“There will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick nor easy. But we must never forget, this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defense of our people." - former U.S. President George W. Bush
The only thing misleading about the above quote is that those words were not spoken by George W. Bush, rather by our current president Barack Obama.
...In a pretty new package.
Shocking? Hardly.
Change we can believe in? Hardly?
Speaking at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Phoenix on Monday, Obama used the very same tired old rhetoric and flat out lies that "the left" criticized Bush endlessly for during his two terms. But here we are, six months into the Golden Age of Obama and no one says a damn thing - not so much as a tweet against the war. Not only is ending the wars off the table of American debate, it isn't even in the damn room.
War? What war?
Now that the shock of Michael Jackson's death has started to sink in, Americans have moved on to being wigged out about Obama's "socialist-Islamo-African" take over of "our rights" (the Right to be a loud-mouth jerk, the Right to carry around dangerous loaded weapons in public, the Right to be ignorant). No one, it seems, is paying attention to the Obama administration's scantily clad repackaging of the same old Bush foreign policies which are, I suppose, the same old Clinton foreign policies which are, I suppose...
So when the same old dummies from 2007 (Sen. McCain, Sen. Graham, Sen. Lieberman) don flak jackets and call a "news conference" at Kabul airport to call for an increase in troops, suggesting it could lead to "significantly more success," we just have to recall the jubilant cries from the 2008 Obama campaign:
YES, WE CAN! (occupy foreign countries, execute endless wars, and still have a nice day at the mall)
Well, no one should be surprised since really Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promises he and Joe Biden made in Denver during the Democratic National Convention last August.
As 84,000 flag-waving liberals panted and hooted, then-candidate Obama said:
"As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send our troops into harm's way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come home. I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts."
So here we are-- promise kept: The Iraq war is still being "ended responsibly" (2,400 more U.S. troops headed to Iraq last week and waves of explosions sweep Baghdad as I write this) and Obama is "finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban" as the highest U.S. troop numbers to date file into that country and violence swells.
You want more troops John McCain? You got it! And all that from our "ultra-left wing radical liberal" President Obama!
Change you can believe in? Sounds like MOTSOW (More of the same old wars) to me.
That's Empire you can depend on!
And even though the ugly, hateful images floating around with Obama portrayed as "the Joker" or Adolf Hitler are indicative of the latent racism and fear-mongering that is erupting like an infected zit on the forehead of American society, there is another image out there, while ugly, is hard to argue against. That picture shows a ghoulish skull-headed creature with a suit jacket and an oversized stars and strips lapel pin worn by the monster who, in the upper image, is removing a George W. Bush mask. Below, the same frightening monster is pulling on a Barack Obama mask over its skull and, on both monsters, the word "IMPERIALISM"
An image as ugly as the policies it represents...
Watching the "new" foreign policy take shape (or unravel as the case may be), it is hard to argue the ghoulish image is nothing, if not spot on.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For a keen look at how the left wing and the right wing of the American war bird flap in tandem while the American public goes stumbling along blindly, have a look at War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death based on Norman Solomon book.
"A foreigner is someone who speaks more than one language which can cause someone to be sympathetic to an alien expression, a gateway for UFOs and alien invasions. Polyglots are a threat to the American Dream which should be dreamt in English by a person with a valid birth certificate. It is this proud ignorance that makes the birther movement the only likely candidate for a "Dobbie" (award, named for CNN's Lou Dobbs)." - Andrei Cordescu, NPR 8-6-09
If you are reading this post, than there is a very good chance that you, like me, are concerned that our country has been hijacked from the inside by a FOREIGNER. This is not just alarming, it is downright terrifying. Downright.
Increasingly, foreigners are everywhere, from our convenient stores and our Wal-marts to our churches, gun shops, hospitals, schools, and even government buildings. As CNN's Lou Dobbs has pointed out, our borders are porous and woefully inadequate at keeping the foreigners out of this Great Land.
Recently, more and more Americans are waking up to the fact that were it not for America and the efforts of our brave men and women in uniform, the whole world would be engulfed in a sea of foreign-ness. Imagine a world in which no one spoke English, used the Dollar, read the Bible or protect our right to bear arms!
Now, imagine what will happen if we don't insist on getting to the bottom of Barack Obama's so-called "birth certificate." Chaos and pandemonium can only be days away.
