Dereliction of Duty
Dereliction of Duty makes a unique, groundbreaking contribution toward clarifying what happened, why, and who was responsible for the decisions that led to direct U.S. military intervention in the Vietnam War. Based on more than five years of painstaking research, it includes startling revelations from previously classified transcripts of crucial meetings, many of which were obtained by the author through the Freedom of Information Act; tapes of private telephone conversations; exclusive access to personal diaries; interviews with participants; and oral histories. The result is an inescapable correction to the prevailing view that an American war in Vietnam was inevitable. The book follows step-by-step the series of developments and secret decisions made in Washington between November 1963 and July 1965 to intensify the American military commitment in Southeast Asia. And it reveals that the disaster that followed was not caused by impersonal forces but by uniquely human failures at the highest levels of the U.S. government: arrogance, weakness, lying in the pursuit of self-interest, and above all, the abdication of responsibility to the American people. The roles played by the president's closest advisers - McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, George Ball, Maxwell Taylor, and especially Robert McNamara - in the decisions to escalate American involvement are central to the story.
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What Hacker News says
- Maybe my phrasing implied too much causality, but a mixture of psychoactive drugs, extended sleep deprivation, and combat stress could turn anyone into a murderer.
And recent research absolutely has shown that heavy cannabis usage in adolescence and early adulthood does have a clear association with an increased risk of developing psychosis and schizophrenia. Just because the war on drugs lied about the effects of less harmful drugs like cannabis doesn’t mean they can’t be hazardous to your health like any other substance.
Regarding heroin - one may not be particularly murderous while zonked out, but addiction can make people surprisingly aggressive.
I’d also like to add that the company-grade officers stuck in the mud alongside enlisted were less at fault for the needless deaths than the incompetent general staff or the political actors who got us and kept us over there in the first place. You might enj the novel “Matterhorn” by Karl Marlantes, a Marine infantry officer who served with distinction in Vietnam. Or you might prefer “Dereliction of Duty” by Lt General H.R. McMaster, a renowned commander of the GWOT era who wrote his PhD thesis on the failures of Westmoreland and the other generals who mangled Vietnam.
- You should also include high ranking military officers, many with political ambitions, who put their own aggrandizement or telling their civilian superiors what they wanted to hear ahead of their military duties. I recommend H. R. McMaster's book Dereliction of Duty, which goes into this in great detail.
- > There’s a clear feedback loop between the military and the politicians.
Definitely. I recommend H. R. McMaster's Dereliction Of Duty, which discusses how military leaders, many with political ambitions, helped to get the US into Vietnam.
- > Saying politics were the issue is mostly used merely an unfalsifiable statement.
Not at all. There are plenty of historical treatments that clearly document the political issues that prevented the US from capitalizing on its military victories. For example, see H. R. McMaster's book Dereliction of Duty.
It is true that much of the blame lies with military leaders; McMaster's book makes that clear. But the reason for that is that those military leaders were acting like politicians, not military leaders; they were telling elected politicians what they wanted to hear, instead of telling them the military reality. Politicizing the military does not do either the military or the country any good.
> If the goal of the wars are redefined to some really narrow goal like just eliminating Saddam, which is revisionist at best
That was the military objective, and it was achieved. No redefinition at all.
The political objective was never clearly defined, which of course is not a recipe for success.
> Afghanistan is also total chaos, 20 years later. Military might sure isn't helping there.
If you ask the military to do a political job, and don't even clearly define what the political job is, of course they're not going to be able to succeed. That's not the military's fault. It's our political leaders' fault (and our fault as citizens for allowing them to get away with it).
- I agree. The bush family (as representatives of the elite) had ten years to wait for an event to counter punch against. When ur the top dog in town u can mold any circumstance to ur aim. I don't maintain with all certainty that 911 was a false flag. I maintain that what was done and is continuing to be done was absolutely the wrong decision, capitalized on an event decision makers clearly found fortunate.
Right now we are supposed to believe we need to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have to clean up the mess we made. I don't buy it. I think everyone there would prefer us gone. I think everyone here would prefer we left had we not been brow beaten by the threat of terrorism constantly. To me it's obvious that our actions are the biggest cause of terrorism. Those in power want to use the result of their actions to justify more of those actions. It's all pyscology and self development lessons applied at a larger group level--lessons the powers that be refuse to learn. We aren't going to get anything done in the Middle East just like we got nothing done in Vietnam. And if we did get anything done it's simply instill fear in other nations. Perhaps the master plan is no more than peace by strength. And that requires public displays from time to time. Think gang or prison behavior. There is a book though called The Dereliction of Duty:
https://www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vie...
I haven't read it but the gist I get is that politicians like Lyndon B Johnson didn't wanna be the one to lose the war. And generals all the same selfishly killed millions to preserve theirs and america'a image of strength and winning. To top it off, it looks bad to do so if not in the name of the greater good. So we always manage to justify our small picture thinking as if it's for the greater good. Again, nobody is evil. Just selfish and an unevolved conception of human psychology.
