Americanized Doc

Great doc overall, kept its hands off speculating as to motives for entering Iraq and pursued the problems created once occupying the state.

However, I found it problematic for the film to take the viewpoint of the US on occasion. This wasn't a problem in all cases, but two I found questionable:

- The film claims that by investing heavily in terms of troops in Iraq, that it leaves the country (relatively) low on defense for an attack, hinting at Iran or North Korea. I agree with the point, but by focusing on American defense interests the point ignores a complex discussion of why these countries are willing to attack the US. One significant reason is due to unilateral aggression, such as occupying Iraq.

- The film also seemed to downplay the option of allowing an internal Iraqi uprising. The main uprising it focused on was a militant sectarian-based one, clearly not ideal to securing human-rights etc. However, any non-militant but anti-american uprisings were not discussed, as well as any options of non-US mandated governance were similarly not discussed. The film seemed to at times tacitly accept Iraq as a US client state.

I'm not sure the directors meant to imply any of this, but these are dangerous points to go unexplored.