Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, had this to say about war when looking at the decisions he had made over his career. Very poignant and very apt to ponder as we roll into election season:
“What makes us omniscient? Have we a record of omniscience? We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe we should ever apply that economic, political, or military power unilaterally. If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there! None of our allies supported us; not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit of our cause, we’d better reexamine our reasoning.”
And finally, simple and true -
“I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good?”
That’s a great quote. I think it also important to think about how long we stay once we’re there. We left Vietnam in shambles, are we going to do the same thing in Iraq? An interesting thing to note is that a former leader of the Viet Cong said they were about to give up. They had given it one more month. We left, they “won”. If we would have stayed one more month, that part of the world would have a very different history.
Wow, Kim. I did not know that….hmmm good point…