Okay, Hollywood. Get Into The War.
Author Andrew Klavin addresses an issue That I’ve wondered about for at least the past three years: why no war movies?
We need some films celebrating the war against Islamo-fascism in Afghanistan and Iraq — and in Iran as well, if and when that becomes necessary. We need films like those that were made during World War II, films such as 1943′s “Sahara” and “Action in the North Atlantic,” or “The Fighting Seabees” and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” which were released in 1944.
Not all of these were great films, or even good ones, but their patriotic tributes to our fighting forces inspired the nation.
More than that, they reminded the country what exactly it was that those forces were fighting to defend. Though many of these pictures now seem almost hilariously free with racist tirades against “sauerkrauts,” and “eyeties” and “Tojo and his bug-eyed monkeys,” they were also carefully constructed to display American life at its open-minded and inclusive best.
Klavin notes, though, that there have been war movies lately, just not the war movies we’d recognize.
Since the ’60s, we have had, it seems, an endless string of war movies, from “Dr. Strangelove” to “Syriana,” in which the United States is depicted as wildly aggressive and endlessly corrupt — which, in fact, it’s not; which, in fact, it never has been.
Yes, sometimes the world is very complex and it’s most complex, it seems, when it comes to issues of morality and war. What is not complex is that when you get right down the the very core of things today, we are fighting a war against an enemy that declared it on us, that will use every possible weapon in its arsenal to defeat us, and is fighting us as fiercely as any enemy this nation has ever had.
It’s high time that Hollywood show us some heroes again. It doesn’t matter whether they believe they are heroes or not. In fact, I’m fairly sure that we will have to drag the movie industry kicking and screaming toward this. But we should because, folks, we need to see some heroes in thie war or it’s a distinct possibility that we will lose it entirely.
(h/t: Warren Bell at The Corner)
UPDATE: Welcome back readers of the Daou Report! I think it’s kind of cool that I get more consistently linked by a prominent site on the left than I do by any other prominent sites on the right. Must be something there worth reading. Thanks, guys.
One note. We’re not going to do the Talking Points thing. Comments here ought to be germane and at least generally thoughtful. If you read from the “Bush Lied” script, you’re going to get ignored in quick fashion and there’s a chance I’ll just deep six the comment because I don’t feel like debunking the cliches for the ten thousandth time.
Also a reading suggestion. While Hollywood doesn’t seem to be willing to put out movies where our soldiers are the heroes, the Islamists don’t seem to have a problem at all with it. They manage to save lots of money by not bothering with CGI or visual effects to simulate cuting off a woman’s head. They just cut off a woman’s head.
Related posts:
- The Lies of Hollywood
- The Hollywood Propagandists
- The Delivery Presents – #Caring is Not for Everyone and @KurtSchlichter on Heroes and Hollywood
- Hollywood Pouts Because We Won’t Applaud It
Category: Fighting the Islamists
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Maybe if the war hadn't been based on lies and our politicians and troops in abu ghraib made us look worse than saddam in the eyes of the world (and thus hollywoods marketplace).
Plus Jarhead just came out
Wow. Do you really think that we are going to lose this war of choice due to a lack of Hollywood-produced movies on the topic? That's quite a logical leap and displays a profound degree of "out of touchness."
Yep, because all that's needed to turn this war around is some crappy action flick about "ragheads." Hilarious.
Face it – the majority of American citizens do not support this war and they certainly are not going to be tricked into supporting it by seeing some movie.
Except Iraq never declared war on us, nor did they even threaten us, nor were they developing the capability to threaten us. Did you miss the whole thing about Bush explaining the need for a "Pre-emptive War"??? Pre-emptive by definition means we attacked them first.
Some comments don't merit a serious reply. You two are prime examples.
But thanks for the daily Talking Points Review.
Jarhead and Three Kings were about a war that never was (for some). The Bill Hicks rant about the guy pulling up G-12 from a Sears weapons catalog comes to mind.
A movie about the fighting in the city of Najaf could be very interesting. Lots of drama and a spooky setting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Najaf
Per the Nuremberg principles Bush, Chaney & Runny should be hung by the neck until dead.
