Before Iraq descended into a state of low intensity civil war (or "high-intensity chaos," or whatever you'd prefer to call it), a handful of intrepid Western filmmakers were able to capture certain critical aspects of the conflict which mainstream media outlets were unable or unwilling to cover. When it comes to filling the gaps in the story of what has happened to Iraq, few have delivered the goods as well as veteran war photojournalists Steve Connors and Molly Bingham, who co-directed the newly-released documentary Meeting Resistance.
In March, I had an opportunity to see a preview screening of Meeting Resistance at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. I just caught it again last week in Manhattan during its theatrical run, which continues through early December (see a list of screenings). Anyone with an interest in the workings of guerilla warfare and insurgency would do well to see this documentary.
The film's narrative is delivered almost entirely through the mouths of ten anonymous members of various Iraqi resistance groups; these men and women were filmed out of focus or in shadows to obscure their identities. The characters are introduced only by role-names, such as "The Teacher," "The Traveler," and "The Wife."
As one may recall from April 2003, the insurgency began with amateurish, unconnected, one-off strikes against coalition troops, and was at first dismissed by coalition officials and spokespeople as insignificant. Way before U.S. officialdom was willing or able to acknowledge it, Connors and Bingham sensed that the budding resistance was a serious threat to the coalition occupation.
In "Meeting Resistance," we learn that at that time there was little centralization or coordination among the resistance fighters. Handfuls of individual participants would spontaneously form themselves into rudimentary cells, some inspired by the personnel structures used by the Irish Republican Army and Hamas. A good number of the insurgents in Al Adhamiyya, the Baghdad district where the directors made contact with the fighters that appear in the film, were inspired to fight against the coalition upon seeing the local Abu Hanifa Shrine damaged and some of their neighbors killed by coalition troops during the invasion.
Contrary to the coalition's original simplistic descriptions of resistance fighters in Iraq as foreigners, common criminals, Saddam loyalists, or Baathist remnants, what becomes apparent in this film is that the fighters as a whole – at least in Baghdad – defied easy national or ideological categorization. Some had served in the Iraqi military, some had never fired a weapon. A few were highly educated. Most were motivated by their devotion to Islam, while a few claimed to not have had much interest in organized religion before the 2003 invasion. (In the words of one fighter, "before these events, I didn't pray. I didn't even know my way to the mosque.") Most were Iraqi though a few were sympathizers from neighboring nations. The group included Shia and Sunni, men and women, young and old. Some were Arab nationalists, others were more specifically Iraqi patriots.
One of the insurgents said that he viewed the motivation of the resistance as simply letting the U.S. troops know that they were not welcome in Iraq. Another tells of several men roughed up in a café by coalition troops conducting a search; one of those men responded to this random humiliation by purchasing a rocket launcher and seeking out coalition patrols.
The interviews that make up "Meeting Resistance" unmask the darkness that constant fighting and fear bring to the human mind. One fighter reveals that he hopes the U.S. sends over even more troops so that more can be killed, as if a life of resistance had become an end in itself. Another fighter, a trainer of insurgent-recruits, notes that by the end of the training, the trainee has seen all aspects of the fighting, and "the heart is dead." A resistance fighter referred to only as "The Warrior" said that he had fought in the Iraqi Special Forces and had been arrested, tortured and sentenced to death for not dying while putting down the 1991 Shia insurrection. (Technically, he had fought in a "suicide" unit, so his being alive after the fact was taken as dereliction of duty.) His sentence was commuted hours before he was to be executed. He said that his incarceration, coupled with his coming home to see his parents themselves physically and spiritually emaciated (they had taken him for dead), made him lose all faith in the very concepts of loyalty, trust, and friendship.
Additionally, suspicion ran very high among the fighters. Eventually, one of the insurgents revealed that even the filmmakers themselves were suspected of collaborating with the coalition.
Meeting Resistance provides perspectives that the popular media rarely covers and that many supporters of the war in Iraq would prefer remain unheard. I have long been baffled by the fact that those who seem most enthusiastic about prosecuting this war are often the ones least interested in hearing about the motivations of those on the "other side." Last week, I discussed this phenomenon with co-director Connors, himself a military veteran. (He served Great Britain in Northern Ireland in the early 1980's.) Along these lines, he said that "personally I find it a great pity that many are willing to send their young men and women to kill and die for them but don't want to be bothered with the details."
During my discussion with Connors, I asked him if he thought that U.S. news coverage of the war in Iraq was getting better or worse. He said that information about what is happening in Iraq is out there, if you're willing to look for it. "Throughout the war the primary source of information…has been the US military. In the last two years as the security situation has worsened that has become even more pronounced as western journalists find it so much more hazardous to move around. But, using Iraqi reporters, we're still getting the information on the ground. The main problem isn't really one of news reporting but of editorial resistance to taking an alternative view."
Connors' advice? "If you have a little time, don't rely on single news sources."
I asked Connors if he thought "Iraq fatigue" was setting in among Americans and others. "We're still finding a lot of interest," he said, "not in any mass sense but many people are still engaged and committed to knowing what's happening in Iraq."
The nature of the fighters' stories, and the fact that they dovetail with what we now know about the dark side of coalition conduct – mass arrests, torture, home invasions, shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later coalition checkpoints, the threatening of coalition prisoners with dogs and electricity – gives us good reason to take much of what is said here as authentic, whether or not we agree with these insurgents' decisions and methods. By comparing the cartoon coloring-book version of good and bad as told by the coalition since 2003, with the actual words of the fighters and the results of their actions, we can see the extent to which the U.S. military and its coalition partners tended to put hubris above a real understanding of foreign occupation, insurgency, and guerilla warfare, and in doing so actually undermined their own efforts to "pacify" Iraq.
This film in a way makes perfect sense when we look back over the past four plus years. Despite what the politicians and generals assured us, there never was a simple Achilles' Heel to the anti-coalition insurgency. Indeed, there is no one "insurgency." Though the coalition spokespersons robotically repeat the mantra that they're "taking the fight to the enemy," there is in fact no one "enemy" (and indeed not everyone in the military's sights-du-jour need be viewed as an enemy), but only a diverse patchwork of fighters with a wide array of reasons for fighting foreign troops in Iraq.
Connors' and Bingham's war photography is deeply impressive. To view their work, you can visit:
- http://www.connors.dircon.co.uk/
- http://www.worldpicturenews.com/web/Photographers.aspx (Click on "Molly Bingham" in the list of WPN photographers.)
November 1, 2007
