I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I'm going to on this occasion. Robert McNamara died this week at the age of 93. He is best known as the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. He had no experience in Defense before nominated to the post by JFK in 1961, his background being an Ivy League education in economics. He ran the Pentagon and the widening war in Vietnam as an exercise in statistical analysis.
McNamara was primarily responsible for the horrendous way the war, especially the air war, was run. Countless lives were lost, and ultimately the war itself, due to the incompetency he showed. Vietnam could have and should have been won in 1966, when airpower had the North Vietnamese reeling. Instead, stupid ROE, stupid target lists, stupid procedures, bomb shortages, and other wounds inflicted by McNamara (not the enemy) doomed the effort. His efforts led directly to a large number of the names on that long black wall ....
Good ridance, you freaking oxygen thief ....
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