But great, lets see some movies about selling Iraq to the highest bidders, bombing mud huts, knocking doors down in the middle of the night, legalized torture, and secret gulags.
Thanks for jumping in there, Mack!
I thought Republicans believed in private business. The movie studios are all major corporations that are run for profit. But you seem to believe that you have a right to force them to make the movies you think other people should see — even if they don't believe in what you would have them say — so that we don't lose this war.
How is this a Conservative idea? Should the state take over other businesses as well? Should we nationalize oil companies? Make Wal-Mart sell only American-made products?
And who should be the arbiter of which businesses are sufficiently patriotic? Would that be you?
Aren't most war movies made in retrospect and not while the war is still occuring?
If people wanted to see what's happening in Iraq then all they have to do is google it on the net or turn on FOX.
But I guess you just had to find an excuse to slam Hollywood. Pathetic. LOL
Go make your own goddamn movie. It costs lots of money to put one together. Maybe for reasons cited above nobody in H'wood want to throw money down the hole–it'll be poorly received here as propaganda, and it won't get sold in the international market (where, BTW, most H'wood money is made–NOT USA).
Goodness, William. Where did you get the idea that I want the government to force the movie studios to do anything?
I do believe that I, as a consumer of their product, have the right to demand the sort of products I desire just like I do with any other private industry. I also believe I have the right to ask others to do the same thing.
Roderick, you should probably have read the op-ed I linked. At least you should have read the first excerpt I posted. Four of the movies the author noted were made while we were still fighting World War II.
By all means, let's make some propaganda movies. Not only will it help reverse the Decider's sagging polls, it will frighten Osama Bin Laden into a heart attack, and return the price of the barrel of crude oil to $20.
On March 31 in remarks to a group of British foreign policy experts, Rice justified the U.S.-led invasion by saying that otherwise Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "wasn't going anywhere" and "you were not going to have a different Middle East with Saddam Hussein at the center of it." [Washington Post, April 1, 2006]
Rice's comments in Blackburn, England, followed similar remarks during a March 26 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" in which she defended the invasion of Iraq as necessary for the eradication of the "old Middle East" where a supposed culture of hatred indirectly contributed to the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
"If you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11," Rice said. "We faced the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of the new Middle East, and we will all be safer."
But this doctrine – that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for reasons as vague as social engineering – represents a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles and the United Nations Charter's ban on aggressive war, both formulated largely by American leaders six decades ago.
Outlawing aggressive wars was at the center of the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II, a conflagration that began in 1939 when Germany's Adolf Hitler trumped up an excuse to attack neighboring Poland. Before World War II ended six years later, more than 60 million people were dead.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who represented the United States at Nuremberg, made clear that the role of Hitler's henchmen in launching the aggressive war against Poland was sufficient to justify their executions – and that the principle would apply to all nations in the future.
"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions," Jackson said.
"Let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose, it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment," Jackson said.
With the strong support of the United States, this Nuremberg principle was then incorporated into the U.N. Charter, which bars military attacks unless in self-defense or unless authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
tommo, what of the use of force to carry out unanimously agreed-upon UN resolutions? You appear to have forgotten about that aspect, and also the definition of the term "cease-fire".
Your argument is old and tired and ignorant. Please bring one that has as many facts as you can marshall.
You're right, where are the movies with heroes in them? I hate all the stupid movies out right now without heroes in them, like United 93.
Do you really think we are fighting an enemy "as fierce as any we ever faced"? Cmon, we're talking about fringe religious extremists with little resources and limited number of followers. And there would have been even fewer if we had finished the job in Afganistan instead of turning world opinion against the U.S. with this idealogical fantasy of democratiic reform by invasion.
Yes, Islamic extremists are a threat but compared to the Soviet Union, Germany, Japan, Spain and England who actiually were threats to our national survival, these guys are less threatening to our lives than drunk drivers, who kill 10 times the number of Americans every year that terrorists cumulatively ever killed.
