This is not your typical anti-war documentary. This is not a Michael Moore film. It is an honest look at the situation in Iraq and how we got where we are today. I watched it tonight a second time, this time with my Dad. I feel that it is important not to just take films like these word for word and formulate your opinion based solely on what you have seen. It is very easy to do after watching this film. It is very easy to become angry and pissed and tell yourself this is even more of a reason to vote for Obama. It is not that simple, war is not that simple. Even though this films information comes straight from the sources we are not getting absolutely every side to the story and too many of us formulate our opinions so quickly based on the news and this age of information we live in.
Many of the people interviewed in this film were at one point important people in the Bush administration. Their opinions were cast aside in favor of those of the far less educated (on the subject of Iraq) and their research and hard work were thrown away by the choices of a choosen few. The film even suggests that Dubya was left out of the loop on some major decisions. The media painted personality of Bush would not make that hard to believe, however I don't subscribe to the theory that George is as stupid as he comes off on all the youtube clips and Letterman jokes. Yes I do feel he is in over his head, but by no means do I feel he is evil or that this war was waged purely for oil.
The film paints the biggest reason for the situation in Iraq is the disbandment of the Iraqi Army. This created a large number of insurgents that have lead to the chaos in Iraq. The film does not answer many questions, it does raise more and makes you wonder could this mess have truly been avoided or were we always bound to reach this conclusion one way or another?
The argument should not be that we never should have went to fight in Iraq in the first place. The post 9-11 patriotism everyone had lead everyone to vote to go to war, McCain, Hillary, and even Obama. This can't be overlooked and ignored. The problem is in how we handled the situation once Sadam was overthrown and the questions are why did we refuse to enforce martial law when are soldiers were basically just stationed their watching the looting which the films says was just the beginning of the problems that we are dealing with now.
What this film really did for me was encourage me to continue to ask questions, to seek answers. This is an election year and I don't want to base my decision on a media informed bias, one way or another. I feel too many people, not just of my generation, but in general are so reliant on formulating an opinion based on the information overload society that we live in. We get one view from the right, another from the left and we tend to quickly choose sides without really doing our homework and researching the issues.
I don't know the answers, I am just a high school basketball coach, but I do know that it is our responsibility to formulate an intelligent opinion on the issues that we face and not just vote for a candidate because CNN or Fox News tells us to.
Watch this film, think, and keep thinking. It is too easy to go about our daily lives as if these issues do not truly effect us, I do it often, but they do and it is only going to get worse. It is also too easy to choose sides and spew off opinions that are not really and truly yours.
Well I am tired of typing and ranting, this was not a very well planned film review. I just saw the film again and it got me thinking on many things. So for that reason this really is a great film. If you can watch it without being too biased one way or another already than you can appreciate it and learn from it.
That's all I got for now.
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