The Vietnam Comparison

Professor Bainbridge - I found him via Andrew Sullivan - is looking at an examination of whether the Vietnam war was "winnable". He also compares that war to Iraq.

[Professor Bainbridge]

This reminds me that a few weeks ago at one of these big-time peace conferences here in the District, old Robert Strange McNamara stood up during a panel's question period and told everyone what he thinks about nuclear weapons ("we don't need them"). I recall that he was behind the JFK administration's "no cities" nuke policy, so obviously he has always had an opinion about nukes. But, on the other hand, this is the guy who advised Kennedy when we got involved in Vietnam, and subsequently, he was advocating during the Johnson administration that the US escalate our presence in the country. Based on all this, I wondered when I saw him and I still wonder now, "why does anyone actually care what this guy has to say about anything?"

Some people do seem to care what he thinks. There was, after all, a recent movie about him and the "Fog of War" that apparently clouded his judgment during the 1960s. Other than his retrospective thoughts on his collosal failure as advisor to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, I simply don't much value his opinions, and certainly not on the efficacy or necessity of the American nuclear arsenal. His thinking both then and now doesn't strike me as too sound.

[McNamara on Wikipedia]
[Fog of War movie]