There have been loads of anti-terrorist flicks and TV shows but they just don't warrant a war movie. An episode of "The Unit" or "Law & Order" but until they can field an army and occupy some turf, I'm not particularly worried about them.
Hollywood tried an Iraq-themed TV show a season or so ago (name escapes me, but it was a Steven Bochco product, so it should have been pretty good), and it failed (I almost said "bombed.") The war actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are long on suffering and short on glory. Not much to film there.
The "war" against terrorism — to the degree that it's a war at all — is vastly different than WWII, where a conventional, rousing story could be written and filmed. This war is more about police work, spies, covert this, secret that, etc. Which is not to say that an espionage-style thriller couldn't be made, but that we're talking about a crowded and rather small niche. the Mission Impossible hopper is pretty full right now.
And finally, this war is not very popular. It's not being executed very well, many people consider Iraq to be the stupidest imaginable way to pursue anti-terror objectives, and the only heroes to be found are the front-line troops dying pointlessly in the desert as a result of their leaders' mistakes.
None of this adds up to box office bonanzas, which is why you're not seeing many war movies right now.
It’s high time that Hollywood show us some heroes again.
Well then, get out there and make some movies! Hey, if people are dying to see war flix, you'll make a fortune.
But this doctrine – that the Bush administration has the right to invade other nations for reasons as vague as social engineering – represents a repudiation of the Nuremberg Principles
Not to mention conservative principles.
I thought tommo's post quite eloquent and well research. Jimmie needs to do better than "Nuh-uh".
Pointing out that some of the classics were made during the war is linked to the observation that they were hilariously (or insultingly) racist because, in their own way, they were pro-war propaganda pieces. There are enough educated (or oversensitive) people now that even in the middle of the war, we aren't to accept "nuke the ragheads!" without flinching. I think what you nostalgically want is Green Berets (fun but laughable now) but what you will get is Algiers (great but painful to watch)
Ultimately you will get what people will pay for and if the Heritage Foundation wants to bankroll a movie, I'm sure there is a producer who will run with it. Until then you will have to settle for the War on Terror to be fought every monday night on "24".
I am constantly amazed at the way conservatives discount the immensity of the threat our country faced during WWII. Nothing that's going on today even comes close to two industrial superpowers annexing much of the world by force and proceeding to execute large numbers of indiginous populations. Saddam was a cheap, two-bit dictator compared to Hitler. Hitler had attacked and wiped out most of Europe by the time we got involved. The Japanese had taken over the vast majority of what we call "the East." Both countries commanded huge industrial firepower. Why do conservatives keep pretending that what we face today is our greatest threat?
"Do you really think we are fighting an enemy “as fierce as any we ever faced”? Cmon, we’re talking about fringe religious extremists with little resources and limited number of followers.
These fringe religious extremists with little resources managed to topple the twin towers, blow a gaping hole in the Pentagon building, and kill about 3,000 people, all in a single day. They are a very serious threat, and as a liberal I am absolutely appalled at the willingness of so many leftists to blind themselves to the savagery and ruthlessness of this enemy. Yes, Bush is an incompetent twit who started a pointless war in Iraq that has only encouraged more terrorism, and he deserves severe criticism (and even impeachment) for it, but that's no excuse to belittle the threat posed by Islamist theocrats, who are about as anti-liberal as you can get.
Jeff – I did do better than "nuh-uh". tommo claims that our being in Iraq is an "aggressive war". That is factually untrue. We are in Iraq, in part because Iraq is guilty of thousands of breaches of the cease-fire agreement that ended hostilities after the Gulf War *and* because of the unanimous UN Resolution 1441. We could also mention then bipartisan Congressional authorization the President received as well.
He figures none of those into his post. Yes, it was impressvely long. But it was lacking.
Bluedog – Where do you read that I'm diminishing the threat that we faced during World War II? Did you read my post or what?
