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.