Miniseries review: Long Road Home

[DaBurglar]

On the National Geographic channel, the series "Long Road Home" is finishing up tonight with the finale (airing now as I type).....

For those of you unfamiliar with it, it details the way horrific events known as Black Sunday in April 2004 when elements of the army First Cavalry division was ambushed in the byzantine maze like environment of the Iraq Slum known as Sadr City. Several different units, mostly platoon sized, were cut off and the subsequent "rescue" efforts were themselves ambushed and besieged during an excruciating period lasting a couple days....the city was so congested, so poor and so nondescript that units literally were lost with no way to direct other units to or from their pos....

Background: Sadr City was the poorest area of Baghdad, full of the cities Shiite Muslims who were persecuted both by Saddam and the baathists, and by the Sunni ruling minority....when the USA initially "liberated" Iraq and deposed Saddam, the Iraqi Shiites were hopeful and welcoming initially....they attempted to form a democratic system where both Sunni and Shiite Muslims had a say....this process fell apart shortly after president Bush made his " mission accomplished" blunder as the upper class ruling Sunnis with their baathist allies refused to include the Shiites. US Iraq Deputy Paul Bremer, in typical arrogant American fashion of assuming to know what's best for a totally foreign culture, decided essentially the Shiites would have to live with a Sunni government....The Shiites revolted thus setting in motion the events that led to Black Sunday.


This series truly captures the horrors and pointless death and destruction of warfare, particularly from the viewpoint of the brave, outstanding soldiers of the First Cavalry division....like all soldiers in combat, they aren't fighting for their country or for the flag or for the American way....they fight only for each other. And the series also shows the utter hopeless frustration of the average Iraqi, the very people the US is supposed to help...these people had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and were Saddam's victims....the US made their hell even worse.

Must watch TV....those soldiers were the best, and deserved better.

[jetermacaw]

Absolutely incredible series, I would but it right up there with Band of Brothers. Very intense, authentic, and heart wrenching.