The Golden Boy Destroyer....

...Who's middle name is Strange.No, it really is Strange.

Robert S. McNamara died in his sleep at his home in Washington early this morning, family members said. McNamara, who served as secretary of defense during the Vietnam war under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, was 93.

He was preceded in death by

58,000 US Soldiers killed

3,000,000 Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed

************************************************************

Apocalypse Soon
By Robert S. McNamara	May/June 2005
It is time—well past time, in my view—for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power—a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years. Much of the current U.S. nuclear policy has been in place since before I was secretary of defense, and it has only grown more dangerous and diplomatically destructive in the intervening years.Read more.

The Fog Of War...watch it free on google video.

This is one of the most truthful and undisguised documentary form interviews from a top level cabinet member I have ever expected to see.Please watch it.Twice.

You need to hear McNamara's point of view and the lesson by todays standards, that was NOT learned. This should be shown in every history class.

a good summation via hufpo commenter Decipherer:

Robert McNamara was a tragic Shakespearean figure, who obviously was tortured to his dying day about the disastrous Vietnam war policies about which he was an architect.

Unlike George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and all the other neocons and their enablers, he at least had a conscience and the ability to acknowledge that he had failed utterly.

For that and that alone, forty years after leaving public office, he is entitled to our sympathy. We can only hope that our country will learn from the lessons of McNamara's life.

______________________