The documentary offers a social service in dealing with problems and issues of national importance. This is not only a documentary at a time when there is an unusually high degree of consensus about what is important, but also a documentary about what makes this time indeed so significant. And luckily, it is a fundamentally irrefutable one.
Software entrepreneur Charles Ferguson makes his debut as a filmmaker here, an impressive one, and not just owing to the tremendously ambitious feel of the graphics, such as the title cards. The amount of dizzying information condensed into such a tightly composed 102 minutes results in a greater understanding of it all. He gets to the root of the fast deterioration of U.S.-occupied Iraq into pure madness, as L. Paul Bremer's disbanding of all of Iraq's military entities, "De-Ba'athification," and not providing enough troops resulted in no authority, no order. It was the Islamic fundamentalists that moved to fill this void, so their ranks ballooned with many disillusioned Iraqi people.
We are making a haven for terrorists out of Iraq. Yes, we got rid of Saddam, but what we put in his place is far, far worse. Not only for Iraq, but for us and our allies, or what we have left of them. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted. What hit me the hardest while watching this film was that among them were Iraqi museums, holding precious artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations.
Ferguson's film shows us just how chilling those signals were to most Iraqis. Did American forces even intend to maintain law and order? The destruction of libraries and records ruined the bureaucracy that existed before our invasion. They had to start from scratch to reassemble the government infrastructure. And Rumsfeld rejected the looting as no worse than rioting in an American city.
Does Bush read? He doesn't seem to have read anything vital to his intentions. Over 30 people are interviewed here, most of them former Bush followers who have since come down to earth and become embittered by what they experienced. So many of them claim that the inexperience of the pivotal representatives of the Bush administration, and their dissent to investigate, recognize or receive input from more experienced participants was at the core of the devastating invasion effort. And those who voted for them would later protest that Obama had too little experience to be President.
The social impact of cinema is reinforced by the documentary, which pushes aesthetics to one side in the face of social movements and upheavals. It might be argued that since Bremer, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz refused to be interviewed for the film, Ferguson only gives us one side of the story. But the assembled qualified footing of the people he did interview, and their composed, comprehensive emphasis on fact, makes such an argument puzzling.
Software entrepreneur Charles Ferguson makes his debut as a filmmaker here, an impressive one, and not just owing to the tremendously ambitious feel of the graphics, such as the title cards. The amount of dizzying information condensed into such a tightly composed 102 minutes results in a greater understanding of it all. He gets to the root of the fast deterioration of U.S.-occupied Iraq into pure madness, as L. Paul Bremer's disbanding of all of Iraq's military entities, "De-Ba'athification," and not providing enough troops resulted in no authority, no order. It was the Islamic fundamentalists that moved to fill this void, so their ranks ballooned with many disillusioned Iraqi people.
We are making a haven for terrorists out of Iraq. Yes, we got rid of Saddam, but what we put in his place is far, far worse. Not only for Iraq, but for us and our allies, or what we have left of them. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted. What hit me the hardest while watching this film was that among them were Iraqi museums, holding precious artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations.
Ferguson's film shows us just how chilling those signals were to most Iraqis. Did American forces even intend to maintain law and order? The destruction of libraries and records ruined the bureaucracy that existed before our invasion. They had to start from scratch to reassemble the government infrastructure. And Rumsfeld rejected the looting as no worse than rioting in an American city.
Does Bush read? He doesn't seem to have read anything vital to his intentions. Over 30 people are interviewed here, most of them former Bush followers who have since come down to earth and become embittered by what they experienced. So many of them claim that the inexperience of the pivotal representatives of the Bush administration, and their dissent to investigate, recognize or receive input from more experienced participants was at the core of the devastating invasion effort. And those who voted for them would later protest that Obama had too little experience to be President.
The social impact of cinema is reinforced by the documentary, which pushes aesthetics to one side in the face of social movements and upheavals. It might be argued that since Bremer, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz refused to be interviewed for the film, Ferguson only gives us one side of the story. But the assembled qualified footing of the people he did interview, and their composed, comprehensive emphasis on fact, makes such an argument puzzling.