Ken Burns's "The War" Just Proves the "War on Terror" is No World War II

I finally got to see the Ken Burns doc "The War" and it is a very good take...it is broad brushed, but how can it not be, the war truly was a world war. I wish he would have given more credit to the Russians, but it goes without saying that their role is downplayed in American history books.

As my German friends say when they've had a few: "It took ALL of you to beat us!" (This is a joke, of course, because they don't want to go play in THAT sandpit anymore than the rest of Europe wants to: been there, done that). We always forget how tiny the countries of the Axis were, with what small populations -- and how well insurgents were able to work against them. We really should be viewing the Axis as the model of our own methods today, because we're up against the same sort of non-traditional military. We're using the same excuses to crush our own liberties. The manipulation of our courts, schools and sciences is parallel. Those who forget the past -- are just not going to recognize it when it shows up in different clothes. Or did it? Take a look at summer-issue late-war SS uniforms and then ask yourself what the soldiers in Iraq look like.

I'd like to see Ken Burns do a special on the Cold War featuring John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower, Nixon, Joe Macarthy, Dean Acheson, Harry Truman, Reagan, the Chicago Seven, the SDS, the Vietcong, Ho Chi Minh, General Giap, Westmoreland, Oliver Stone, John F. Kennedy, the Weather Underground, L.B.J., J.Edgar Hoover, Martin Luther King, Willy Brandt, Margaret Thatcher, Roy Cohn, Elia Kazan, Charlie Chaplin, Howard Fast, Bob Dylan, Philip Roth, General Douglas MacArthur, Jimmy Carter, Kissinger and the whole gang. His take on the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Sixties upheaval and MacArthur and Truman and the Bay of Pigs and Vietnam and Reagan would be interesting to me. I'd certainly watch it.

Tim, You're right but you're also wrong. The reason for this is that Ken Burns picks large subjects that have both positive and negative aspects partly for funding reasons, partly for artistic reasons, and partly (I suspect)for political reasons (that largely are related to funding). I honestly think that both as an historian and as an artist Ken Burns is drawn toward the large canvas. Jazz is primarily a positive phenomenon as is baseball but the lives of many jazz musicians and baseball players are often less than stellar examples of the best of humanity - especially in their privateand personal lives. In their work Charlie "Bird" Parker and Ty Cobb and Pete Rose exuded professionalism and grace (O.K. Cobb and pete Rose maynot be the best examples I admit)but off the horn or the baseball diamond they were something else again.

I'd love to see Ken Burns do a documentary on Iraq. Usuually his stuff is upbeat and tries to show the positive aspects in equal light with the negative aspects. Wonder if that is possible with a documentary about a war that has no positive aspects.