I'm going to withhold judgment on his 'adult' stat

I'm going to withhold judgment on his 'adult' status. If his book does not raise the question as to whether or not the Vietnam War should have even been fought, the 'dereliction' is his. However that 'lies' is even in the title suggests we withhold judgment on that.

I'll await Ken Burns usual and sure to be through treatment of the Vietnam War this Fall. http://www.pbs.org/video/2365927737/

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Another adult: McMasters literally wrote the book on
'what went wrong with the Vietnam war.

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nauseating must read, and a page turner, May 27, 2016

By

G. Wallace

This review is from: Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (Paperback)

Well written, a real car crash story, though not much different from Halberstam's account. Documents have been declassified since "Best and Brightest." The author was thus able to discover what the Pentagon's deep thinkers actually thought.

Everybody's derelict here because nobody can remember the overconfidence of that 1965 era. Shock and awe technology would so impress the banana republic opponent and its sponsors that after a few tens of thousands of casualties their leadership would bend to reason (nobody expected the poor to be truly crazy).

In this Manichean re-telling there are the distracted, disinterested, disaffected, and completely offended adults being ignored by a preposterous juvenile gang of bounders, academics, geeks, and greasy politicians (The New Frontiersmen).

The country klutz LBJ lets domestic programs and elections affect his decisions. The Camelot bounder Maxwell Taylor dissembles and thus betrays his fellows the Joint Chiefs. The clueless systems analyst McNamara anoints himself chief strategist and will countenance spending a few dozen drafted grunts per week.

The JFK administration fumbles decisions spectacularly leading to a botched invasion and a scarcely pondered coup d'etat. Among the Joint Chiefs we have a Navy man who will happily trade decision making for more boats, an Air Force hero who would seemingly invite a final reckoning with the Chinese, and an Army staffer who excels at bureaucratic maneuvers.

The Marines come off a little better as one rep says avoid Asian land wars (but subsequently retires) and the next rep at least can recognize geographic challenges.

Lots of moral lessons here: politicians lie (for those who were unaware). Presidents with treasured domestic programs are inherently irresponsible. If you're going to war, tell the voters and the rest of the world and kiss other goals goodbye.

Sarcasm alert.....directly ahead

Thank goodness Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld learned the lessons and applied them in the ensuing great successes in the Middle East.

I'll add some other moral lessons.

It's probably an occupational hazard of foreign policy makers to find Munich at every juncture. Secondly, if there's no actual threat to the nation then it shouldn't surprise us when all manner of other motives take precedence.

Lastly, technology doesn't necessarily save us from ignorance and even stupidity. Is there even such a thing as ignorance for the "can do" type? There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns and we don't know but nevertheless we must act because the boss wants results! The one wise man in the story pointed out there was little likelihood the VietCong would soon land in San Diego.

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