| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Brian De Palma Does a Number on American Soldiers
Are antiwar, Hollywood leftists congenitally incapable of
patriotism for their own country? Hey, far be it from me to
make any unfair, sweeping generalizations, but take as just one
example well-known director Brian De Palma. He has recently
made a movie about American soldiers and the war in Iraq that
has reportedly stunned viewers at the world-renowned Venice
Film Festival -- and by “stunned” I don’t mean dazzled with
positive images.
The film is called “Redacted.” And would you care to guess
as to the specific nature of the subject matter? An American
atrocity in Iraq, of course! What else would it be about?
American soldiers building roads, schools and hospitals,
fighting murderous terrorists and insurgents, and just
generally trying to help Iraq become a free and decent
country?
Please. Brian De Palma fancies himself a towering artist
and iconoclast. He doesn’t make movies to buck up what he
might consider to be the pitiful fantasies of all those
hoodwinked saps who still believe America is some kind of big
deal and a force for good in the world.
Instead, he has made a movie that speaks truth to power,
in this case presenting the United States military forces as a
pack of sadistic misfits who are too antisocial and thickheaded
to get decent jobs in the private sector. (Or, as Senator John F.
Kerry so eloquently put it, they didn’t do their homework and
ended up in Iraq.)
Getting down to specifics, “Redacted” is about the real-life
rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who
also murdered the girl’s family. Regarding the war in Iraq, it is
said to be “a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares
the audience no brutality to get its message across.”
And what exactly is its message? Here’s what De Palma
told reporters after the Venice screening of the movie: “The
movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in
Iraq to the American people. The pictures are what will stop
the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public
incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against
this war.”
Case closed. No, not on the supposed wrongness of the
war. On the fact that “Redacted” is a propaganda film, pure
and simple, as spelled out by De Palma’s own words. It takes an
aberrant incident and presents it as if it’s a routine event under
a brutal American occupation, all for the purpose of inflaming
the public in the hope that they will demand an end to the war.
Why would De Palma do such a thing? Because like all antiwar
leftists, he suffers from extreme moral confusion and doesn’t
understand which side is good and which side is bad in this
conflict in Iraq.
Antiwar reasoning leans toward the childishly simplistic
and boils down to something along the lines of the following:
Before the U.S. invasion, Iraq was a stable and sovereign
country that was basically minding its own business and not
bothering anyone. Since the invasion it’s been a chaotic mess
where thousands of innocent citizens have been slaughtered,
all because of the American presence which antagonizes the
insurgents and terrorists, and also because of kill-crazy GI’s
like the ones depicted in “Redacted.”
Okay, there is a tiny grain of truth to the first part in that
Iraq was relatively stable before the invasion, thanks to
Saddam’s iron-fisted rule. But that doesn’t mean it was a nice
place to live before America intervened. It was stable only in
the sense that it wasn’t outwardly chaotic, but as everyone on
the planet knows, far more people were killed by Saddam than
have been killed since and if he had been left in power, the
killing would have continued.
Sure, under Saddam bombs weren’t going off everyday in
markets and elsewhere. But what kind of quality of life was it
for the average Iraqi knowing that he or any of his loved ones
could have been plucked off the street or out of their homes at
any instant, on any pretext, and subjected to some of the most
depraved brutality human minds have ever conceived? Rape
rooms, people dropped into shredding machines, children
tortured in front of their parents, people fed to wild animals.
It was a nightmare regime of the first order and had exactly
zero chance of becoming any better, especially since Saddam’s
psycho sons would probably have taken over after papa was
finished doing his damage.
But the great Hollywood artistes weren’t much interested
in any of that. Back then, when Saddam was still in power, the
motto might as well have been, “What happens in Baghdad
stays in Baghdad.” Saddam could have filled up mass graves
with innocent Iraqis until doomsday and it would never have
so much as entered the conversation during anyone’s power
lunch at Spago.
Only after America intervened were consciences suddenly
pricked and artistic sensibilities stirred -- but, as usual, for the
wrong reasons. In their moral confusion, and with their deep-
seated, psychopathological contempt for their own country,
they were angry at Bush and the American military whose goal
was to bring liberty and decency to Iraq and -- hopefully --
eventually to the rest of the Middle East.
