NO END IN SIGHT ... IS RIGHT

Last week, I finally got a chance to see the documentary No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent Into Chaos. For those of you who may not know, this is generally considered the best documentary on the subject of the Iraq War as it focuses purely on the policy decisions surrounding the topic and pretty much has no political agenda. In fact, it is my understanding that Charles Ferguson -- the writer, director, and producer of the film -- even supported our initial invasion.

I consider myself fairly informed on such matters, so I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the film. And for the first 10 minutes or so, that was kind of the case (PBS's The Dark Side covered much of the same ground). As the movie went forward, however, I found it to be entirely fresh. And its approach was 180 degrees from many docs in the same realm.

You see, most of what we read appropriately looks at the bad players (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, etc.), but this one actually focuses more on the good-hearted people who tried their darnedest to push aside all the political noise and make Iraq work despite the impossible odds. And it was truly heart wrenching to hear stories about how the amazingly incompetent Bush administration blocked them at every turn. I dare you, for example, to watch it and not have some respect for Jay Garner.

For what it's worth, I think conservatives should really watch this thing. Because unlike say ... a Michael Moore film ... if you thought invading Iraq was the right thing to do, you can see who screwed up your world view (and how) without feeling a sense of bias.

Anyway, I don't want to ruin the experience for anyone, so I'm not going to go into the details of the film. But I will just say that L. Paul Bremer might be the most horrible person in the universe.