We remember the 80's, so do we really want to see another Rambo film? Or how about Red Dawn 2? Every country is guilty of making propaganda films in time of war, ours happen to be the cheesiest. Good war films are actually anit-war anyway. For those of you that are interested, there are a great number of films out now from the middle east about the effects of war. Go see Paradise Now, Turtles Can Fly, or Free Zone. Nobody wants war… except maybe the people who never fought in one and think its as easy as sitting at home and watching Sylvester Stallone take on some Russians in Afghanistan, with Osama's help no less (Rambo 3). Here's a better idea: if you really must take out your anger on "towelheads", do so from the safety of one the US army's authorized propaganda video games (Army Rangers). Just remember that in the end its just a game. The difference being there's no restart in life and medals / martyrs don't count for sh*t when you're dead.
Tommo's post was long, and well pasted, but his core argument is thin at best; that we invaded Iraq in order to re-engineer the Middle East. This was never set forth as one of the justifications under Public Law 107-243, the authorization of force aginst Iraq. You all were aware that the President had the authorization of Congress to use military force, right? And that you can read said legislation before commenting on core justifications and read them for your own self?
What Tommo's done is taken Condaleeza Rice's retrospective views on the action and pretended like it was the authorization to commit troops. None of you can possibly believe that the views she expressed in the interview, in terms of how she felt emotionally in retrospect about the action three years later was the basis for action in 2003.
As far as whether a movie about the war would be a success, I doubt any of you would have invested a $5 stake in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. For you all to pronounce that there would be no box office is a bit presumptious and arrogant. As far as those of you flippantly challenging Jimmie to make the movie himself, why don't you just be honest and upfront, grow some balls and tell him to go f*ck himself instead of getting all bitchy and passive-agressive?
And Tommo, you have not detailed a single "Nuremburg Principle" – how about citing even one element of the proceedings that support your argument instead of asking me to accept your interpretation? That would be greatly appreciated.
Jackknife – the chickenhawk argument is stupid and vapid. To say that only those who serve can comment is just about the height of stupidity.
I'm curious – do you really believe that, or is it just a rhetorical flourish?
Mack,
The chickenhawk arguement is in response to those who say that being against the war is the same as being a traitor, an American-hater, want the terrorists to win, or prefer Saddam to Bush.
Stupid begets (slightly less) stupid.
I honestly don't remember Jimmie ever saying that anywhere on this tread or in the original article. What I read into the thread was Jimmie's lament that there have been no movies made about the war, even though there have been plenty of heros.
For those about to ask me to name any heros, go to Blackfive or Michael Yon. Or just do a search.
So I'm imagining the whole comment about "going down to the Imperial Stormtrooper Recruitment Center"?
I'm a veteran – how many times do you suggest that I have to serve in order to voice my support of the war? How did you "earn" your right to rail against the war? The simple fact is that the right to speak is conferred to all citizens, veterans or not. Whether I served once or not at all is irrelevant, except, apparently to control-freak fascists like you.
Well, at least you're honest enough to not reflexively spew the "but I support the troops" line.
This is why in the end it doesn't make sense to engage people like you; you have your half-cocked opinions and little else to offer somebody like me. You have no real-life experience with military matters and know few if any service people, so you fall back on facile reflexive ejaculations. Mercenaries! Trailer Trash! Illegal War! Chimpie McBushHiltler! Chickenhawks! No war for oil! You carry on about how this is an illegal war without a shred of evidence, logic or consideration. How is it illegal? Are you even capable of constructing a reasonable argument? Oh, I forgot – we're supposed to simply yield to your superior intellectual prowess. Sorry, I never got that memo. Carry on.
"Hollywood tried an Iraq-themed TV show a season or so ago (name escapes me, but it was a Steven Bochco product, so it should have been pretty good), and it failed (I almost said “bombed.”) The war actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are long on suffering and short on glory. Not much to film there."
Over There was the name of the show. It had good ratings for a show on FX. It was faulty in that it had just about every cliché character in the mix. And one of the most truly horrible theme songs of all time. Nicki Aycox is the hot though.
jacknife – Really, you have no earthly idea what you're talking about. There is nothing in the US Constitution that allows any other document to supplant it as the law of the land. Further, the UN Charter is not treaty but a loose agreement between nations to agree by a certain set of guidelines.
