Well, last night I got around to watching that [http://thepete.com/us-media-ignore-us-chemical-weapons-docu/|docu I blogged about over the weekend]. It was the one that Italian TV station RAI ran a few days ago that investigated whether the US military in Iraq used chemical weapons on civilians.
While not the most depressing documentary I've ever seen, it was pretty powerful stuff. However--I should specify this was less a documentary, in a traditional sense, and more a simple news story with interviews and stock footage.
Is it left-wing propaganda? It could certainly be used for that purpose, sure. However, war is not a happy thing and if you think civilians don't get killed plenty in times of war you need to switch from decaf and take a hard look at reality.
While moving, this docu fails to present solid, well-sourced facts regarding where many of the pictures and video it presents come from. There are a great many shots of people's faces "melted" off while their clothes are nearly untouched. The thing is, every single one of these shots looked like rotted flesh and not necessarily burned flesh.
A bunch of years ago, probably around 2000, or so, this idiot on the Internet did what he called an experiment with meat. he took a steak and left it out in the woods not far from his house and took pictures of it every day which he would then post on his site. The idea was to follow the progress of the meat rotting. It was absolutely disgusting, but still quite fascinating.
The faces of the people in the shots reminded me of that rotting steak, not burned, charred flesh. Sure, they could have been chemical burns, but I don't think I've seen chemical burns before. In short, the docu didn't do a very good job of presenting facts to back up its premise that the US military used chemweaps. That said, the images are powerful enough to remind us that war is a horrible, amoral thing and should be avoided at all costs.
If you've never seen bodies ravaged by war, this is a good docu to change that. I can't believe they run stuff this disturbing on Italian TV.
[http://thepete.com/theblog/go.php?http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video/fallujah_ING.wmv|Feel free to DL the docu from RAI's website and make up your own mind regarding the docu].
Man, I gotta go watch something fun. Maybe that home movie I took of my last visit to the dentist... sheesh...
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