The other day I went to see No End in Sight, the documentary on Iraq that has gotten all kinds of critical praise. You have to hand it to independent filmmaker Charles Ferguson. The movie gives you a better idea of life in Baghdad than anything else I’ve seen. The camera angles, the feel of the street, the voices of griefstricken Iraqis–this is bravura moviemaking. The experience of immersion in Baghdad for 100 minutes left me exhausted, harrowed, depressed.
Having said that, I must strongly object to the film’s ideological claim. This is its insistence that the occupation was mishandled, that everything might have gone great if we had just done things right once we took Baghdad. The movie entirely swallows the view of George Packer, the writer who supported the invasion and came to feel misgivings later. In his book The Assassin’s Gate, Packer bravely acknowledged that in supporting the invasion, he had come under strong influences that he later came to question–like neolibcon Paul Berman–but Packer never brought himself to fully condemn this thinking. A good man horrified by the outcome, he was still involved in a kind of self-justification, trying to argue that it had been maybe a good idea. (Given the cultural status of the war thinkers, this sort of self-apologetics is likely to continue for many years to come–note Michael Ignatieff’s vague and abstracted mea culpa in last week’s Times).
"No End in Sight" spends very little time anatomizing the true error here: the decision to invade a country that had not attacked us. It chalks that up to bad "thinking" by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, and Wolfowitz (as if George Bush has ever had an idea in his life). Almost all the film’s energy is devoted to taking apart the bad tactical decisions in the occupation itself. Why did they disband the military? comes in for prolonged investigation. Why did they de-Baathify the government? Why did they let the museum get looted? Why were there not more Arabic speakers in the occupation administration?
As if war is not by definition chaos, and treasures are not destroyed. As if these things can be controlled. As if we have many Arabic speakers in this country. As if keeping the military intact would have produced peace and harmony. (Who knows?) And so the movie leaves intact the neoconservative idea at the heart of the madness: military intervention or Arab tyranny, so as to democratize the Middle East.
As Robert Westbrook wrote,
The question [Packer's book raises]… is whether or not an American war to liberate Iraq
from Saddam Hussein could have been waged without being followed by an
occupation that stirred Iraqi resentment and insurgency. Is the
calamity we now face a matter simply of the obvious blindnesses and
incompetence of the Bush administration, as Packer contends? Or is
there an inherent tension–which invites calamity–between national
self-determination and those "humanitarian military interventions" that
go beyond putting an end to extreme human rights disasters and extend
to liberal-democratic state-building? Packer criticizes the American occupation authorities for opting for
control when they should have been more concerned about legitimacy. But
how can an occupying power exercise any control at all over a people
eager for self-determination without threatening its legitimacy? And if
it cannot exercise control, why remain as an occupying power? Indeed,
why embark on a nation-building war in the first place?
That is the issue. This war was unjust from the start. The assertions of "No End in Sight" are dilatory and distracting; they put off the real moral/spiritual/intellectual business that awaits a society that has blundered so terribly.
we make all sorts of mistakes when we do military operations. and we have faulty intel for alot of them too. remember the kuwaiti babies being thrown from incubators? It was not illogical to think that we should fire the people who worked under saddam as his muscle. I can think of a dozen good reasons why they'd do that.
The problem is, as Phil suggests, the idea itslef. Invading oil rich countries is exactly what got us on the muslim world and al quedas shit list in the first place. to do it POST 9/11 shows how clueless we were.
I am flabbergasted by you, guys. What "bad idea"? It was a brilliant idea, just not an American one. But you, my dear American friends, are so full of yourself that you agree to take blame for making a terrible war, destroying a country and killing hundreds of thousands fo civilians, but you would never concede to the obvious – that you were just outsmarted and railroaded!
The war created "facts on the ground" – brought and implanted US military into the center of the Middle East for a very long time. It stripped the US of its friends all over the globe and thus made our Israeli friends actually look attractive. But within that evil "friendship" we lost the high ground and now even if the future administrations will decide to demand something from Israel or condemn it, they will have a very good way to dismiss it by just pointing to our own atrocities and crimes in Iraq.
Face it, my dearest fellow Americans, – you fucked it up this time like very few ever did. Too much beer, couch and TV football, I guess and too little math, languages, history and your own CONSTITUTION in schools, I guess.
But by God, at least now stop pretending it was your decision to go to war! What is done is done, but at least now stop fooling yourself, take a good look at symptoms and make a right diagnosis! Without it your medicine will be deadlier than your sickness!
Fascinating being lectured on the deficiencies of America, history, and politics by a Russian anti-semite
Thanks to Bill Pearlman for reminding us that any comment about Israel can, and will, be considered anti-semitic to suit his political agenda. It's 2007 and not 1984. Stop all foreign aid now as it is merely taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. I am sure that the astute Mr. Pearlman could find an anti-semitic streak in that general principle. And even if he could not find any such thing it would never stop him from making the atomic bomb of all accusations.
