If you finish watching the excellent documentary No End In Sight feeling hatred in your heart, you’re not alone. The film’s exposé of the Bush Administration’s handling of the war in Iraq and subsequent occupation will enrage anyone, and I mean anyone, from supporters of the war to the completely apathetic.
There’s no defence, absolutely none, for how the occupation was handled. From the shoddy planning (a mere two months before the invasion compared to two years for Germany during World War II), to the massive looting that took place, to the unprepared and often incompetent staff assigned to handle Iraq’s reconstruction, this was an outright crime committed against the Iraqi people, and the men in charge – L. Paul Bremer, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush – have not, and probably never will - face criminal charges for their incompetence.
Some interesting points made in the film:
-Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head L. Paul Bremer’s decision to disband the Iraqi military, leading to 500,000 men losing their jobs. With no jobs to support themselves or their families, they were basically the spark that lit the insurgency. It also didn’t help that they were also the ones with knowledge of and access to Iraq’s armoury.
-The sheer lack of experienced personnel. Bremer and many top-ranking officials had no military experience, spoke no Arabic, and knew nothing about post-conflict reconstruction.
-People assigned to the CPA included young folks fresh out of college with ties to the Bush administration, including one girl with no municipal experience who was put in charge of Baghdad’s traffic.
-The number of troops requested by Secretary of State Colin Powell and other military generals was ignored by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, leading to complete disorder after Saddam Hussein’s regime had been toppled.
-All of the sites listed by the Office of Reconstruction and Assistance (OHRA) as being culturally significant to Iraq were left unprotected, leading to massive looting of Iraqi museums, government facilities and other important ministries and institutions (the oil ministry, however, was kept safe).
You get the sense after watching this film that Bush and co. were more than just inept, but rather, complicit in Iraq’s disintegration. Footage of Rumsfeld playing down reports of looting add to this image, as does the lack of any mention of Bush’s involvement in the occupation. He farmed out this responsibility to his vice-president and Secretary of Defence.
A total disgrace.
You should check out the documentary "Collapse" where they interview Michael Ruppert and discuss a wide range of topics from oil to food production to the unsustainable global economic system. He also discusses a bit on how the Bush administration tried to repress his ideas and writing (particularly in his prediction of the economic collapse some 3 or 4 odd years ago). Anyway, the U.S. is in dire need of a revolution...but society is just too apathetic to care...which is how the elitists like it.
remember how before the 2000 election people on the left especially argued that Gore and Bush were the same?
seems kinda silly in retrospect, doesn't it?
"Taxi to the Dark Side" is pretty good too.
The puppeteers (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al) that pulled the strings of this war in Iraq were only concerned with the Military-Industrial Complex!