Those guidelines, by the way, assume that all the other signatory nations will act accordingly. If they do not, international "law" does not apply.
Yet you've not considered the effect of the cease-fire which existed and was violated every day by the Hussein regime. By the same international law that you hug close, the US could have resumed hostilities at any time, for any number of violations. That we did not do so before George Bush does not mean that he was incorrect to do so but that the others before him saw fit to allow the cease-fire violations to continue without meaningful consequences.
Oh, and speaking of consequences, you do remember UN Res 1441, don't you? If was, in fact the only resolution required to take direct action against Hussein. You may (well, I wouldn't bet that you will) recall that the only reason we went back after that resolution was because Tony Blair asked to do so to give Hussein one last, last, last, last, last (I'll add 16 or so more later) chance to comply with every resolution going back to 1991.
Lastly, I suggest you tone down the condescending tone to your comments. I welcome what you have to say but that welcome extends only to the bounds of civility and a good-faith effort to argue with the facts as they are known. I'm giving you a great amount of latitude on the latter beause I honestly think that you believe what you're saying. On the other hand, I"m less inclined to give slack on the former. So get nicer, please.
I think this war is now unpopular enough at this point that nothing other than a clearcut victory can redeem it. Speaking as a non-American observer who supported the overthrow of the Taliban, the war in Iraq looks like it was hopelessly botched, almost from the start. When you can't drive in safety from the airport to headquarters after 3 years of war, the people are not going to be easily convinced by a retread of Chuck and Jim and Dimaggio and Izzy fighting for America and freedom. Best bet – make a WWII movie like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, and hope it works as a metaphor. But Iraq is too tainted by failure, scandal and suspect motives to ever work as anything other than an antiwar setting.
Tommo, just curious. Which Nuremberg principles would those be, and can you give some examples? Thanks.
What would you consider a clearcut victory, aiabx? Saddam Hussein's government has been clearly overthrown, the Iraqi people have held three democratic elections with astonishing voter turnout and negligible terrorist interference each time, the Iraqi people have ratified a constittion (the first democratically-ratified constitution in an Arab country in history), there have been at least two peaceful exchanges of power from President to President there and one peaceful exchange of power from the CPA to the Iraqi government.
What more would you require for your victory conditions?
If the goal of the war was to overthrow Saddam, then it is over, Mission Accomplsihed.
Well, call me a liberal moonbat if you want, but when I see dozens of people executed each week in sectarian violence, and tens of thousands of people forced to flee same violence , the unending guerilla warfare, I have to conclude that the war has not been successfully resolved, no matter how much back-slapping and hand-shaking the politicians are indulging in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4905770.st…
I'm not sure how much I would rely on voter turnout as a victory condition, as long as sectarian parties are the ones being voted for.
Lots of voters for Hamas in Palestine, but I wouldn't call it a victory for democracy.
When I see Iraq returned to the pre-invasion level of violence without secret police, death squads and torture chambers to back it up, when the constitutuional rights that have been guaranteed are evenly enforced, and when the people return to their homes without needing sectarian enclaves, I'll call that a clearcut victory.
When peace has been imposed by Shiite-aligned governmental force and the oil is flowing again, I will concede at least a partial "realpolitik" victory. A bad solution, but no worse than what was there before.
But I don't think you even have that yet.
Okay, I see what you're after. You don't mind, say, a few thousand people a month dying in Iraq as long as the killers aren't "sectarian". And before you accuse me of hyperbole, remember that Saddam and the Ba'ath Party had a pretty efficient killing machine going on and averaged that number of dead over the past decade of "peace".
And you want the Shiites to run the government? They are a sect just like the others. What of representative government or the ability of Sunni and Kurd to have a significant role in running their own country just like everyone else? That's not a "bad" solution. That's essentially returning the country to the strongman du jour which is just a ridiculous suggestion to me. The fact is that in Iraq, much like in many other countries, there are many sects. Some members of those sects (but by no means the majority) want to use the strongarm tactics they have available to them to rule. That is not a tactic that's being accepted by the Iraqi people and every day they take steps to end that particular way of thinking. Give them time, for goodness sake.
