Luxembourger
06-04-2004, 06:39 AM
I was surfing trough Amazon.com to check out for books and DVD about OIF and I fell on this DVD , I have it on tape since CNN aired it once on TV, but check out the reviews of the DVD being made by most americans , it s interesting .
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009MECP.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
here are the reviews : you can check them by yourself on aazon.com if you don t believe me .
1)Reviewer: Marshall Lilly (see more about me) from Athens, OH USA
This review is just as much response to the one-star reviews as it is my own personal review.
First of all, I would consider this to be a very neutral look at the war. Since the two main reasons for going to war (WMD & Al Qaeda) have been disproven, this release can only be seen as a neutral look strictly at the military aspects of the war. I'm not sure what the right-wingers and fox viewers were expecting, but the DVD shows that the U.S. military had a more or less easy go of it in Iraq. If all the release is supposed to do is look at the military aspect of the war, then this dvd does that. It is one-sided and comes from only an American perspective, but it covered what it was supposed to.
For those of you who think CNN is "liberal," I would say that just because CNN would seem to favor Democrats (in a less extreme version of how fox favors Republicans) does not make them "liberal." Democrats have been a lot of things the last 25 years...cowardly, accomodating, and spineless...but "liberal" is certainly not a label the Democrats can wear these days.
And for my friend that complained about all the footage of injured or dead Iraqis: Just because you'd rather not hear about them (for whatever reason) does not mean they cease to exist.
2)Reviewer: A viewer from Jacksonville, FL United States
Out of a ninety minute show you get eighty minutes of "look what George Bush and our soldiers did to these poor Iraqis". They showed about three seconds of the mass graves and about three minutes on American casualties, no mention of the captured American soldiers who had their body parts mutilated. CNN must have really worshipped Saddam Hussein!
Oh yeah, little quick flashes of REAL war footage between continuous and replayed (to make you think there was more and more) footage of injured Iraqi civilians.
3) Reviewer: Earl Hazell (see more about me) from New York
"Right now the Bush administration is pushing something called 'The Right of Pre-Emptory Self Defense.'... According to this logic, the Allies could have pre-emptively attacked Germany [toward the beginning of World War Two], and perhaps saved millions of lives...Of course, THIS IS PRECISELY THE EXCUSE THAT GERMANY ALSO USED TO ATTACK POLAND AND MANY OTHER COUNTRIES (emphasis mine)...
"... We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health; therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capability worthy of war..."
Scott Ritter
WAR ON IRAQ
Facts ARE stubborn things.
Commenting on the "tense debate" as to whether or not war with Iraq is justified and the steely resolve of our military to follow through on its objective is hypocritical at best. Particularly when thinking, if nothing else, of the supposed rift between the press and the government that took place during Vietnam, mythically clearing the air for truth to actually be told on our airwaves. Commenting on the DVD quality, considering it comes from the highly lauded CNN, is also pretty silly. Moreover, the moral and ethical dilemmas referred to by the journalists and producers of this video, regarding the justifiability of this war, become not just irrelevant but deeply immoral pretensions in and of themselves, in light of the simple and obvious truths purposely obscured in its construction. This slick, well made, informative video is actually an unconscious indictment of the Media in our time.
Let's review some unrefuted historical facts, shall we?
1) Saddam Hussein was an ALLY of the United States during the Reagan Administration for reasons that make it clear that our invasion of Iraq could not possibly have had anything to do with the establishment of democracy in the region, long before the members of the Bush cabinet started coming out with their own books and telling tales out of school, effectively proving this to be the case. Iraq has a more than 60% Shi'ite Muslim population, corresponding to the more than 80% Shi'ite population of the presently hated Iran. A parliamentary, majority-rule democracy in Iraq would make both a Shi'ite alliance with neighboring Iran and a Muslim nationalist restructuring of the oil distribution of both countries a foregone conclusion. The price of gasoline would probably leap to *seven* dollars a gallon in the US, instead of the rapid climb to two dollars we are currently experiencing over merely the threat of a continued guerilla "police action", in the event of a REAL Iraqi parliamentary democracy being born and the subsequent Muslim Alliance domino effect spreading like wildfire across the Middle East; a domino effect which could easily become the first step in the (inevitable) reincarnation of the Ottoman Empire that Dr. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski warned the Pentagon against in THE GRAND CHESSBOARD more than twenty years ago.
