Analysis Of Frontline And The Fog Of War

-Quote from McNamara “LeMay and I were behaving as war criminals”. (The Fog of War 42 minutes)

The film, The Fog of War, is about a life experience of Robert McNamara who is a former Secretary of Defense, President of Ford Motor Company, and President of World Bank. McNamara reflects back on his life and shares 11 lessons he had learned as he lived and served during one of the darkest times of human history. In the film, he aims to show that although war is inevitable, goal of spreading democracy by empathizing with the enemy to understand their situation and their motive of war, re-examining own reason to declare war, and questioning the morality of rational decision to eliminate unnecessary killing is good in itself and worth the evil that the states sometimes have to engage in.

McNamara Lesson eight: Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning. “What make sense omissions? Have we have a record of omissions, we are the stronger ace in the world.” In these statements, he talks about how The President and all the people who was closed to the president influence him on his decision to go to war.

In the Fog of War, Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara recounted his experiences when serving for both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Throughout the film he shared eleven lessons that he learned as a result of the war and politics. The lessons range from empathizing with one 's enemy to the fact we cannot change human nature. This essay will discuss some of McNamara’s lessons and how they illustrated institutions, bargaining, cooperation, power and sovereignty.

Memories are what make us who we are and storytelling is how we seek to share who we are with others. This has long been the tradition of mankind, passing on our experiences and lessons to others as a means to not only enlighten and endow our listeners with what we have learned about life, but also how those lessons have served to shaped who we are. When sharing our stories and memories, we are able to better resonate with our audience by connecting with them on an emotional level. Such is the manner in which the personal experiences of war are shared in the pieces The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara and The Things They Carried. Although McNamara and O’Brien’s experiences of war were vastly different, their personal recollections and the separate examinations of the manner in which they each experienced the war can serve to provide insight into the true nature of warfare. Both accounts prove that human memories are important in helping us to understand our own histories and that personal experiences often color the manner and method in which that history is told, whether our role is as a decision maker or the one being affected by the decisions of others. The depiction of the memory process for each piece will be examined in order to better understand each figure’s recollection of historical events in regards to their role, where McNamara served as one of the “planners” and O’Brien’s characters as the “participants.”

“a really, really tough case” that defies historical parallels. Foreign involvement in the Syrian Civil War refers to political, military and operational support to parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Syria that began in March 2011, as well as active foreign involvement. Most parties involved in the war in Syria receive various types of support from foreign countries and entities based outside Syria. The ongoing conflict in Syria is widely described as a series of overlapping wars between the regional and world powers, primarily between the U.S. and Russia as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Between 1947-1973 wars broke out between Israel and its neighbors, resulting in casualties, destruction and no resolution. The 3 wars I’m focusing on are Suez Canal, Six Day War, and Yom Kippur War, and how each of these wars have a common theme and how each party involved in the war believed they were in the right. These wars were fueled by tension and revenge,

Lippman, T. (2009, July 7). Defense Secretary, Architect of U.D. involvement in Vietnam Robert McNamara dies. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070601197.html

The Gulf War in 1990 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003 both had a profound impact not just on the countries directly involved - primarily Iraq and the United States (US) - but also on the geo-politics of the world. Arguably, the War ended in a stalemate because the Iraqi regime that had started the War by invading Kuwait remained in power. Perhaps inevitably then, in March 2003 the US and its allies invaded Iraq with the stated aim of overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein and destroying that regime's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Some similarities between both Wars are immediately obvious: for example, the same country, the

Christine Vavra POSC 305-01 1/21/2015 Insight on the Fog of War The Fog of War is a Sony pictures documentary based on Robert McNamara. Robert served three years in the Army Air Corps, five weeks as the president of the Ford Motor Company, seven years as the Secretary of Defense, and 13 years as the president of the World Bank. Although Robert has many accomplishments, this documentary focuses and highlights his years as the Secretary of Defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. In hindsight of his career, Secretary McNamara looked back on his career as Secretary of Defense in both a positive and Negative light being truthful to himself and his audience.

Throughout history, the United States Government and Armed Forces have learned from devastating mistakes and decisive victories making the US Armed Forces superior to most, if not all, other militaries; however, the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia throughout Operation Restore Hope, Operation Provide Relief, and the Joint Special Operations Task Force missed the mark on such “lessons learned”. The inadequate intelligence; the ignorance of tactics, techniques, and procedures; and absence of reinforcements cost needless loss of US troops, and crippling a sophisticated, well-equipped military at the hands of an under-equipped militia using irregular warfare tactics. Even 24 years later, the impact resonating still weighs heavily on minds of key leaders in the government along with all echelons of military commanders.

The war of attrition waged by William Westmoreland from 1965-1968 was not the most effective way to defeat the Vietcong insurgents. The policy of the “war of attrition” was supposed to be counterinsurgency and pacification, but it was truly a “search and destroy” (Class notes, March 1st). The “search and destroy” started with STARLIGHT and the results would end in many destroyed villages, simply since the goals were to fight the Vietcong. The operations were “designed to find, fix in place, fight and destroy…enemy forces and their base areas and supply caches” (Young 162-163). Westmoreland led himself to believe this was the most effective way to defeat the Vietcong and all the destruction that came along with the operations were seen as brilliant victories; the Vietcong did not back down. However, McNamara recognized the issue of Westmoreland’s “war of attrition”, McNamara realized the lack of support and the absence of permanent security. Even though, McNamara encouraged compromise with decreased deployment or the increased bombing of the North, he appeared to recognize the success rate of U.S. victory as low (Hunt, 91).

During Errol Morris 's documentary, The Fog of War, Eleven Lessons by Robert S. McNamara former Secretary of Defense McNamara, one of the most infamous figures of the Vietnam era, proves to be a greatly compelling figure, someone who can be self-critical and reflective about the decisions he made to

If we research through past years and history books, we'l find that war has been part of our live since the beginning of man. From the Vietnam war, Soviet war in Afghanistan, Korean war, and the impose war of 1980. With death ranging from eight thousand to eight million. Although some causes are reasonable, other are not as simple. With religion, territorial power, and prejudice causing the leading bloodshed in the world. which for some mysterious reason, in one part of the world all three reason are the cause. Where? The middle east of cause. An Iranian based author, Marjane Satrapi wrote a graphic memoir on her childhood experience during the Iraq invasion on Iran called "The Shabbat." Giving insight on how is like to live in the midst

“Break of Day in the Trenches” is by one of the First World War’s leading war poets, Isaac Rosenberg. Many often remember Rosenberg as a Jewish-English poet, or a poet of war, but there is more to his writing than what meets the eye. Rosenberg died at the age of twenty-eight in World War I on April 1, 1918. Critics often say that Isaac was an impressive young poet and that his future was bright in the poetry world. It can be seen throughout his poems that Isaac incorporates a large amount of symbolism and feeling into his pieces.