Replies

The Truth!

A documentary about the real life and times of the Iraqi people filmed by ordinary Iraqis.

This ping list is not author-specific for articles I'd like to share. Some for perfect moral clarity, some for provocative thoughts; or simply interesting articles I'd hate to miss myself. (I don't have to agree with the author 100% to feel the need to share an article.) I will try not to abuse the ping list and not to annoy you too much, but on some days there is more of good stuff that is worthy attention. I keep separate PING lists for my favorite authors Victor Davis Hanson, Lee Harris, David Warren, Orson Scott Card. You are welcome in or out, just freepmail me (and note which PING list you are talking about).

I watched the preview clips of this film and found it very interesting and touching. Are there people in the movie who say things were better under the old regime? Yes. But among those interviewed are also young boys and girls who perhaps for the first time feel hopeful about their futures...a simple question like, "when you are grown to be a man, what do you want to be..." brought a lump to my throat. The boys and girls answered, "An engineer!" "A doctor!" "A teacher!" "I need a husband!"

Yes, it's a frightening time for them right now...hard for the unemployed or under-employed former professionals, for the widows and orphans and the struggling families who have lost their homes and livelihood. But the film looks like yet another proof that the human spirit is indomitable and rises to these kinds of challenges. While I disagree with some of the religious beliefs in this region and the resulting destructive behavior that brought war back to their doorsteps, I see beauty in the lives and faces of these ordinary people and I have hopes that this first taste of freedom will inspire the kind of changes that can turn their homeland around for the better.

I watched Voices of Iraq a couple of days ago on DVD and I wanted to find out what people thought of it so a Google search led me to this site.

Joel has a nice write-up and my first comment is on the graphic nature of a small amount of the movie. As Joel notes, the graphic images stick with you for a while. The man whose tongue is pulled out and then clipped off was particularly disturbing as was the young man whose hand was surgically removed. So, my first point is to warn potential viewers about the graphic nature of this movie; I'd give it an X rating for those clips.

I haven't read this elsewhere, but it seems to me that a drawback of this kind of filmmaking approach is that it's going to capture mostly people having normal lives. I'm trying to think, what if some filmmakers in say, Egypt, did this project in the U.S. after 9/11/01. Relatively speaking, very very few people were directly and adversely impacted by the terrorist attacks. Life went on, people went about their normal activities, and we were encouraged to do so by our government, also. So it is valuable to keep in perspective that if the war and occupation killed 100,000 or even 200,000 Iraqis, that the remaining millions are still alive and going about their daily existence and are happy to see their dictator gone (unless maybe they're Sunnis) and are mostly concerned about security and gasoline and electricity and food.

The film doesn't state anything about the primary justification for the war (pre-emptive self-defense based on threats of WMD) or the costs or what the alternatives were. The film also doesn't state anything about past American support for Saddam and whether or not that was a good idea. I'm curious what most Iraqis think about these questions. From this movie alone you would conclude that it doesn't matter, that getting rid of Saddam made it all worthwhile.

To stand on a soapbox, I'll say that as a human being, I'm glad that this tyrant Saddam has been removed but as an American taxpayer, I'm disappointed that the primary justification was false and that the war did not pay for itself as predicted and that no one was held accountable for these failures.