The Fog of War and bullshit

One of our local pundits, not a bad fellow really but not a real smart fellow either writes in today's column that we should be careful not to judge too harshly our Marines who have been charged with murder and kidnapping. I am not blind to the distinct possibility that these 8 soldiers are going to have to pay a symbolic price to make a larger point about democracy and justice. In this town such a bargin rankles the populace like a Charger's loss, and nobody even entertains the possibility that symbolic or not they may well be guilty. Here in America's Finest Sycophancy, we remain Red and White.

That the aforementioned pundit, a Mr. Logan Jenkins, used the phrase "The Fog of War" opens up the possibility that he has watched the documentary of Mr. McNamara and perhaps learned something from this fine film of Errol Morris. His column shows clearly that he has not, for while he gets the point across that we should show some sort of adult understanding about the stunning violence of modern warfare and the resulting tragedies that result from flinging about a lot of high explosives, he misses most of the larger geopolitical points about having a freaking clue about why you go into a war in the first place. I won't get into the holes that McNamara leaves in his lessons, ones so large and evil as to fairly ruin the effect he sought in making his views known to modern audience. Lesson nine "you may have to do evil to do good" turns the film into an apology for McNamara's tortured soul. It might have been better to say simply that good people do evil when they forget that goodness prevents nothing. Knowing your limitations is what prevents evil. We don't have a fucking clue about limitations right now. But we will.