Rarely do I find myself agreeing with Mr. Pearlman (whose obnoxious comments usually annoy me), but his analysis of Mr. Chaihorsky's comments as anti-semitic do actually hit the mark in this case. Yes, you can be a Jew and be anti-semitic. No, criticsm of Israel doesn't make you anti-semitic. Conspiratorial thinking and the exclusion of other evidence and information in order to demonize Jews makes arguments anti-semitic.
"remember the kuwaiti babies being thrown from incubators?"
Lester, you are aware that were "war drums", planned propaganda, an inventioa by a PR firm, whose name I forget now?
"but his analysis of Mr. Chaihorsky's comments as anti-semitic do actually hit the mark in this case. Yes, you can be a Jew and be anti-semitic."
SMF; would you care to point out, what exactly makes Alex remark antisemitic?
Or is blaming "the American" now exchangeable with blaming "the Jew", or agreed on as being antisemitic at its core, due to Andrei S. Markovitz efforts?
I'd be pleased if you could give me helping hand via the keyboard.
"Conspiratorial thinking and the exclusion of other evidence and information in order to demonize Jews makes arguments anti-semitic."
Truth is always a perfect defense.
Alex did not claim that all Jews commit a crime by the fact of their being Jewish. He did not even mention Jews. He mentioned the secular nation of Israel, and any unbiased person should see the difference.
The question is, does Israel, in fact, command a disproportionate share of political influence in the US, and did Israel influence the US to go to war in Iraq?
It is not anti-semitic to ask this question.
If Alex is wrong, then use facts and reason to illustrate his error. If he is right, then his saying so is not anti-semitic.
I am weary of seeing the question of Israeli influence swept aside as anti-semitic. If an Israeli robs a bank, how is it anti-semitic to say so?
Amen (oops – getting to close to the "Amen Corner" slander) to caver's question about the invovlvement of Israel in US politics!
Chaihorsky's comments could also be taken anti-American if they weren't so true. But when someone says anything other than Israel is perfect and unquestionably deserves 110% US support the likes of Pearlman call him Adolf.
How much influence do Ireland, Indonesia, or India carry in the halls of Congress in comparison with that of Israel? How about Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa? Americans owe a greater obligation to the last three than to ANY foreign country, even if such a basic sentiment can be (mis)construed as anti-semitic.
How a thread degenerates.
Returning to Phil's topic, I would add the film to a list of already-available "limited hang-outs" that the War Machine makes available to the smarter of the clueless. Other than a few voices like Christopher Hedges', who boldly questions our worship of Mars, the intended effect of these limited hang-outs is to pacify the people into thinking the "war problem" is merely one of "management." 'No End in Sight' may be cinematographically brilliant, but a failure to address the underlying evil of perpetually fighting wars of imperialist conquest would lessen its ability to advance the important public discussion that is taking place today.
A film that succeeds in getting a segment of the public asking critical questions about Iraq, but which then offers as answer the notion that any substantial difficulties came down to matters of planning, management, and logistics, in the end does more harm than good to the anti-war movement.
Very different thing to say "I am against the Iraq War because we are losing it" and "I am against it because it is an imperial war" (which involves attacking countries that have not materially threatened the U.S.).
It is not the methodology of war we should be concerned about, but war itself. Substitute the word 'murder' for 'war' and this should be clear.
But there are so many vested interests in our culture that support war, ANY war, because it brings them profit. From the suppliers of the troop infrastructure to the manufacturers of the weapons, and including (gasp) the central and investment bankers who profit off the government debt, there are billions and billions of dollars to be bilked from the public treasuries (not to mention the outright theft of monies and materiel that occurs during wartime).
It's all about MONEY. WAR, U.S.-style, is fought for PROFIT. Money trumps ideology.
What is the "anti-war" movement? The FBI (and now the military) love to infiltrate those dangerous claques of balding hippies with flax-bread crumbs in their laps, but that is not the anti-war movement. The movement to end, not only this war, but the political climate which abets and CAUSES the endless warmaking is taking shape in the growing public awareness that the entire imperial enterprise that America has bled for these past 50 years is a chimera, a lie foisted upon us by skilled propagandists and stage-managers. The "yellow-cake and aluminum tube" lead-up to the Iraq war, culminating in poor Colin Powell being trotted out like some feckless marionette before the UN to utter his cued prevarications, is a microcosm of the entire past 50 years of imperial falsehoods, of trumped up provocations and "threatened national interests." Media complicity has been a constant feature of this arrangement; no surprise there, since Big Media has always been largely owned by the same interests that bring you Perpetual War–the degree of consolidation is just greater nowadays.
