See other Editorial Articles
Title: Iraq LOOK AT THIS PLEASE
Source:
[None]
URL Source: [None]
Published: Jul 29, 2007
Author: staff
Post Date: 2007-07-29 22:29:05 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 144
Comments: 11
(1 image)
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#2. To: tom007 (#0)
from Newsweek: Lucidly, and without partisan rhetoric, Charles Ferguson's not-to-be-missed documentary, "No End in Sight," lays out the disastrous missteps of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The magnitude of the errors perpetrated by the Bush administration—ignorance, incompetence, arrogance, bad or nonexistent planning, cronyism and naiveté—can make you weep with anger. We hear about jobs in Iraq handed to the sons of Bush campaign donors, of the young woman put in charge of managing traffic in chaotic Baghdad despite never having studied traffic control or Arabic. Thirty-five people are interviewed in the film, including Jay Garner, who briefly ran the reconstruction before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer; Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was placed in charge of Baghdad (in an office that didn't even have phones); former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage; a clearly bitter Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, who believes President Bush did not read the one-page summation of an intel report on the worsening situation that his committee submitted to the White House, and Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. One of the most eloquent is Col. Paul Hughes, who watched as Bremer carried out what the film posits as the most fatal of all the bad decisions: disbanding the Iraqi Army, which sent tens of thousands of unemployed, humiliated men into the arms of the insurgency. Though Ferguson is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (and a political-science professor at MIT), "No End in Sight" doesn't enter the debate over the rights and wrongs of the invasion. The director has said he initially supported the war. This movie, his first, never raises its voice, yet it is bursting with the barely contained rage of the men and women whose expertise and best intentions were betrayed at every turn. This powerhouse of a movie should be required viewing for every member of Congress. The executive branch is likely to avert its eyes.
#3. To: kiki (#2)
Thanks kiki. They believed their own press releases. US Political system has done that way toooooo much lately.
I have to agree with this approach. The current situation in Iraq represents a two pronged problem. 1. The war was and is wrong and should have never been carried out. 2. The war was and is being carried out in such a fashion that the only reason I can find for its failure is willful and direct mis-management of the entire affair. In both cases people should be losing jobs, military theories being re-written from the ground up, and more than a few leaders being arrested and put on trial. But as with 9/11, members of club FEDGOV will award each other medals of freedom while innocent people die, nations are destroyed, and nothing is done to set things right.
Kiki, thanks. I have to see this movie. BTW, my daughter's nickname was Kiki when she was a kid, but when she went to first grade she demanded to be called Kathleen, which I mainly do. Every now and then, though, she tolerates "Keeks." Back on topic, I just do not understand how anyone could have supported that war, unless you had an actual blood relative executed by Saddam. As a fascist dictator, he was pretty run-of-the-mill. The only thing that made him interesting was that his posterior was firmly planted on a huge pile o' oil. I had some fascist telling me that being anti-war was just anti-Bush. I was out there a year before the war protesting and predicting a major religious war throughout the world if this happened. And Smirky the Wonder Punk hadn't even said the word "crusade" yet.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Replies to Comment # 2. The executive branch is likely to avert its eyes.
#6. To: kiki (#2)
Though Ferguson is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (and a political-science professor at MIT), "No End in Sight" doesn't enter the debate over the rights and wrongs of the invasion.
#10. To: kiki (#2)
End Trace Mode for Comment # 2.