The oil, by the way, is flowing, just not as quickly as you might wish. I recently read a report that said that the Iraqis are importing over 1.6 million barrels a day, with an expectation that they'll be exporting 2 million gallons a month by the end of the year consistently.
" It's not the money, it's the principal of the thing."
If you've ever heard this saying, you know the speaker means, "It's about the money."
Same thing for the Iraq War.
"It's not about oil, it's about…"
jacknife, you really shouldn't accuse people talking out of their ass. Not with a post like yours.
Iraq was bound by Resolution 1441 to fully comply with all the preexisting resolutions. It did not. In fact, it did not even attempt to prove that it had complied with even one of them. Thus it was in breach. Period. End of argument.
Second, even if you assume that the UN Charter binds the member nations from taking military action for any reason without international approval – an assumption that no reasonable person would make – it is still absolutely true that the US and the Coalition (remember them?) acted with the full approval of the UN, as expressedin Resolution 1441. Furthermore, even if we had removed Hussein by ourselves, we would have been well within the rules of warfare since, as I've pointed out to you twice, Hussein had violated the terms of the 1991 cease-fire every single day since it was signed. You've yet to agree to that. I suspect that you won't ecause it is an inconvenient fact that pulls down your entire "illegal war" belief.
Lastly, you've been warned once. I will not warn you again.
WWII film "Flags of Our Fathers" is in the pipeline. The story of the three surviving men who hoisted the Flag in that famous picture on Mt. Surabachi, Iwo Jima. Not exactly an Iraq film but hey, it's a Hollywood war movie directed by Clint Eastwood out later this year.
http://www.flagsofourfathers.net/
I think I made it clear that a replacement strongman is not what I would consider a clear cut victory. Given political realities, I think that's about the best you can hope for. And I wouldn't bet my own money on even that miserable outcome happening.
Simple answer: all the studios want right now is superhero movies. Get a guy in tights fighting in Iraq and maybe they'll consider it.
aiabx – Right now, the government seems to be slowly but surely rooting out the corrupt and those fronting the death squads. The people are backing the elected government more strongly every day and more strongly denouncing the sectarian violence. Every trend right now is moving away from sectarian violence and toward civil democratic government.
Why would you be so quick to discount democracy there?
>Why would you be so quick to discount democracy there?
Short answer: because I didn't just fall of the back of a pumpkin truck.
I never believed Irag was a real front in the war on terror, so I have no political stake in Iraq. I can afford a dispassionate assessment. And I'm not rushing out to invest in Iraqi government bonds. If you say things are improving, I'm not going to argue with you. I'll buy you a drink and an apology on the Iraqi Riviera in 2016. But it sure looks like a giant disaster to me. And it's looked bad since the looting in the early days, so this isn't a quick judgement. Still, good luck with it. Maybe Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can all learn to live in peace and harmony. I've been wrong before.
Look, we managed to do it. Our early history was a turmoil of ethnic riots, class riots, enclaves and sects. Yet we managed to pull off the oldest running constitutional republic in the world mostly because we held on to democracy itself. Things are not pretty in Iraq, but no one ever expected they would be. Democracy doesn't grow like crabgrass, but it does grow. It takes time to take root and mature, just like ours did.
This one has taken root and our solders are doing heroes' work by standing there and taking the body shots that would collapse the Iraqis right now. We're there as bodyguards, taking punishment that, though it hurts badly, we can handle but they can't right now.
I can't read the future. But I do see the little green shoots of freedom poking up all over the country. We ought to be encouraging their growth in every way we possibly can. Why wouldn't we?
Jimmie,
The people in Kansas City should hope for a World Series title from the Royals too.
But they look foolish yelling we're #1 at this juncture.
