<story><title>‘I Could Solve Most of Your Problems’: Eric Schmidt’s Pentagon Offensive</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon-google.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>He sounds like Robert McNamara, wonderkind of business in his time, relatively inexperienced in politics and military.&lt;p&gt;Then came Vietnam. Eventually McNamara would admit&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;We were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You can read more in &amp;quot;McNamara Recalls, and Regrets, Vietnam&amp;quot;  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1995&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;mcnamara-recalls-and-regrets-vietnam.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1995&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;mcnamara-recalls-an...&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Besides military problems, we face environmental catastrophe, which Silicon Valley&amp;#x27;s ethos that technology will solve it, when it&amp;#x27;s mostly exacerbating it, and I expect Schmidt will end up more than &amp;quot;wrong, terribly wrong.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>baybal2</author><text>That idiot ordered to kill president Ngo only to complain later:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; By the mid-1960&amp;#x27;s, Mr. McNamara says, it was clear that &amp;quot;political stability did not exist and was unlikely ever to be achieved&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You can not call this just an incompetency. He is a type of a person who can not be entrusted with lacing his own shoes, let alone statecraft.&lt;p&gt;People must stop decrying types like McNamara, Kisinger, Dulles as some kind of &amp;quot;smart calculating types.&amp;quot; They were top idiots at the apex of power, and their coming was a prelude to what America got itself in now.</text></comment>
<story><title>‘I Could Solve Most of Your Problems’: Eric Schmidt’s Pentagon Offensive</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/technology/eric-schmidt-pentagon-google.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spodek</author><text>He sounds like Robert McNamara, wonderkind of business in his time, relatively inexperienced in politics and military.&lt;p&gt;Then came Vietnam. Eventually McNamara would admit&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &amp;quot;We were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You can read more in &amp;quot;McNamara Recalls, and Regrets, Vietnam&amp;quot;  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1995&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;mcnamara-recalls-and-regrets-vietnam.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;1995&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;09&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;mcnamara-recalls-an...&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Besides military problems, we face environmental catastrophe, which Silicon Valley&amp;#x27;s ethos that technology will solve it, when it&amp;#x27;s mostly exacerbating it, and I expect Schmidt will end up more than &amp;quot;wrong, terribly wrong.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>smackay</author><text>Errol Morris&amp;#x27; documentary on McNamara, The Fog of War is well worth your time to watch.&lt;p&gt;The parallels with Donald Rumsfeld&amp;#x27;s time as Secretary of Defense are remarkable - it seems Rumsfeld was making all the moves and mistakes that McNamara made. I fully expect Eric Schmidt to suffer the same fate.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;The_Fog_of_War&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;The_Fog_of_War&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>