The Reagan Administration, with a younger and even bolder Rumsfeld, allied itself with Saddam's secular and oppressive 17% Sunni Muslim ruling regime (illegally established forty years ago by the CIA of the Kennedy Administration) specifically to prevent this. We not only looked the other way as he used the very chemical weapons we supposedly went to war with him now about on the Iranian people but, VIA THE SURPLUS OF CHEMICALS FROM AMERICAN FIRMS, WE SUPPLIED HIM WITH THEM, to prevent this very post-Iraqi democracy Shi'ite alliance of Iran and Iraq from ever happening, back in 1982. It was only after the subsequent seven-year war of Iraq with neighboring Iran, where Hussein began to save his regime FROM democracy while bankrupting the country (again, with our military assistance), did he begin to look to an invasion of oil-rich Kuwait in 1990 (which before World War I, lest we forget, *was part of Iraq*; separated by the Europeans and Woodrow Wilson into a separate country now for very familiar political reasons). The only thing that could possibly be palatable in the eyes of American Foreign Policy, given these facts of political life, is not a democratic Iraq, but an equally oppressive regime run by a castrated, more easily controlled version of Saddam, completely reflecting the current set-up but in a newly democratic disguise.
And to date, thousands of innocent people, journalists and soldiers have died for this.
2) Iraq's illegal weapons program had already been so well dismantled since the end of the Gulf War via the inspections process that it would be all but impossible for our (corrupt) intelligence community to not see and surgically abort any attempt of restarting it YEARS before any weapons program he attempted to reconstruct--biological, chemical, or nuclear--could become even remotely functional. Sanctions and inspections, simply put, WORKED; maybe not as well as France wants to believe, but better than our administration actually wants, let alone wants to admit. Every other day, it seems, a former member of the Bush Administration reveals how this was common knowledge to his staff but purposely ignored, making Noam Chomsky seem more like a prophet with each passing day.
But perhaps most importantly:
3) All of the comparisons of today's Baghdad to yesterday's Berlin for the benefit of propaganda and television ratings are designed to help us forget the fact that, as this supposedly ended war now demands an American military presence in the region for several years, *Baghdad is becoming the new Vietnam, with Afghanistan the new Laos*. America can win the battle with any army in the Middle East in a matter of hours (maybe even Iran)...AND LOSE A BITTER, ESCALATING GUERILLA WAR WITH THE ENTIRE ARAB WORLD A FEW YEARS LATER.
I would suggest triangulating this DVD with three books: WAR ON IRAQ by Scott Ritter, WAR ON FREEDOM by Mosaddeq Ahmed and UP FROM CONSERVATISM by Michael Lind, to fully reveal the shadow side of our country's national character. And to enable one the achievement of moral clarity in these morally schizophrenic times.
Oil isn't everything. Neither is CNN.
4)A viewer from Crofton, Maryland USA
If you want political commentary, turn on the daily liberal diatribe from CNN. Don't buy this trash!!!!!!
5)Richard A Woodford (see more about me) from Keizer, OR United States
If you are looking for anti-American propaganda, you found it. If you are looking for an accurate documentary, look elsewhere. National Geographic has a good one or wait for one from Foxnews. If you love America, don't buy this. You will be sorry!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have seen National Geographic s documentary which is in my opinion very bad , Cnns in my opinion is good , why should CNN glorify everything , I mean war is war and wars is ugly and one should show all sides .I am pro american but I think CNNs footage is shows each sides.
