McNamara Revisited

Watching The Fog of War in class was a truly eye-opening experience for me. Though I started the film with a definite bias against Robert McNamara, I left class today feeling sympathetic towards him. Although I still find many of the actions he condoned--such as using atom bombs and agent orange--abhorrent, his rationale made sense and I found myself being glad I wasn't the one who was being forced to make these decisions. This documentary more than any of the other articles we read has convinced me that the problem of dirty hands is very real.

One major cause of violence that McNamara pointed out that I hadn't thought of was misunderstanding. We came to the conclusion in class that both sides of a war generally think they are in the right. Even groups like the Nazis--whose resort to war, as well as its conduct was obviously far from just--generally consider their own cause to be a morally sound rationale for going to war. What we did not discuss, however, was the possibility that both opposing parties could be genuinely just in their resort to war. We invaded Vietnam because we considered it necessary to stop the spread of communist regimes in order to protect our nation's safety. However, according to the Vietnamese foreign minister in the documentary, Vietnman was "fighting for [their] independence," and they saw the United States as "fighting to enslave [them]". According to the official, Vietnam saw the U.S. as an imperialist force. Many who have seen the effects of Western imperialism on native peoples and cultures may agree that fighting for one's freedom from imperialist rule may in fact be a just resort to war. So both countries viewed themselves as fighting for, to some degree, the same cause--to defend their citizens from other countries intending to harm them. This version of events is obviously simplified, but does illustrate that two forces can both be just in their resort to war if they don't have a clear understanding of their enemies' viewpoint.