Re: [Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 21:37:08 -0700 (PDT) From: marlon menezes goa...@yahoo.com I agree with Mario. I don't consider Cockburn credible. But then, I don't consider Mario very credible either. When McNamara himself states regret for the Vietnam war (in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by McNamara), one has to take his words far more seriously than those of Mario or Cockburn. Mario responds: Perhaps, Marlon would have much more credibility himself if he read what I wrote more carefully before spouting off with his rude and trademark bilge. All one can take seriously was McNamara felt some regret that a war was fought and thousands died. I'm sure Harry Truman also regretted that he had to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Churchill and FDR regretted that they had to level Dresden and Cologne, targeting enemy civilians in all these cases. McNamara was old and browbeaten by the liberal elite when he was moved to express regret about the Vietnam war, as if he were in charge of prosecuting the war by himself. He was simply a high level government official, whereas there were more than one US President involved in the decisions, not to mention the US Legislatures at the time. I think Vietcong Gen. Giap can be counted on to know far more about the condition of his troops than anyone else, and he admitted they were on their knees and he was shocked when the Americans began to withdraw. Besides, the massacre of some 3 million innocent Vietnamese and Cambodians after the Americans withdrew makes McNamara's expression of regret sound quite hollow. Marlon wrote: As far as the Khmer Rouge are concerned, it was Vietnam that ended the holocaust in Cambodia. Vietnam would have been incapable of doing so, were it under US siege. US policy at that time was to ignore the genocide in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge... Mario responds: The massacres in Cambodia mostly took place after the US withdrew so the US policy alleged above is poppycock. If the US were still in the area, there would have been no massacre of some 2 million in Cambodia. Marlon wrote: Another example of the laws of unintended consequences - as was the case with the Mujahadeen and the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the 2nd Gulf War that made Iran the power broker in the Middle East today. Mario responds: Iran is only a power broker in its own mind based on delusional bluster and comical and hollow threats against Israel. They are still without a deliverable nuclear arsenal. They can and will be stopped by Israel at any time, with or without help from US President Hussein Obama, who can only go so far in pressuring Israel before the US population rises up to oppose him. As it is, his popularity has fallen steadily as Americans are realizing his empty rhetoric is sophomoric and discovering his hollow core and manifest inexperience as we can see from the following: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll Here are some more facts for Marlon's benefit. The US sucessfully assisted the Afghan Mujahedeen in defeating the Soviets at the height of the Cold War. There were no Taliban back then. They came out of Kandahar after the Soviets retreated and the warlords were running amuck. They soon controlled most of the country and imposed their brutal and misogynyst version of Islam on the population. Osama Bin Laden's opposition to the US - by his own account - started after the Soviets left Afghanistan and on an entirely different basis. It stemmed from a) what he considered defiling Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War and b) the US's non-negotiable guarantee of Israel's survival. It boggles the mind when simple decency and common sense doesn't lead people - who live in free democracies themselves - to question why the Taliban in Afghanistan and the dwindling extremists in Iraq are fighting so desperately to PREVENT freedom and democracy for the millions of innocent civilians in both countries who have clearly expressed their preference for freedom and democracy in several elections now, after never having experienced this before. They would never have even had the opportunity to experience democracy without the stubborn resolve of President George Bush 43 who stood almost alone against almost the rest of the world which pays lip service to democracy but does nothing to facilitate it where it doesn't exist. Marlon wrote: These various failures show that no single political party in the US has a sole lock on stupid foreign policy. Unfortunately, some narrow minded individuals can't seem to understand this. Mario responds: FINALLY, Marlon provides us with an insightful self analysis:-))
[Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Excuse error in title earlier. The correction is noted: May He Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank. + Notions forming the credible and the incredible are equally radiable or eludible. Accordingly; time, place and person render these adustible, electable, or admirable. Moving on, let us hear a paragraph from Andre Breton's Second Manifesto. Here in the words of Breton's more prolific translators, Mary Ann Cavs, The Second Manifesto ends with the an eloquent invocation of mental adventure (below), which takes fully into account the possibility of failure and determines to count even that a victory. Let him use in spite of all prohibition, the avenging weapon of the idea against the bestiality of all beings and of all things; and then one day when he is vanquished--but vanquished only if the world is world--let him greet the firing of the sad guns as if it were a salute. (OC I, 828) (from André Breton by Mary Ann Cavs, in chapter 1924-53: Manifestos. published by Twayne). + venantius j pinto From: Mario Goveia mgov...@sbcglobal.net Subject: [Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 19:46:20 -0400 From: Venantius Pinto venantius.pi...@gmail.com May be Rest in Darkness McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank by Alexander Cockburn http://www.counterpunch.org/ Indeed McNamara's legacy is of the perverse. Mario responds: Readers of Counterpunch and author Alexander Cockburn need to know that this is a far left wing publication and Cockburn is a vicious and mean-spirited Marxist-sympathiser and anti-Semite, as demonstrated by this sentiment at the death of a political opponent May He Rest in Darkness. Robert McNamara's legacy was marred by the left wing and the Democrat party in America when they cut the military budget on the verge of a VietCong military collapse. This is not my opinion but that of VietCong General Giap, who mentioned in his memoires that he was shocked when the Americans began to pull out because his forces were virtually on their knees after their failed Tet offensive. After the war, the VietCong and Khmer Rouge, whom Cockburn and his Marxist colleagues had described as benign freedom fighters, massacred some 3 million innocent Vietnamese and Cambodians. Real freedom fighters do not massacre their own people.
[Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 19:46:20 -0400 From: Venantius Pinto venantius.pi...@gmail.com May be Rest in Darkness McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank by Alexander Cockburn http://www.counterpunch.org/ Indeed McNamara's legacy is of the perverse. Mario responds: Readers of Counterpunch and author Alexander Cockburn need to know that this is a far left wing publication and Cockburn is a vicious and mean-spirited Marxist-sympathiser and anti-Semite, as demonstrated by this sentiment at the death of a political opponent May He Rest in Darkness. Robert McNamara's legacy was marred by the left wing and the Democrat party in America when they cut the military budget on the verge of a VietCong military collapse. This is not my opinion but that of VietCong General Giap, who mentioned in his memoires that he was shocked when the Americans began to pull out because his forces were virtually on their knees after their failed Tet offensive. After the war, the VietCong and Khmer Rouge, whom Cockburn and his Marxist colleagues had described as benign freedom fighters, massacred some 3 million innocent Vietnamese and Cambodians. Real freedom fighters do not massacre their own people.
Re: [Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
I agree with Mario. I don't consider Cockburn credible. But then, I don't consider Mario very credible either. When McNamara himself states regret for the Vietnam war (in his book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by McNamara), one has to take his words far more seriously than those of Mario or Cockburn. As far as the Khmer Rouge are concerned, it was Vietnam that ended the holocaust in Cambodia. Vietnam would have been incapable of doing so, were it under US siege. US policy at that time was to ignore the genocide in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge were mortal enemies of Vietnam. Another example of the laws of unintended consequences - as was the case with the Mujahadeen and the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the 2nd Gulf War that made Iran the power broker in the Middle East today. These various failures show that no single political party in the US has a sole lock on stupid foreign policy. Unfortunately, some narrow minded individuals can't seem to understand this. Marlon --- On Wed, 7/8/09, Mario Goveia mgov...@sbcglobal.net wrote: From: Mario Goveia mgov...@sbcglobal.net Readers of Counterpunch and author Alexander Cockburn need to know that this is a far left wing publication and Cockburn is a vicious and mean-spirited Marxist-sympathiser and anti-Semite, as demonstrated by this sentiment at the death of a political opponent May He Rest in Darkness. Robert McNamara's legacy was marred by the left wing and the Democrat party in America when they cut the military budget on the verge of a VietCong military collapse. This is not my opinion but that of VietCong General Giap, who mentioned in his memoires that he was shocked when the Americans began to pull out because his forces were virtually on their knees after their failed Tet offensive. After the war, the VietCong and Khmer Rouge, whom Cockburn and his Marxist colleagues had described as benign freedom fighters, massacred some 3 million innocent Vietnamese and Cambodians. Real freedom fighters do not massacre their own people.
[Goanet] May be Rest in Darkness_McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank
May be Rest in Darkness McNamara: From the Tokyo Firestorm to the World Bank by Alexander Cockburn http://www.counterpunch.org/ Indeed McNamara's legacy is of the perverse. venantius j pinto
