EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- How the US Turned Three Pacifists into Violent Terrorists
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
Published on Monday, July 13, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Robert McNamara and Smedley Butler
There’s been a lot of ink spilled in the past week over how we ought
to think about the late Robert McNamara. (And yes, real ink, not just
virtual – even the remaining real newspapers were in on it.) Does the
fact that he came to realize that the Vietnam War (“McNamara’s War” to
some) was wrong even as he continued to pursue it as Lyndon Johnson’s
Defense Secretary make him a better or a worse person? And what of
his willingness to say it publicly – but only three decades later?
There may be a more useful way to think about him, however. And it
involves considering him not in conjunction with, say, Henry
Kissinger, who followed a course similar to his but apparently without
hesitation, but more in terms of General Smedley Butler, someone who
did learn from his experience.
Butler, of course, achieved far greater clarity than the ever-hedging McNamara did. Butler’s story is fairly well known: four years after a military career that included service in Cuba, China, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Haiti, and France, he wrote a book called “War is a Racket.” He gave speeches in which he would say things like, “during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
Whether any of this later-in-life understanding made Butler a better or worse person I do not know. What I do know, though, is that what Butler was willing to say and write was extremely helpful to more than one generation of antiwar activists: “Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to this guy, he should know.”
Likewise, I suggest to no one that they should get over their antipathy to Robert McNamara if that is what they feel – the evil that he and Kissinger and the rest did will long outlive them. And anyone who no longer hates the criminals should certainly remain outraged at their crimes. But let us take something of value out of McNamara’s life.
When we encounter potential military recruits looking to serve in one of the nation’s seemingly always available wars but not looking too closely at exactly what it is we’re fighting for because they assume our leaders wouldn’t lead them astray on matters of life and death, let’s tell them about Robert McNamara. If the man in charge of one of our wars could later write that what the US did at the time was “wrong, terribly wrong,” don’t we all owe it to ourselves to take a closer look at where those in power are leading us today?
And when it comes to questioning the conduct of modern war, it’s hard to beat McNamara’s comments in Errol Morris’ documentary film “The Fog of War”: “We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” he told Morris. “[General Curtis] LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.” And that was World War II he was talking about – the “good war.” Words to keep in mind the next time one of our drones accidently bombs a wedding.
A remark of McNamara’s made during a C-SPAN discussion of his 1995 memoir, “Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” is a good reminder of just how infuriating he could be, right to the end. In regard to Vietnam, he told his interviewer, “We were fighting -- and we didn't realize it -- a civil war. Now, true, obviously there were Soviet and Chinese influence and support and no question that the communists were trying to control South Vietnam, but it was basically a civil war.”
Well, if McNamara didn’t know it was a civil war, it wasn’t because tens of thousands of the war’s opponents hadn’t said so or because President Eisenhower hadn’t publicly acknowledged that Ho Chi Minh would have been elected president of Vietnam in a fair election.
But even if McNamara may never have been a man to be taken entirely at his word, what he went on to say on C-SPAN that day might just have some value today as the US plunges deeper into an already nearly eight year old war in Afghanistan: “And one of the things we should learn is you can't fight and win a civil war with outside troops, and particularly not when the political structure in a country is dissolved.”
Butler, of course, achieved far greater clarity than the ever-hedging McNamara did. Butler’s story is fairly well known: four years after a military career that included service in Cuba, China, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Haiti, and France, he wrote a book called “War is a Racket.” He gave speeches in which he would say things like, “during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
Whether any of this later-in-life understanding made Butler a better or worse person I do not know. What I do know, though, is that what Butler was willing to say and write was extremely helpful to more than one generation of antiwar activists: “Hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to this guy, he should know.”
Likewise, I suggest to no one that they should get over their antipathy to Robert McNamara if that is what they feel – the evil that he and Kissinger and the rest did will long outlive them. And anyone who no longer hates the criminals should certainly remain outraged at their crimes. But let us take something of value out of McNamara’s life.
When we encounter potential military recruits looking to serve in one of the nation’s seemingly always available wars but not looking too closely at exactly what it is we’re fighting for because they assume our leaders wouldn’t lead them astray on matters of life and death, let’s tell them about Robert McNamara. If the man in charge of one of our wars could later write that what the US did at the time was “wrong, terribly wrong,” don’t we all owe it to ourselves to take a closer look at where those in power are leading us today?
