can someone edit this? Thanks in advance!
Mcnamara's Eleven Points in light of the US's involvement with the War in Iraq
The inevitable fog of misunderstanding and irrational human error within war can lead to mass killings, chaos, and inevitable failure. The U.S. and its involvement in the Iraq War was no exception. Through this essay, I will analyze the United States’ involvement in Iraq as presented by the documentary Bush's War and how it could have prevented failure by adhering to four of Robert McNamara’s eleven lessons from the film The Fog of War. These include “Get the Data,” “You Can't Change Human Nature,” and “Rationality Won’t Save Us.” These four lessons tell us-----
If the United States had adhered to the lesson "Get the Data," they would have prevented the failure of establishing illegitimate information as fact to the nation. This lesson advises to gather the necessary data in order to create successful and rational decisions, just as McNamara utilized Cornell Aeronautic Labs in order to research injuries caused by Ford. Due to McNamara's conscious effort to research, he prevented numerous injuries, introduced seatbelts, and was appointed presidency of the Ford Motor Company.
Firstly, if the United States had "gotten the data" Curveball, then they would have prevented false information from being presented as fact to the nation. Germany provided the US with allegations from a relative of a Senior Official within the Iraq National Congress, codenamed Curveball, who claimed that he had helped build mobile facilities in Baghdad used for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents. Although Germany warned that he was unreliable and even alcoholic, there was no direct contact with Curveball and America, and there was no documented proof of such mobile facilities in Baghdad, Curveball’s claims were still regarded as truth. They were, as Colin Powell stated in a speech to the United Nations, transformed into the fact that “[the United States has] firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.”
Here, the United States government could have prevented the failure of establishing invalid information as fact to the nation. This fabrication of the allegation is indisputable, since after the U.S. invaded Iraq and overthrew Suddham Hussein no weapons of mass destruction were found. Secretary Powell even stated that he "of course, regret[s] the U.N. speech [he] gave." If the United States had more carefully researched the validity of Curveball's claims, it would have been able to get factual data.
Secondly, the Pentagon Intelligence Group's neglect to "get the data" regarding the allegation that the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with a senior official from the Iraq Intelligence Service in Prague resulted in falsified information. This alleged meeting was contrived from Czech and was accepted as fact within the U.S. although, as Vincent Cannistraro stated, "it wasn't true because the FBI had Atta in Florida at the time." Likewise, there was a supposed photograph documenting this, even though such a photograph was never found.
The United States neglected to "get the data" and instead assumed the allegation against Mohammed Atta was true, since it was the missing link that many wanted to believe. Richard Clarke, who logically doubted the allegation, even recalled Scooter Libby grabbing him and stating "You're wrong. [In other words] this is a report that we want to believe, and stop saying it's not true!" Nevertheless, upon further investigation the CIA found the allegation to be highly unlikely, and is currently considered as a probable falsified report. If we had gotten the data regarding what we should have learned, instead of jumping on what we wanted to believe so that we could engage in war, this would have prevented the use of Curveball and his invalid claims. Therefore, logical data supersedes mere human cognition, as is enforced by the rule and exemplified in this example.
Had the United States better adhered to the lesson "Proportionality Should Be a Guideline in War," they would have been able to prevent the failure of not controlling the Iraqi citizens following the regime’s fleeing.
This rule cautions that states must adhere to "rules of proportionality," or to react in appropriate degrees to the actions of another state, just as McNamara argued that the US's killing of 100,000 ---soldiers---and then bombing was not proportionate to Japan's doing----- This doctrine could have effectively translated into the U.S.’s strategy of restoring order in Iraq. The U.S. reacted in an inappropriate degree to Suddham Hussein 's threat to our security. .After the United States' failed assassination of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Leader and his army disappeared, leaving his country in a state of ecstatic freedom. Since the US underestimated both the Iraqi citizens' strength in numbers as well as the power of Saddam's regime, the US military arrived with only 7,000 soldiers to sustain order, while Saddam utilized 250,000 military officers, paramilitary, secret police, and other figures of power in order to organize the millions (PUT NUMBER HERE) of Iraqi citizens.
Although the nation was suspicious of his partaking in September 11, there was no solid evidence for this, and so it would have only been proportionate to not have taken any action until there was. His direct threat to our nation was questionable, and a tangible attack can only be proportionate to another tangible attack on the same level, not a theoretical threat. Much like how James Bamford, author of A Pre Text for War stated, "We've got to see how we can bring Saddam Hussein into this," many were merely looking for a way to blame him and so they reacted to what they wanted to believe, as opposed to what they truly should have. Therefore, it was disproportionate to take protective action against a state that may not have been a threat in the first place, and so the rebellion---- could have been avoided if we had adhered to this rule.