Having said that, I am also wrestling with a couple of disturbing discoveries. More and more, I am beginning to harbor deep suspicions that Queen of the Birthers, and respected attorney/dentist/pundit/freedom defender Orly Taitz may herself be of foreign origin. I'm not quite sure why, but I can't help but wonder...
More troubling, however, is this authentic document that was recently uncovered on the Internets which seems to indicate, possibly even prove, that Lou Dobbs himself was born in Kenya to an unwed, underage girl from Texas and a Saudi-born muzzein at a mosque in Kenya. This document shows clearly that Dobbs was born in an African mosque stairwell to a foreigner, and so he too must be foreign. Troubling, I know...
Lou Dobbs himself appears to have been born in the stairwell of an African mosque to a Saudi father.
Worse still are the revelations I uncovered in revisiting my own son's birth. Although I was there in the delivery room on that Saturday in October 2004 when my son was delivered from his mother's womb, and although I watched the nurses clean my newborn son and let me cut the umbilical cord, I have good reason to suspect he too may be a foreigner.
"Fooled at birth?" documents can be forged, doctors can be bribed... how can I be sure my "Hawaiian-born" son is not a foreigner?
Shocking, I know, but when I dug out his "birth certificate," I found that it looked identical to the one the Obama regime insists is American. Both Obama and my son have a foreign-born parent and both claim to have been born in the United States yet neither can produce anything more convincing than an "official document" issued by the State of Hawaii which has been stamped, dated, certified and signed.
Until now I had no reason to suspect my own son might too be foreign, but the evidence continues to mount. This week I also found a Japanese passport with my son's own photo and name clearly displayed on the first inside page. My son frequently uses non-English words like "asobu," "oshikko" and "choudai" - clearly a sign of foreign-ness. Although just going into kindergarden, he can point out Senegal, Pakistan and China on a world map and knows that Russia has bears and Australia has kangaroos. Clearly, something is amiss.
What's left for me to believe other than my own son, claiming to have been born in America, while flaunting a Hawaiian "Certificate of Live Birth," is nothing but a foreigner, and a deceptive one at that.
He, like Obama, is tainted with non-American blood, and perhaps both of them are conspiring to tear this nation apart at this very moment.
The news cycle has become so fast that when events occur, stories are reported, analyzed, debated and then dropped for the next one before the public has the time (or makes the time) to fully absorb the issues they are continuously bombarded with or consider them in greater context.
Whether a major political event (post-election demonstrations in Iran), a dramatic accident (Air France crash off Brazil), a titillating scandal (South Carolina Governor Sanford’s Argentinean rendevous), a global health crisis (H1N1 flu), or the American media’s favorite event, a celebrity death (Farrah, Michael, Walter), it seems each story has about six to ten days to be seriously milked and then, no matter how juicy, it’s cast aside in favor of the next BREAKING NEWS. (Wars, it should be noted, don’t merit much attention other than as a kind of low-grade static hum that never ends but one which news consumers just get used to ignoring).
One story that got huge play last week which already seems to be “dying down,” having hit the critical ten day mark, is the well-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gate Jr. at his own home. Cambridge police were responding to a call from a passerby who saw Gates and a friend forcing open a stuck door (of Gates’ own home). When police arrived, Gates was inside his house on the phone with the university reporting the door as in need of repair. The police reported Gates was very agitated and upset when the police demanded his I.D.
According to the police, Gates was shouting accusations of racial bias, but he did produce two piece of identification to prove he was indeed in his own home. Gates says that when he asked the arresting officer for his name and badge number, the officer – Sgt. James Crowley – refused to comply. Gates was eventually lured out of his house and onto the front porch where he was arrested for disorderly conduct and taken into custody.
There's something happening here,
what it is ain't exactly clear
The whole incident has been thoroughly reported and debated, but what I think is safe to say is that most Americans in a similar situation as Prof. Gates might be a little cranky with the police after providing two forms of I.D. and proving they were indeed in their own home. Even if Gates was in fact disorderly, why was it necessary for the police to lure him out of his front door where he could legally be arrested and hauled off? Why didn’t the police, having satisfied their duties and determined that Gates was not a burglar, just leave him to rant and rave (if that is what he was indeed doing) inside his own home. How disorderly can a 58-year-old Harvard professor armed only with a walking stick alone in his own home be? Was it really necessary to arrest him?
