Why We Did It
- Episode aired Mar 6, 2014
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
23
YOUR RATING
Rachel Maddow speaks with Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, about her upcoming.Rachel Maddow speaks with Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, about her upcoming.Rachel Maddow speaks with Jon Stewart, on The Daily Show, about her upcoming.
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Featured review
The Subject is an Oldie But A Goodie.
It's an hour-long program about why we went into Iraq, narrated by Rachel Maddow -- the kiss of death for some of us. The writers aren't listed in the credits at IMDb.com.
It's a straightforward description of the US mind set at the time, the nature of Iraq's government, and the motives behind the change in our attitudes towards Saddam Hussein, from bosom buddies in the 80s to sworn enemies twenty years later. Saddam hadn't changed much, but we had.
Maddow's narration is deliberate. There is no bombast or hysteria. The material consists of talking heads and on-camera footage that was shot live at the time.
The insinuations, warnings, outrageous assumptions, and outright falsehoods come in a cascade, more from VP Cheney than from G. W. Bush. "We have to go to the dark side." "We know he has them and we know where they are." This will be news only to those who are less than twenty years old and who were politically inert.
The viewer will make his own judgments. In my opinion, the explanation for "why we did it" is oversimplified. The program has a single answer: we did it for the oil.
Any behavioral scientist is going to gulp when he gets the message because the program ignores too many other motives, some of which are of equal importance. This isn't the place to analyze the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, but let me just mention in passing a few things that we treated lightly.
The narration barely mentions the Project for a New American Century, whose charter members included Cheney, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, and the rest of a familiar crowd. Condensed, the notion behind the PNAC was that following the collapse of the USSR we were the world's only remaining superpower -- and we should act like it. Let's establish democracies abroad that are friendly to American interests. All we need to launch the program with public support is some sort of "Pearl Harbor event." And the 9/11 attacks took place a few months later.
There is also no mention at all of some other motives that are hard for many of us to grasp. For one thing, it's glamorous to be a war-time president and win a war against two countries that can't possibly match the military resources of a superpower. After all, Washington was a war-time president. So were Lincoln and FDR, and Eisenhower carried the aura of D-Day into the office. Yes, it's petty but is it inconsiderable?
Aside from the decision to invade, the program points out that our most important mistake in planning, was not to have thought the adventure through. G. H. W. Bush, a thoughtful and cautious New England Brahmin, didn't topple Saddam for a simple reason. Saddam was unsatisfactory but predictable and stable. If we deposed him, who would we replace him with? After twenty years of warfare, we still haven't quite figured it out.
Well, it's controversial. Every viewer will judge the program as much on his or her views as on the merits of the case as presented. In my opinion, the program is accurate enough that it can't even be called propaganda, but its explanation is flawed because of its relatively narrow focus on Cheney and oil. Try to watch it with an open mind. if You can actually do it, I will send you a personal check for fifteen cents.
It's a straightforward description of the US mind set at the time, the nature of Iraq's government, and the motives behind the change in our attitudes towards Saddam Hussein, from bosom buddies in the 80s to sworn enemies twenty years later. Saddam hadn't changed much, but we had.
Maddow's narration is deliberate. There is no bombast or hysteria. The material consists of talking heads and on-camera footage that was shot live at the time.
The insinuations, warnings, outrageous assumptions, and outright falsehoods come in a cascade, more from VP Cheney than from G. W. Bush. "We have to go to the dark side." "We know he has them and we know where they are." This will be news only to those who are less than twenty years old and who were politically inert.
The viewer will make his own judgments. In my opinion, the explanation for "why we did it" is oversimplified. The program has a single answer: we did it for the oil.
Any behavioral scientist is going to gulp when he gets the message because the program ignores too many other motives, some of which are of equal importance. This isn't the place to analyze the reasons for the invasion of Iraq, but let me just mention in passing a few things that we treated lightly.
The narration barely mentions the Project for a New American Century, whose charter members included Cheney, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, and the rest of a familiar crowd. Condensed, the notion behind the PNAC was that following the collapse of the USSR we were the world's only remaining superpower -- and we should act like it. Let's establish democracies abroad that are friendly to American interests. All we need to launch the program with public support is some sort of "Pearl Harbor event." And the 9/11 attacks took place a few months later.
There is also no mention at all of some other motives that are hard for many of us to grasp. For one thing, it's glamorous to be a war-time president and win a war against two countries that can't possibly match the military resources of a superpower. After all, Washington was a war-time president. So were Lincoln and FDR, and Eisenhower carried the aura of D-Day into the office. Yes, it's petty but is it inconsiderable?
Aside from the decision to invade, the program points out that our most important mistake in planning, was not to have thought the adventure through. G. H. W. Bush, a thoughtful and cautious New England Brahmin, didn't topple Saddam for a simple reason. Saddam was unsatisfactory but predictable and stable. If we deposed him, who would we replace him with? After twenty years of warfare, we still haven't quite figured it out.
Well, it's controversial. Every viewer will judge the program as much on his or her views as on the merits of the case as presented. In my opinion, the program is accurate enough that it can't even be called propaganda, but its explanation is flawed because of its relatively narrow focus on Cheney and oil. Try to watch it with an open mind. if You can actually do it, I will send you a personal check for fifteen cents.
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- rmax304823
- Mar 13, 2014
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