Review: No End In Sight

[EarlG]

This week I got the chance to to see a sneak preview of Magnolia Pictures' new documentary about the occupation of Iraq, "No End In Sight." The movie is released on July 27th - for more information visit http://www.noendinsightmovie.com

"No End In Sight" will not be mistaken for a Michael Moore movie. It contains none of the theatrics that Fahrenheit 9/11 was loved (and hated) for - no driving around Capitol Hill reading the Patriot Act through a megaphone, no confronting lawmakers with a military recruiter ready to sign up their kids. Instead the viewer is treated to an hour and forty minutes of dry, evenly-paced discussion by various policy wonks, military veterans, and former members of the Bush administration.

Sound dull? You may be forgiven for assuming so. Like most of you I've been following the Iraq debacle from the start so I expected to be on the receiving end of a long list of things I already knew, and to begin with that's what happened. The opening montage explains that Iraq is in chaos. There is a quick preview of the talking heads who are about to explain in very serious terms what went wrong. You may have the feeling that you've seen this all before - but trust me, you haven't seen it told like this before.

"No End In Sight" is narrated in large part by people who were in Iraq working for the occupation, most of whom seemed to be genuinely trying to make the best out of a bad situation, only to be thwarted at every turn by Bush's neo-con chickenhawks back in Washington. Gen. Jay Garner (administrator of ORHA), Col. Paul Hughes (director of strategic policy for the U.S. occupation), Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (in charge of training the Iraqi army), Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's chief of staff), Amb. Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the U.S. occupation) - the list of interviewees is long and impressive, and their charges are absolutely damning. Journalists (both Iraqi and American), U.N. workers, and veterans of the U.S. military also get to have their say.

This is why the movie is so effective. If you think you're angry about the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq now, wait until you see all that stuff you've heard piecemeal over the past few years put together in a well-presented, neatly-organized package. By the halfway mark the relentless procession of Bush administration disasters had me stunned. An hour in, I was thinking, "Man, and they haven't even gotten to Abu Ghraib yet." By the end of the movie I was reeling. "No End In Sight" leaves very little doubt that the Bush administration blew every single chance they had to get things right post-invasion, from Don Rumsfeld cheering on the looters ("stuff happens!"), to Paul Bremer's de-Baathification program and the disbanding of the Iraqi army, to Abu Ghraib and beyond.

And while the litany of errors, blunders, and strategic assclownery parades across the screen, we're treated to footage of Bush and Co. merrily spinning the news from the comfort of Washington D.C. (Rumsfeld: "I don't do quagmires.") It would almost be laughable if it weren't so bloody despicable.

As I mentioned at the beginning, "No End In Sight" doesn't rely on theatrics to get its point across, and as a consequence it will not be as commercially successful as Michael Moore's endeavors. But to its advantage, the movie cannot easily be dismissed as partisan or biased, especially since it focuses almost entirely on the aftermath of the initial invasion. This is serious stuff, and it gets a serious treatment. If you can get your Bush-supporting cousin or politically-disinterested sister-in-law to sit down with you for an hour and forty minutes and take it all in, it's doubtful that they'll remain unchanged by the experience.

I give this movie two boots up the Bush administration's ass.

[eridani]

1. Which raises a serious ethical question--

--suppose they had "gotten things right" after the invasion? Would that have meant that wars of conquest are OK?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

2. Exactly. Why the hell did we go to begin with?

I mean, really?

These folks were misguided fools from day one.

Trying to strategically plan oneself out of an evil wrong is a monumental, in fact, impossible task.

MKJ

[EarlG]

4. That's why it's a good movie

I think it's effective because it doesn't make any judgments about the decision to invade in the first place. Even if invading Iraq HAD been the right thing to do (which it wasn't) the Bush administration's utterly incompetent post-invasion actions made it impossible for a positive outcome to have taken place.

If you believe, as we do - and now a large majority of the country does - that it was wrong to invade Iraq in the first place, the movie merely gives you a great deal more insight into the depth of the administration's incompetence. If you showed it to someone who's still clinging to their support for Bush, they may seriously question that support afterwards. Because it doesn't make any judgments about the invasion itself, it's hard to dismiss as a partisan tract.

I actually found myself thinking a lot about the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina while I was watching the movie.

[orleans]

7. i thought of katrina when i was reading your description of this film

have you seen Eugene Jarecki's film "why we fight"? i thought that was great.

and also after reading your description, i'm thinking: so...why is impeachment off the table?

[Demeter]

3. Thanks for the Review--I Want to See This For Myself

[lala_rawraw]

5. yep, me too... got a presser of it... and

it is powerful

[Up2Late]

6. The Director was interviewed on NPR today, here's the link...

First-Time Director's Story: How Iraq Went Awry

Listen to this story... (audio at link above)

Talk of the Nation, July 24, 2007 · Charles Ferguson, the movie's producer and director, talks about how his film differs from other documentaries made about the conflict in Iraq. No End in Sight won the Special Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Charles Ferguson, director and producer, No End in Sight

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12201276>

[Time for change]

8. That sounds like an excellent documentary

Did they give any insight into WHY they "blew every single chance they had to get things right post-invasion."

I for one don't believe that it's mainly due to incompetence. Billions of dollars have gone missing, and consequently the Iraqis have suffered much more than they otherwise would have. But the money is "missing" only in the sense that we don't know where it is.

[cynatnite]

9. I was going to dismiss it before reading this...

because I figured it would say what I already knew. Look forward to it. Thanks.