Movie Review: The Fog of War - 11 Lessons from the Life of Robert McNamara

The Fog of War is a documentary covering Robert McNamara’s life from his involvement in planning bombing runs during World War II through to his job as Secretary of Defense during the war in Vietnam. McNamara is a divisive person within almost all political circles, both conservative and liberal. For many conservatives, McNamara was part of the malaise of Vietnam; specifically through his too-direct involvement in handling the war in Vietnam. For liberals, McNamara represents part of the established political system of the day that proactively justified and then engaged in a morally bankrupt war. McNamara is an easy target, in large part because demonizing him is much more easy than attempting to come to terms with the more insidious and difficult issues related to America’s motives, agenda and misguided policies that led to the disaster we know as the war in Vietnam. This DVD identifies eleven lessons from the life of Robert McNamara; his decisions, his policies, and his regrets come together powerfully to present some critical issues to those who wish to listen. McNamara’s sorrow over specific decisions during World War II and Vietnam are powerfully insightful moments. When his voice occasionally breaks and his emotions betray him, you see an old man painfully aware that the cold intellectual separation that allowed him to engender complex rationalizations for his policies has slipped away, tempered by old age and the realization of his own mortality. Most importantly, these moments allow us a glimpse into his own questioning of the morality of his decisions. As Americans struggle to understand the current Iraqi war, this DVD has a special place specifically in how it presents the decisions our leaders make for us when they decide to use force in the name of ideology, safety and security.

Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy.

At first glance, this may seem to be the most important lesson we can take away from the DVD. Perhaps better said, empathy with the people we are fighting with should be the foundation upon which we build the mechanics of any force we use as a nation. For some people, typically pacifists, empathy means they can never envision a reality where war is necessary. I disagree with these people, although I admire their empathy, their humility and their belief in the ability of humans to set aside differences, find common ground and avoid conflict; however, this mindset does not protect the weak from the strong, and is not a viable position for a nation to be governed by. It is when we engage with real evil that we may have to fight back; McNamara’s point here is to never forget that the enemy is human also. I would go a step further and suggest that we remember that our enemies have their own rationalizations that explain their behavior. In some cases these rationalizations are pure evil and no amount of empathy would change our understanding of their hateful intentions. In other cases, as in the case of the war with Iraq, empathy with the Iraqi people might create a different set of policies than those the Bush administration has utilized. It is wrong, and it is a malicious effort to hide behind the most human of emotions, empathy for the downtrodden, in an effort to accomplish a wider political objective.

Lesson #2: Rationality will not save us.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is remembered as the consummate example of the triumph of rationality, nuance and diplomacy within the lexicon of American foreign policy. History has recorded this event as a success couched within the balance of a threat of military force, back-door diplomacy and using the international political forum (at that time the now much maligned UN) to resolve what could have escalated into World War III. McNamara wants us to know that “In the end it was luck that saved us.” Perhaps he is dumbing things down a bit in the interests of acknowledging how much remained out of control in the moment when contrasted to what we now see as dynamic balance and strong leadership. But perhaps McNamara is also saying as simply as he can that sometimes winning involved catching a break.

To make his point more powerfully, McNamara recounts a story about a meeting he had with Fidel Castro. In 1992 McNamara went to Cuba and met Castro. During his meeting, McNamara was told that before the Cuban Missile Crisis Russia had already positioned 162 nuclear weapons in Cuba - 90 of which were tactical nuclear weapons. McNamara admits he was flummoxed at this revelation. McNamara told Castro he had three questions: Did you know these weapons were on the island? If so, would you have recommended to Khrushchev to use the weapons? Lastly, what would the result have been for Cuba? Castro’s answers chilled McNamara: “Yes, I [Castro] knew they were on the island. Second, I would not have recommended it … I did recommend it to Khrushchev. Third and last, such a decision would have meant the annihilation of Cuba.” In that moment McNamara realized how close the world had come to being consumed in a global nuclear war; even the man who had the most to lose was willing to lose it all in the interests of his ideology and hate for the US. In the end, it was a combination of many complex factors, one of which was luck, which allowed the world to step back from the brink of apocalypse.

Lesson #5: Proportionality should be a guideline in war.

