Fog of War review
 

The Fog of War: A film by Errol Morris.

I rented this movie as soon as I could. I was thoroughly gripped by its presentation and story. It is the story of Robert MacNamara and his 11 rules of war. It is the story of our nation at war (WWI, WWII, Cuba, and Vietnam) and how we got there and also how close we really came to nuclear annihilation. If you are a history buff like I am it is a must-see film.

This kind of film should be in every high school curriculum to be studied and talked about. They don’t really talk about war or the history of war in school. Sure they study the dates and talk about the “where” and the “how” but there isn’t enough discussion about the “why’s” of war. This film does a very good job of that. It won this years Academy Award for best documentary film.

Listening to some of the tape recorded conversations about Vietnam sounded eerily similar to the things I’m now hearing about Iraq. I urge all of you to go rent this movie now!

Robert MacNamara’s 11 rules of war:

1. Empathize with your enemy
2. Rationality will not save us
3. There is something beyond yourself
4. Maximize efficiency
5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6. Get the data
7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong
8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning
9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil
10. Never say never
11. You can't change human nature
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This is the movie's main site:

http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/indexFlash.html

...and here is the teachers guide developed by Brown University for the movie:

http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar...sonPlanFOG.pdf