Jimmie, no one is saying that Hussein in power was a good thing but that doesn't matter anymore, even to the Iraqi's, the majority of which want us gone. Colin Powell, before he was marginalized, said that the problem with Iraq would be "you break it, you buy it". The screw ups that were made (strategic, not tactical) made it our problem and that didn't have to be. There are many heroes and their stories should be told but their tales get lost in the background noise of lionized non-heroes (Jessica Lynch) and gross disinformation (Pat Tillman). They are about to pull an AF SOF unit out of theater because they've won too many medals…maybe a movie in there. The problem with a war movie about Iraq (original post) is that the personal stories about our heroes is diluted by the undercurrent of thought that perhaps their sacrifice was unnecessary and may eventually prove to be in vain. You want "Saving Private Ryan". You will get "They died with their boots on" (nifty film starring Errol Flynn about a very heroic George Custer and the brave heroes of the 7th cavalry…guess how it ends?) Worse yet, if the right wing doesn't finance it your selves, you'll get Little Big Man.
jeff
Jeff, I followed you up until you talk about an AF SOF unit being pulled because they're "winning too many medals". I'd bet my left necessity that story is an urban legend. First, there is no "leader board" tracking medals as a function of combat readiness. Secondly, winning medals is a good thing, and ultimately what their command would like to do is win a medal for the entire unit. I would be interested in seeing a link to this if you have one; it would be a huge change in the military's force management processes.
Hollywood? What, you mean make believe.
How about getting some real life heroes, instead of the chicken hawk bullshit administration thats leading us now.
You want a real hero, try Clark, Russel "Rajin Cajun" Honoré, maybe even McCain. Perhaps one of the thousands of 18 and 19 year old kids doing the dirty work.
You want heroes, Be a Hero, Pull your head out of your Ass.
Those are real marines dying.
Leave Tom Cruise in his make believe world.
Hey Tommo,
Nice Job Bitch Slappign these fools. (post 15)
Hey Mack, interpret that how ever you like. (post 27)
why no war movies?
I dunno, because watching scenes of women and children getting doused with white phosphorus is kind of a bummer for ma & pa, probably.
Thinking further about this, I think the 40's style war movie was killed by Vietnam. When people have had a look at the horror and carnage of war on their TV's, and seen the war movies that grew out of that experience, there's no way the fake heroics of John Wayne could ever be perceived again as anything other that patronizing horseshit. Nobody who didn't think Top Gun was a realistic depiction of pilots and the astrophysicists who love them would find any movie convincing that didn't come to grips with the brutality and futility of war.
If a film were made today portraying war as it appeared on film in the 40's, it would soon find itself laughed into the bargain bin with Invasion U.S.A.
Who came up with that idea? Bill Frist?
Aiabx – I still don't think that a movie is impossible. Think about "Blackhawk Down". A strong presentation of a bad situation that still let the strength and determination of the protagonists shine through. I don't think anybody has stipulated that any depiction of the action has to be a whitewash or a 1940's style John Wayne flag-waver. There are a lot of incredibly brave men and women out there doing some amazing things, and I think that there is plenty of good material out there.
Dom: durrr? eeeeuhhhh? erp?
> We need some films celebrating the war against Islamo-fascism
I have not seen BlackHawk Down, but I have heard from reliable friends that it is a good movie, and I am not under the impression that it is a morale-bulding celebration of intervention in Mogadishu.
The original article was calling for films celebrating war in the style of 40's flag wavers. This I do not believe is possible. I think any film which is honest about what real soldiers go through cannot be a celebration of war*, and that the Iraq war is too tainted in the eyes of the public for any morale-building effort to be viewed as anything but ham-handed propaganda.
*There's always an exception, and I think "Glory" works as a celebration of war, but only because I'm looking at it through the filter of a 21st century liberal who believes that wars are always bad, but not always wrong. But that's an argument for another day…
But aiabx, no one's talking about a "celebration of war". We're talking about a celebration of the heroes of war. Popular leftist opinion notwithstanding, there isn't a person in this country who isn't psychopathic who wants us to be at war. Even those of us who continue to support our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan would much rather we could live as we did in the halcyon days of the 1990s (except for the whole ignoring al-Qaeda and not jacking up Osama when we had the chances). I, for one, would much rather spend my blogging time talking about anything besides the maniacs who are trying to blow us up and the maniac-deniers who love them.
