Fog of War

I have to agree with the few others that chose Fog of War over Hearts and Minds. In Hearts and Minds, I found that to be very aggressive and gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Fog of War opened my eyes more by helping me understand why we go to war in the first place.

One of the quotes from the documentary that I found appealing was “Nobody really understands what is out there.” This is actually pretty true, in regarding that no one really does know and understands what is out there. For a good amount of the class, Hearts and Minds truly opened their eyes as to what happened in Vietnam. Seeing live footage of shooting villagers and prostitution, it was simply disgusting. Same goes for In the Lake of the Woods, Wade had a secret life in Vietnam that affected his political life once it was no longer a secret. I think “Fog” of the tittle refers to the blindness in any military conflict. McNamara furnishes examples of how the most thoroughly through-out, justifiable war plans and strategies turned out after the fact not only to have been utterly wrong and misguided, but also dangerous and destructive. This made me reflect back to today's war with Iraq.

Overall, this documentary made me think throughout while watching it. The domestic level of analysis for the Vietnam War called attention to the public opinion and demonstrations against the war putting pressure on the government to have a speedy resolution. This documentary gave different perspectives of the Vietnam War.