Ryan states that “McNamara was certainly no madman.” I strongly disagree. If by “madman” he means to describe a ranting, slavering, raging brute, I would agree. But there is an underlying madness in all political systems, for their very nature is to war against self-directed life processes; to sacrifice – in varying degrees – the lives of human beings to abstract institutional interests (e.g., the corporate-state). That such arrangements have come to be regarded as “normal” in our world does not detract from their functionally insane nature. Ryan also acknowledges McNamara as a “rational” functionary. But reason, unaccompanied by a … Continue reading The Fog of War Continues