Reaction Paper on documentary “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” I watched a documentary at entitled “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” It is a 2003 American documentary film about the Vietnam war, Cuban Missile Crisis, and World War 2. Errol Morris was directed this documentary. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara is playing in this documentary. He has served as defense minister during the seven years for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson in the between years 1961-1968. This documentary focused eleven lesson; Empathize with your enemy , rationality will not save us, there's something beyond one's self, maximize efficiency, proportionality should be a guideline in war, get the data , belief and seeing are often both wrong, be prepared to re-examine your reasoning, in order to do good, you may have to engage in evil, never say never ,and you can't change human nature. In this documentary Mr. McNamara used to main idea is fog of war. According to Mr. McNamara …show more content…
Decision-makers must be perfectly rational and logical. However, rationality is useless in some cases also rationality are limit. In this documentary, according to Mr. McNamara, Cuban Missile Crisis explains the term rationality has not served to its purpose. To him, the key factor preventing nuclear war was the chance . Though Presidents John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro had a rational identity, they would start a nuclear war. According to some theories , decision-making progress based on state interests, not moral values so some rational decisions can be threat of extinction of any kind of nation. To illustrate, think about the bomb that the military commander LeMay has dropped to the ground. Just in one night, he has burned thousands of civil woman and children to
As the United States continues to participate in wars across the globe, more secrecy is prone to show up when people begin to wonder if what they see is truly what meets the eye. In the documentary Dirty Wars, directed by Richard Rowley and produced by Jeremy Scahill, a war reporter who is one of the many that tries to investigate the hidden warfare fought overseas. The documentary follows Scahill as he indulges into these cases as he begins to learn about the JSOC (Joint Specialization Operations Command) covert operations in which innocent men, women and children are eliminated with brutal force but for no reason at all. Throughout the film the viewer follows Scahill’s case about the dark side of wars due to the way the United States does not play by the rules. In the film Dirty Wars, Jason Scahill uses a wide variety of rhetorical appeals to inform the public of how every day JSOC forces eliminate the lives of the innocent while enacting a hidden war that goes against all that is right in terms of war, changing the perception of warfare.
The novel, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam, written by Lewis Sorley, is an important and influential book that sheds light on the often neglected final years in Vietnam from 1968 to 1975 and revises our knowledge of the war and its conclusion. Lewis Sorley is an American intelligence analyst and military historian. Sorley spent much time interviewing those who have served in Vietnam so that he could gain information on their experiences and how the war truly was for them. This novel includes live stories from those willing enough to share their experiences. Sorely explains throughout the novel that Vietnam may not be as we thought it to be, but actually much more.
One option during the Cuban Missile Crisis was to go into an all out nuclear war. None of the countries wanted this option, but it was still possible. This is true because in Document C it says, “The most important thing for us is to get an agreement as soon as possible.” This proves that both the USSR and the US wanted to come to a quick
Even though the novel speaks mainly of the issues with the food on our plate, these issues are more deeply connected and reflected in former President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “Military
Book Review 2: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises by Richard Betts Summary: Betts starts off his book by recognizing the ambiguity around the advocacy of the use of force in a crisis by military leaders even though there is a prevalent assumption that military professionals are more aggressive than diplomats and politicians. He states he writes the book in order to provide a comprehensive survey of the postwar role of American military men in decisions on their most essential function, their use of force in combat. Betts acknowledges the vast availability of literature on military participation in decisions on defense budgets and weapons procurement, but feels there is a void when looking at decision-making from the perspective of military leadership versus civilian leadership.
The three movies – Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and The Green Berets – are all movies based on the same historical event – the Vietnam war and US’s involvement in it. Yet, they all presented us with different and narrative point of view and authority figures in order to paint their individual values. The movies’ most obvious differences lie within the choice of their narrative point of view. The Green Beret, the earliest one, was directed by John Wayne and he also starred in the leading role. Wayne’s authority and influence in the 1960s was similar to the influence of Tom Hanks in the 21st Century.
Tim O’Brien Research Essay Truth is something that Tim O’Brien wants his readers to comprehend about war throughout his writing. For example in The Things They Carried O’Brien mentions that he doesn’t support the Vietnam war, but he supports the fact that he is fighting for his country and for their safety. “They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.” (The Things They Carried,39) O’Brien uses figurative language to emphasis his writing and uses symbolism to convey the importance of a message to the readers.
In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, the author retells the chilling, and oftentimes gruesome, experiences of the Vietnam war. He utilizes many anecdotes and other rhetorical devices in his stories to paint the image of what war is really like to people who have never experienced it. In the short stories “Spin,” “The Man I Killed,” and “ ,” O’Brien gives reader the perfect understanding of the Vietnam by placing them directly into the war itself. In “Spin,” O’Brien expresses the general theme of war being boring and unpredictable, as well as the soldiers being young and unpredictable.
The Vietnam War divided the United States into two separate categories: Hawks and Doves. Supporters of the war were known as Hawks, while pacifists were known as Doves. The Hawks believed the aggression North Vietnam displayed forced the United States into war, whereas Doves felt the civil war in Vietnam was not the United States responsibility and it was causing unnecessary costs and deaths. Not too long before the Vietnam War, a movement called the “Red Scare” flourished throughout America.
Rather, the significance of O’Brien’s work is his utilization of a metafictional novel as a representative vehicle for the Vietnam War. Within The Things They Carried
These groups had different opinions on two specific aspects of the nuclear struggle and Strategic Defense Initiative. The first was the debatable level of the threat of the Soviet Union. The second was whether or not arms control was necessary. For many historians, the policies and processes caused the Soviet Union and the Cold War to come to their conclusions. This network of processes rather than the leading figures were the factors in creating the certain stages of the Cold War.
This is a war film that has clear messages about war. What ideologies are being reinforced by the film? What ideologies are being undermined or
Decision makers are no free agents making their own preferable choices rather we are coming from a social settings that informs its subjects about what is appropriate and important. In simple words, what we think comes out of our social condition. The Realist approach that man is power lusty seems, to be a miss-representation of Fear. In the wilderness of the international structure individuals feel insecure (constructing a social belief) against each other hence paving way for a holocaust.
I find Ho Chi Minh’s letter far more persuasive than Lyndon B. Johnson’s. Using ethos, pathos, and logos, he forms a solid argument that supports Vietnam’s stance on the war. He appeals to one’s emotions by expressing the injustices faced by his people, writing, “In South Viet-Nam a half-million American soldiers and soldiers from the satellite countries have resorted to the most barbarous methods of warfare, such as napalm, chemicals, and poison gases in order to massacre our fellow countrymen, destroy the crops, and wipe out villages.” Words such as “massacre” and “barbarous” highlight the severity of these crimes, and invoke feelings of guilt and remorse in the reader. Chi Minh uses ethos to support his logos, or logical, views on the
The soldiers in the Vietnams war were there for different reasons, some soldiers were forced against their will and some were there by choice. Because of that, each soldier has their own thoughts about the war, O’Brien has interpreted that “The twenty –six men were very quiet: some of them excited by the adventure, some of them afraid”. This clearly shows how the men