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FACTS ABOUT BRAD L. MAASKE
- born
in Colorado, life-long resident of Central California (Exeter,
Visalia, Fresno area)
- husband
of Brenda, dad of several
-
licensed real estate broker and general contractor, property
manager
- past
member of local civic and governmental boards
- teacher/trainer
for licensed and prospective real estate agents
- educated
at College of the Sequoias
- athlete
with special interests in fitness and skiing
- unlikely
filmmaker
In 1979, the year Saddam Hussein bullied his way into the presidency of Iraq,
Brad Maaske was half a world way in body and mind from the torment rising
out of the palaces of Baghdad. Supervising a ski patrol by day and partying
by night were the norm for Brad who, by his own admission, had a lot of growing
up to do. Global issues rarely had a place in the thoughts of this bright
young man. The extermination of human masses was something discussed in history
classrooms, not over a bowl of the breakfast of champions.
But
Brad wasn’t
alone.
Under
the lenses of hindsight nearly all of America now laments a self-absorbed
perspective on the world and an apathy we paid dearly for in September
of 2001. In the months that followed, Brad recalls, America was
united in
its resolve
to confront terror anywhere it was being inflicted on human security and
freedom. Today, after yanking a world tyrant and enemy of the United
States from his
rat hole, Americans are curiously divided over American foreign policy
and, in particular, the war in Iraq.
Are
you ready for the truth? Brad Maaske is asking if Americans
today can stand to know what’s
really going on. Estimates of the number of victims from Saddam
Hussein’s campaigns of genocide now top 1.3 million.
In one particular action against Kurdish Iraqis, 182,000 men,
women
and children were systematically
murdered or imprisoned – only to be unearthed now from their mass
graves. Tortures, relentless beatings, rapes, decapitations, attacks
by chemical air
strikes on villages that now can no longer be found – these are
just some of the atrocities America has been slow to know about and acknowledge.
And, when the incumbent administration took military action to end this
reign of terror, voices of detractors screamed from the streets of protest,
the halls
of Congress, and the red carpets of Hollywood. Another film made the
scene
portraying rosy living in the hamlets of Iraq and a bumbling chief executive
in Washington’s Oval Office.
Brad
Maaske had had enough. The picture of true evil was being hidden
from the eyes of America. It was time for a truth-telling counter-offensive.
Brad dropped everything he was doing – leaving his lucrative
real estate interests for a season – to tell the story of
“WMD – The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein.”
That he has no experience in the arts, particularly filmmaking,
is distinctive of Brad’s story. The learning curve was steep,
but Brad approached the project with the same passion he approaches
living. This all-or-nothing conviction resulted in building a
feature-length documentary film in a matter of weeks, instead
of months or years.
“WMD
– The Murderous Reign of Saddam Hussein,” a film by
Brad Maaske, is now available on DVD and will be shown throughout
the Middle East in 2005.
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