Unbelievable

I just saw No End In Sight. Among other things, it's left me thinking the U.S. should prosecute Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rice as war criminals. Because what the film makes sort of horrifically clear is that the intention of this invasion (why call it a "war"?) was to create chaos, sustained chaos. There were systematic "mistakes" that ensured the streets would be full of enraged Iraqis with weapons. The main one was disbanding the army. Yes, the army that they've been supposedly trying to rebuild for the last few years. "We can't leave until the Iraqis are able to defend themselves" is the line. Things might be going better along these lines if they hadn't dissolved the army, cut off pay to the military and filled the streets with unemployed men who had weapons and knowledge of where bombs were.

I was stupefied. This is a very hard movie to watch. My ignorance bothered me afterwards. Why would they disband the army? Why create such an inflammatory situation? Just to have one to be in? Then I thought, was it because they didn't trust the army? They thought the army would turn against them? Well the joke's on them because the army did turn against them, but because they were turfed out. And now they're "trying to rebuild the military."

Other things the U.S. army did make them look somewhere on a par with Hitler's gang. They began to arrest insurgents, but indiscriminately, often incorrectly, knocking on doors at 2 in the morning and leading out of the house a young male who is often the only bread-winner (in the words of the film's narration). Watching Iraqi citizens being led out of their houses and stuffed into the back of trucks felt sickeningly familiar. Who did that? Oh yeah.

We destroyed a country. The people are bleeding rags. They have nothing. Except danger. Apart from the horror and death I was heartsick at how boring it all looked. What an endless dreary nightmare -- you never get to read, your stomach is never full, you're always reacting to some horror. I mean what a way is that to live? We sit over here saying "we must bring home the troops." We don't talk about how to address what we did to a country that didn't even attack us.