NO END IN SIGHT

“No End in Sight” could be the best documentary I have ever seen! The crisp audience applause at the end was emotionally revealing. The director, Charles Ferguson, is a historian, and this was transparent to me as I watched. The film was a compilation of talking head interviews with bureaucrats who had pertinent stories about how the Bush administration dropped the ball in the way they approached the War In Iraq. Ferguson just shows the facts of how the war began in March 17, 2003 and exactly what happened thereafter. Much footage is provided too of the war, and this underscores the vapidness of many of the policies implemented by the Bush Administration. Footage of Bush, Chaney, and Rumsfeld tossing out there little sound bites really reveals how hardened and stupid they were, not really caring if what they did helped to end the war or improve the conditions in Iraq. There was Rumsfeld saying, ”I don`t do quagmires.” I had just read “The Making of a Quagmire” by David Halberstam, who just recently died. Over the past four years that is just what I have been thinking, that the US is sinking into another quagmire, just like we did in Vietnam. This documentary puts all the pieces of the puzzle together for you, where as before we have been just looking at each of the fatal errors of Bush policy in isolation. I will make a little grocery list of the blunders for you, just to remind you, but understand that this documentary dissects each of these points for you so that you can clearly see it in your mindseye. The film footage makes it real for you too! After the fall of Baghdad, the city was never secured, and some of the greatest looting took place ever. The museum with some of the oldest treasures of civilization were pilfered. There were too few boots on the ground to secure Iraq. The Hummers were not armored properly. The wounds of soldiers from IEDs was shown. This was shocking. The de-Baathification policy undermined the professional class structure of Iraq, by jettisoning lots teachers, doctors, and lawyers in the rebuilding effort. The most shocking is revealed by Gen. Jay Garner and Col. Paul Hughes, who were actually making progress in rebuilding Iraq. They were part of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. In May of 2003 they were fired and replaced with Coalition Provisional Authority, headed up Paul Bremer. Without consulting Jay or Paul, Bremer dissolved the half-a-million Iraqi army. Once this was done, and those men no longer had an income, they swiftly joined the Insurgency. The details about how this came about was the apex of the documentary. This was the biggest blunder in the way the war was conducted. Another grave issue though, is the way the soldiers have been harassing the citizens of Iraq in pursuit of insurgents. Like the Vietcong, they are blended in with the regular populous. The Vietcong had pulled off the Tet offensive this way in January of 1968, and then won the war this way! The parallels are eerie! Do not forget how the ammo dumps were not secured, so that the abandoned army went right to them and got them. A new thing that I learned was that some of the US civilian contractors actually played soldier, and murdered Iraqi citizens by shooting them from their cars. They then videoed the killings so that we can see it now. This was a very clear piece and I came away shocked, even though I had heard most of these facts before. You should see it soon, even if it is painful to see the foibles of history repeating themselves! The audience was clapping, I believe, because they were glad that the truth was coming out!