World War II is remembered, and rightly so, as a morally just war. Korea hides in the annals of American history stuck between a war Americans are proud to have been a part of and a war in Vietnam that remains a festering wound in the American psyche. When did things go so wrong for America? Was it, as I would suggest, in the world after WWII when Americans realized we were the world’s superpower and began to think like conquerors? When men in power used communism as a threat to justify the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about? Somewhere we began to lose our soul, to believe that the power of force we had gathered together to win World War II was the right technique and tool regardless of the situation? This gradual process of sacrificing our souls has culminated in an unjust, stupid and silly war in Iraq that will prove historically to do more to make the world more dangerous than any other decision made on the part of an empire in decline. I believe we can gain an insight into where America began to lose our way when McNamara provides a frightening insight into his decisions about bombing runs in Japan towards the end of WWII: “Killing 50-90% of the Japanese in 67 cities and bombing two of them with nuclear bombs is not proportional in the minds of some people … Lemay said if we lost the war we all would have been prosecuted as war criminals … and I think he was right … He and I would say that we were behaving as war criminals … What makes it moral or immoral is whether or not you win.” (Emphasis mine) The use of the atom bomb is still a hotly debated issue within the community of WWII scholars, in large part because those who disagree with the decision to drop the atom bombs believe they were an unnecessary a use of force. These historians are not so much against the use of the weapon itself (although in fairness these are the most heinous of weapons to be used, and to be used in situations that guaranteed maximum civilian deaths), but believe that the Japanese city bombings that proceeded the atom bombs are indicative of disproportionate use of force. McNamara’s point, and mine as well, is that our use of force must be proportional to the threat presented at that moment in time. The estimates of 10,000-13,000 civilian Iraqi deaths during our most recent invasion is an excellent example of the problem of using “shock and awe” to “free” a people. We lost 3,000 people in 9/11. What type of hate are we engendering in the Middle East through such a disproportionate use of force in the name of freedom?

Lesson #8: Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning.

McNamara’s commentary during this part of the DVD is haunting, specifically his comments about the role of bad information and the use of pre-emption: “What makes us omniscient … have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest economic and military power currently … I believe we should never apply that power unilaterally … If we had applied that reasoning in Vietnam we would never have been there … none of our allies were with us … none of those with comparable social values were with us.” We have all grown sick of the old saying that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. And yet, what can be said of the mistakes we made in Vietnam, and how those mistakes are being repeated in Iraq? If we pause to listen to McNamara’s warning we see two things, the poor intelligence and the unilateral action, that bode ominously for the war in Iraq.

Lesson #9: In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.

This is perhaps the most prescient of issues this DVD touches on, and it deserves more time and attention than the documentary can afford to provide. Pause and reflect on what he is saying: “in order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.” Shall we rephrase that in terms more germane to our dialogue of the day: it is OK to do wrong in order to do right. We can perhaps even suggest that if we accept this immoral morality two wrongs may in fact make a right! This is the awful paradox leadership many times finds itself in. But is a necessary paradox? Earlier in the DVD McNamara argues that proportionality is a necessary component of a just war; yet here he seems to want to keep a back door open. We can certainly appreciate his illogic as we are all guilty of similar arguments at some point in our personal and professional life; but it does not make us or him right. In this last point, the final lesson of McNamara’s life the filmmakers leave us with, we see the humanity and dynamic tension that remains unresolved for McNamara.

For so many years he no doubt was able to sleep only by justifying his actions through some complex idea of the “rightness” of decisions he had made. But as his life has progressed he has lost the ability to rationalize it all away, as his comments on proportionality betray. Do we have to do evil in order to do good? Perhaps here too the issue of proportionality should be introduced: few actions in war can be without the loss of innocent lives. I would suggest the more right the war the more likely it will be that you do not have to engage in evil to do good. When we accept doing evil to accomplish good we are no longer doing good, we are acting purely in the mode of self-preservation, a mode that holds selfishness up as a higher ideal than any good, a mode of thinking that rationalizes revenge all too easily.

The moment revenge becomes a part of our thinking - something that under girds support of Bush’s invasion of Iraq for many Americans - we have opened up to the possibility of doing wrong in order to do right. For those moralists who advocate the slippery slope concept, what direction are we sliding towards if we acknowledge revenge as a proper motive for using force? If this is, in fact, where many Americans find themselves in their justification for the war in Iraq, our society stands to lose many precious civil liberties and freedoms in the future as violence begets more violence and as we gradually lose our soul to the belief that evil may be accommodated as long as it is an evil we oppose.

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• October 23, 2004

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