[Peace-discuss] Bush's War on PBS -- Part I

[John W.]

At 01:09 PM 3/26/2008, Karen Medina wrote:

>I was hoping to spark some heated conversation about PBS Frontline's 
>"Bush's War", but it is a busy and sad week for peace and justice 
>activists here.
>
>So, I'll start some of the criticism of the show.
>  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/bushswar/
>
>The Frontline documentary has some really major flaws. Repeatedly it 
>states that the US did not have enough troops in Iraq. While it does show 
>how Bush and Cheney were bent on invading Iraq to the point that they 
>falsified reports and propogated rumors before the invasion, "Bush's War" 
>repeatedly states "but there were not enough troops in Iraq".
>
>Part I concentrates far too much on the discord between Rumsfeld and Condi 
>Rice. And how the invasion led to friendships breaking up.
>
>Of all the interviews, why didn't they interview Iraqis?
>
>The entire first show is US-Administrative-Branch-centric.
>
>I did not get a chance to see the second part yet.
>
>The only part that I thought "Bush's War" did well was the discussion of 
>how the Administration explicitly approved torture of detainees.
>
>-karen medina


I watched both parts and taped both parts.  Like the two others who have 
commented (three counting you, Karen), I was quite disappointed in the 
Frontline documentary.  The focus was entirely too much on the internecine 
warfare within the Beltway - State Dept. vs. Defense Dept., Rumsfeld vs. 
Powell and Rice and Tenet (Rumsfeld vs. everyone who disagreed with him, 
basically) and on what they kept calling "incompetence", and not nearly 
enough on the basic immorality of the war, the evisceration of the 
Constitution, etc.  The program sees the trees in minutest detail, but 
somehow misses much of the forest.  I could never summon up any sympathy 
for Cheney and Rumsfeld, of course, but there were places where the 
documentary had me almost feeling sorry for Colin Powell and Condi Rice and 
George Tenet - and indeed for George W. Bush!   :-)

As a small example, there was a brief segment that showed the statue of 
Saddam Hussein being pulled down, with Iraqis rejoicing.  While the 
documentary showed Bush and Condi Rice watching the event on TV in the 
White House, and made a big point of saying that Rice had tears in her 
eyes, there was absolutely no mention of the fact that the pulling down of 
the statue, like so much else about the war, was a staged photo-op, with 
very few Iraqis actually in attendance.

If I didn't already know better from other sources, I would walk away from 
the documentary thinking that the war in Iraq was a just and noble effort 
that was somehow marred by incompetence.  I'd have a better understanding 
of what goes on within the Beltway in terms of political machinations, but 
almost no understanding of the larger machinations which constitute 
American foreign policy.

John Wason