But that ain't where we are right now.
We are in a time when we could use a few heroes and, whether we like it or not, Hollywood is the Hero Maker.
>We need some films celebrating the war against Islamo-fascism in >Afghanistan and Iraq — and in Iran as well, if and when that becomes >necessary. We need films like those that were made during World War >II, films such as 1943’s “Sahara” and “Action in the North Atlantic,” or >“The Fighting Seabees” and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” which were >released in 1944.
Read that first line carefully -"We need some films celebrating the war…" and later "We need films like those that were made during World War II…".
If you want to chuck that out and look for a celebration of the heroes of war, I think you could probably do something good with the Pat Tillman story
Sure you can do a heroes movie, but they only tend to work when the war is disparaged, or if the are set in WWII, where the bad guys are bad on a scale that dwarfs anything Al Quaeda could ever dream of. For a counterexample, see the critical and financial success of The Green Berets.
There's a difference, though, between a movie that celebrates war and one that celebrates the war in the style of WWII movies. If you watch those movies what they celebrate is not the war itself, but the men who fought the war and the victories over our enemies.
And I disagree that the enemies in WWII dwarf the enemies we face now. They both have the same goals. They both have no problem partaking in genocide wherever they get the opportunity. They both have a fanatical ideology that needs to be broke as surely as their desire to fight us. Where they differ is in how they are fighting us. In WWII, the enemy was right out there where we could see them, using tanks and planes and millions of soldiers in uniforms. The enemies today use roadside explosives, suicide bombers, children with explosives strapped to their chest, and a media that's either willing to peddle their propaganda uncritically ot ignorant about how badly they're being coopted by their own "go along to get along" philosophy.
I ran with the ball I was handed. "celebrates the war" seemed pretty clear and straightforward to me. My point has been made, and you can take it or leave it. But if Red Dawn has taught me anything, it's that Hollywood will make a movie about any nonsense if they think there's a buck in it.
The last thing I wanted to do with my limited spare time is to wander into a right wing blog and get suckered into an argument about Iraq, or the war on terror. So I will terminate the argument now by invoking Godwin's law up on myself, leaving you the rhetorical champion on your own turf.
Individually, the average AQ terrorist is a fairly small menace. They are poorly trained, there aren't very many of them and they are given only lukewarm support by their fellow Muslims, when they aren't detested as a threat to the current order. Like all weak powers, terror is their mode of operation. Occasionally, terrorists hit their mark; 9/11, the Oklahoma Federal Building, AIr India Flight 182, the Chechnya school massacre. Usually, however, they are stuck with the RPG and the car bomb. If we assume that AQ caused half of the casualties in Iraq (a generous assumption in my view), then they've managed to kill 1200 soldiers at much heavier cost to themselves. Elsewhere, they live in caves and ocasionally kill a teacher. They are fanatics, but there are a lot of fanatics in the world, and damned few of them are global threats.
On the other hand, let us briefly consider the Axis powers in WWII. Powerful, aggressive industrialized states with massive armed forces and violent racist ideologies. Let us consider Soviet civilian casualties. 11.5 million, over not quite 4 years. If we estimate 3 million a year (rounding off), I get a ballpark figure of 9000 civilian dead a day. That's 3 9/11's every day, day in, day out for almost 4 years, largely conducted at pistol range. That to my mind is evil on a scale that AQ will never be able to match. Chinese civilian casualties were almost as bad, but over a longer stretch of time.
If AQ managed to kill 4200 people in the time it took Germany and Japan to kill 50 million, I know which I consider to be the graver threat.
The ability for a nominally civilized society to be able to commit crimes like that speaks not only of evil ideological fanaticism, but the ability to apply that evil in an efficient ,industrialized manner with the armed force required to conquer its victims.
What is most upsetting about Naziism is that its roots are in western civilization. When the citizens of a free society give up their rights for protection from a perceived threat… well, you know.
So now I will bid you adieu. Arguing movies is fun, but I'm on a slippery slope to exasperation with the war, and I doubt either of us will comvince the other of anything important. But thanks for an interesting blab.