Frontline's Fall From Grace 03-26-08 mpg Frontline: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late A quote...."Frontline’s “Bush’s War” on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players’ trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation." Frontline's "Bush's War": A Total Failure, Propaganda, and White-Wash A quote...."The recent PBS two-night offering of Frontline was utterly depressing to watch. Not for its subject matter; but for the constant reminders that PBS and Frontline, formerly the last bastion of free speech on U.S. mainstream media, has sadly become just another corporate and Bush regime mouthpiece. The documentary was little more than a Bush propaganda piece that lied, dissembled, diverted, and ignored its way through this crucial subject for the entire excruciatingly painful four and half hours." Regarding the two articles shown above. Frontline's "Bush's War" was a complete, total and unmitigated disaster. The producers should hang their heads in shame and seriously contemplate a life long career producing game shows or Fox's faux-news. . . It was like watching a really bad episode of survivor, (not that this editor ever would), with even less style. A series of unconnected political machinations and what appeared to be a set of random tactical decisions in Iraq. Only one forty minute section was done with any competence or clarity at all, and as such was a vivid demonstration of why the rest of the show was basically incomprehensible. It was the section of the show were the producers discussed how the "intel" on Iraq's alleged WMD's was cooked, cherry-picked, distorted, created, manufactured, or as Cheney would have it..."fixed around the policy", and they placed the entire blame for the fiasco squarely on Cheney's shoulders, which would have been impossible not to do since for the first time in this nation's history, we had a sitting Vice President running over to the CIA practically every day haranguing the employees to "find proof of WMDs" and if they didn't, statements like "obviously it's there, why can't you find it", "what's wrong with you", or "why are you so incompetent", would be pelted on their collective heads. To have someone like Cheney verbally pressure an employee like this day after day after day.....might very well tend to distort that employee’s judgment. In this particular example the shows producers presented their viewers with the Means (Cheney's intimidation of CIA employees), the Motive (he wanted to start a war with Iraq) and the Opportunity (regular visits to the CIA along with pressuring and manipulating people like Bush and Condi (real easy) and Tenent and Powell (somewhat more of a challenge). In other words the producers connected the dots....what is also known as a plot. But that was it. The rest of the show was like watching a bad soap opera, a series of disconnected characters, without any past, any motivation, or any clue. It's as if a cop walked into a bar after a gunfight and didn't ask if the victims knew each other, were in business together, what their prior history was with each other or the shooters, did any of them own the bar, what weapons were used, any prior criminal records, did the crime match any previous MOs, where did the shooters get the weapons, was there any gain to anybody, were any of the victims insured, etc. etc. etc. Here are a few examples of what the producers managed to squeeze into "Bush's War". They mentioned the escape from Tora Bora, and it was totally vague, non-descriptive and didn't even display a map, nor did they try to attribute a cause for the escape. They mentioned the tunnels in Tora Bora, but they didn't mention those tunnels were built by the Bin Laden Group (yes THAT bin Laden) with massive financial and logistical support from the US's CIA, Saudi Royal Family, and Pakistan's ISI. They never mentioned the Kunduz airlift, an operation where the US allowed the Pakistanis to fly thousands of Taliban and al Qaida out of Afghanistan's city of Kunduz, which at that time had been totally surrounded by the Northern Alliance. They NEVER EVER mentioned PNAC or the DPG, and the fact that these documents have predicated almost all of this administration’s actions up to the present moment. They did mention that the US was trying to prevent Iraq's civil war, a most curious statement since the US is currently supporting civil wars in Gaza (Fatah against Hamas), Lebanon (various factions against Hezbollah), Iran (PKK, MEK, Baluchistan separatists, Kurdistan separatists, Iranian separatists against Iran) Iraq (SIIC - at various times - against the Sunni insurgents and the Mahdi army), Pakistan (elements of the Army and ISI against other elements of the Army, ISI, the Pashtons and Taliban) and many other similar situations throughout the world. They never mentioned the OIL (they never do), more specifically Cheney's energy task force, meetings held by Cheney with the major oil executives and the maps divvying up Iraq PRIOR to 9/11, much less before the start of the Iraq war. They mentioned Zelikow, but they didn't mention he was Chairman of the 9/11 commission, was practically a life long bosom buddy of Condi and that they even wrote a book together. Nor flying over a 120 Saudi Royal and bin Laden family members out of the country within forty eight hours after 9/11. Nor the various long term relationships that these architects of the Iraq war had with each other, Big Oil, the Saudi Royals, the bin Ladens, Pakistan’s ISI or the members of the Project for a New American Century. Nor the vast profits after 9/11 these people made from their investments in the defense and oil industries. Nor the corruption in Iraq. Nor Cheney’s connections to Halliburton or the fact that he personally shepherded many of their no-bid contracts through the DOD. Nor did they mention US cooperation with Iraqi death squads, the massive ongoing aerial campaign, the complete destruction of Iraq's infrastructure, the deliberate targeting of journalists in Iraq by American forces. They even failed to mention the very first NSC meeting held by the Bush administration on Jan 30th 2001, a meeting which had as its entire topic of discussion, a preemptive strike against Baghdad, this meeting mind you took place a full eight months PRIOR to the attack on 9/11. This is only a partial list, possibly just two to three percent of the total stories (or dots) they should have featured, and connected, but didn't. The show was a pathetic disgrace and does not qualify as a documentary or as journalism....or even as a good soap opera. Now that's truly pitiful. – mpg |