And when it comes to questioning the conduct of modern war, it’s hard to beat McNamara’s comments in Errol Morris’ documentary film “The Fog of War”: “We burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo — men, women and children,” he told Morris. “[General Curtis] LeMay said, ‘If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.’ And I think he’s right. He — and I’d say I — were behaving as war criminals.” And that was World War II he was talking about – the “good war.” Words to keep in mind the next time one of our drones accidently bombs a wedding.
A remark of McNamara’s made during a C-SPAN discussion of his 1995 memoir, “Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” is a good reminder of just how infuriating he could be, right to the end. In regard to Vietnam, he told his interviewer, “We were fighting -- and we didn't realize it -- a civil war. Now, true, obviously there were Soviet and Chinese influence and support and no question that the communists were trying to control South Vietnam, but it was basically a civil war.”
Well, if McNamara didn’t know it was a civil war, it wasn’t because tens of thousands of the war’s opponents hadn’t said so or because President Eisenhower hadn’t publicly acknowledged that Ho Chi Minh would have been elected president of Vietnam in a fair election.
But even if McNamara may never have been a man to be taken entirely at his word, what he went on to say on C-SPAN that day might just have some value today as the US plunges deeper into an already nearly eight year old war in Afghanistan: “And one of the things we should learn is you can't fight and win a civil war with outside troops, and particularly not when the political structure in a country is dissolved.”
Comments are closed
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
23 Comments so far
Show All"War is a Racket" should be mandatory reading for every high school student. Butler does a great job telling it like it is about war in his very short well written book.
Absolutely. Also include on the reading list: Soldiers in Revolt by David Courtright
odoco
And "War is a force that gives us meaning," by Hedges
And "The End of America," by Naomi Wolf
And "Confessions of an Economic Hitman," by J. Perkins
And "Voices in Wartime," by Himes
Community film showings would be a wonderful way to educate adults and adolescents about the utterly corrupt system, a perspective they will never find in MSM. Work with sympathetic teachers, churches, peace organizations, social justice groups, etc.
Fascism hates intelligence more than anything.
Agreed.
"If the man in charge of one of our wars could later write that what the US did at the time was “wrong, terribly wrong,” don’t we all owe it to ourselves to take a closer look at where those in power are leading us today?"
Absolutely we do. However, how do we see those in power when the media is on their side and hides the truth from us?
Democracies cannot survive when they don't have a free press. Ergo, the USA is not a democratic nation, neither in reality nor in its aspiration. We are a racket - a war profiteering, Ponzi scheming, delusional racket.
So, what do we do about it?
All we need to do is wait. At some point the rest of the kids on the playground will gang up on the bully and stomp the crap out of him. Hopefully. Because that is the ONLY way this crap is going to stop.
Most of us strive for self improvement. Both these men did finally understand through introspection what they did and did admit their mistakes.
McNamara is an example of one of those political 'experts' who, when given a task, concentrate on achieving a successful outcome of the task without considering the wisdom or morality of the means. Washington is filled with them. They gravitate to power like moths to a night-light. They normally haven't a clue they may be behaving like immoral monsters while pursuing their task, as thinking about such things would be counter-productive and contaminate what they would consider the purity of their action. They may only think so afterwards, when they can dispassionately consider what they did to serve the powerful; when it's too late to undo what they've done for little more than their personal achievement.
When the people put in charge of making the rules (laws)
break those rules, there are no rules...
Yes, I agree. "War is a Racket" should be mandatory high school reading. It is a powerful little pamphlet that is a heavy punch into the gut of capitalism and military intervention. Every America should read it. Iraq/Afghanistan is "deja vu all over again."
"War is a Racket" is all the more compelling since Butler was twice a recipient of the Medal of Honor, and he also received the Distinguished Service Medal and the Order of the Black Star( from France for his service in WWI.) So Butler was not only one of them; he was one of the most distinguished combat soldiers in American history. George Patton could not hold a candle to him. Yet he called capitalists a bunch of gangsters, which is what they are. And NOBODY could call his patriotism into question. They just said he was crazy.
