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Title: Iraq LOOK AT THIS PLEASE
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Published: Jul 29, 2007
Author: staff
Post Date: 2007-07-29 22:29:05 by tom007
Keywords: None
Views: 146
Comments: 11
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#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.
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.
I think BushCo actually bought the PNAC roses and candy scenario, but they badly misjudged the nationalistic backlash they're receiving. What causes me to shake my head is the inability of govt/politicians to change or abort disasters once they become obvious. The current flaking of this mess is sinful. Beginning w/Nixon I’ve heard the phrase, “It’s the cover up that gets you, not the crime.” While there is truth to that, regarding politicians, I think it’s the hubris that gets them.
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#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.
#9. To: Pissed Off Janitor (#6)
the only reason I can find for its failure is willful and direct mis-management of the entire affair.
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