McNamara seemed to me to have succumbed to his critics and conscience at least by the time Errol Morris made Fog of War. The spectacle of his often nearly-pleading explanations induced sympathy for the guy, at least for me. Why they couldn’t understand the stupidity of Khe Sahn & etc. beforehand will forever be hard to fathom; why we don’t simply obliterate our enemies instead of trying to publicly cuddle them and concede to them and engage in the truly stupid fiction that we are equals with them – and yet also covertly subvert indigenous regimes and impose sanctions and electronically surveille them… well it’s complete debauchery. It’s a totally passive aggressive and shameful approach, in my opinion, and it – the strategy – more than anything has given the most fuel to the fire of the subversion of our national character, culture, and especially our political class. There would be a lot fewer jobs and a lot less chatter and a lot less false equivalence among friends and enemies if you just did the natural thing – that is, if a guy is pointing a gun at you and preaching gibberish and you have a B-52, you just waste the f-cker. QED.