I don't believe you can really compare Butler to McNamara. Butler was never a deep thinker; he was a soldier who realized what he did was wrong when he was older, and then tried to correct it. McNamara was an intellectual administrator who knew what he was doing was wrong at the time he did it, and yet he went on with it anyway to hold his position.
In the Fog of War, there is a tape that shows this to be true.
McNamara tried to talk LBJ out of escalating Vietnam and get out, but LBJ loses his temper and tells McNamara he wants some "boys killed over there." Then, McNamara sheepishly says OK.
McNamara should have resigned right then-he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.
Robert McNamara was one of General Curtis LeMay's bean counters during World War II, statistically projecting and self-justifying the efficacy of saturation bombing upon Japan. His observation about how we incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo (like happened in Dresden), and would have been treated as war criminals had the outcome of the hostilities been reversed, is probably the key to understanding the mentality of such men.
As long as we cling to the view that the end justifies the means (and the victor gets to write history) the war machine keeps churning along. What was so unique about Smedley Butler was that even though he "won" virtually every campaign he took part in, he was able to distance himself from such moral rationalizations after he retired from the active duty military with all his medals.
Good thing he did. But for Smedley Butler blowing the whistle, Franklin Roosevelt likely would have been taken down in a coup. Once again, the exception proves the rule.
Bill from Saginaw
Which shows that representative government mostly represents racketeers.
I just got done watching LESSONS last night. The man's maddening: persistently patronizing, repeatedly defensive, evasive, manipulative - maddeningly incomplete in his confessional posturings.
It's a valuable film.
I need to consult my Dante and see what rung of Hell McNamara belongs on. Maybe Satan will have to reach down and carve out a new one.
This article is wrong. Most of the ink that has been spilled has been over the death of Michael Jackson.
Such is the state of the corporate society in which we live.
We wouldn't want to focus on the death of a figure like McNamera who set the stage for needless wars and the Imperial presidency...oh no! That might upset people, particularly advertisers and the guys who run the media companies.
I'm pleased that Common Dreams has focused only the barest minimum on the death of a vacuous disturbed figure and spent far more time on a leader of state who's own character flaws have caused and continue to cause so much death and suffering in the world. ....when all that would have been needed...back at the bay of Tonkin...was just a smidgen of integrity and a requirement of truth.
In that sense, McNamara was, like the pop star, a true trend setter.
the MAD man when asked by me if he agreed that Depleted Uranium Munitions (DUM) should be added to the list of nuclear weapons he was trying to get banned concurrent with his "i-was-wrong-so-buy-my-book" tour: "no comment."
bastard probably still had stocks in "conventional" weapons.
I agree -- Butler's "War is a Racket" should be required reading in school, even grade school.
@Bill from Saginaw July 13th, 2009 1:06 pm: I'm surprised Tom Gallagher didn't mention one of Butler's most courageous acts -- revealing a conspiracy by wealthy industrialists to sage a coup and overthrow FDR, the democratically-elected president.
Some random thoughts:
-- I was encouraged that some of my friends who served in Vietnam knew the war was utter bullshit as early as 1968. They realized they were only fighting to stay alive, and not to bring democracy or freedom to the Vietnamese. Only the ambitious non-coms and officers pretended to believe Washington's crapola -- the grunts knew better than the journalists and pundits that the war was lost in the mid-'60s -- bombing and burning people out of their houses and villages, destroying their crops with Agent Orange and the like, supporting corrupt despots, and turning their lives into a living hell wasn't winning any hearts and minds and that's all America did in Southeast Asia.
-- If Truman and the US allies had respected the agreement made with Ho Chi Minh at the outset of WWII -- that Vietnam would have independence from France if Ho's troops fought against Japan -- there would have been no bloody war in Vietnam. Instead, they handed Vietnam back to France and the long revolution began. Ho was planning on using our own Constitution as the basis for his government, but the rabid anti-communists like Richard Nixon, distrusting Ho's desire to be independent, convinced themselves that 'independence' meant he was going to ally himself with the USSR or Red China. Ironically, that is what drove Ho to seek aid from both communist countries. Then as now, the right-wingers caused the problems they were purportedly trying to prevent, although our Military-Industrial Complex and right-wing politicians were very pleased with that turn of events. So was the CIA, as who knows how many millions of dollars of opium was flown out of the country thanks to The Company's Air America air service. Who ended up with the money from the opium is still a mystery.
