Politically, I had some problems with this film which appears to suggest at times that if we'd only not disbanded the Iraqi Army or just listened to Richard Armitage more that everything in Iraq would have turned out roses. It also doesn't offer any hint that Iraq occurred in a wider context of a mad scheme for regional domination and that this scheme compelled some of the otherwise inexplicable choices. That said, it's a stunning film and will remind many and teacher others for the first time about the depth and breadth of the madcap ignorance and incompetence with which the administration plunged into Iraq. Go see it, and bring your less-political friends.
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No End in Sight
31 Jul 2007 05:38 am
Comments (19)
Has "the Right" bothered to unfairly impugn this film yet? (or is it too below the radar?)
If I recall correctly, you were originally in support of the war. I don't recall when you saw the light. I do recall how a year or so ago you had the blinding insight that no such war could ever have been successful. I think I am right to listen to you, after all, you have had one course in military strategy.
I admire your confidence as you march through your career to your inevitable Broder-like end.
Enjoy the miniature hot-dogs.
It might help if you got the motivations right. Go read some of Woodrow Wilson's speeches during WWI - paying close attention to his theory of bringing democracy to all of Europe. Now read almost anything Bush has said about the middle east, especially back in 2002-2003. You'll notice how similar the rhetoric is.
Bush started off running Wilson's playbook from 1917. It's still fair to oppose that playbook, but don't make the dime store socialist mistake of calling it a "mad scheme to dominate the middle east".
Bush started off running Wilson's playbook from 1917. It's still fair to oppose that playbook, but don't make the dime store socialist mistake of calling it a "mad scheme to dominate the middle east".
There is no question that the neoconservatives within the Bush administration who were most responsible for the Iraq war have publicly and openly called for US control of the Middle East, with Iraq as a forward operating base towards that end. You don't have to be a "dime store socialist"; you just have to take their word for it. Go read Richard Perle, read Paul Wolfowitz, read Daniel Pipes, read any major neocon thinker. They don't bother hiding the fact that the want US control of the Middle East. After September 11 they don't have to.
People who criticize the government are always going to be dismissed as conspiracy theorists. But when actually reporting what people say about the situation-- when you bring up their written record, which is available, in print, to be verified-- when that gets you described as a conspiracy theorist, I fear for our country. Do your homework.
Politically, I had some problems with this film which appears to suggest at times that if we'd only not disbanded the Iraqi Army or just listened to Richard Armitage more that everything in Iraq would have turned out roses.
Can you explain what you mean when you say politically, [you] had some problems with this film? That suggests to me you don't disagree with the movie on technical issues, but on a political agenda/message level.
Is that true? You think the movie may be correct in its analysis, but you think it's a bad movie to put out due to political reasons?
Or maybe you are saying you do disagree with this move but it's due to a political analysis and not because of a technical/military analysis.
Or are you merely agreeing that you don't like the movie because it disagrees with your previous written punditry?
which appears to suggest at times that if we'd only not disbanded the Iraqi Army or just listened to Richard Armitage more that everything in Iraq would have turned out roses
not having seen the film, I can't comment on it, but I will on the larger point, namely that it's perfectly coherent to have been against the war from the outset while maintaining that the occupation could have been more successful than the clusterfuck it turned out to be
I wrote in a previous post that some peopel might call 'incompetence dodge', but like I said, its not a dodge if the defining characteristic of the invasion was, in fact, incompetence. Its a dodge to say "I was right and still am about supporting the invasion, it was just done badly." Its just a statement of fact that a great deal of misery was inflicted on the Iraqi people because of idiocy like the disbanding of the military.
I didn't feel like the filmmakers were saying if the army hadn't been disbanded, Iraq would have been awesome. I think what they and the people they interviewed were saying is that whatever chance the US had (whether it was a good chance or a poor chance), it dropped down to essentially 0% after a rapid sequence of terrible decisions and generally awful political leadership.
I think this is right. The film was okay, but in a sense it was the Incompetence Dodge: The Movie.
Matthew C's understanding of the film matches mine. I'm not sure where Matt gets the idea that the film is saying things would have been "roses" without the mistakes.
Those who see the "incompetence dodge" everywhere apparently believe that the situation in Iraq after the invasion would have been exactly this bad regardless of what actions the US took -- or maybe the idea is that we're just not supposed to mention the colossal, brain-dead mistakes because doing so sends the wrong message.
Correct, the war in Iraq was conceived in Israel, and Bush is just the patsy.
As for Richard Armitage, he was terrific in North & South.
"it's perfectly coherent to have been against the war from the outset while maintaining that the occupation could have been more successful than the clusterfuck it turned out to be"--novakant
You might cohere these two ideas but that doesn't make them compatible. These two ideas, conquest and success, weren't compatible to Jimmy Carter when he talked about the Soviet Union in 1980, and Carter's analysis rings true, in spades, for the United States today.
Carter: "The Soviet Union is going to have to answer some basic questions: Will it help promote a more stable international environment in which its own legitimate, peaceful concerns can be pursued? Or will it continue to expand its military power far beyond its genuine security needs, and use that power for colonial conquest? The Soviet Union must realize that its decision to use military force in Afghanistan will be costly to every political and economic relationship it values."
http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml
Don, what does your comment have to do with Novakant's? "More successful than the clusterfuck it turned out to be" certainly doesn't equate to "success", unless you somehow believe we're right on the edge of success in Iraq now.
