[Peace-discuss] "The War" by Ken Burns

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Burns' account of WWII appears to bear as much relation to the facts as 
TV sitcoms usually do to family life.  Here's a typical critique.  For a 
partial corrective, see <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/196709--.htm> 
  "On the Backgrounds of the Pacific War: The Revolutionary Pacifism of 
A.J. Muste."  --CGE]

	Critique, "The War" by Ken Burns

Don't know how many readers here spent 14 hours over the past couple of 
weeks watching the PBS documentary on World War II by Ken Burns.  I 
think I have now seen it all -- given our local TV's rebroadcasts, I 
think I have pieced in the parts I missed initially.  I expected so much 
more, and I feel deeply disappointed.

I have three big objections.  The First is the decision before the 
documentary was really made to avoid or eliminate any discussion of both 
politics, political leadership, and strategy and the makers of strategy 
which would be the military leadership.  For the most part the 
documentary managed this, which contributes to it's failure.  Without a 
political framework virtually none of the combat makes all that much 
sense.  For it is persons in power through political means that have the 
ability to attack this today, and something else tomorrow -- and there 
is no way to comprehend a war without the element of who was in power, 
and who had the political means to direct combat.  Ken Burns lost this 
one before he began if he made that decision early on.  (Does one think 
one eventually will be able to do the History of the Iraq war without 
really comprehending the nature of the Bush Administration?)

This Documentary was advertised as about the impact of the War on 
various local communities -- Luverne Minnesota, Waterbury Conn. 
Sacramento Calif, and Mobile Alabama.  What did we really learn about 
these communities?  Well, they all were letter writers, and they 
followed the news and they collected scrap metal -- but we learned 
little else.  Minnesota Public Radio talked with some of the Luverne 
Witnesses, and they were disappointed that Burns had not included their 
community canning operation.  They actually replaced commercial canned 
commodities with their efforts.  Corn, Beans, Beets, Peas, Tomatoes, 
Potatoes, Carrots, -- they canned it all, and exchanged with other 
communities who could do peaches and cherries further south, and they 
were proud of this accomplishment.  It got left out.  If the Documentary 
was to be about the Home Front -- this was a huge part of it, and they 
apparently are upset that it was dropped from the film.

Third, in line with the promise that the Documentary was to be about the 
home front, I expected it to include much more about sociological 
change.  The Documentary went out of it's way to avoid this.  Part of 
this is the timeline used in the film.  The Period for the war begins 
with Surprise Pearl Harbor, and ends with the surrender of Japan, the 
implications of change did not become apparent in this timeline. Not 
only does this avoid all the politics, and the process by which 
Americans moved toward war from let's say their position at the time of 
the fall of France in June, 1940, or the Nazi Attack on the Soviet Union 
in June, 1941, to the position of probable support (by 66%) for war in 
October, 1941, (last poll before Pearl Harbor), it totally avoids 
discussion of the dynamics of that change.

Otherwise, I object to Ken Burns periodization.  For the vast majority 
of the combatents and the victims, the war began in 1939 -- but Burns 
sticks with the American Timeline that begins Dec. 7, 1941.  I object to 
his failure to comprehend that American Generals such as George Marshall 
were convinced that there would be another World War as early as about 
1923, because the conclusion of World War One had been so flawed, and 
they saw the seeds of the next one in the failure of peace making in the 
wake of the first.  Burns decision not to insert the positions of 
politicians and Generals into the mix because it was politics or 
strategy means that those watching his documentary are denied both what 
they knew and anticipated.

Likewise, Burns ended his work at least with reference to Europe with 
the surrender, and then a short shot of Potsdam.  Marshall's doctrine 
was that wars were about politics, and that the conclusion of a war was 
about finding a means for fixing the politics. on your terms. that had 
caused the war.  If you failed at that, forget the glory of your combat 
victory.  In my mind this is the only principle that applies to Iraq 
even at a distance.  By not dealing with Occupation, and the aftermath, 
Burns essentially blanks out the possibility of drawing a useful 
comparison.

But what really bothers me is the Burns Trademark on this totally 
inadequate film.  I know all too well that these days, High School 
Teachers do not really teach the Civil War -- they give the kids hours 
of Burns films on that subject.  I fear that will happen with this 
latest effort.  And this latest effort is profoundly off key.

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