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Rush to War

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I've seen this DVD at least three time before I felt I could write about it. One problem I had was putting all of it in context. It's because the "Rush to War" was not just about a rush to war. It was about many topics including the rush to war. It was easy to follow when being viewed, but extremely difficult to write about.

This DVD examines the reasons behind the attacks of 9/11, which includes our history of giving precedence to our support for repressive regimes that served the US interests, rather than the spread of liberty and democracy. Unfortunately, numerous examples abound such as Guatamala, Iran, and Chile where democratically elected governments where overthrown in favor of governments that served our interests.

The "Rush to War" finally gets around to the lead-up to the war and the lies told by the administration regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD), yellow cake, reconstituted nuclear weapons programs, and the imminent "mushroom cloud," permeating another cloud of fear in this country, and the penchant for moving rashly and foolishly into Iraq. This part concludes that not one WMD was found, and that there was no connection at all, between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. David Kay's lecture here is particularly powerful.

That alone would have been enough, but Robert Taicher wanted to explore more, so he included the abu-Ghraib scandal, the detention of Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, the arrest and conviction of Scooter Libby, and the most poignant of all, and an interview with parents who lost their son in Iraq. What made it so touching was that it was coupled with George W. Bush's speech where he jokes about not being able to find WMD with pictures of him looking under various pieces of furniture in the Oval Office. The message is clear: Whether as an intelligence failure or outright deception, George Bush, at the very least appears grossly insensitive, by making light of an appalling decision that had already cost the lives of hundreds of Americans. The mother who lost her son gives his humor the litmus test: "Would George Bush have done the same in front of the families of the deceased?"

These topics are discussed through the eyes of several illuminaries such as Chris Hedges, General Anthony Zinni (ret), Noam Chomsky, Robert Scheer, Molly Ivans, George McGovern and others. Several quotes add to the story form James Madison, Hermann Goering, George Herbert Walker Bush, and even Adolf Hitler (in a cynical way) reveal wisdom that adds to the theme Robert Taicher is attempting to convey.

Two things I had trouble with about this DVD: It strayed from the thesis. It was all over the political landscape. It would have been more comprehensible if he stayed on the reasons behind world animosity to the US, and our manipulation of intelligence to take us to war. The second source of annoyance was the monotonous, drone-like voice of John Doman. It was worse than Kevin Costner's in "Dances with Wolves," and I didn't think anything could be as bad as that!

This is an excellent, overall discussion of geo-political strategy and blunders of the past seven years. It is also an example of what a government, in the name of security is willing to do. The commentary is outstanding. When Robert Scheer states, that by giving up our liberty for security we have given the terrorists a victory, it is a message worth remembering. While the content is completely worthwhile, it is out of context with its title.

It should have been called, "Everything That's Gone Wrong."

As the mother of a soldier currently in Iraq, I watched this documentary with great interest. Without sarcasm or sentimentality, Robert Taicher has pieced together the facts behind how 9/11 came to be and how our nation has been duped into responding in ways that will do us more harm than good, both now and in the long run. Interviews are with well-known people as well as with a cross section of the American public, all giving voice to the cause and effect of America's continuing history of misguided, immoral, and illegal activities in its never-ending quest for power and dominance throughout the world. This film is a must-see for everyone in America. It is an eye-opener for the uninformed, the misinformed, the narrow-minded, and the self-centered American public because it makes clear that America might well be its own worst enemy.

This dvd has an all-star cast including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, George McGovern, and Scott Ritter. It is a perfect place to start for anyone who wants to know the TRUTH about the current administration's absolute ignorance of the international community as well as its highly hypocritical foreign relation policies.

Okay, so I was duped by the odd amazonian custom of crediting DVD's by alphabetical order and by first name, and thus the great director of The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis / El Topo / The Holy Mountain). As there is presently no indication anywhere upon the product page of the real and actual director, I assumed somehow it was Alejandro so inspired by these critical events as to do something far removed from his usual works of mythic, epic, fantastic super-realism. I thought he would bring his infinite vision to these banal, evil, imperial events. But I was duped; he appears merely as another talking head, saying that when the USA goes crazy, we all go crazy.

