IN MEMORIUM ROBERT MCNAMARA: OR CIVILIANS HAVE TO BE RIGHT FOR CIVILIAN CONTROL OF THE MILITARY TO WORK

In the Documentary The Fog of War, Robert McNamara admitted during The War of the Pacific he and General Curtis LeMay planned the bombing of civilian populations in Tokyo. McNamera reported that LeMay admitted if the USA had lost WWII, they would have been tried for war crimes against humanity.

I don't know what is worse morally -- doing war crimes or admitting that you SHOULD have been tried for war crimes.

McNamara apparently believed in the 1960s that World War III would happen if the USA lost the Vietnam War. Therefore, he continued to oversee the Vietnam War even though he knew at the time that its concept was a mistake. Only years later, did he admit the mistake.

Again, I don't know what is worse: doing war crimes (twice apparently) or knowing that you have committed war crimes and continuing the crime.

At least Robert McNamara still had a conscious in 1968. When he resigned as Secretary of Defense, he did so because he thought he had done evil and he had to stop. McNamara stood in stark moral contrast to Clark Clifford. When Clark Clifford assumed duties as Secretary of Defense, he decided to convince Lyndon Johnson to reject increases in American troop levels. Clifford could have told the president that the War was hopeless and to just stop it, but instead he went through complex public relations to give the administration the appearance of peaceful change without actually going through peaceful change. Perhaps it would be better to state that Clifford wanted to improve the appearance of the war so the Democrats had a better chance of winning the 1968 presidential election.

There a moral to this story --

we need to create a structure to try war criminals outside the concept of victory and defeat. Only war criminals who lose get tried on this planet. Victors always claim that their war crimes were just and necessary for victory.