HEre is another DVD that last 5 hours and will be released in a couple of days
I
How is ABC ? what s this channel like?`
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001NXNT6.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00009MECP.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
here are the reviews : you can check them by yourself on aazon.com if you don t believe me .
1)Reviewer: Marshall Lilly (see more about me) from Athens, OH USA
This review is just as much response to the one-star reviews as it is my own personal review.
First of all, I would consider this to be a very neutral look at the war. Since the two main reasons for going to war (WMD & Al Qaeda) have been disproven, this release can only be seen as a neutral look strictly at the military aspects of the war. I'm not sure what the right-wingers and fox viewers were expecting, but the DVD shows that the U.S. military had a more or less easy go of it in Iraq. If all the release is supposed to do is look at the military aspect of the war, then this dvd does that. It is one-sided and comes from only an American perspective, but it covered what it was supposed to.
For those of you who think CNN is "liberal," I would say that just because CNN would seem to favor Democrats (in a less extreme version of how fox favors Republicans) does not make them "liberal." Democrats have been a lot of things the last 25 years...cowardly, accomodating, and spineless...but "liberal" is certainly not a label the Democrats can wear these days.
And for my friend that complained about all the footage of injured or dead Iraqis: Just because you'd rather not hear about them (for whatever reason) does not mean they cease to exist.
2)Reviewer: A viewer from Jacksonville, FL United States
Out of a ninety minute show you get eighty minutes of "look what George Bush and our soldiers did to these poor Iraqis". They showed about three seconds of the mass graves and about three minutes on American casualties, no mention of the captured American soldiers who had their body parts mutilated. CNN must have really worshipped Saddam Hussein!
Oh yeah, little quick flashes of REAL war footage between continuous and replayed (to make you think there was more and more) footage of injured Iraqi civilians.
3) Reviewer: Earl Hazell (see more about me) from New York
"Right now the Bush administration is pushing something called 'The Right of Pre-Emptory Self Defense.'... According to this logic, the Allies could have pre-emptively attacked Germany [toward the beginning of World War Two], and perhaps saved millions of lives...Of course, THIS IS PRECISELY THE EXCUSE THAT GERMANY ALSO USED TO ATTACK POLAND AND MANY OTHER COUNTRIES (emphasis mine)...
"... We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health; therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capability worthy of war..."
Scott Ritter
WAR ON IRAQ
Facts ARE stubborn things.
Commenting on the "tense debate" as to whether or not war with Iraq is justified and the steely resolve of our military to follow through on its objective is hypocritical at best. Particularly when thinking, if nothing else, of the supposed rift between the press and the government that took place during Vietnam, mythically clearing the air for truth to actually be told on our airwaves. Commenting on the DVD quality, considering it comes from the highly lauded CNN, is also pretty silly. Moreover, the moral and ethical dilemmas referred to by the journalists and producers of this video, regarding the justifiability of this war, become not just irrelevant but deeply immoral pretensions in and of themselves, in light of the simple and obvious truths purposely obscured in its construction. This slick, well made, informative video is actually an unconscious indictment of the Media in our time.
Let's review some unrefuted historical facts, shall we?
1) Saddam Hussein was an ALLY of the United States during the Reagan Administration for reasons that make it clear that our invasion of Iraq could not possibly have had anything to do with the establishment of democracy in the region, long before the members of the Bush cabinet started coming out with their own books and telling tales out of school, effectively proving this to be the case. Iraq has a more than 60% Shi'ite Muslim population, corresponding to the more than 80% Shi'ite population of the presently hated Iran. A parliamentary, majority-rule democracy in Iraq would make both a Shi'ite alliance with neighboring Iran and a Muslim nationalist restructuring of the oil distribution of both countries a foregone conclusion. The price of gasoline would probably leap to *seven* dollars a gallon in the US, instead of the rapid climb to two dollars we are currently experiencing over merely the threat of a continued guerilla "police action", in the event of a REAL Iraqi parliamentary democracy being born and the subsequent Muslim Alliance domino effect spreading like wildfire across the Middle East; a domino effect which could easily become the first step in the (inevitable) reincarnation of the Ottoman Empire that Dr. Zbigniew K. Brzezinski warned the Pentagon against in THE GRAND CHESSBOARD more than twenty years ago.