You step out of line,
the man come and take you away
Whether Gates was black, white, purple or green, one has to wonder, at what point is a law abiding citizen fair game for the police to arrest in his own home? One could easily ask if perhaps both Gates and the police wanted the other one to “bring it on” so they could prove their own points. Only those at Gates’ house at that time can know for sure.
Later in the week, the story gained new, bigger legs when President Obama, usually very eloquent and careful with his words, carelessly used the blunt criticism “acted stupidly” in referring to the Cambridge Police arrest of Gates. This characterization by Obama was sure to backfire and probably he or the people around him very quickly realized that his comments had the potential to do real damage and could come back to bite him in a number of ways.
There's battle lines being drawn,
nobody's right if everybody's wrong
By Friday Obama expressed regret over how he added heat, but not light to the Gates affair and admitted that he could have “calibrated his words differently.” Obama announced that he was considering inviting both Officer Crowley and Professor Gates to the White House for a beer (and presumably some high profile photos of everyone smiling and shaking hands).
By Saturday Gates had publicly said he was ready to move on and, aside from the smiling beer-on-the-lawn moment to come, this story may have run its course or will at least fade into the background as next week’s crises and disasters unfold.
But before we move on to whatever tragedies and scandals next week may offer, it is worth pausing to consider the current atmosphere of racial tensions, particularly black-white relations, in the U.S. today.
There are a number of disturbing examples of many white Americans ongoing fear and distrust of black Americans, not the least of which is the unbelievable story (get ready all you folks reading this outside the United States…) of continuing efforts to demonstrate Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.
From early in the last presidential campaign, and still today, Obama has been portrayed as everything from a Muslim to a socialist, a communist, a radical liberal, and a non-U.S. citizen. Such wild claims are easy to laugh off as a hollow scare tactic intended to motivate and excite the uneducated, but the story is being given plenty of attention by CNN commentator, the self-proclaimed “tough, relentless, independent” Lou Dobbs.
Paranoia strikes deep,
into your life it will creep,
it starts when you're always afraid
Incredibly, Dobbs continues to pursue the “story,” now more than six months into Obama’s term. Dobbs says he believes Obama is indeed a U.S. citizen but that he thinks Obama should present his birth certificate just to dispel rumors. Never mind Obama’s Certification of Live Birth document can be seen online here, Dobbs and others just want to make sure.
Last week Jon Stewart examined CNN and Dobbs' dogged pursuit of the question of Obama's birthplace and, as nobody but Stewart could, brilliantly revealed Obama as having fooled the world with the "Kenyan Prince Birth Announcement Scam."
On June 30 Delaware Republican Congressman Mike Castle was confronted at a town hall meeting by an angry woman toting an American flag who wanted to know why Rep. Castle and other law makers were “ignoring the question of Obama’s birth certificate.” When Castle said that the president is an American citizen, he was booed.
More frightening though, was later in the meeting when the aforementioned crackpot commandeered the meeting and insisted that all in attendance immediately stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and Congressman Castle, apparently afraid of looking un-American, joined in with the recitation.
If you haven't read Naomi Wolf's The End of America,check it out. You can see how we barely need any type of fascism imposed on us - many Americans are mentally already there and primed to follow in the steps of the "good Germans" of the 1930s, having deep faith in their Christian God, a deep-rooted fear of both internal and external "enemies," and being unfettered by a comprehensive understanding of people and events beyond their own church yard, gun shop and big box stores.
How else can one explain this irrational fear of America being infiltrated at the very top by a foreign-born black Muslim?
As utterly comedic as all this sounds, it comes against an American cultural and social backdrop in which:
- Political pundit Pat Buchanan recently appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show talking about how America was built “by white folks.” See Maddow’s brilliant refutation of his “facts” here.
- Fox News network host Brian Kimeade spoke about how Americans “keep marrying other species and other ethnics (sic).”
A thousand people in the street,
singing songs and carrying signs
mostly say, hooray for our side
- Demonstrators in Paris, Texas protested the dismissal of charges against two white men arrested in the dragging death of 24-year-old Brandon McClelland, an African American man. Last September McClelland died after being dragged 70-feet beneath a truck. The charges were dismissed due to “lack of evidence,” prompting members of a Black Panther’s group and white supremacists to demonstrate outside the court room with respective protesters shouting “black power!” and “white power!”
