In the Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly has an excellent piece up about the cartoony views of the war that Hollywood has been trying to peddle:
In the launch issue of the new journal World Affairs, George Packer, longtime foreign affairs correspondent for the New Yorkeroffers important insights into this paradox. Packer is both an experienced and honest Iraq reporter and a longtime critic of Bush policy, so he is perhaps one of the few qualified to write “Over There: Iraq the Place vs. Iraq the Abstraction.” He is particularly on point in describing the disconnects he observes in the way Hollywood thinks about Iraq. “Once, after to a trip to Iraq,” he writes,
I attended a dinner party in Los Angeles at which most of the guests were movie types. They wanted to know what it was like “over there.” I began to describe a Shiite doctor I’d gotten to know, who felt torn between gratitude and fear that occupation and chaos were making Iraq less Islamic. A burst of invective interrupted my sketch: none of it mattered–the only thing that mattered was this immoral, criminal war. The guests had no interest in hearing what it was like over there. They already knew. [Italics in original.]
Packer’s look at the war as Hollywood sees it is a sobering and, I think, accurate assessment; again, Packer’s own policy views have been strongly and often tellingly critical of the conduct of the war. His reviews of Iraq-based movies are strongly negative. He calls Brain de Palma’sRedacted “an aesthetically self-conscious snuff film that mixes fact with fiction and makes no attempt to get the details of Iraq right.” He allows that Wendell Steavenson’s The Situation“contains two more or less recognizable Iraqi characters,” but like other films such as In the Valley of Elah, presents “the war as incomprehensible mayhem.” These films
depict American soldiers as psychopaths who may as well be wearing SS uniforms. The G.I.s rape, burn, and mutilate corpses, torture detainees, accelerate a vehicle to run over a boy playing soccer, wantonly kill civilians and journalists in firefights, humiliate one another and coolly record their own atrocities for entertainment. Have these things happened in Iraq? Many have. But in the cinematic version of the war, these things are the only things that happen in Iraq. [Again, italics in original.]
Bruce Willis has been trying since 2005 to get a pro US military film made.
Hollywood runs alternately pandering to the public (mook and midriff movies) or stroking its own ego. The anti-US military films are box-office poison but still are getting greenlighted…which supports the assertion that in this instance, it is not audience driven but driven by Hollywood attempting to propagandize the audience.
Hollywood can’t get the US right; it’s no surprise they can’t get Iraq right.
Remember: You are inferior. You are uninformed. They are your betters. They will lead you to enlightenment.
Now give them your money so they can improve you.
Hollywood is full of crap? Who knew?
Still, its funny listening to people who spent 2003-2007 saying “Last throws of dead enders. Victory is around the corner. There is no insurgency and we don’t need any more troops! Anyone who says there is, or that we do, is just trying to sap our morale and sabotage the war effort” criticizing someone else for confusing “real Iraq” and “imaginary Iraq”.
When I started saying we needed more troops in 2004, Goldtstein here assured me that I was simply too much of a girly-man liberal to see the wisdom of Rumsfeld plan with it’s incredibly brilliant “light footprint”. When 2007 rolled around and the party line changed, Goldstein assured us that anyone who didn’t want to send more troops was a girly-man liberal who wasn’t capable of seeing the genius of Bush or the “Surge”. 3 years too late and not even gracious enough to admit that he used to mock the same thing he now embraces.
Look to the beam in your own eye.
The surge was accompanied by a thorough revision of strategy and ROE. And the target of the surge was as much your media as the enemy. Your media lost.
While you work on the redwood in your own?
(And nice re-write of history there.)
Son, why were you locked in the bathroom for 2 hours last night? And have you seen my Vogue with George Clooney on the cover? Anyway, son, the surge didn’t increase the number of troops, but merely altered troop rotation and rules of engagement.
Patriotism seems to be another term which falls prey to selective perception. Most combat veterans who’ve been ‘in the shit’ see it through the lens of brotherhood, not some civilian commander-in-chief’s
cow eyes.
‘It’s about the guy next to you’.
It doesn’t get any more patriotic than that.
So, cleo, is that an argument for the removal of civilian control of the military?
Don’t you know it’s impolite to mess up people’s delusions by pointing out the logical conclusions of what they advocate?
Do my eyes deceive me, or did Cleo just make a valuable comment?
Cleo, if you can get Hollywood to make a film around the comment you just made, I promise I’ll shut up for a month.
“So, cleo, is that an argument for the removal of civilian control of the military?”
IF you mean ‘responsible’ civilian control, no.
Where “responsible” just happens to correspond to your political views, I’m sure.
