Actually, this is a dual post about how pissed off I am about the clusterf*ck happening in Iraq and how everyone should go out and rent NO END IN SIGHT before voting in the presidential elections later this year (apologies to non-American readers, though you all should still see the movie just in case you needed to renew your loathing for the current administration).
If you’re the kind of person that values zero-pulled-punches reporting, but thinks that the over-dramatization and sarcasm in Michael Moore’s films tend to overly distract from the facts, you’re gonna love (to hate) this movie. There’s no carefully selected extreme-case profiles, there’s no flotilla to Cuba to seek treatment and five cent drugs, there’s no guy in a bird costume trying to draw attention to gun control… This is simply a matter-of-fact, indisputable series of interviews with several of the original main players of the Iraq occupation who were either duped, pressured into leaving or fired for trying to avert the disastrous situation that has unfolded in Iraq.
Here’s a plot synopsis that I stole from IMDb: “The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insiders tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the spring of 2003), Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of occupation of Iraq through May 2003), as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and prominent analysts. NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of US policy, the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government and the disbanding of the Iraqi military largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today.”
By the end of the movie you’ll be so bent out of shape by the antics of Paul Bremer (dizzying series of totally avoidable f*ck-ups), Donald Rumsfeld (staggering, condescending duplicity), Dick Cheney (acute megalomania) and George Bush (where do I start?) you’ll wanna go out, buy a taser, a bushel of super-fast growing bamboo and 50 feet of hose, then [the remainder of this paragraph was deleted when I was reminded that offering suggestions of retribution and creative torture methods against high ranking officials, even in absurdist jest, may get me arrested because the First Amendment was unofficially annulled in 2001 for everyone with a net worth of less than 50 million dollars].
So, if you’d like a disturbingly factual account of the Iraq occupation and you know how to vent your rage in a socially acceptable manner, it would behoove you to seek out this film. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can watch it on you PC right now.
Viewing tip: remove all throwable, breakable items from the room before hitting ‘play’.
UPDATE: NO END IN SIGHT has been nominated for an Oscar in the ‘Documentary Feature’ category.
I have to “remove all throwable, breakable items from the room before” to even try to “leave a passing comment”. no disrespect to either you or the movie but have you been sleeping in the last 8 years ? your outrage outrages me.
Elfin – You know I’ve been watching the exact same news as you have for the past four years. The information contained in this movie is on a whole new level. The detailed interviews with people on the scene and involved in the occupation at high levels, the chronological and exhaustive descriptions they gave of the situations, the people and the decisions being made and, the kicker, the revelation of all the completely avoidable disastrous decisions being made by totally unqualified people. The interviewees make it clear that this isn’t all a case of hindsight being clearer. They describe how they stood there and carefully explained to the close-minded people in charge all of the awful ramifications of the obtuse decisions they were about to make and how they were totally ignored. As Ambassador Barbara Bodine put it, (roughly paraphrased) “We knew there were four right ways to do this and 500 wrong ways… We just didn’t know we were going to have to go through all 500 of the wrong ways first.”
If you thought you were mad before, you’re going to blow flames out of your ears when you watch this film and then start daydreaming of creative torture techniques on select individuals using bamboo like I did.
Wasn’t it excellent? Love your review.