- In early July, a group of mostly black young day camp children were denied entry and had their pre-paid fees returned from The Valley Club, a suburban swim club in Philadelphia. The club’s president said quote: “There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion…and the atmosphere of the club.”
I could go on and on, but you get the point.
The message I take away from this assemblage of stories and statements from America in the summer of 2009 is this: racism in America, far from being stamped out or even driven into retreat, is alive and well.
If you have the time and interest, Chris Hedges presents a truly frightening profile of white Americans who are well-armed and ready to fight to “take back their country.” The 25-minute documentary shows what fear, frustration, military training, liberal gun laws, and a weak education system can produce – it is pretty terrifying stuff.
It’s not enough to fear the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the North Koreans, the Venezuelans, the leftists, the socialists, the communists, the French, the Arabs, the Muslims, the Indians, non-English speakers, Mexicans and other Latinos, many white Americans have a need to fear other Americans, especially if they have African roots.
From Los Angeles to Philadelphia and Paris, Texas to Cambridge, Massachusetts, all the way to the doors of the White House, it doesn’t matter if you are the King of Pop, a distinguished professor, a 10-year-old day camper or the President of the United States, if you are black, it seems you are still held in suspicion, still seen as having to bear the burden of proof that you are who you say you are, that this really is your home and really is your country.
Next week, and beyond, as the news cycle spits out ever-new stories and dramas, it's in everyone’s interest to give the above matters serious thought. What will it take to move beyond these issues of race, and how can we learn from what’s going down?
Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl in a Taliban-made video. July 14, 2009
Nearly three weeks after his capture in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, a 23-year-old American soldier from Idaho named Bowe Bergdahl has the extreme misfortune of explaining himself and U.S. foreign policy before a video camera operated by his captors.
Given the circumstances under which the video was made, what Bergdahl says is not surprising - he wants to go home, the U.S. should not be in Afghanistan, American soldiers are told Afghani civilian deaths "don't matter", and so on.
In the 28-minute video (on Youtube here), Bergdahl, who worked as a barista in a coffee shop in Hailey, Idaho and was active as a ballet dancer, is seen seated cross-legged answering questions and, at the end of the video, eating rice, bread and what looks like green tea.
In response to the video, a U.S. military spokesman said, "We condemn the use of this video and the public humiliation of prisoners. It is against international law."
Unfortunately, these words ring hollow when one considers American treatment of its own prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba and so-called "black sites" around the world. Recalling ugly images and descriptions of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib, Bagram Air Base, Gitmo, as well as Charleston, South Carolina (see; Padilla, Jose).
Prisoners held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
Bowe Bergdahl, it seems, is now a pawn in a war of images. He knows, as everyone else does, that footage of him being questioned in a civil manner, looking well-taken care of, dressed in clean, local garb, indeed eating a meal, are in stark contrast with the vile display of naked prisoners, hooded and stacked in pyramids, or orange-jump suit-clad hooded detainees kneeling against fences, or any one of hundreds of other painful images of those captured and held by the American military.
Images of detainee abuse from Abu Ghraib prison won't fade any time soon.
For the U.S. military to bark about "international law" and "humiliation of prisoners" now is only cruel irony. Thanks to the policies and precedents established under George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others, America has no legs on which to stand when it comes to talking about issues of "international law" and humane treatment of prisoners.
This glaring irony must, in itself, be a form of torture (at least mentally) that haunts young Bowe Bergdahl the ballet dancer and his own family and friends as they ponder his fate.
Argemone glauca (pua kala) and Layasan albatross on Lehua islet, Hawaii Photos by Ken Wood, NTBG
Far from the kitchens and gardens of Hilo, the clamor of Honolulu’s Chinatown and the eateries along Lahaina’s Front Street, tiny Lehua pokes its head out of the water off the northern tip of Niihau. At 290 acres, Lehua is Hawaii’s largest offshore islet, a crescent-shaped tuff crater floating like a mirage within view from Kauai’s western shores. An uninhabited volcanic lip too steep and dry to support humans or agriculture, Lehua is home to a restoration project that holds a valuable lesson about conservation and balance.
Bathed in almost constant sunshine, Lehua is surrounded by clear blue waters and, removed from civilization, at first glance appears to be an ideal “desert island” until you consider the reality of an extremely arid environment with scant resources.
