The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. ” That’s the main message I get out of this documentary. That’s why I give it high marks. It seems those that give it low scoring reviews think it is saying the opposite, and the majority who give it high reviews get the deeper anti war context. That Iraq can be another Vietnam. Maybe not exactly the same, but similar mistakes are being made. Is empathizing with your enemy necessary? Obviously. When you screw up and attack thinking you are going to capture nonexistent WMD and have a quick war when you don’t know the basics about the religions, fears, hopes, and motivation of at least 5 or 6 of the major groups living in the country. You don't even know about the WMD. What you then get is another 30 years of death, like Vietnam. When you simply excuse someone willing to blow themselves up for their cause as a coward, you either don’t understand the word coward or don’t want to understand the people. Does this film draw sympathy for Bush’s mistakes? Hell no. For me it show he is an idiot that didn’t study history, and doesn’t know his enemy. McNamara does try putting a positive spin on himself throughout it all. This clouds the issue, and especially seemed derogatory toward LBJ. But LBJ was the baby killer anyway, you can’t ruin his reputation much more. Seems to me McNamara has probably read the Ancient Chinese Sun Tzu’s paradoxical book Art of War. I highly recommend to anyone who enjoyed this film..