I sat down to watch “No End In Sight” tonight, a recent documentary on the War In Iraq that tries to explain why we are in the mess we are in. With a long list of interviewees, lots of actual war footage, and attempts to outline the war from start to current. The message doesn’t even have to be spelled out for the viewer, as it’s so painfully apparently as you watch. I am sure that there are many opinions people may have to the conclusions the film presents.
The main message I took from the film was essentially that just when I thought the administration who ran (or is running) this war could not possibly be made to look any more incompetent, here comes “No End In Sight” to illustrate just how atrociously this war has been planned, managed and operated. The only skill that’s been shown from this administration has been the ability to manipulate the news media and distract the American people with lies and propaganda.
Before this film, I would have been happy with resignations and the knowledge that history will judge these people as the worst the US had ever seen. But this film is so potent, so powerful, so painful, that it really makes you want even more than that. If nothing else, it makes me want these administration people to suffer the way the soldiers have suffered, and the way the families of soldiers have suffered. I still can’t quite even wrap my mind around just how poorly this war has gone.
What makes it hard for me is that I supported this war at the beginning. I fell for the lies and the propaganda. I trusted the news media to do the research and to ask the right questions. I trusted the administration to plan and execute successfully. I assumed so many things, and I feel so horribly guilty for doing so. I feel a weight on my shoulders just for ever having supported this horrible war, and so I cannot even imagine the weight the lies on the shoulders of the people interviewed in this film, or worse, the soldiers and their families themselves.
The end of this war could not possibly come soon enough. My heart goes out to everyone whose lives have been ruined- in one way or another- by this war. And I hope that there are some very hot places in hell reserved for the people that made it the disaster it has become, through their arrogance, incompetency, apathy, lies and ignorance. I find no other way to say it, but…
Fuck you, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice. Fuck you all. I can only hope that one day the American people hold you accountable for the war crimes you have committed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0912593/
“Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers” Tuesday, Jun 19 2007
Commentary and Movies and Politics and War Thomas Nikl 6:28 pm
Usually I try and keep this blog as amusing as I can. Even the political entries usually aim for some kind of entertainment value. This won’t be one of them. Tonight I watched a documentary titled “Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers”. This is one of many documentaries I’ve watched on Iraq (including: Gunnar Palace, Iraq in Fragments, Control Room, Why We Fight) but this one is by far the most horrific. There’s no blood (that I recall), no violence, no death- not like the others- this one is about sheer greed. Greed on a scale that makes even someone like me sick to my stomach, so for those of you who know me, that’s somewhat of a statement in and of itself.
I have loved, and do love, Capitalism, but more and more I realize that capitalism just simply doesn’t belong in markets that involve human lives. War and Health both come to mind as markets where corporations have failed the people far more than they have helped. For the sake of this blog I’ll stay focused on war and this documentary. As much as I may love capitalism, I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for the Armed Forces of this country. They’re the ones that allow us the freedoms we usually take for granted, and now, today, it seems like we value them less and less.
“Iraq For Sale” is about corporations in the US who are being awarded HUGE contracts in Iraq. A lot of these contracts result in a few common themes:
1. Soldiers lose their jobs doing what they were trained to do, so a consultant can do it instead.
2. Contractors are hired en mass, without training or testing, for jobs ranging in logistics, to linguistics, to translation, to interrogation, to fighting, to protection, to intelligence… and so it goes, almost forever, into a black hole of corruption.
3. Contractors essentially treat their employees as a means to a profit, disregarding their safety to make more profit.
4. Further, contractors purposely and wastefully spend, and perform incompetently, knowing that the government will pay their bill without any measures or checks of efficiency or insurance against scandal.
5. These companies make massive contributions to political parties as compensation for contracts and what basically equates to amnesty.
I can’t summarize here for you the impact- or importance- that this film covers. It’s as appalling as it is shocking to think that this is happening. And why? So that the administration can pay back friends for donations and past assistance, and so a few CEOs can make in excess of 40,000,000 dollars a year. If I were an American I would be disgraced. I am an American. I am disgraced.
President Eisenhower warned us against a Military-Industrial complex. President Roosevelt said amidst World War II “Also, our present emergency and a common sense of decency make it imperative that no new group of war millionaires shall come into being in this nation as a result of the struggles abroad. The American people will not relish the idea of any American citizen growing rich and fat in an emergency of blood and slaughter and human suffering.”
Heed the wisdom of these Presidents, and acknowledge the great injustice that is going on in these corporations, under this administration, and that which is effecting so horribly our troops, our war, and our dignity. As Americans-Republican or Democrat or Green or Independent- we should be collectively outraged at what is going on here today, and do all that we can to see that it stops, and that those responsible are punished accordingly.
Below is a clip of the film and a number of links. Rent the film and see how you feel about it. Copy this message and paste it on your blog. Plagiarize it if you want- just spread it- It’s a worthy cause.
http://iraqforsale.org/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0815181/
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