Long ago Hawaiians likely used the island to gather birds, eggs and feathers and the remains of a kuula (Hawaiian fishing shrine) indicate Lehua was an important fishing ground. Only half a mile from Niihau, Lehua’s waters are filled with sea turtles, manta rays, whales and dolphins, but with a healthy shark population that includes occasional great whites, this is not Gilligan’s Island.
It is, however, one of Hawaii’s most important breeding grounds for seabirds, many found nowhere else in the Islands. According to the Offshore Islet Restoration Committee, a multi-agency group that surveys and protects over 40 of Hawaii’s largest islets, Lehua supports at least 35 species of birds like the red-footed booby, Newell’s shearwater, and the rare black-footed albatross. Unlike those on larger, populated Hawaiian islands, birds on Lehua thrive without dogs, cats, humans or cars.
Frequently overlooked, but of no less importance, are insects, including 11 species endemic to Hawaii.Many of these tiny inhabitants serve as plant pollinators and play an important role in maintaining the islet’s ecological balance.
Over the last century, the greatest damage to Lehua has come from feral rabbits and rats. Whether introduced intentionally or accidentally, these creatures have decimated native plants and some bird species while causing loss of vegetation, leading to soil instability and increased sediment runoff into the ocean, extending their impact beneath the waves. Before any restoration efforts could begin, the rabbits and rats had to be removed.
Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partners with the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) to reintroduce and maintain native plants, which are expected to improve nesting and habitat conditions for birds and help restore the islet.
NTBG’s Conservation Director, Dr. David Burney, explains the importance of the project. “Lehua has the best potential for long-term, large-scale conservation in the entire Hawaiian Islands. It has an extremely effective fence called the Pacific Ocean which pigs and goats can’t get over. It’s also the largest nearby island which can be reached in just under an hour by catamaran.”
Burney calls Lehua a “toothless island” for its lack of mammals, which he says will help native plants, land snails and birds like the endangered Nihoa finch get re-established.
Because Lehua receives very little rainfall, NTBG had to go to extreme lengths to water the young plants, transporting 100 gallons of fresh water at a time by boat charter, offloading on the Lehua’s southern flank below the plant introduction site. Using five-gallon water containers and surfboards, conservation staff ferried water to land, then used a small pump to drive the water to the highest point above the planting site. An open-valve gravity-fed drip line allowed small amounts of water to sustain the young plants as they became established. Today rain catchment tanks capture any precipitation.
Since botanist Ken Wood’s first trip to Lehua in 2001, he and fellow NTBG staff have visited at least 25 times to bring water, monitor progress and scatter native seeds.The Kauai-based institute is growing native plants like hinahina, naupaka, aalii, portulaca, naio (false sandalwood), ma`o (Hawaiian cotton), maiapilo (Hawaiian caper) and nanea (beach pea) for outplanting on Lehua. These, and native grasses like pili, kawelu and akiaki, have been selected based on fossil evidence that suggests they once grew on Lehua or neighboring islands.
As reintroduced plants recover, they join successful Hawaiian plants like ilima and pua kala (native poppy) which still occur naturally on Lehua.
And while Lehua is largely unknown by the general public, floating a world away from the dramas and delights of the human world, its health, balance and role as a connection between creatures of the seas, skies and soil, make it a prime example of the importance of conservation on all the Hawaiian islands and beyond.
NTBG’s Assistant Director of Living Collections and Horticulture Mike DeMotta says, “the lesson of Lehua is that it’s easier to preserve what we already have than to go back and fix it."
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1961-68), TIME magazine, Feb. 16,1963
The death of Robert McNamara marks the passing of one of the most complex, and still widely reviled figures from the Vietnam era. As Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson (1961 -68), McNamara oversaw the U.S. military during what was generally considered to be, up until our current forays into Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, the most disastrous and destructive war undertaken by America.
During McNamara's tenure as Secretary of Defense, some 16,000 U.S. soldiers died in Vietnam (with 42,000 more to follow). How many Vietnamese died? Two million? Some say three million with perhaps 750,000 dead in Laos and Cambodia. The numbers hide the actual horrors.
McNamara remained famously and frustratingly tight-lipped about his role in Vietnam for many years, but eventually did open up in a brilliant film by Errol Morris called The Fog of War which was first released at Cannes in May 2003, exactly three weeks after George W. Bush's infamous "mission accomplished" speech.
