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The Fog of War

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 1:53 pm
by MehYam
Sorry if this movie has been brought up already, I did a forum search and didn't find anything on it (I don't have much DBB time these days...).

Anyway, there's a cool documentary on Robert McNamara called The Fog of War, I highly recommend that you check it out. It glorifies him a little bit, but he's very humble at times in the telling of his history, and he makes a few points that I applaud - the main one, for me, is to be wary of assumptions. To paraphrase, "you never know what you think you know".

I was reading Kufy's thread, and reading Top Wop's responses about "mindless idiots". Well, this movie offers a couple of interesting lessons about how even brilliant, rational people can get things wrong, at the cost of many thousands of lives. I wager that Top Wop hasn't spent a lot of time examining the places where he's acting mindlessly, or else he wouldn't have spouted that phrase.

I thought it was an excellent picture, although I imagine that people with certain political biases many not be able to sit through the whole thing to get its message, which is really global and has nothing to do with politics - the message being the danger of not admitting to your mistakes.

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 4:13 pm
by Top Wop
Very funny how you try to put me in a bad light with this post without a full understanding of what I was saying. :roll:

There is this "fog of war", and then there are people who are delusional and choose to live their life of ignorance dispite knowing the other side of the argument. I have encountered many people like that in life. I can understand when people react the way they do based on the only information that was given to them, and I feel for them because I have been caught myslef in such things before, but then there are people who see both sides but choose to be ignorant anyway. That is what I have a real problem with.
I wager that Top Wop hasn't spent a lot of time examining the places where he's acting mindlessly, or else he wouldn't have spouted that phrase.
You lost your bet.

To use your own quote against you, "you never know what you think you know".

Try to practice what you preach.

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 7:36 pm
by MehYam
Top Wop wrote:You lost your bet.

To use your own quote against you, "you never know what you think you know".

Try to practice what you preach.
LOL. Given that you think you know enough about kufy to call him a mindless idiot (he's far from either), I'll take your advice with a grain of salt.

Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2004 11:06 pm
by roid
Trivia: Errol Morris invented a device called the Interrotron for this film. Essentially a camera with mirrors, the Interrotron allows the interview subject (in this case, McNamara) to look directly into the camera and see the interviewer (Morris) rather than the camera, so the subject is more relaxed and conversational. To the viewers, it looks like the subject is looking directly at them via the camera
that sounds pretty cool hey.

Re: The Fog of War

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:55 am
by Tman
MehYam wrote: Anyway, there's a cool documentary on Robert McNamara called The Fog of War, I highly recommend that you check it out. It glorifies him a little bit, but he's very humble at times in the telling of his history, and he makes a few points that I applaud - the main one, for me, is to be wary of assumptions. To paraphrase, "you never know what you think you know".
I second this recommendation. This is a fascinating first hand account of the so-called "architect of the Vietnam War". The thing is you learn so much more of History as Macnamara also was involved in WWII, he was president of Ford Motor Company, Kennedy, Johnson, Bay of Pigs, Castro, and of course Vietnam and some other areas as well.

Morris also intercuts some archival footage & tapes from Kennedy & Johnson eras, letting you in on some of the conversations to back-up what Macnamara is saying.

Fascinating. A must-see for any person wanting to hear & understand from a 1st person perspecitve, much of what has happened in the past 50 years, although most is centered from 1943-1970. There are some very interesting recollections from Macnamara as he re-visits both Cuba and North Vietnam in the early & late 1990's and gets to compare notes with these leaders.

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 10:15 pm
by Top Wop
Im sorry but I do not recall calling Kuf a "mindless idiot". However I was reffering to the author of that piece of spam.

Again, you should eat your own words first and quit mixing things up, I wont put up with your attack. If you want to have a flame war then come to chat. I wont do this here.

Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:38 pm
by Ferno
Man.. woppy's got some balls.

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:12 pm
by MehYam
Top Wop wrote:Im sorry but I do not recall calling Kuf a "mindless idiot". However I was reffering to the author of that piece of spam.

Again, you should eat your own words first and quit mixing things up, I wont put up with your attack. If you want to have a flame war then come to chat. I wont do this here.
Since I can't insert anchor tags in your post, I'll paste from it:

You know Kuf, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that all of that is a bunch of crap. You are so simple minded its unbelievable.

And

Its just so easy to pull something like this out of your *** that's been spreading around like wildfire all over the internet and then sit back and say "prove it". I have more important things to do than waste my time with misleading claims authored and supported by mindless idiots.

...yeah, you don't have anything coming to you. LOL

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:47 pm
by Gooberman
So, uh, no apology Mehyam? ;)