Iraq In Fragments      

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. --H. L. Mencken

Remember the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it. – Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioning fellow Bush officials about going into Iraq. 

Well, we tipped over the whole Iraqi china cabinet and according to Noble Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Iraq War, if we can somehow get out by 2010, even with a gradual reduction in troop size, will end up costing the American taxpayer up to $2 trillion when everything is said and done.  That is almost real money. To put this in perspective, only 3 countries in the world, Japan, Germany, and the United States, have a larger yearly GNP than what we will spend on this war.  You could buy and sell the 650 wealthiest people in the world and still have money left over to pick up a major league baseball franchise and a Starbucks franchise, or just buy and sell the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, 22 times.  If each of us give up our morning soft drink every day and puts a dollar in the debt basket, we could pay that sucker off in around 20 years.  Even the conservative Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus claims that staying in Iraq and Afghanistan at current levels would nearly double the projected federal budget deficit over the next decade. With what we will spend in Iraq, we could have purchased the following.  We could have given health insurance to the 46 million people in the nation not currently insured, paid the salaries of 3,545,016 elementary school teachers for one year, and hired 3,204,265 port container inspectors to check for nuclear weapons and drugs coming into this country.  If that is not your cup of tea, we could buy a house for 1,841,833 poor people, make sure 27,093,473 children have  a place in a Head Start program, and throw in 39,665,748 scholarships for university students.  Better yet, I could have gotten 10 billion lap-dances until where my bathing suit covers was ground to dust. (Unlike terrorists with box cutters, and our Congressional representatives, I have not been to a shaker bar in years. The whole giving a woman money so that she pretends to like me while she secretly loathes my very being reminds me way too much of marriage and gives me the creeps.) 

The mantra that the true believer repeats is the world is safer with Saddam Hussein on the sidelines.  I think I would have rather kept the $2 trillion dollars, and to answer the question, no, no, the world is not safer. Hussein was a fly with his wings pulled off after more than a decade of sanctions.  I think it would be hard to argue that Iran’s sudden push to acquire nuclear weapons is not due to their anxiety over our invasion of Iraq.  If you are called part of the Axis of Evil by a Christian President who believes he is on a crusade from God, you watch Iraq get invaded, but strangely North Korea which has nuclear weapons is treated with kid gloves, what are you going to do? When you tip over the apple cart, out rolls Palestinian Hamas, a host of socialist South American dictators, and a whole bunch of kids who would have probably never been terrorists until our troops set down in their Holy Land, but are now getting hands-on practice at the expense of American boys and girls. All that walking loudly, carrying a big stick, and kicking people in the backside gets you is a worldwide Mexican Standoff with a lot of itchy trigger fingers.  

In a world where there are so many video cameras that if a humming bird passes gas half a world away, there are three different feeds of it on the local news that evening, the Iraq War has surprisingly become a war of faith, but not a religious faith. Because reporters are terrified to leave the green zone, to go into the countryside, to see what is really happening, all we are left with is faith. Faith that our military and governmental officials are telling us truth even though their track record (WMD, torture, corruption) would make a 99-to-1 shot in a horse race seem like a good bet.  Do you believe the critics?  Since most people don’t have the time to read everything, left wing and right wing, pour over European newspapers, study the history of Iraq, know the players in the game, listen to what the Arabs are saying themselves, and then evaluate it, all the American public is left with is faith, belief without all the facts to back it up.

Yet, if you really want to have an informed opinion, the documentary Iraq in Fragments might be a good place to start. The title is apt, because it provides only fragments, bits and pieces of average Iraqi’s lives and what is happening in certain areas, almost like extended snapshots.  This is not a Michael Moore documentary, but rather a piece of cinema verité, which allows the people’s own stories to unfold before the camera. Divided into 3 acts, bases on the 3 groups of people, Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, it allows a glimpse of what life is like for the people in each group.  It doesn’t tell Americans what to do, what policies to follow, what we should think, but rather just shows the thoughts, aspirations, and concerns of Iraqis living in a war zone.  The movie opens with Mohammed Haithem, just 11-years-old, living in the heart of Baghdad.  While kids his age in America are kicking soccer balls around a playground and dreaming as they sit at their desk waiting for the school bell to ring, Mohammed is working on his apprenticeship to become a mechanic.  Orphaned, the boy works hard to win the approval and love of his domineering boss, yet, would like to return to school, knowing that this is the only path towards making something out of his life.  This torn nature mirrors the growing disenchantment around him with the US occupation. The boy’s world is also made more dangerous by growing tensions between Shia and Sunni Iraqis. Like his country, Mohammed’s future is up for grabs.  You hope for the best, but know that reality is not that kind of a mistress, but still you hope.  The film then moves to the Shiite city of Najaf where Moqtada Sadr is in charge.  Sadr’s army and followers control the region, imposing their ultra-conservative Islamic beliefs, often at the point of a gun.  The US authority has instigated an armed rebellion among some of Sadr’s disenfranchised followers. The fate of the region, like the 11-year-old Mohammed, hangs in the balance.  Finally, the film concludes with the Kurds, the group that has benefited the most from the American occupation. The audience is taken to a small farm south of the city of Arbil, where an elderly father and his teenage son are thrust into a world filled with new possibilities.  The son wants to go to medical school, while his father wishes that his boy would hear the call of God.  Will the Kurds move to form their own nation or will they see themselves as part of the Iraqi people?

We have broken Iraq and the price tag is pretty high, hocked your children so King George could show the world his codpiece, but I am more worried that we might have permanently broken what is best in America. Right-wingers wave the flag instead of hanging their heads in shame.  Iraq was lost because we wanted to kick a little ass, and I fear the same thing is true of America.  We have become a country of pieces and all of King George’s horses and all of King George’s men can’t put America back together again.  Two countries in fragments. Was the price really worth it?

Verdict: A Great Documentary