Charlie Rose

jacobs  08/15/2009 08:53 AM Report

Charlie Rose says to Mcnamara that he did is "mea culpa" (for having killed hundred of thousands of civilians by air bombing) in working for the World Bank.

As if working for the World Bank was working for the good of humanity?

I used to view Charlie Rose as a "pseudo naive" interviewer that did not want to make enemies with extreme characters that could easily put him on an "unwanted list".

By taking for granted that he "really" did his mea culpa in such a job: Charlie Rose is "really" getting in line, and with him some type of "Joe the Plumber" who might view himself as a political "trouble maker" if not on the verge of political "terrorism" by thinking he not quite endorsing our establishment!

billrad  07/14/2009 03:31 PM Report

Blah blah blah

Don't you win a war by killing most of the opponents forces, citizens, etc? We are not organized culturally nor militarily in enough numbers to do that. So, we are left with hand holding and training armies and police and buying more and more expensive bomb-proof vehicles....

Christopher  07/13/2009 06:43 AM Report

The Vietnam syndrome is America's inability to get out of a hopeless conflict. It is those who say "if we stick it out, we will win" in a war of choice... We saw it in Vietnam, we see it today in Iraq and Afganistan. It is when to say enough, this is not worth it, the consequences of not continuing are acceptable compared to those of continuing.

tartufe  07/12/2009 09:22 PM Report

More CIA coupled atrocities. How to lose hearts and minds.

Excerpted from NYT:

"The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime's last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.

"Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse, using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within."

McNama, Pinochet, Cheney must be beaming with pride. State terrorism in hot pursuit in their 'War on Terrorism." Takes one to know one. Obama's our man. It's all yours Big O. Go get em. Kill, rah, rah, kill, rah, rah, kill, slobber, slobber, schlurp, schlurp. The MI oligarches are having a synchronized wet dream. Go long in Boeing et al.

doodahdaze  07/12/2009 07:11 AM Report

NoPardon, ..Aw feel yer pine.<thumbs up><biting lower lip>

tartufe  07/12/2009 12:46 AM Report

Spot on. Hear, hear!

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  07/11/2009 01:49 PM Report

"If weren't for Vietnam he would have been remembered as the Defense Secretary who averted the Cuban missile crisis."

And if it weren't for Iraq, torture, and the complete abandonment of co-equal branches of government, Dick Cheney would have been remembered as a crotchety old fart who hid in a secret bunker and convinced Halliburton to buy Dresser when it was saddled with hundreds of millions in asbestos-related legal liabilities.

And if it weren't for Monica Lewinsky and the cover-up that followed, Bill Clinton would have been remembered as a two-term president who balanced the federal budget, reduced the national debt, seeded the financial meltdown of today with the antics of Bobby Rubin, and choked on health care reform.

And if it weren't for the Watergate break-in and the cover-up that followed, Dick Nixon would have been remembered as a paranoid fool who favored gestures of victory, endless self-flagellation and personal victimization, and a trip to China.

And if it weren't for collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, extreme leverage, multimillion-dollar bathrooms, and worldwide economic collapse, John Thaine, Dick Fuld, Jim Coyne, Hank Greenberg, and Bernie Madoff would have been remembered as big swinging d**ks who turned their publicly owned companies into personal piggy banks and awarded themselves and their pals billions of dollars in compensation.

Toby, I've read a number of pathetic policy positions and general political and financial statements. Yours definitely makes the All-Time Top 10 Most Ridiculous list.

Toby  07/11/2009 01:25 PM Report

A man like McNamara has lived a life. If weren't for Vietnam he would have been remembered as the Defense Secretary who averted the Cuban missile crisis.

You can see in the interview that he is a tormented man for his role in Vietnam. He is not not a bad man. He is just a man. A very talented one. Someone who was put in extraordinary circumstances and asked to make impossible decisions. It goes to show not that he is evil, but rather we humans all have limits - and our best sometimes just isn't good enough.

Note that we have the luxury of hindsight that he did not have about Vietnam. And we have the hindsight of Iraq that we didn't have in 2003. It is both easy and pointless to recriminate someone like McNamara for not been outspoken enough. He has been tortured enough. Remember, it is the living that suffers that we know for sure - the dead suffers which we do not know. The dead may very well not suffer.

