The Ground Truth

Just in case in you were in any doubt about the Iraq situation being a shameful, inhumane abomination, another powerful doc arrives to set you straight. Patricia Foulkrod’s vital, jaw-dropping film intersperses often harrowing footage from the field of combat with a selection of vets talking candidly about their Iraq experience, from being conditioned to kill without conscience in basic training to answering potshots with indiscriminate blanket fire out on patrol to finding their cries for help ignored when they returned, often psychologically and physically scarred. The tales of Iraqi civilian casualties and vet trauma are nightmarish and, for the most part, articulately told. Which gets you wondering: with the amount of anti-war rhetoric in the mainstream media since Vietnam at least, what made this seemingly intelligent bunch of individuals think Iraq might be okay? It seems another thousand documentaries in this excellent mould wouldn’t hurt.