Last week's "Mailbag" resulted in an angry e-mail from Troyz255 who took issue with C.I.'s comments regarding No End In Sight. He begs the rest of us to go on record explaining we oppose C.I.'s opinion. We can't go on record stating something that isn't true.
C.I. explained, in response to an e-mail, " I don't support No End In Sight. It's a bad film that sells illegal war and the Culture Project can exhibit whatever they want but I don't publicize that film and I won't. The film was made by a War Hawk who still supports the illegal war and will not call it out. He wants to offer that it wasn't 'planned.' Naomi Klein has aptly demonstrated that the chaos was planned. I'm not going to endorse any event that features that crappy film." If Troyz225 read on, he would have seen Elaine voicing agreement.
Troyz225 asserts that "impeachment matters more than some movie."
While we support impeachment, we disagree with that statement.
When the US finally pulled out of Vietnam, there was a reality among the American people that the nightmare was over. Those of us who weren't born then were surprised to learn that was the case. (It was the case.) How did that reality turn into the popular myth of "We could have won!"?
Sir! No Sir! explains a great deal of how that happened. The public narrative was purged of reality including the realities that those protesting the illegal war included a large number of service members. It mentions film's roles in rewriting history. It gets closest to another reality when Jane Fonda's explaining how people accuse her of "going back" to the topic all the time.
The left and the 'left' (with few exceptions) made the mistake of assuming that, since the majority of the public, knew that conflict was wrong, that would always be the case. People avoided "going back" to it because reality was reality and let's all be nice and understand other's feelings and a lot of other hog wash.
While the left and 'left' was being nice, the right-wing was determined to launch their revisionary campaign.
If those who lived through that time expected it would be taught to future generations (which includes a number of people writing this feature), they were dead wrong. None of us born after it ever heard a word about in our history classes. It's at the end of the book and no one's in a rush to teach that area.
Into the vacuum came bad movies. With no information provided to younger generations about that time period and a lot of bad movies running constantly on TV, it's really not surprising that the revisionary history succeeded as well as it did.
We can't go back and change that.
We can refuse to take part in the same process again.
Endorsing No End In Sight is endorsing revisionary history. Whether it's Naomi Klein or Greg Palast or Antonia Juhasz or any other number of writers, it has been established that the US government did not 'forget' to plan what to do after they seized control in Iraq. It was planned. It was a tag sale.
No End In Sight lies and says there was no planning. If you watch the film (and pay attention), you'll quickly grasp that there is no argument against the illegal war. Not surprising when the 'director' was for the illegal war and remains for it. He wants to dicker over what should have been done after the US seized control and wants to assert that there should have been solid planning.
That is not a message to end the illegal war. It is a message of: "Let's do it differently next time!"
It does not call out the illegal war. It does not call out illegal wars.
If you needed that lame movie to indicate that the administration was corrupt, you've obviously missed many articles, books and, yes, other documentaries -- real documentaries.
If you're okay with another illegal war but just want it planned better, then No End In Sight is the film for you.
But there is no reason in the world for the peace movement to support a film by a War Hawk who remains a supporter of the Iraq War.
The film is not making a minor point that we can all 'live with.' The film is rewriting reality to argue that the war could have been 'won' if the US government had planned the occupation. The occupation was planned. Pretending that it wasn't is lying.
You start allowing one lie, you start allowing others. Then you've got every bad, B-actor in the world churning out action flicks about how Iraq could have been 'won' if only the military hadn't had their 'hands tied.'
That is what happened before and it will happen again unless those opposed to the illegal war fight. That's not a one day fight. The right-wing has a great deal of interest in rewriting reality. You've got a press that has a lot of interest in doing that as well because so many of them -- not just Judith Miller -- cheerleaded this illegal war.
History can be just factoids and trivia. Or you can actually learn from it. The lesson to take from the post-Vietnam period is that, bit by bit, there will be revisions promoted to destroy the reality of how unpopular this illegal war was, of how illegal it was and of what actually went down.
We're not just committed to opposing the No End In Sights for the life of this website. We will spend the rest of our days telling the truth about this illegal war and calling out the lies. We're not going to 'play nice' when it's over and take the attitude of, "Well it is over so let them have their say." We won't assume that because we know the reality everyone will always know the reality. We certainly won't assume that it will be taught in schools to the next generations.
It is a battle for the truth and if you slide on No End In Sight, you'll slide on the next revision and then the next. Then, before you know it, we will have the "We could've won if our hands hadn't been tied" myth applied to the Iraq War as well. We don't know that we can stop that from happening but we do know we will do our part to make sure the truth remains alive.