For the same measure it is pointless to endlessly bicker about the Bush administration's handling of security and economy unless it directly helps us in our dilemmas today.

Churchill said it best: if we allow the past to argue with the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. That is BHO instinct as well - and I applaud him for that. But by god, get us the through the current crisis and bring down the deficit.

NoPardonforMichaelMilken  07/11/2009 01:51 AM Report

I've never been one to believe in Hell.

But if such an eternal hot spot exists, I can only hope that Bobby McNamara went on ahead to settle down with Pol Pot and Dick Nixon and prepare the forthcoming lodging of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, David Addington, I. "Lewis" Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, William Kristol, The Brothers Kagan, Charlie The Kraut, Boss Limbaugh, Bibi What A Yahoo, and Avigdor Lieberman.

tartufe  07/10/2009 05:34 PM Report

Extolling the 'sacrifice' of our servicemen in our wars of choice feeds the maw of the the MI Oligarches. Their exploitation is made the easier for the next round of murder and mayhem for fun and profit - be it Iran or re-entering Iraq, yadda yadda ad nauseam. Often under-educated, unemployed sadly backed into abhorent mercenary positions that should not deluded with ideas of glory or patriotism. Refusing to serve would define a REAL patriot. Killing and being killed for profit and overweaned egos a la McNamara et al is more for (situational) excusing than extolling.

charlizecourriers  07/10/2009 04:43 PM Report

Is it accidental that, at no time in this "appreciation" of Mr. McNamera, there is no appreciation by Rose or McNamera of the sacrifice of the Americans who served in Vietnam? I think this cleverly edited show is all about appreciating the Rose position. Rose was smarter than his fellow college students of the 60's who went to Vietnam including the hundreds of thousands of draftees. He is also smarter than McNamera with respect to Iraq. There is this problem for Rose. The war in Iraq stabilized and safeguarded the world oil supplies. So it turns out that the liberals were wrong about Iraq and McNamera was smart to decline the cheap shots of pundits like Rose. With regard to Vietnam, if Rose had not dodged and instead gone to Vietnam, he might have learned firsthand the perils of being so smart and not conduct his show as though it is a 'view from nowhere'(the Olympus of Reason). Then he would be smart enough to ask, for instance, why are we fighting a religious war in Afganistan? Did I say "we" mistakenly? No. Rose never has been part of the brotherhood of men and women who are ready to sacrifice for good of the nation. His degrees in business and law, and his indispensable service at PBS have made him far too smart for that. Someday we will appreciate C.P.Rose.

REMant  07/10/2009 02:50 PM Report

Well, first of all, we know now that the Communists never posed the kind of threat the Dulles' and Catholic neo-cons maintained, and that this intelligence was kept from the American ppl and most of their representatives. But politicians in general were quite content to work the Red scare. Secondly, I am not sure that McNamara, like Rumsfeld in Iraq later, really cared much about fighting in Vietnam, or at least, not in doing what was really required to win. Nor was LBJ, tho for different reasons. Taken together there were no clear objectives, and this led to Powell's postwar critique. In addition, all three of them seem to me to have been manipulators lacking common human sympathy. MacNamara was always considered a bean-counter. Johnson, too, with his body counts, despite all his scenery chewing and self-flagellation. However, I think most of those who served will recognize the same traits in their parents and the American public. It was apparent in the obliviousness to, even disdain for, and scapegoating of, the veterans and the sacrifices they made. They cared even less for the Vietnamese. It was because the enemy knew us better than we knew ourselves, that they realized they just had to wait us out. But, of course, ultimately they didn't win either, and everyone came out a loser, the US earning near universal enmity. It's amazing: from adulation to disgust in only a generation. The inflation generated led directly to the "oil shocks" of the 70's and the Volcker recession. Plus if MacNamara were really so concerned about Russian missiles in Cuba, he might have been more concerned about removing American missiles from Turkey. Overall this interview struck me as a lot of pettifoggery.