Now, De Palma, in his moral confusion, wants America out
of Iraq immediately. And what would he say to the Iraqis who
would be left to the tender mercies of al Qaeda and the various
insurgents? Good luck, see ya later, sayonara.
By the way, have you heard about one of al Qaeda’s new
techniques for bringing people into submission? This would
make a great Brian De Palma-style, blood-spattered movie
scene. What they do is, they get someone and they take a piano
wire and they literally rip the person’s face off with it,
preferably in front of his family and anybody else they want to
intimidate. But I’m guessing that sort of thing got left out of
“Redacted.”
Either De Palma and the rest of the get-out-now crowd
haven’t completely thought this withdrawal thing through or
they naively believe al Qaeda will become Islamic choir boys if
America will only leave. But an easy trip down memory lane to
the not-so-long-ago time when the Taliban dominated
Afghanistan should dispel any such foolish notions. Should.
But it won’t. Not with this crowd.
What De Palma set out to do with this movie is unseemly,
un-American and unpatriotic. Yep, that’s right, I’m daring to
question De Palma’s patriotism -- or at least his concept of
what patriotism is. When the troops are in harm’s way as they
perform a noble mission (helping Iraq make a transition from
nightmarish totalitarian regime to a free and decent country),
and when a Hollywood hothead tears them down with a
scandalously misleading depiction designed to inflame antiwar
passions, that fits no familiar concept of patriotism.
The movie will likely bomb (no pun intended) in this
country, but will probably do boffo box office in all the usual
places around the world where America-haters love to seethe
in unison. In the meantime, American soldiers will continue to
lay their lives on the line for the betterment of Iraq. With
America in Iraq there is at least a chance for the country to
improve. If America had never intervened, there would have
been no chance and Saddam would still be piling up the
corpses in an outwardly appearing “stable” country.
It is logically impossible for an American to depict
Americans as the bad guys in this conflict and simultaneously
be patriotic. Americans who are actually patriotic shouldn’t
be subjected to “Redacted,” which was malevolently concocted
and ought to be disrespected, contradicted and counteracted.
Are antiwar, Hollywood leftists congenitally incapable of
patriotism for their own country? Hey, far be it from me to
make any unfair, sweeping generalizations, but take as just one
example well-known director Brian De Palma. He has recently
made a movie about American soldiers and the war in Iraq that
has reportedly stunned viewers at the world-renowned Venice
Film Festival -- and by “stunned” I don’t mean dazzled with
positive images.
The film is called “Redacted.” And would you care to guess
as to the specific nature of the subject matter? An American
atrocity in Iraq, of course! What else would it be about?
American soldiers building roads, schools and hospitals,
fighting murderous terrorists and insurgents, and just
generally trying to help Iraq become a free and decent
country?
Please. Brian De Palma fancies himself a towering artist
and iconoclast. He doesn’t make movies to buck up what he
might consider to be the pitiful fantasies of all those
hoodwinked saps who still believe America is some kind of big
deal and a force for good in the world.
Instead, he has made a movie that speaks truth to power,
in this case presenting the United States military forces as a
pack of sadistic misfits who are too antisocial and thickheaded
to get decent jobs in the private sector. (Or, as Senator John F.
Kerry so eloquently put it, they didn’t do their homework and
ended up in Iraq.)
Getting down to specifics, “Redacted” is about the real-life
rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who
also murdered the girl’s family. Regarding the war in Iraq, it is
said to be “a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares
the audience no brutality to get its message across.”
And what exactly is its message? Here’s what De Palma
told reporters after the Venice screening of the movie: “The
movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in
Iraq to the American people. The pictures are what will stop
the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public
incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against
this war.”
Case closed. No, not on the supposed wrongness of the
war. On the fact that “Redacted” is a propaganda film, pure
and simple, as spelled out by De Palma’s own words. It takes an
aberrant incident and presents it as if it’s a routine event under
a brutal American occupation, all for the purpose of inflaming
the public in the hope that they will demand an end to the war.
Why would De Palma do such a thing? Because like all antiwar
leftists, he suffers from extreme moral confusion and doesn’t
understand which side is good and which side is bad in this
conflict in Iraq.
