No End in Sight

The S-Man returned from an out-of-town trip last night tired and wishing only for a quiet night with a movie on the couch.

Instead we opted to watch "No End in Sight" a movie so disturbing that we had to actually pause the thing and eat Tums to calm our roiling stomachs before seeing it through to the end.

The film tells the story, from an insider's perspective, of the Bush administration's complete lack of either expertise or a plan in dealing with the process of reconstruction in Iraq. The chaos that resulted from this incompetence is almost unimaginable and, if the film is to be believed, is the direct cause of the insurgency that continues to this day.

Despite voluminous research and predeveloped plans available from the Army, Bush left the decision-making on the massively important issue of Iraqi reconstruction exclusively to the trinity of stupidity and hubris: Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Cheney.

The result was a bumbling ham-handed almost non-attempt at bringing order and security to a country that we had purposefully plunged into chaos based only on the flimsiest of rationales (WMD? The "Saddam-Bin-Laden" connection?). The resulting unemployment, death, destruction, abuse, looting, lawlessness, and lack of basic human services (like, I don't know, electricity maybe?), actually managed to overshadow the inhumanity of Saddam Hussein for the Iraqi people.

Aren't we special.

Based on interviews with people like:

Richard Armitage, Deputy Sec'y of State, 2001-2005
Faisal Al-Istrabadi, Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations
Ambassador Barbara Bodine, In charge of Bagdad during the US occupation
General Jay Garner, Administrator, Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance
Paul Hughes, director of strategic policy for the occupation (2003)
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell
Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council (2003-05).

to name a few, "No End in Sight" offers a perspective on the Iraq situation that deserves a look by pretty much everybody.

Just be sure to keep the Tums handy.