Once Upon a Time in Iraq

I was glued to my seat throughout each episode. This excellent documentary series gives an essential insight into the reality of the Iraq war. Honest, open interviews with civilians and soldiers are often stirring and sinister, but no matter the side they are on, their humanity along with their flaws are laid bare. I hope that both American and British politicians of those of the era including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Blair watch this, along with their current counterparts.

Like every young millennial kid living outside of Iraq witnessing the country's invasion on TV in 2003, this docu-series brought back many memories for me. This version tells the story of Iraq in the final years of Saddam's reign and it's aftermath told from a people's perspective, those who were there on the ground (Soldiers, Journalist, Civilians etc). Each episode had me glued to my screen from start to finish. The final episode, the rise of ISIS, had me shaking my head in disbelief. Incredibly well done series!

Where do I even begin, the series is brilliant in every single way it's a breathtaking, once you've seen it and seen the emotion that these people have inside them from these events they lived through and experienced. The archive of footage they show as brutal and barbaric as it is to look at it's so hard to look away at the same time because it's so hard to believe a lot of this isn't even fiction let alone that it all happened so recently. The people they interview every single ones perspective on this conflict is just so different and the way they talk and the role they played is fascinating.

If you only watch one documentary series this year please please please watch this, it's absolutely heartbreaking for both sides.

So sad. Hard to watch even harder to understand why. Why?