wjwilson  07/10/2009 02:24 PM Report

This was one of Charlie Rose’s best interviews. Charlie was asking very valuable questions and McNamara kept flip-flopping. DavLev, you got it wrong, how do you know Charlie was against our involvement in Iraq right from the very beginning. I know other people think otherwise. May be you were. When you interview somebody who has been responsible for that many lives, if the chance was given to you have to question that person one way or another. Ho chi Ming was a nationalist, because of mismanagement of French and British and our misunderstanding, we got ourselves into that mess. Main think went wrong during or after Vietnam War was that our soldiers gave their lives. We should have honored that and at same time the war was wrong. We should have said we support our soldiers but not the war. Just like saying “I may disagree with you but I respect your opinion”.

billrad  07/10/2009 02:08 PM Report

I was in the Army for 21 years. Maybe that is why I understand why McNamara is reluctant to comment on current combat operations. Of course, there is a time and place for debate of the course of enormous national efforts involving resources and lives. Some of those discussions are for the public. Some debates however, are for select groups of leaders and should not be disclosed to the public.

Reporters are also always eager to ride along into combat embedded in a squad or platoon. If it is that essential to get admittance to the "combat club", then they should raise a right hand and participate.

Reporters try to give loyalty to some greater good, some higher power. Reporters and Journalists are not Priests. They are Americans. They live in America. America is more important than the story.

DavLev  07/10/2009 01:11 PM Report

Again Charlie Rose shows his attitude about our involvement in Iraq. From the very beginning, he has been against it.

He has asked the same questions about our attack into Iraq

and occupation...knowing beforehand the answer from those he interviewed (to his credit, has has interviewed a few people who were and still are for the war).

This interview was no different. He wanted the former

Sec. of Defense to say the war was wrong. That was obvious

throughout the interviews. To his credid, he declined to

answer yes, or no.

I call Mr. Rose the wannabe Sec. of State...he says he

is only a TV journalist..yet everyone, including those he interviews, sees through that malarky.

If Charlie Rose would stick to being an interviewer,

his ratings might increase?

As far as the Vietnam War, I go to a website occasionally

of someone I knew who was killed there. Many decades later,

his death still brings tears to my eyes.

At the time he thought his 3rd tour of duty was protecting

our country.

This applies to the interviewee. He thought the war was

not so much a civil war, but a war fought to protect the Pacific rim, and ultimately the USA.

His agony about the war was finally decided decades later, when he came to the conclusion that it was a civil war only.

But I found most interesting his comments about the 94 nukes that were aimed at US..and the plan by Cuba to

destroy he 180,000 soldiers primed for the invasion ( I know a former Air Force pilot who was stationed in Florida and, as in Vietnam, was prepared to protect his country).

He was assigned to the Southern Command.

20-20 hindsight is always good. Had 911 resulted in 100,000 ddeaths and injuries as orginally planned, had Saddams

clandestine cells spread smallpox germs throughout the East CCost ( resulting in 3m deaths within 3 months), had Cuba fired 90 nukes into our East Coast...what would the interviewee's critics said then?

tartufe  07/10/2009 12:17 PM Report

Irreducibly pathetic. Rationalized his soul right into the jaws of hell. Reminiscent of all the jingoes that occupy the office. Rumsfeld excluded - too obtuse to be that sensitive and introspective. Gates doubtless in the same Rumsfeld cloth, but perhaps too early for published introspection - or admission. The nature of the position requires a rejection of humanity. (Defense too euphemistic. Sec of War more accurate - esp. in offensive wars of choice.)

A world court for Crimes Against Humanity is idealistic to an extreme, but unrealistic to the same degree. The administrations for our last three wars of choice would all be justifiably executed by firing squad. Think of the lives saved. [Makes abortion desirable. Think of the net gain in lives had Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, McNamara et al been aborted.]

McNamara’s hypocrisy was palpable. He wanted it both ways. To be deemed correct (while inconceivably admitting error?) and yet understood - even forgiven. His quoted quote, “How much evil is required to do good?” He assumes (hopes?) the equation exists.

He did seem tortured. Or maybe that’s just my hope. He tortures me to this day with the recollection of the napalmed, naked screaming little girl. Not believing in hell, I wish he had lived into his 100's so he could relive his torment that he deservedly should have had.. We populate our government with evil repeatedly. Pogo got it right. We have met the enemy and it is us.

I hope there’s a hell. A Catholic one. But he was probably Presbyterian.