This DVD therefore may serve as a good conversation starter, as an opening for further reading, as the first class in a course in political science or in the art of war as an example of how and why not to start one. There is much that is wrong with this DVD, including the lack of a brochure insert listing a complete bibliography, and biographies of the briefly subtitled participants; yet there is also much that is right.

The forceful Ritter, who certified the lack of WMD's inclduing nuclear weapons in Iraq prior to our invasion, includes a curious quote from McCain saying the US should never practice torture. I hope that McCain, whatever his future, keeps to this word, and does not veto as was done today any future anti-torture legislation.

The extras include further interviews with Mr. Wilson, whose imperial politics are reprehensible (although he prefers inflicting a state of seige upon nations rather than the shock and awe of the dropping of bombs, his difference is only one of means, not of the evil ends) and yet who does wince when this director, obviously no interviewer and interjecting his own limited opinions, forces an analogy between the Bush regime and the trials of OJ. A seasoned career diplomat (and spy) Wilson merely mentions, "Well. I certainly never had thought of it in that way . . ." rather than laughing out loud and calling it LA foolish.

Recommended as an initial if superficial piece which touches many of the bases in a fairly crude way, using mainly broadcast news material, university lectures and some man-in-the-street stuff which is not informative. Nevertheless it is truly wonderful to see and to hear once more the great American prophet and Roman Catholic Priest, the Reverend Father Daniel Berrigan, now about 87 years of age and still strong, and wise and more alert than the majority of us to the banal evil our government does in our name and with our money. Please on this fortieth anniversary revisit his The trial of the Catonsville Nine. As they say in Latin, there is nothing new under the sun.

Solid information very passionately delivered. Molly Ivins calls it like it is, and it is great to be reminded of the wisdom of George McGovern. The 45 minute interview with Joe Wilson was incredibly informative -- he was able to expand on events involving the Valerie Plame outing that he normally only gets 3 or 4 minutes on talk shows to explain.

As a lover of all types of documentary films, I purchased this new DVD because I'm interested in politics and the war in Iraq and what is going on with our country.

What a surprising film this turned out to be! It is a terrific American independent film that tells the entire story of how we got involved in the war in Iraq and what President George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice and others in the current administration are doing in their positions of power.

The film tells the entire story from start to finish and really tells all the hidden secrets that the government doesn't want us to know. I highly recommend this film to anyone who wants to know the true story of why we went to war in Iraq and all the fascinating details behind the war.

This is an extraordinarly well-crafted and presented documentary. It is not focused on the 9-11 truths as much as it is the single best DVD that captures truths as represented in the two DVDs and eight books I list at the end of this review.

It opens with the question "Is it worth it [to invade and occupy Iraq]? and the observation that America has not heard the question yet.

The producer goes on a road trip across America, and finds a split between a small group of Americans that believe the use of force is justified, and "America Right or Wrong;' and a larger group that recognizes what Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson and many others have been saying, which is that we created our own enemies by carrying out a Fifty Year Wound of virtual colonialism, unilateral militarism and anti-democratic covert actions including the toppling of democracies in Iran and Chili, and active support for 42 of the 44 dictators, many in the Middle East.

The documentary is flawed in accepting the fiction that an airplane flew into the Pentagon, it was a missile, but that is not enough to discount the five star quality of the documentary overall.

Father Bergen is usefully quoted as saying that his first thought on hearing of 9-11 was "so, it's come home at last." My own thought at the time was "the cesspool we created has just reached our nose."

They play a 20 December 1983 clip of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Sadaam Husseins hand, and show many clips of how we are flighty--one day we love a dictator, the next day we topple him, but in all of this, we are never on the side of democracy. Howard Zinn, author of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress speaks to this at several points in the documentary.

The film focuses on how the US White House and federal government are isolated from reality, but it does not properly cover the treason and high crimes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith. See the list below for more insights from others on this point.

We abandoned Afhganistan after the Soviets left (as we abandoned Haiti), and we are to blame for allowing that cancer to explode after first arming the Taliban and the mujahideen.

