The Good War
[2008-03-28 18:00]

This morning I watched Frontline: Bush's War on PBS.org and have to give PBS the variety pack of kudos.

First, the documentary is quite well done. While the material isn't terribly new (and the program has a very unsatisfying ending), I was interested to hear the interviews from the various folk who were involved (like Richard Armitage and the UK ambassador to the US). I also did not know the extent of the in-fighting that existed between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, and then between the Department of State and the Department of Defense.

Anyway, the documentary paints a picture of an intensely and persistently incompetent handling of Iraq, from it's inception up through (at least) the recent surge. Even if the surge is a good strategy, the problem is that it could be five years too late, and it doesn't address problems with Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's times like these that I pray that there is a God and that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies suffer eternal damnation for their actions. Unfortunately, I don't think that will happen (even if there is a God), so it's up to us humans to publicly denounce and reject their actions so that they (hopefully) never happen again.

Second, I give mad props to PBS for the online experience. With just a few blips when the energy-saving feature of my monitor would kick in, I found it easy and satisfying to watch the program over the Internet. Although I have a cable-modem and a screamin' new computer, I often find I have trouble watching videos over teh Interwebs. Unfortunately, I frequently suffer long lags and occasional lapses in Internet connectivity (I blame Broadstripe). I also have my browser set to disallow cookies and disable Java and JavaScript (the latter of which I enable only when necessary). As many sites require cookies or registration to access their content, and as I usually boycott these sites out of principle, there's a lot of stuff out there that I usually can't/don't reach. And then there are sites whose video content just doesn't work well for me, such as MSNBC.com. Of course, I'm sure their site is "optimized for Internet Explorer" and I use Firefox on a Mac Pro. In any event, I experienced none of these problems watching the show on PBS's website.

So, Good Job PBS!