--- Bryon Daly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Interestingly, I heard the NBC Pentagon > correspondent on > a radio interview today with an entirely different > perspective. > He said that he was starting to hear doubts about > the war > voiced privately by assorted civilian and military > sources. > He then mentioned some of th ecomplaints about > Rumsfeld > and brought up a comparison between Rumsfeld and the > Sec. > of Def. during Vietnam, Bob Mc Namara. The > reporter's > apparent claim was that the problems with Vietnam > were > largely Mc Namara's fault, that he had no real > intention of > winning the war, and that the Joint Chiefs of Staff > were > marching in lockstep with him.
Hi Bryon. There's _more_ than enough blame to go around in this situation. MacNamara certainly deserves a large portion of it - the ultimate blame of course going to LBJ, but MacNamara shares in it. It was his responsibility to do as Rumsfeld is doing now - to question the plans created by the Generals, and to force them to take into account political factors and strategic goals. And finally, if he didn't get satisfactory answers, to relieve them. No American President since Lincoln has (imo) properly used his position as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, with the possible exception of FDR, who didn't have to because he had a genius as his chief military lieutenant. It always helps when George C. Marshall is running your military operations. And now George Bush who, via Rumsfeld, seems to be handling things quite well. I wouldn't say that MacNamara had no intention of winning the war, I would say that he had no clue how to do it - although it was (imo, again) possible. Just not for him. The military (well, the Army and Air Force, anyways) has convinced itself that the failures were all on MacNamara's fault because it doesn't want to face the fact that the Chief's themselves didn't have a clue how to do this. The Marines did, but no one listened to them, unfortunately. I agree that the Chiefs were marching in lockstep with him - he never challenged them, so it's not surprising that they did. What he needed to do was go and pound on the table and demand that they explain to him how their ideas were going to take us to victory. If he had done so, he might have found out earlier that they weren't going to. A quick question - can anyone think of something that MacNamara did _not_ screw up in his career? Ford Motors, the Defense Department, the World Bank... Is that what you were looking for, Bryon, or did I misunderstand you? Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://platinum.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