Antiwar reasoning leans toward the childishly simplistic
and boils down to something along the lines of the following:
Before the U.S. invasion, Iraq was a stable and sovereign
country that was basically minding its own business and not
bothering anyone. Since the invasion it’s been a chaotic mess
where thousands of innocent citizens have been slaughtered,
all because of the American presence which antagonizes the
insurgents and terrorists, and also because of kill-crazy GI’s
like the ones depicted in “Redacted.”
Okay, there is a tiny grain of truth to the first part in that
Iraq was relatively stable before the invasion, thanks to
Saddam’s iron-fisted rule. But that doesn’t mean it was a nice
place to live before America intervened. It was stable only in
the sense that it wasn’t outwardly chaotic, but as everyone on
the planet knows, far more people were killed by Saddam than
have been killed since and if he had been left in power, the
killing would have continued.
Sure, under Saddam bombs weren’t going off everyday in
markets and elsewhere. But what kind of quality of life was it
for the average Iraqi knowing that he or any of his loved ones
could have been plucked off the street or out of their homes at
any instant, on any pretext, and subjected to some of the most
depraved brutality human minds have ever conceived? Rape
rooms, people dropped into shredding machines, children
tortured in front of their parents, people fed to wild animals.
It was a nightmare regime of the first order and had exactly
zero chance of becoming any better, especially since Saddam’s
psycho sons would probably have taken over after papa was
finished doing his damage.
But the great Hollywood artistes weren’t much interested
in any of that. Back then, when Saddam was still in power, the
motto might as well have been, “What happens in Baghdad
stays in Baghdad.” Saddam could have filled up mass graves
with innocent Iraqis until doomsday and it would never have
so much as entered the conversation during anyone’s power
lunch at Spago.
Only after America intervened were consciences suddenly
pricked and artistic sensibilities stirred -- but, as usual, for the
wrong reasons. In their moral confusion, and with their deep-
seated, psychopathological contempt for their own country,
they were angry at Bush and the American military whose goal
was to bring liberty and decency to Iraq and -- hopefully --
eventually to the rest of the Middle East.
Now, De Palma, in his moral confusion, wants America out
of Iraq immediately. And what would he say to the Iraqis who
would be left to the tender mercies of al Qaeda and the various
insurgents? Good luck, see ya later, sayonara.
By the way, have you heard about one of al Qaeda’s new
techniques for bringing people into submission? This would
make a great Brian De Palma-style, blood-spattered movie
scene. What they do is, they get someone and they take a piano
wire and they literally rip the person’s face off with it,
preferably in front of his family and anybody else they want to
intimidate. But I’m guessing that sort of thing got left out of
“Redacted.”
Either De Palma and the rest of the get-out-now crowd
haven’t completely thought this withdrawal thing through or
they naively believe al Qaeda will become Islamic choir boys if
America will only leave. But an easy trip down memory lane to
the not-so-long-ago time when the Taliban dominated
Afghanistan should dispel any such foolish notions. Should.
But it won’t. Not with this crowd.
What De Palma set out to do with this movie is unseemly,
un-American and unpatriotic. Yep, that’s right, I’m daring to
question De Palma’s patriotism -- or at least his concept of
what patriotism is. When the troops are in harm’s way as they
perform a noble mission (helping Iraq make a transition from
nightmarish totalitarian regime to a free and decent country),
and when a Hollywood hothead tears them down with a
scandalously misleading depiction designed to inflame antiwar
passions, that fits no familiar concept of patriotism.
The movie will likely bomb (no pun intended) in this
country, but will probably do boffo box office in all the usual
places around the world where America-haters love to seethe
in unison. In the meantime, American soldiers will continue to
lay their lives on the line for the betterment of Iraq. With
America in Iraq there is at least a chance for the country to
improve. If America had never intervened, there would have
been no chance and Saddam would still be piling up the
corpses in an outwardly appearing “stable” country.
It is logically impossible for an American to depict
Americans as the bad guys in this conflict and simultaneously
be patriotic. Americans who are actually patriotic shouldn’t
be subjected to “Redacted,” which was malevolently concocted
and ought to be disrespected, contradicted and counteracted.