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Title: Ken Burns: The War: talks about the parallels between Iraq and WWII
Source:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/
URL Source: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/ ... rallels-between-iraq-and-wwii/
Published: Sep 23, 2007
Author: Ken Burns
Post Date: 2007-09-23 19:33:39 by robin
Keywords: None
Views: 269
Comments: 20
Burns: Every thing sort of becomes draped in this bloodless gallant myth and what I think we have to remember is this is the worst war, it’s responsible for the deaths of 60 million people. We understand why people call it the good war because the country was more or less united, our causes were unambiguous. We didn’t debate it every night—whether we should be in or whether we shouldn’t… As the decades have come, as we’ve removed ourselves from it, we’ve begun to see it as a safe black and white war. It’s exactly what’s happening on the streets of Baghdad. It was horrible and these young men had experiences common to all wars. I was scared, I was bored, I was hot, I was cold, my officers didn’t know what they were doing. I didn’t have the right equipment. I saw bad things, I did bad things. I lost good friends.—Now we have a separate military class that suffers its losses apart; alone from the rest of us. We are disconnected. We weren’t asked to do anything after 9/11 This looks like a must see series.
Poster Comment: Filmmaker Ken Burns chronicles WWII from bottom up
His new documentary on World War II starts tonight on PBS: “The War.” He talked about the similarities between both wars and tried to break a long time myth.
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posted today by robin
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#3. To: robin (#0)
Burns is a DC court scribe. I have no interest in watching yet more unoriginal WWII tribute from DC controlled TeeVee.
I'd give it a chance, Burkeman. He was on NPR the other day, and this is no pro-war rah-rah piece. It's running three times straight tonight, so if you miss the first go through, it will start again immediately after the first ends. Burns is a terrific film maker, IMO. And he said this one was emotionally devastating to make.
Says it all for me. The shopworn, obligatory rhetoric of duty and sacrifice has become ever so dreary and predictable to hear from those who publish big. It's sucked a lot of otherwise decent people into this endless WOT that cannot and will not find any sort of resolution. I wouldn't go out of my way to see Burn's offering. In fact, it think that I would actively avoid watching this if I were in the room and someone else tuned it in.
There isn't meant to be a resolution and talk of duty and sacrifice is for dupes.
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#5. To: Burkeman1 (#3)
#6. To: Mekons4 (#5)
We weren’t asked to do anything after 9/11
#10. To: randge (#6)
The shopworn, obligatory rhetoric of duty and sacrifice has become ever so dreary and predictable to hear from those who publish big. It's sucked a lot of otherwise decent people into this endless WOT that cannot and will not find any sort of resolution.
Replies to Comment # 10.