If you've never seen this film, watch it. If you haven't seen it in a while, watch it again. It serves as a stark reminder why we were wrong in Vietnam and why, tragically, unforgivably, we are making the very same mistakes again four decades later in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Pakistan.
The film is based on a series of interviews with McNamara in which he very candidly and, with a visible sense of regret, painfully reflects on the American war making he has witnessed during his own life beginning with his earliest memory of Armistice Day, November 11, 1918 up to his time serving in the Pacific during World War II and his days as Secretary of Defense during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the escalation of America's war in Vietnam through 1968.
McNamara, who has been described as everything from a "whiz kid" and "brainy" to an "arrogant dictator," "war monger" and "con-man," comes clean, to a degree, as he lays out 11 lessons he says he has learned during his life. A decidedly troubled-looking McNamara, now looking back at wars he has experienced, asks questions about human judgment and unavoidable mistakes, about the morality vs. immorality in making war, and the what he describes as the importance of empathizing with one's enemy.
He asks if it is right and proper that there are 7,500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2,500 are on a 15-minute alert to be launched by the decision of one human being.
"In order to win a war, should you kill 100,000 people in one night?"
To give viewers a sense of proportionality, and perhaps illicit some empathy, McNamara lists some of the main Japanese cities where large portions of the civilian populace was killed before Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed. As the names Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Toyama, Kobe, and others flash on the screen, they are followed with the names of American cities of similar size flashing beside their Japanese equivalent with a background of archival footage of pulverized Japanese cities.
"I think the human race needs to think more about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good?"
It is hard to watch the film and not feel that McNamara has, albeit belatedly, "seen the light."
In one telling moment, McNamara recalls the words of Air Force General Curtis LeMay who said, "'If we'd lost the war, I think we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals.' And I think he's right," McNamara says. "He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals." With a bleak facial expression that can only be described as grim recognition, McNamara asks, "What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
THEN Sec. Defense Robert McNamara with President Lyndon Johnson in November of 1967. Photo by Yoichi Okamoto/LBJ Library
The film documents a deteriorating situation in Vietnam and McNamara's clashes with President Johnson and his own speculation of what might have been had Kennedy not be assassinated. Liberal use of archival footage and raw reel-to-reel taped conversations reveal a White House script from the 1960s which could have been taken straight from the mouths of Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld in the 2000s.
NOW: Robert McNamara (seated) shaking hands with Sec. Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2003. Photo by Stephen Crowley/New York Times.
As the above eerie photo reveals, history is repeating itself in a number of ways. Above we have Robert McNamara who oversaw the early years of the disaster of Vietnam shaking hands with Don Rumsfeld who oversaw the early years of the disaster(s) of Afghanistan and Iraq. McNamara and Rumsfeld were born only 16 years and one month (to the day) apart and they look like they could be brothers. From the matching staid navy jackets and blue neck ties, the thinning slicked-back greasy hair, the wire-rimmed glasses and the greyish skin stretched over their thin frames, the two make for downright spooky apparitions.
The difference, we may find one day, is that unlike McNamara who, at times, appears to show honest remorse and regret, Rumsfeld might simply lack the humanity and humility do the same. And though it is impossible to say McNamara was not an enabler and facilitator of the war in Vietnam, he does at least, in The Fog of War, admit the policies during his tenure were "wrong, terribly wrong."
He continues:
"The conventional wisdom is don't make the same mistake twice. Learn from your mistakes."
Unfortunately, if you take the time to read Robert McNamara's 11 lessons from his 1995 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, you can see clearly that during the Bush administration, and now under the Obama administration, we are committing the exact same mistakes McNamara warns of in our current wars.
We misjudged then — and we have since — the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
Our judgments of friend and foe, alike, reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
We failed then — and have since — to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces, and doctrine.
We failed, as well, to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
After the action got under way, and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening, and why we were doing what we did.
We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
Confronting Washington's current leader's folly against the backdrop of eternity, McNamara must be shuddering in his grave. Perhaps the one thing we can do to see that McNamara's realizations were not all for naught, is to watch the film, consider the ideas, and learn from our errors.
I am a freelance writer and photographer on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. I also work as an editorial and production assistant in the publishing department of the National Tropical Botanical Garden.
...In a pretty new package.
