Okay, so I still haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, but hoping to be able to see it tomorrow afternoon, if all goes well on my massive paper writing and rewriting I have scheduled for tomorrow. But, because I know I shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be talking about ideas in a film I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen, I wanted to mention The Fog of War, of which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen about half of so far. At the halfway point, I adore this film, but I feel like its something I need to watch many, many more times. One of the reasons I think I like this movie soo much is because of the subject matter; 13 Days, with Kevin Costner, has been one of my favorite films since high school (and made me quite the Adlai Stevenson fan), and I was thrilled to see an interview with one of the principle players in the Cuban Missile Crisis. I also really enjoyed it because I think we see, or rather hear, a different side of Morris in this film. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the first time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard him speak from behind the camera, which I loved, because he seemed so passionate about the material; so was I, and Morris just charmed me even more. One of the things that has really struck me is McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discussion on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153efficiency\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of war. It was more efficient he claims, to firebomb and burn countless cities and kill thousands of men, women, and children than to let American troops attempt a land invasion and be killed by the thousands. This really god to me, mostly, I think, because I have an uncle who flew F-16s in the Air Force until about a year and a half ago. He served in the Gulf War, in Turkey, Iraq, and had two tours of duty in Afghanistan, in addition to being in Washington DC on September 11. He told me a story once about he was talking with another pilot friend who flew another kind of plane (which I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember) about the efficiency of their weapons systems. My uncle insisted that because of the computer aid in his missiles he was more accurate in hitting his targets rather than accidentally hitting housing developments, thus killing fewer innocent women and children. His friend protested and showed him statistic books, which showed that, because my uncle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s targets were primarily water treatment and storage facilities, he killed far more women and children by contaminating or eliminating their water supply. It might have been more efficient in winning the war, but its not more efficient in preserving the lives of those who cannot decide if their country goes to war or not. I also think its interesting the way Morris shows how everything in McNamara\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life seems to boil down to statistics. He includes the anecdote about he and his wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contraction of polio at the same time as a statistical improbability to show how events often cease to be events for McNamara and become numbers, just as people do. These numbers become statistics, and these statistics can be disposed of any way we choose because they do not think or feel, they do not exist as anything other than an intangible number. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to watch the rest of this movie and then watch it again and again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6just as soon as I graduate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, so I still haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, but hoping to be able to see it tomorrow afternoon, if all goes well on my massive paper writing and rewriting I have scheduled for tomorrow. But, because … Continue reading