So FDR sucked, huh, ‘cleo?
I remember what the argument was in 2003. The two options were light footprint, e.i. 150,000, and heavy footprint, 500,000. Mind you, this argument took place after Rumsfeld (that incompetent stubborn fool!) in six weeks gained more control in Afghanistan then the Russians did in a 10 year campaign.
More to the point, Libarbarian, what do you think of Redicated, Elah, ect.?
It’s already made that point, under the discussion about how Clinton’s real abuses of power was no bother, while Bush’s use of Constitutional authority is scary.
The later discussion — after the fall of Baghdad — was after that lighter force had demolished a fighting force in record time, including the effective use of armored forces in urban areas — which most theorists thought was an impossible task.
“Iraq the abstraction.” Packer’s summation is dead-on.
I’ve been watching this tier of fantasy gain rational currency eversince ’03. Like “Global Warming,” it’s been a deliberate, slow-moving media-wave, for all who want to see.
The process by which the media have “abstracted” Iraq requires that one view the nation separated from the long history of tumult of the Middle East, like a puzzle-piece lifted and studied apart from its larger puzzle.
Dislocated, Iraq becomes a hallucinatory puzzle-piece, that, when viewed under just the right light, and manipulated by just the right hand, has the magic to make voters panic, sigh and swoon.
But, when the puzzle-piece “Iraq” is studied in place with the rest of the surrounding puzzle-picture, Iraq the nation loses its magic ability to generate actionable narratives for the media’s clients.
True to form: last week a neighbor told me he was sure we were in a recession. He said he heard it “on the news.” He says he’s voting for “Change.”
Phew! What a grisly, sordid business old Media find themselves in. I’d rather farm hogs in the tropics!
That’s what you get when you start worrying about what actors like. Because mostly, they don’t.
So let ’em act, and shut the hell up in public otherwise. They quite obviously don’t give a flying frak about MY opinion, so why should I care about theirs?
Sheesh.
Rob. If you look at afghanistan history from Alexander the Great up to today, I think you’ll find that the US has accomplished the most with greatest cooperation from the Afghanis themselves than any other ‘invader’ in history.
(And nice re-write of history there.)
The only people re-writing history are people like you who now lie about denying the existence of the insurgency for 3 years.
The later discussion  after the fall of Baghdad  was after that lighter force had demolished a fighting force in record time, including the effective use of armored forces in urban areas  which most theorists thought was an impossible task.
A common misperception
Dont know why the link is busted?
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/afghan.pdf
or google: “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare” by Stephen Biddle.
“under the discussion about how Clinton’s real abuses of power was no bother, while Bush’s use of Constitutional authority is scary.”
Where did I say anything remotely like that about Clinton, Cobford?
And Bush’s PRESUMED Constitutional authority is what’s scary. Apparently, scofflaws are ok as long as they have an ‘R’ after their names.
Decent piece, but he peddles the same garbage the left has been for years, claiming us on the right said the occupation and rebuilding would take a few months and would be easy and cheap. I don’t know of anyone on the right who claimed this – certainly the Bush administration in no uncertain terms repeatedly said the opposite.
The other misconception he clings to is calling the entire period from 2003-2008 “war” when the war was over in a matter of weeks in 2003. We’re rebuilding Iraq during a troubled occupation. We won the war, rapidly and conclusively. The mission was accomplished, handily.
I agree that the presumption that some people have about President Bush’s abuses of power are scary. Even more scary is that so many people believe those presumptions to be true, despite their fact-less nature.
Wow. An article written in 2002 that discussed the use of armored vehicles in Baghdad in 2003. I’m stunned.
Look to the beam in your own eye.
Erm, I hate to tell you that’s not a beam sticking in your eye, lib’.
Patriotism seems to be another term which falls prey to selective perception
Excellent point, ‘cleo. We’uns think it means supporting the troops, you’uns think it means stabbing them in the back.
I think those movie types who asked what it was like “over there” were just making small talk. In truth, they’re really not interested to know.
Comment by Semanticleo on 2/5 @ 10:37 am #
“Most combat veterans who’ve been ‘in the shit’ see it through the lens of brotherhood…
‘It’s about the guy next to you’.
It doesn’t get any more patriotic than that.”
Comment by Squid on 2/5 @ 11:03 am #
“Do my eyes deceive me, or did Cleo just make a valuable comment?
Cleo, if you can get Hollywood to make a film around the comment you just made.”
Keeping on the subject of Hollywood greenlights, they did: BlackHawk Down, particularly the Hooten/Gibson POV.
That it was made a lifetime ago (read:before this Admin) or would be made as faithfully today is up to you. Discuss.
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