You might cohere these two ideas but that doesn't make them compatible.
This purist BS seems to be becoming more and more popular:
If you dare mention that the occupation could have been handled better, you are using the incompetence dodge. This is just nonsense, of course it could have been handled better than it has been.
Similarly, if you dare mention that 1/3 of the Iraqis are in dire need of humanitarian aid and ask what can be done about it, you are toeing the Bush line and helping to prolong the occupation. Again, this is complete nonsense.
Did I mention that I was against this war from the beginning?
I went to an early screening with a follow-up panel that included the director Charles Ferguson. While he shows some ambivalence on the subject, he is sympathetic to the idea that going into Iraq in the first place was not necessarily a bad idea.
BTW, Mike #1, the film is playing at the Laemmle One Colorado, Pasadena.
I think novokant is almost surely right. If the occupation was stunningly corrupt, was planned to maximize U.S. control in Iraq with no checks and balances, was organized without listening to the majority of Iraqis and without paying any attention to their welfare - and I think all of these things are true - then, naturally, one would assume that these things have effects. Cause and effect is always a good thing to introduce into an analysis, rather than automatically starting with good and evil.
The U.S. had no business invading Iraq. It was wrong to do so from the beginning. But the way in which the Bush administration made sure, even before the invasion, that - unlike in the Gulf war I - there would be no limitation on its powers (which is why the Americans made only perfunctory attempts to get Europe on its side, with Powell making, I believe, only one trip to Europe during the whole of the 2002 debate) - was a good tell for how they were going to run the occupation. With no France or Russia to say the CPA nay, they ran the occupation in Iraq the same way FEMA ran the Katrina disaster in NOLA. Forced, finally, to hold elections by Sistani and the revolt that had broken out against the astonishingly bad Bremer regime, the Americans rewrote the laws and helped write a constitution that no nation could survive with.
There's good evidence that the makers of the No End in Sight film made it to please the Broderesque centerists. In the Washington Post q and a with the director, Charles Ferguson, he said the following astonishing, depressing thing:
"I tried very hard to avoid partisan or political statements in the film and in fact, most of the people in the film are Republicans, many of whom served in the administration and in the occupation. I think that their stature speaks for itself."
This is the essence of WAPO bipartisanship - only quote Republicans. Hence, the whiff of Armitage.
I saw it, and I thought the film (correctly) portrayed the U.S. military's non-response to anarchy and looting as at least as much of an error as disbanding the army and civil service. It also mentioned something I hadn't known, that under the Geneva Conventions (yeah, I know, that old-fashioned thing) an occupier is responsible for maintaining order, and can legally impose martial law.
Another thing I got from the flick was the magnitude of the disaster that disbanding the army entailed. I knew that it was a bad move, but before I just lumped it in with a boatload of bad moves. (There were and are so many that of those that it's always been were difficult to keep track.) I hadn't realized they dumped 50,000 professionals, and half a million weapons-familiar males into an already moribund Iraqi labor market. Hell, people start getting edgy here when a few tens of thousands of people lose their jobs in a given month, and our labor force is more than ten times the size of Iraq's.
And here's an aspect of the movie that I appreciated very much: Right up front they mentioned WW II occupation planning, which began when the "Second Front" was just a glimmer of a dream (you can find a very good official history here). I became aware of this during the run-up to the war; the contrast between that and the obvious nonchalance about the aftermath of "victory" was damning evidence that things were going to go very, very badly. It's why the incompetence dodge is a bunch of bullshit -- it was always clear the Cheney crime syndicate didn't know or care about anything other than the touchdown in Baghdad.
One other thing: Watching historical footage of Smilin' Don Rumsfeld cackling away is a genuine ordeal. I wonder if the old bastard, even now, is even vaguely aware of his blazing assholishness?
"I tried very hard to avoid partisan or political statements in the film and in fact, most of the people in the film are Republicans, many of whom served in the administration and in the occupation. I think that their stature speaks for itself."
Good enough for me. I am not going to see it, and will not believe a word of it as interpretation. The Republican foreign policy establishment will blame Cheney & the neocons (not Bush, their judgement is not completely bad, of course) and start making their comeback for the next war.
I can't believe that people still believe or listen to what these people say, even if slightly unflattering to themselves.
They lie.
bob mcmanus
If you disagree with the premise of the film, don't you owe yourself to go and see it?
I saw Fahrenheit 9-11 recently, and was surprised to discover it wasn't anything like what I had imagined or had read reviews. It's actually a quite persuasive, reasoned, and touching polemic. The scene where the mother walks towards the White House is almost unwatchable. I actually learned something.
The story the No End in Sight movie apparently tells is familiar to readers of Life in the Emerald City, Blind into Baghdad, Assassin's Gate, Cobra II, Fiasco, etc. Also to readers of The Atlantic, which covered this very well with Wm Langeschwische as well as James Fallows.
But it might be worth seeing. You might learn something.
Even if the war was a bad idea, that does not justify bad execution.
Comments closed August 14, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Man, only in 27 theaters nation-wide, according to their website. I can't even find any in southern CA off their list that have the movie listed yet. A lot of people aren't going to see this.
Posted by Mike | July 31, 2007 6:15 AM