Further more, Had the United States better adhered to the lesson "Proportionality Should Be a Guideline in War," they would have been able to prevent the failure of Iraqi 's chaos following the regime’s fleeing. After the U.S. Air Force's failed assassination of the Iraqi President, the 7,000 U.S. soldiers faced with the chaos of the liberated state fared highly ineffective compared to the 250,000 figures who had previously led Iraq. Clearly, the US reacted in a disproportionate degree to the actions of Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people by deploying a comparably measly degree of soldiers to Iraq to Hussein's regime as well as the Iraqi population itself. Likewise, when the Iraqi citizens began out-breaking and looting, the US again acted in a disproportionate way by neglecting to send over more troops to regain order, as this led to "buildings on fire" Michael gordon Co Author Cobra II," looting, and other acts of chaos. If we had reacted proportionately to Saddham and utilized forces similar to his, then we would have been able to prevent this pandemonium.
Further more, if the United States had better understood the lesson "Belief and Seeing are often both Wrong," it could have prevented the failure of Ahmed Chalabi and his temporary government for Iraq. This rule suggests that, as McNamara stated, “we see incorrectly or we see only half of the story at times.” In this way, we see what we want to believe, thereby making belief and seeing synonymous concepts within the human cognition.
The US planned to utilize INC's Ahmed Chalabi as a temporary government following the destruction of Saddham's regime. Although once confronted by then Secretary of State Richard Armitage, he refused to provide proof of receipts regarding the Department of States' funds for the INC and so he consequently lost all state funding. In this way, the Department of State should have utilized the rule " Belief and Seeing are Both wrong," as it naively hoped that Chalabi would be a success, and therefore believed and viewed him as such. As stated by Richard Armitrage, "He had real believers over at the Defense Department...he just convinced them that this was the answer that they wanted them to hear... that.. [he'll]..recognize Israel and... this will be the new democratic bastion in the Middle East which can change the whole picture of the Middle East." Perhaps, if the US government had adhered to this rule and chosen a leader wbased on solid factual success in as a leader as opposed to fanciful hopes, then it may have been more successful in re-organizing Iraq. Believing what they wanted to see, though, clearly resulted in inevitable failure.----we need experienced people w factual history of sucess, not heroes prommising to save the world
Lastly, the lesson "Rationality won't save Us" serves as a vital doctrine that could have prevented the failure of Guantanamo Bay and Camp X-Ray.
According to McNamara, this rule states that beings such as Kennedy and ---- , although rational, came dangerously close to engaging the nation in war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In this way, sometimes human rationality will not be as effective as luck can.
The US believed it was rational to utilize Guantanamo Bay and Camp Delta, although adhering to the rule that "Belief and Seeing are Both Wrong" would have proved successful within this context. Guantanamo Bay located in Cuba and Camp Delta became where inmates were subject to interrogative techniques, such as removing religious items and stress positions (i.e. standing for four hours) in order to extract intelligence information regarding Iraqi threats to US security, although both institutions proved ineffective. General Paul Kern US Army even stated, "They weren't getting any intelligence, and so it added up to taking a lot of detainees.. and nothing was working right."
In this way, it is proven that humans are not physiologically capable of perfection, as the government as well as the interrogators of both institutions could not, regardless of their efforts, extract intelligence from captives that could have saved the nation's security. If they had adhered to the ideology of Robert McNamara, they would have found that success may sometimes be reliant on luck, as the actions of rational beings may not be enough in securing success. Perhaps, if they had miraculously epiphanized an infallible interrogation technique or a captive had magically desired to cooperate with the US, then Guantanamo Bay and Camp David would have been successful. Although, this would have been reliant on luck, since the rationality of humans clearly did not suffice. In this way, they may have found it more successful to halt the increasingly more extreme methods of interrogation, as their rational methods were ineffective.
No one will edit or proofread a very long paper like this for you ... well, unless you want to pay a proofreading service.
Here's what to do: Go over your paper with the following in mind. Thanks to PsyDAG for the following:
In the future, if nobody is available to proofread your work, you can do this yourself. After writing your material, put it aside for a day — at least several hours. (This breaks mental sets you might have that keep you from noticing problems.) Then read it aloud as if you were reading someone else's work. (Reading aloud slows down your reading, so you are less likely to skip over problems.)
(You can also either read it aloud to someone else or have someone else read it aloud to you! The latter works really well!)
If your reading goes smoothly, that is fine. However, wherever you "stumble" in your reading, other people are likely to have a problem in reading your material. Those "stumbles" indicate areas that need revising.
Once you have made your revisions, repeat the process above. Good papers often require many drafts.
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And here are some really good websites that will help, too:
http://teachro.publiccomputingservices.org/writing/proofreading.htm
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/proofing.htm