The Reagan Administration, with a younger and even bolder Rumsfeld, allied itself with Saddam's secular and oppressive 17% Sunni Muslim ruling regime (illegally established forty years ago by the CIA of the Kennedy Administration) specifically to prevent this. We not only looked the other way as he used the very chemical weapons we supposedly went to war with him now about on the Iranian people but, VIA THE SURPLUS OF CHEMICALS FROM AMERICAN FIRMS, WE SUPPLIED HIM WITH THEM, to prevent this very post-Iraqi democracy Shi'ite alliance of Iran and Iraq from ever happening, back in 1982. It was only after the subsequent seven-year war of Iraq with neighboring Iran, where Hussein began to save his regime FROM democracy while bankrupting the country (again, with our military assistance), did he begin to look to an invasion of oil-rich Kuwait in 1990 (which before World War I, lest we forget, *was part of Iraq*; separated by the Europeans and Woodrow Wilson into a separate country now for very familiar political reasons). The only thing that could possibly be palatable in the eyes of American Foreign Policy, given these facts of political life, is not a democratic Iraq, but an equally oppressive regime run by a castrated, more easily controlled version of Saddam, completely reflecting the current set-up but in a newly democratic disguise.
And to date, thousands of innocent people, journalists and soldiers have died for this.
2) Iraq's illegal weapons program had already been so well dismantled since the end of the Gulf War via the inspections process that it would be all but impossible for our (corrupt) intelligence community to not see and surgically abort any attempt of restarting it YEARS before any weapons program he attempted to reconstruct--biological, chemical, or nuclear--could become even remotely functional. Sanctions and inspections, simply put, WORKED; maybe not as well as France wants to believe, but better than our administration actually wants, let alone wants to admit. Every other day, it seems, a former member of the Bush Administration reveals how this was common knowledge to his staff but purposely ignored, making Noam Chomsky seem more like a prophet with each passing day.
But perhaps most importantly:
3) All of the comparisons of today's Baghdad to yesterday's Berlin for the benefit of propaganda and television ratings are designed to help us forget the fact that, as this supposedly ended war now demands an American military presence in the region for several years, *Baghdad is becoming the new Vietnam, with Afghanistan the new Laos*. America can win the battle with any army in the Middle East in a matter of hours (maybe even Iran)...AND LOSE A BITTER, ESCALATING GUERILLA WAR WITH THE ENTIRE ARAB WORLD A FEW YEARS LATER.
I would suggest triangulating this DVD with three books: WAR ON IRAQ by Scott Ritter, WAR ON FREEDOM by Mosaddeq Ahmed and UP FROM CONSERVATISM by Michael Lind, to fully reveal the shadow side of our country's national character. And to enable one the achievement of moral clarity in these morally schizophrenic times.
Oil isn't everything. Neither is CNN.
4)A viewer from Crofton, Maryland USA
If you want political commentary, turn on the daily liberal diatribe from CNN. Don't buy this trash!!!!!!
5)Richard A Woodford (see more about me) from Keizer, OR United States
If you are looking for anti-American propaganda, you found it. If you are looking for an accurate documentary, look elsewhere. National Geographic has a good one or wait for one from Foxnews. If you love America, don't buy this. You will be sorry!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have seen National Geographic s documentary which is in my opinion very bad , Cnns in my opinion is good , why should CNN glorify everything , I mean war is war and wars is ugly and one should show all sides .I am pro american but I think CNNs footage is shows each sides.
HEre is another DVD that last 5 hours and will be released in a couple of days
I
How is ABC ? what s this channel like?`
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001NXNT6.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg