It has left me feeling so angry. It is a documentary about the human cost for Americans of the War in Iraq, particularly in terms of those troops who are injured a number which far surpasses those 2000 US troops that lost their lives in the conflict.
Due to medical advances injuries that would have killed a person in previous conflict can be sustained and survived. But inevitably they suffer loss of limbs or other serious impairment and return home disabled.
But even for the family of the surviving marine, their joy is tempered with concern for his emotional wellbeing – up to 80 per cent of Iraq veterans are suffering from severe post–traumatic stress symptoms and levels of drug and alcohol abuse are soaring.Now none of this is news to me but putting a human face on the statistics with interviews with the returned troops and their families has gotten me really pissed off with this insane conflict that has no resolution in sight.
But despite such pain and suffering endured by military families, Deborah discovers that the Commander–in–Chief, George Bush has not attended a single funeral or memorial for the dead . The government also tried to ban photos of flag–draped coffins being flown back into America from Iraq.
Many of the people interviewed are calling for all the troops to be pulled out and returned home. This is a pragmatic move for the US that will stop the loss of American lives but Iraq will descend into civil war. There is no easy answer to the situation that has been created. For fuck sake the experts said that this would happen that it was only the Iron Fist of Saddam that was keeping the people oppressed enough to quell the tensions between the various factions that would inevitably lead to civil war.
You can't win the War on Terror by killing people.
Labels: Terrorism