-- It's said that just before the 1968 presidential election, Nixon sent Kissinger to Paris to illegally derail a deal that Johnson and North Vietnam had brokered to end the war before the election. Nixon was convinced that if the Vietnam War ended prior to the election, Humphrey was a shoo-in. Kissinger apparently offered a better deal to the Vietnam negotiators, and they backed out of the talks with LBJ. Of course, Nixon reneged on any agreement to end the war and withdraw the troops, and the war dragged on. If Watergate had never happened, Nixon should have been impeached for this criminal act alone -- interfering with official negotiations for his own political interest. As we've seen -- the 1980 Iran hostage release on the day Reagan was inaugurated, etc. -- the vicious, demented ghost of Nixon is still alive and well in the GOP.
"Instead, they handed Vietnam back to France"
re-arming Japanese prisoners to help supress the "insurrection"!
@ vdb July 13th, 2009 7:08 pm: I hadn't heard that Japanese POWs were armed to suppress the North Vietnamese rebellion, but I sure wouldn't put it past our military and intelligence outfits to cook up a scheme like that. After all, they put Nazis in the CIA, and the inventors of the V-1 and V-2 flying bombs that killed thousands of innocent Britons on NASA's payroll.
It wasn't an exclusively Northern "rebellion". The country was not divided until the mid fifties. right after the US refused to allow UN-mandated elections to proceed. The North had already been liberated from the US-financed French by then and a puppet regime was set up in the South.
(Ho had been striving for independence since before the Japanese invasion and was heart-broken and understandably mightily pissed-off when Unca Sam deserted him.)
wasn't PRESCOTT part of that attempted coup?
EXCELLENT round up
Learning from mistakes is necessary to prevent the repetition of those mistakes.
Why did it take Gen. Butler 'so long' to learn his errors?
Or did he 'come out' because he did not receive what he thought he was supposed to have after all of that "defending democracy'---in so many places, for so many years?
I was a Marine during the Vietnam era, and served only one tour as a result of the realization that the entire USMC was corrupt, and simply a tool for others; we were not defending anything in Vietnam except big business.
If the USA hopes to survive the upheaval that seems to be on the horizon, most of it created by the USA, it will need to learn from its mistakes---and avoid repeating them.
If the Bush administration are allowed to avoid answering for their 'war crimes' and live to be 'old men' writing their 'memoirs'---they most likely will be writing those 'memoirs' as 'exiled refugees/escapees' (if they can find a country that will give them refuge be able to escape) since the USA will have been occupied and partitioned as part of the penalties for these latest illegal wars of aggression.
The world tolerated the USA after Vietnam, but only grudgingly.
After these latest illegal wars the world will take notice that just twenty years before, Iraq was the USA ally against Iran, and the USA turned on them and destroyed them---most likely for a very long time.
To the sceptical reader. Imagine yourself a citizen of another country, watching the USA from a distance, and knowing that YOUR country could be the 'next axis of evil country'----and know well that 'those Americans are some dangerous people'.
How safe would you feel?
America, the world cannot possibly tolerate you much longer, your 'survival' depends directly upon how swiftly and how well you make the needed 'changes'---otherwise---you will simply be remembered by history--most likely as the primary 'negative example'.........and you will have brought it upon yourselves.
Good Luck , you really need it.
"Imagine yourself a citizen of another country, watching the USA from a distance,"
Hello Son -
google Hague Invasion Act
no imagination needed.
@ NativeSon July 14th, 2009 11:02 am: I know a couple of people who teach English in China, and they tell me Chinese from all walks of life are learning our language and customs with the ultimate goal of China collecting on its investment in the US and just 'moving in' -- a quiet, bloodless occupation. Already China owns large swatches of real estate in America, and has substantial investments in American corporations as well as the US government. (They supply an average of about $2 billion a day in loans to keep us afloat.) There have been rumors that China wants to buy Walmart and may start exchanging dollars for another form of currency, destroying our economy in the process, so that they can then buy up what's left cheap, and become the world's dominant financial player. Ironically, the uber-capitalist, global free-market corporatists may have to knuckle under to a despotic quasi-communist regime, thanks to their greed. A shame the rest of us will have to suffer as well.