Hard to maintain your focus in the Fog of War

World of Politics with Harry McGee

One of the great documentaries of our time is ‘The Fog of War’ by the great film-maker Errol Morris. Its subject is Robert McNamara, a towering figure in 20th century America. As well as being the boss of the Ford Motor company he was also the defence secretary for both John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. That meant he served in those administrations during the Vietnam War.

McNamara, an old man in the film, shares eleven lessons he learned during the course of his long life. There is reflection and wisdom and some regrets, because some of the decisions he made – from directing US bombers in WW2 to green lighting major escalations in the Vietnam War – resulted in many thousands of deaths.

He spoke extensively about the concept of ‘the fog of war’. Once it starts, he said, it becomes so complicated that it is beyond the scope of human comprehension, and all judgement becomes clouded.

Where is the invasion in Ukraine going to lead to? I spent some part of my early career travelling to war zones to report on conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

What interested me most was the human devastation caused by war. It had been informed by a long-form poem by the English poet and dramatist Tony Harrison, The Gaze of Gorgon.

The main narrator was an Iraqi soldier whose badly charred body lay on the road to Basra after his retreating column was blitzkrieged by American bomber planes in 1991.

Every experience was different, but the consequences followed similar patterns – innumerable deaths and injuries, mass displacement of people, and years of grinding poverty and subsistence in refugee camps far from their homes and people.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine relies on brutal mathematics. Russia knows that no other military alliance will intervene on behalf of Ukraine. Its military might is so overwhelming it will be sufficient to over-run the country.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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