No End in Sight

As you may have inferred from my many sardonic comments about the neocons, I oppose the war in Iraq. The documentary No End in Sight confirms my opinion not shared by everyone to be sure. But this documentary, written, directed, and produced by Charles Ferguson, an information technology expert and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, shows in a rare non-ideological way, the mistakes made up to and during the Iraq invasion.

This is not an incendiary Michael Moore screed; it puts the left's argument in cool, rational light for the right to see clearly and attack as is its right. Ferguson grimly reminds us that information about the absence of WMD's was ignored to further an agenda that began immediately after 9/11 with the order to confirm a link between Al-Qaeda and Hussein's Ba'athist regime.

If you want more insanity, how about the order to disband the entire Iraqi army and Ba'ath party members from government service. That 2004 brought an insurgency of disaffected Sunni men who could have been serving in the necessary local army was no surprise. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's lack of preparation for post-invasion operations is just another depressing fact brought out by this sober, if not surprising or dramatically compelling documentary.

If you read the New York Times, you won't need the information in No End in Sight, but Ferguson puts it together so carefully and responsibly you might want to refer to it as you debate the neocons who claim the surge is working and the end is in sight. They need glasses, and not rose colored ones. But then retaining political power does mighty strange things to one's vision.

Sometimes seeing a documentary that has such immense and complex connotations like the war on Iraq can be so staggering that one might be tempted to rate it highly just based on how compelling the subject matter is. That part of it, of whether it's worthy for a documentary, is important. But first-time director Ferguson does an incredible job of amounting crucial interviews with former Generals and government officials, ex-soldiers, enough footage of Iraq destruction for two or more movies, and a mounting sense of dread over the unequivocal fiasco that what went on leading up to-during-and especially after America invaded Iraq, and the film was more than worthy of a special jury prize at Sundance earlier this year.

It's devastating and infuriating enough to get the people you might be with seeing the film into a heated argument (probably with everyone on the side, at least, that it was profoundly stupid to go into the country to start with, without a real plan anyway), because of the layers that can be taken into account. If one watched the news enough, or read what was available at the time, then some of the information may not be all new-news. But a lot of it is, which throws on fuel to the fire for Ferguson's thesis that with all the mounting mistakes, the most crucial ones came in taking for granted what would happen if say, for example, the Iraqi army was disbanded along with the Ba'ath party (if that's how it's spelled). Interestingly, Ferguson doesn't spend too much time on the blunder that was going into Iraq in the first place; that's for other films and he knows it well (namely Fahrenheit 9/11).

We went in. Now 'what to do next' is really where the cards are all layed out: the looting and rioting, which went on for days and ruined many of Iraq's small places of civilization like museums and libraries (which, of course, Rumsfeld and the US didn't mind and practically encouraged), then after that the whole huge f*** up that was the lack of real planning for after we toppled Sadaam's regime (for Germany after WW2 the plan was layed out two years in advance, for Iraq it started 50 days before the invasion), and very notably Walter B. Slocombe (who comes off stumbling through his interview as he can't answer why he wasn't talking to other advisers about the plans of what to do with the Iraq security) and L Paul Bremer, who crafted the three plans for reconstituting Iraq, which basically created the Insurgency. That part, of course, is a big chunk of No End in Sight, with the blunders continuing on and gaining force with the US involvement in Iraq.

So the question comes first to those thinking about the questions Ferguson lays out through his interview, aside from how in the living hell (literally, if you're over in Iraq) we've now spend two *trillion* dollars over there, which is: Why? To get a documentary like that now probably would make a big enough uproar to get people in the streets. But for now, No End in Sight will have to do.

You may think that Charles Ferguson's documentary is filled with things we already know. That's what I thought. But the truth of the matter is I knew it like a rumor of sorts born and nurtured out of anger and frustration. What this riveting documentary does is to show it to us confirming what we thought we knew.The sadness is unbearable. The clarity of what lays at the center of this absurdity is startling, devastating. There were only five people in the theater. Why? I found out about the existence of "No End In Sight" through a radio interview with the film-maker. The film has been released practically in secrecy. Everyone is flocking to see Chuck and Larry while this masterpiece that concern us directly is practically ignored. I want to thank Charles Ferguson for this enormous contribution to the truth. I believe he put his own livelihood on the line for the privilege. Sir, you've just become a hero of mine.

This is an amazing conformation of the Bush administrations utter failure in the handling of the Iraq war. A girl scoot troop could have made better and more informed decisions. Perhaps even a troop of monkeys would have done a better job then Bush's henchmen?

The errors in judgment and lack of military experience within the administration are both appalling and telling of the Bush white house. Every military expert was systematically ignored or sidelined. It's as if the Bush administration's primary and sole interest or concern was the protection and acquisition of Iraq's oil provisions.

This film is a testament to the complete and absolute failure of the Bush presidency.

This is a movie every American must see. Tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, thousands of brave American soldiers killed or maimed, all for no apparent reason than the arrogance of this administration. Many good people, administrators, military etc. speak out in this movie and give a chilling view of the ineptitude and arrogance of George Bush and co. Unfortunately, these people were not consulted in the beginning of the occupation. Instead, they were pushed aside, as clueless and even malevolent bureaucrats, such as Bremmer, Holcombe, Wolfowitz, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush, mangled every aspect of the American occupation, one after the other, causing in the process an unimaginable loss of human life and resources. The movie's creators do not impose their beliefs on you. Instead, they let the testimonies of the people who were there speak for themselves. The conclusion that comes out of it is inescapable. This has been the largest quagmire in American history, the true cost of which will not be known for decades. It truly is a nightmare with no end in sight.