On the Frontline

The Frontline documentaries were really amazing. I watched them looking for rhetorical techniques and taking notes, but I am totally going to watch them again because I thought they were really engaging and at the same time factual. I got goose bumps at the opening of Bush’s War when the emergency calls were coming in from the Trade Towers. It definitely took me back to that day and where I was and what I was doing; yet now I was able to feel more emotion since I have a better understanding of the whole situation. At the same time the beginning gave me queasy feeling imagining the lives that were lost and the devastation and scale of the attack. What I found really rhetorically interesting was in the beginning of the Bush War how Iraq slid into the documentary and how to me it symbolized how it happened in reality. The interviewee’s claimed that Iraq had always been on the agenda yet there was never a reason or vehicle for us to take action against it. Rhetorically in the documentary Iraq being throw into the plans after 9-11 if vaguely explained, but then the interviewee’s and narrator goes on to say “Iraq” over and over again. Which to me, is similar to how the government treated Iraq never explaining the reasoning but being very concentrated on the mission.

            The beginning of Obama’s War began with a speech to the troops that mirrored Patton’s speech. It immediately gave me the impression that the beginning of this documentary is very different. There was reason in the beginning of Bush’s to go to war. But in the opening scene of Obama’s rhetorically shows that the moral of the troops has lowered and that the reasons now for war are unclear, and they need a pep talk similar to Patton’s to redirect them and remind them of the reason. Because Obama’s War is now future oriented there are less concrete facts and more speculation. However, as a viewer the interviewee’s are still credible in my eyes and the footage from Afghanistan and especially the his stress recording in the beginning gives an accurate depiction of what life is like over there.

            In both documentaries I didn’t feel really as if there was a bias. Anything that was accusatory that was said just reflected the interviewee’s personal party affiliation and believes which didn’t sway me but instead made me feel as if it were fairly balanced. I also didn’t come to the conclusion that anything was right or wrong, just a better understanding of what went on behind the scenes and the many parties involved in the war and the consequences of just one small but loaded phrase, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them”, could make such a giant mess.