The same record is now back on the platter, the needle digging into familiar, time-worn grooves, playing yet again–like a mighty Wurlitzer!– the martial orchestrations that will summon our common courage for the drive for war in Iran.
End the lies.
SMF wrote: "Yes, you can be a Jew and be anti-semitic."
The daily apologist comedy continues. First SMF calls Bill's usual bs and ad hominem attacks an "analysis" he agrees with (after carefully informing us he finds Bill's commentary occasionally obnoxious – see, that's how you earn credits as a supposedly reasonable person to cover the fact you are just another apologist), then he nevertheless throws the same kind of mud on Alex while providing no counter-argument whatsoever, then he also informs us one can be Jewish and anti-Semitic!
Unless by anti-Semitism he means being anti-Arab (who are Semites), he is just recycling the usual bs that "honorable" people like Foxman constantly use to keep any Jew from dissenting or, G-d forbid, dare criticize Israel or SOME Jews (like the neo-cons) for screwing America big time.
P.S. Criticizing SOME American Jews like many prominent neo-cons for putting Israel's interests before America's is not anti-Semitism SMF. This equation of SOME American Jews and their destructive agenda with ALL Jews in order to cry anti-Semitism is a clever trick that doesn't fool anyone anymore. By the same twisted logic, prosecuting SOME Italian Americans for being Mafiosi should then have been considered anti-Italian!
So I would be interested to know what SMF proposes in the hypothetical case that SOME prominent neo-cons are indeed traitors. Would he object to prosecuting them because they also happen to be Jewish?
Meanwhile…
"Change on Iraq? Ask the Israelis"!
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/891882.html
Highlight:
"Hoyer [the leader of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, No. 2 in the hierarchy of the House and one of the leading congressmen in the United States] added that he attaches great importance to the Israeli point of view. To this end, he will ask Defense Minister Ehud Barak and several Israeli generals about their opinions on the possible implications of a change in Iraq."
Giving new meaning to the concept of "Bizarro world".
Billy, when will you already understand that the more you comment on my posts the more careful attention you draw to my words? How more stupid can you be to promote words that discredit your ideology? I feel awkward that I am not paying your for that freebie promotion.
Sorry, pal.
And here is another great editorial by the editors of National Review Online (neo-con stronghold of immense importance to anyone wanting to know what they are up to, surpassed only by Commentary and the Weekly Standard):
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjM1ZmQ2OGFhNDAwYWJjZGQ1ZTFjNDdmMjc5ODc4Y2U=
They support the Saudi arms deal! Any comment by Bill?
The worse things go in Iraq the more and more veils will fall. Because priorities change with the deterioration of the situation the old camouflage looses its relevance and being discarded. It flows from a basic fact that the nature and responsibility for camouflage is quite different during offensive and defensive operations.
Before the invasion, keeping the true reasons for it was mainly American concern, now as American lives being tragically lost and war becoming a major IDEOLOGICAL defeat for American democracy, the US political elite is less concerned about the "Israeli trace" and more about their own, domestic scandals, the issue now becomes a major concern for Israeli political planners.
As this issue changes ownership, American side will experience huge pressure not to leak it to the public, which will become more and more lucrative as the situation deteriorates, in attempt to shift the blame for the defeat on our Israeli friends. However the pressure is always applied to the top and leaks are coming from below.
My prediction – the leaks will happen and are happening already. As I said many times before, this may start a major grass-root anti-Semitic hatred lead by the mothers and wifes of the fallen soldiers who cannot be stopped by some Fox talking heads or WSJ articles. Beware of she-wolves who lost their cubs. The everyday Jewish folk like myself and Bill Pearlman will pay the price, disregarding our views of the issue, while the neocons and their Israeli handlers will disappear into the thin air. This process is well under way as more former quite visible all over media neocons are nowhere to be found.
leaNder- that's what I was saying. there were no babies beiong thrown from incubators, nor was there uranium from "Africa" 12 years later.
there are human rights groups still afteer Clinton and wesley Clark for stuff that happened in kosovo. But the fake kuwaiti incubator stories and our human rights vilations in ksovo didn't end up costing us a trillion dollars and 3,500+ lives.
We've screwed up in Iraq, but we've screwed up before. the mission was simply too broad
How to prevent this in the future? Follow Marine Corps General Smedley Butler's advice:
1) Take the profit out of war. Nationalize and mobilize the industrial sector, and pay every manager no more than each soldier earns.
2) Vote for war or no war on the basis of a limited plebisite in which only those being asked to bear arms and die for their country are permitted to vote.
3) Limit US military forces, by Constitutional amendment, to home defense purposes only.
Voila! A strong, vital nation, and no more sanguinary and burdensome wars for profit and empire.
Or, just have lottery draft, so the rich do run the risk of losing their sons too.