Oil is the driver, not security and certainly not democracy. Kuwait was about our RIGHT to use 25% of the world's oil, wastefully, at a fraction of its true cost.

The film damns the Clinton Administration for its failure to intervene in Rwanda and Angola, and for its failure to recognize the embassy bombings, the Khobar Towers bombings, and the USS Cole as the early warnings of the long war that we incited ourselves.

Brent Scowcroft, Tony Zinni, Pete Schoomaker, and Eric Shinseki are featured, as is Scott Ritter on the loss of the rule of law, and all make the point that this was an idiotic elective war badly planned and executed.

No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. The first National Security Council meeting of the Bush-Cheney regeime focuses on dividing up the Iraqi oil fileds.

The documentary accepts the fradulent numbers on dead and wounded--the m ilitary lies to us, counting only those that die on the battlefield, not those that die in the medical evacuation or afterward, and it conceals the 75,000 amputees and wounded, and classified the number of suicides, that I believe is now approaching 5,000.

The 2.2 trillion cost of this war would h ave allowed me to eradicate all ten high-level threats to humanity as identified by Brent Scowcroft and the other members of the high level threat panel. As calculated by Medard Gabel for his forthcoming book, Seven Billion Billionaires, the world spends $1 trillion a year on war, we only need $230 billion a year to wage peace and eradicate all ten high level threats. Go figure.

Great presentation of arrogant ignorant lies and quotes from Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld.

Algeria, Viet-Name, and Afghanistan should have taught us that you cannot occupy and control a nation by force.

White House abused its 9-11 mandate.

Abu Grahib photos of tortured hooded naked prisoners have replaced the Statue of Liberty as the one compelling image of America.

The DVD ends poignantly with a professor saying that America's health matters to the rest of the world, when America gets crazy the world gets crazy, America is still the hope of the world but we have to help America get back to the rule of law, to America the beautiful, America the moral and peaceful.

AMEN. See also:
Why We Fight
War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
The 2007 Bush-Cheney Impeachments
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

Due to what was done to Joe Wilsons wife, Valerie Plame, in her being "outed" by this gov't of ours after her husband wrote that "yellow-cake" as it was called hadn't been bought by or even Saddam's people hadn't gone to find out about it & my gov't took the steps it did, I'm not saying Saddam didn't need to be gone from power. I couldn't learn enough about that situation--watched the hearing of his wife on c-span, everything gov't was saying, the Skooter Libby trial & Chaney leting Libby take the rap. What was really disappointing about Libby's outcome was he paid $250,000.00--was sentenced to prison time. Then Bush commutted his sentence for prison the minute the trial was over. That told me a lot of how Chaney had influenced everything.

As always the wrong people will be screening this, the faithful. For most of us there will be few if any revelations, just newer brighter details and, oh yes, dynamite interviews; Joe Wilson is worth the 18 bucks!

Yet even though this film rehashes the hideous moves that dragged us into this shameful military adventure, this is probably exactly the right documentary at exactly the right time. For all the anti-war voices, protesters and just plain pacifists, there will be something very soulful about seeing the story unfold in its entirety, removed form the painful rancor and posturing that surrounded the events in real time.

For me, although I found it a bit long and redundant at times, it was immensely satisfying to experience the editing craftsmanship; it serves up the events of the past eight years (much more, really - Cheney and Rumsfeld began hatching this in the early 90's) as a magnificent five course meal. I felt as though yes, I had tried the individual dishes, but now we have brought all of the nuances (Tenent ignored when he revealed that the yellowcake story was phoney) - all of the shreds, rumors and whispers are tossed up and generally validated sixteen times to Sunday.

Those moments that some of us surely had, when a friend would say, "No, that MUST be truthful, they would NEVER make that up", and we sheepishly had our doubts. Turns out they could make that up. Try to show this to your swing vote friends!

We watched this Video from a title we chose at our Public Library. After viewing, I ordered it to keep for my grandchildren to watch at a future time. It is a historical event that bears scrutiny by future generations. It is truthful, insiteful and bears out our original gut feeling that our President was acting far too soon.