While it's an oversimplification to suggest McNamara was the primary artisan of Vietnam, we cannot diminish his tragic contribution to the war.
Robert Scheer | Posted 08.07.2009 | Politics
Whatever his better nature, it was the stark evil he perpetrated as secretary of defense that must indelibly frame our memory of him.
Gordon Goldstein | Posted 08.07.2009 | Politics
Never before has an American political figure so passionately evaluated his own failings or so determinedly sought to understand the lessons of a tragic war.
Kenneth C. Davis | Posted 08.07.2009 | Living
For anyone who needs a refresher course on America in Vietnam, here is a short reading list from among the thousands of books written about the war.
McClatchy | David Lightman | Posted 08.07.2009 | World
WASHINGTON -- Robert S. McNamara, the Kennedy-Johnson-era defense secretary, will be most remembered as a man instrumental in sending hundreds of thou...
Greg Mitchell | Posted 08.07.2009 | Politics
One of the most dramatic, and in some ways revealing, incidents in the long life of McNamara occurred in 1972 -- when a young man, attempted to heave him off the Martha's Vineyard ferry.
Joseph Nye | Posted 08.06.2009 | Politics
Part of me will never forgive him for the consequences of his mistakes in Vietnam. But another part respects him for his efforts to come to terms with his actions and to help a younger generation to learn.
Avery Corman | Posted 08.06.2009 | Politics
I was struck by McNamara's appearance on that platform, imperious, deferred to, a celebrity, or something else, a member of royalty playing with his soldiers and toys.
Will Bunch | Posted 08.06.2009 | Politics
Even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.
Gary Cohan | Posted 07.30.2009 | Politics
Republicans' private embraces are often in complete contradistinction with their own oft-trumpeted, Biblically-mandated "moral" guidelines for the rest of us.
Robert D. Patterson | Posted 07.11.2009 | Politics
I really wanted to help them understand that despite the positive changes in the current political landscape, they will need to be prepared for the inevitable backlash.
George C. Wilson | Posted 07.03.2009 | Politics
Voices from the grave make me fear that President Obama and Congress are unwittingly setting up the American military for another Vietnam-type failure in Afghanistan.
Robert Koehler | Posted 06.28.2009 | Politics
Zak Wachtendonk, who died in March, a month after his 30th birthday, was the son of a Vietnam vet who had been exposed to Agent Orange.
Shirin Sadeghi | Posted 06.27.2009 | World
The insurgents that the Pakistani and U.S. forces are battling are various fronts of poor, largely uneducated men doing what their ancestors have done for centuries: defending the Pashtun way.
Rob Tacy | Posted 06.13.2009 | Politics
Let's show our brave men and women, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters who fought in Iraq that the sacrifices they have made for our continued safety have been appreciated.
Penelope Andrew | Posted 05.28.2009 | Entertainment
To look at the escalating popularity of the documentary film is to enter an interesting, complicated, and collectively psychoanalytic exploration of the role of desire and dreams in a time of mass confusion.
Robert Naiman | Posted 05.27.2009 | Politics
Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is easy to justify on the basis of guaranteeing the basic human rights of working Americans.
Jon Soltz | Posted 05.23.2009 | Politics
There was a time in America when policies war were to be judged by Generals and politicians, not the men and women who were on the ground, fighting. John Kerry changed the game forever.
Norman Solomon | Posted 05.22.2009 | Politics
When Obama takes a progressive step, it has been made possible by progressive activism. When Obama takes an anti-progressive step, it has been facilitated by progressives muting their criticism.
AP | Posted 05.07.2009 | World
HANOI, Vietnam — A mass grave containing the remains of 35 communist commandos killed during the Vietnam War was found in southern Vietnam, a mi...
Stephen Herrington | Posted 04.30.2009 | World
The Afghan conflict, in which we find ourselves, is a war simply neglected, materially and strategically.
Michael Carmichael | Posted 04.16.2009 | World
At this very moment in time, Obama's presidency is poised on the edge of a knife. Will a NATO surge into Afghanistan commit Obama to a war that he will live to regret?
Tom McCaffrey | Posted 04.10.2009 | Comedy
During the Vietnam War George W. Bush was handed a cushy assignment in the Texas National Guard thanks to his powerful connections. This ensured that ...
William Bradley | Posted 04.09.2009 | Entertainment
Watchmen lays out and alternate America in a stunning opening sequence that presents the 20th century as a relentless slog of war and murder. If hope is on the menu, it's in short supply.
Beau Friedlander | Posted 04.04.2009 | Media
We need Rush Limbaugh. America needs a villain to juxtapose itself against and to have a receptacle for the stupidity, selfishness, and pride that got us in the economic mess we're in.
Byron Williams | Posted 08.08.2009 | Politics