Welcome to Hell Robert McNamara.

Aside from fomenting the Vietnam escalation, he also recalled the rescue effort from the USS Liberty while it was under attack by Israel on June 8, 1967.

For his turning his back on U.S. military under attack by our “special friend”, he will live in infamy in hearts and minds of many Americans of his generation.

Great story, Amon.  We merely dream, some people act.

The post by Amon Drool fails, for whatever reason, to credit Paul Hendrickson’s “The Living and the Dead” book as the source for that quoted anecdote.
A must read for insights into McNamara’s own story and his impact on five lives, American and Vietnamese. It’s a strong counterpoint to the “rationality” represented by McNamara and its current proponents such as Cheney, Wolfowitz and their ilk.

from a posting over a common dreams entitled “Reading an Obit with Great Pleasure”

“The most bizarre incident involving McNamara occurred when he was president of the World Bank and, off on his summer holiday, he caught the Marth Vineyard’s ferry. It was a night crossing in bad weather. McNamara was in the salon, drink in hand, schmoozing with fellow passengers. On the deck outside a vineyard loca, a hippie artist, glanced through the window and did a double-take. The artist was outraged to see McNamara, whom he viewed as a war criminal, so enjoying himself.
He immediately opened the door and told McNamara there was a radiophone call for him on the bridge. McNamara set down his drink and stepped outside. The artist immediately grabbed him, wrestled him to the railing and pushed him over the side. McNamara managed to get his fingers through the holes in the metal plate that ran from the top of the railing to the scuppers.
McNamara was screaming bloody murder; the artist was prying his fingers loose one at a time. Someone heard the racket and pulled the artist off.
By the time the ferry docked in the vineyard M cNamara had decided against filing charges against the artist, and he was freed and walked away.”

I, on the other hand, have no “problem” being “angry” with McNamara

I’m sorry you think so, Virgina.

FT - you are the pseudo-progressive, you and your troll friends.

RIP. as they say—rot in peace, Mr. McNamara. However, he’s no more villainous than our other invaders and occupiers—the clique that got us California, Indian lands, the Philippines, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, who invaded Panama, bombed Belgrade, and on and on…

Why all the killing, torture and pillage?

We preach non-violence and women’s rights but we practice overthrow and torture. We think we’re good but there’s evil in our hearts. Some say it’s because we killed off the Indians and enslaved the blacks; we projected our evil onto everyone else and that’s why we’re such international villains. Me, I don’t know—but crazy is what crazy does..

the sanitizing of this number crunching war criminal is one of the reasons that that American people do not have an idea of the true history of the US. The robbery, repression, torture and mass murder of US power is convered over by the deceit of high purpose and American ideals, and of the extolling of war crminals like McNammarua.

It is the function of pseudo-Progressive journalists like Scheer to rehabilitate the horrible to maintain the crediblity of the US polity as it goes on to its next horror.  I live in LA and read this column fifteen years ago, before the Iraqi war.  I did not have the same feeling against it then as I do now.  But columns like this led to the Iraqi war and the War on Terrorism, the powerful being aussred that they would be honored in their life and death regardless of the horrors they committed.

Scheer can be proud of himself for serving the American power system.  He does not, in this column, serve the American people.

Many, if not most, of you will not agree with this sentiment, but thinking of McNamara’s passing made me recall it:

“There is a life after this life, and all that is not punished and repaid here will be punished and repaid there.” ~ Martin Luther

The inventor of the Edsel, Ford’s folly, and the conductor of mass slaughter of a million plus people who had committed no crime, and the leader of a one world order bank, that cause upheaval world wide, suffered from a disorder of the mind that psychologists have yet to name and cure. Egotism falls way too short to describe these criminals with no conscience.Sociopaths?,worse that that. Maybe someday medicine will cure these diseased carriers and mass murderers.

Someone brighter than I said, “Stupidity is the only sin.”  McNamara—a stupid brilliant guy, and a war criminal on the level of Pol Pot.  There being no hell, we really should make sure Bush, Rice, Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al., hang HERE.

We have hanged Gen. Yamashita and other NAZI leaders for crimes against humanity during WWII.  I wonder why have we not condemned McNamara for his crimes against millions of Vietnamese people and thousands US soldiers who lost their lives because of such “terrible” error.  Can we ask a post-humus apology for his crimes?

The other problem I have with McNamara is that he made MBAs the in crowd in US manufacturing plants. The demise of American industry may very well date from these assholes take-over. They popularized the ‘bottom line’ over long-term investments and re-investing in industry for the good of the country.

I guess you could say he not only had major responsibility for Vietnam, but also the destruction of our real security, which was/is dependent on the well-being of the Working Class as well as the MBAs and coupon clippers.

I had no use for the man in the early 60s, and my opinion was not changed when he puplished his mea culpa.

@ BruSays

These are times I sometimes wish I believed in heaven and hell. But this “wretch” is almost too good for hell.

I am afraid he is so out of touch with human feeling that if you put him in Hell, he would not know to feel any pain.
Yep, what you said, too.

To Mary Ann McNeely and Paracelsus…

These are times I sometimes wish I believed in heaven and hell. But this “wretch” is almost too good for hell.

I remember him in the documentary, “The Fog of War,” saying that it wasn’t till years after we’d pulled out of Vietnam that he realized our efforts were doomed. We thought we were fighting against communism but to the Vietnamese, it was a civil war. You can never win someone else’s civil war. Duh.

Fast forward to 2019 or so, and we’ll be hearing Rumsfeld apologize for his hand in the war on Iraq. If there’s any justice, McNamamara will be there in the warm place to welcome him - and Bush, Cheney and Rice, as well.

Once more into the breach I guess…In the interest of fairness the guy did beg JFK to produce a timetable for withdrawal of our troops from Viet Nam. Further McNamara quit the Johnson administration over the issue of the war.

Furthering the fairness doctrine I add that McNamara , along with General Curtis LeMay, planned the Dresden firebombing that slaughtered one hundred thousand souls one evening. ( read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five).

Rot in hell, you wretch!

What you said.

Rot in hell, you wretch!

McNamara is your text book case of a banal, bland, and ingratiating psychopath. He is a smiling, pleasant demon. He is incapable of true deep empathy though he can cry on cue very well. His emotional depth is a mile wide and an inch deep. If you want to understand the political class in microcosm, then you can do know better than use McNamara as an exemplar of a pleasing, and gracious toady. His mathematical abilities would probably diminish if he became more human. These are the people who run our world.