...but ps. I don't rule out that there are top secret weather control projects with capabilities beyond what is publicly shared. The point--as the false news trend has pinpointed--is that very little is knowable beyond your own immediate perception AND more importantly top sources (not just buzz feed) aren't trustworthy. Heads of news companies go to the yearly Bilderberg meeting and promise to not share what they learn and rather operate as willing participants using their media empires to push the party line forward. Supposedly. I don't know that either. But all said, my hunch is top players do fashion themselves as chess players with this planet being the board. We all do the same every day with our friends and families to different degrees. It's very conceivable that those with billions of dollars or the same in influence are doing this at a greater scale. I basically know I would do it. And I think we all would do so with our greatest conception of the greater good. What I'm saying is those in charge are stupid and fuck them! Their plan sucks. It's a pre-internet plan made by stodgy people. I also think a lot more peace is possible now than decades ago. Less might is needed. In fact it's a very bad thing and could be what thwarts the global system they are after.
In addition because of the internet we are not dumb cattle anymore. You have to realize that in 2001 the internet barely existed to the old people who crafted the plan. It might have been around but back then u could get by without it being stuffed down ur thrown like now. So we have old Bush Senior who maybe never used a mouse not recognizing how the internet was gonna connect us all and educate us all. The stupider set of masses we were maybe did need more cattle prodding than now.
Now, we are on the verge of a small set of vocal conspiracy theorists (people more extreme than myself) tipping the world on its side--all because the powers that be thought they could manipulate us incessantly. Whether 911 was a false flag or not does not matter. What matters is the plain as day INTENTIONAL manipulation the media does to us every day. What matters is we have wasted so much taxpayer money on military and debt to pay for it. What matters is the millions the us government has killed. What matters is we continue every day! Let's just stop now. Clearly somebody doesn't want us to. U could say the people want us fighting Isis, but that's only because the media makes us fear them.
What matters is that America is the Roman Empire in a hyperspeed world about to have its great schism and eventual demise. All that matters then is whether it sends us all back to the dark ages or if somehow we manage to make it a positive evolution.
..But yea, momma said don't trust the government. Don't. Ur an absolute fool if ur one of those people who can't believe America would do any of these power plays to get what it wants. There's a lot of people like this. Im surprised how many on hacker news. To them here's what I have to say to u: I know a bunch of the people u label "conspiracy theorists" want u to believe 911 was a false flag attack by our own government--u don't have to agree with that to have a strong hunch that ruling elite are up to foul play. It could be an accident they played to their advantage, ie to do what they really wanted to do. Start with that and do your best to read between the lines from the perspective that their may be a hidden agenda. Do you think it's fair we have killed 100s of thousands in the Middle East since 911 where we lost just under 3000. It's not right. Why does our news constantly talk about terrorism? Is the terrorism really as bad as we are told it is? Or are we just being told that? What happened to the Taliban, Al Quaeda? Will Isis be another has-been group soon enough too? I know we surely aren't afraid the Taliban is going to destroy the world anymore. What's the likelihood that Isis is another supposed threat that peters out (when the news stops mentions their name). What does that say about the actual threat these groups pose anyway? ..How many of the newscasters have spent any time in he places they are reporting? Whose really scripting this stuff? They all seem like repeaters to me. And people with opinions have biases based on what's been repeated to them. And the cycle continues. As the game of telephone shows anyone, biases change what we report as fact, thereby giving the audience a different perception of fact than what they could perceive if they were there. I'd be willing to bet if the American public was able to take a virtual reality guided tour of the actual events being covered we would form a very different opinion. Basically we would see how we have dominated the Middle East through violence, scared the shit out of people, made them afraid to come out of their homes, murdered their friends and family, and then we would see how utterly helpless they feel that they are willing to kamakaze themselves to express their anger/hatred. We would see so called terrorists for what they really are: people drowning in despair because we killed their family. End of story. ..oh and you say: "they are religious fanatics!" No they are religious people to begin with that see everything through the lens of religion. Underneath that the core is that they hate us for what we did to them. Not what they did to us.
This dates back to Israel. Israel is a made up country (not unlike many of the other Arab countries since the Ottoman Empire fell in WWI) but one whose religious and ethnic population was not their before hand. Israel cunningly made that area their own in 1948, we sided with them; and the people we took it from and their friends now hate us. In past centuries, there was no internet. Now u have Muslims far far away like Afghanistan with a common enemy. The west and the Jewish people played the land grab move too late in history. If it was the 1800s with the native Americans we could get away with it and beat the victims into submission. Now we can't and we are paying the price for our arrogance. The best thing we could do is admit our wrongs and leave the Middle East. Disown Israel and let them fend for themselves. They are sinking ship we never should have attached to. They will be dealing with suicide bombers for a very long time.
We are on the verge of a great schism because now there are too many truthers able to connect and share their opinion and breed more, while there are still many stubborn essentially idiots that believe in their governments, in America, who will never be willing to concede that perhaps we have done some really bad things we need to atone for, and that their is a hidden agenda enacted daily to manipulate us. America has been real bad. Our day is coming. We still haven't appoligized for Vietnam. You still can walk around that country and be blown up by our land mines. Shame on us.
