Stone's Iraq War spot

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Oliver Stone's anti-Iraq War video spot, sponsored by the MoveOn.org political action group and VoteVets.org, is straightforward but underwhelming. When I first heard Stone would be doing this I was kind of expecting...I don't know, some kind of pulverizing visual statement that would scream "wake up and listen!" Something that would say "the guy who made Platoon made this." Maybe some kind of Battle of Algiers-type deal.

Instead, Stone shows us two talking-head closeups of two vets -- John Bruhns, a former infantry sergeant who fought in Iraq "starting from day one" in '03 and realized early on that the presence of U.S,. troops was "wrong, immoral and irresponsible," and Ron Kovic, the paraplegic Vietnam vet whom Tom Cruise played in Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, saying that "together we can support the troops" by bringing them home.

I agree -- we are disrespecting U.S. soldiers in Iraq by sending and keeping them there -- and Stone and the MoveOn-ers are coming from a morally compassionate place, but the primary visual impression in Stone's piece is that Bruhns has put on weight since his '03 tour.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 5, 2007 at 5:41 AM

comment #1

Hickenlooper says ...

I realize the Iraq War is a bit of a mess (like any war) and that it certainly isn't trendy particularly among the media and Hollywood's fashionable elite, however, even under such dire circumstances it is always healthy to look back on history to get the bigger picture. I found this 1964 speech by Ronald Reagan actually rather relevant and perhaps a bit prophetic. Hopefully one can listen to it with an open mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIxlsr3UUkY

Posted by Hickenlooper at May 5, 2007 6:31 AM

comment #2

le corbeau says ...

Translation of spot:

Grandpa Oliver sittin' on the porch, ranting as usual.

Grandson walks up, says "Gramps, I just wanted to tell ya, all those years I was making fun of you for going on and on about the same old shit-- well, you were right all along!"

Grandpa Oliver looks straight into the camera: "I told you so."

Posted by le corbeau at May 5, 2007 7:00 AM

comment #3

le corbeau says ...

But then, I wasn't impressed with Joe Dante's dead-soldier-zombies-rise movie either. I mean, okay, there are dead, and they're unhappy about it and take revenge. That's a criticism of this specific war? No, it's a banal observation about any war, not to mention a trashing of a truly great antiwar film (Abel Gance's 1938 J'Accuse), and if you regard the shocking news that people die in war as a prima facie case against that war, then I guess you'd have let the South go in 1861 with slavery intact. And don't get me started on that simpleminded 70s-Arab-clichefest Syriana, with its wicked CIA conspirators and soulful-eyed democratic Arab prince who's too good to live in the wicked world we made. (Thanks, Hollywood, that's the most useful message about geopolitics since The Siege told us that it was only our own racism that made us think Muslims might ever blow anything in New York City up for Allah.)

In short, anyone, of any political stripe, who looks to be informed on any level about the world today by Hollywood is a fool.

Posted by le corbeau at May 5, 2007 7:09 AM

comment #4

Craig Kennedy says ...

But those who look to be informed by the administration are geniuses? Remember when we were supposed to believe the Iraqi people would greet our troops with flowers in the street? That we could fight 'the first great ideological conflict of the 21st century' with only 100,000 troops?

The people who are now shocked about the dead Americans bought the administration's line that this would be an easy, bloodless conflict and the administration was happy to have them believe.

Posted by Craig Kennedy at May 5, 2007 7:44 AM

comment #5

le corbeau says ...

"The people who are now shocked about the dead Americans bought the administration's line that this would be an easy, bloodless conflict"

Could you find a citation in one of Bush's speeches, say, to support this? You know, one where he didn't say this:

"Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice." (3/18/03)

or this:

"A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict. And helping Iraqis achieve a united, stable and free country will require our sustained commitment." (3/19/03)

Oh, I don't doubt that it exists, because I hear people claim he said it would be easy and no one would die all the time, and they couldn't be making up a straw man. But all I can find is this:

"This is a massive and difficult undertaking -- it is worth our effort, it is worth our sacrifice, because we know the stakes." (11/6/03)

Help me out here.

Posted by le corbeau at May 5, 2007 8:09 AM

comment #6

SpinDozer says ...

'I realize the Iraq War is a bit of a mess (like any war) ...'

Bit of a gloss over, there Hickenlooper. All wars are messy and brutal, of course, but to this war, you can add copious amounts of incompetence and corruption from the civilian leadership which have exponentially increased the brutality. This does not even address the failure of the stated strategic goals of the war; this country was supposed to benefit from increased security & the Mid-east was going to be transformed by "introducing" democracy. Terrorist attacks are up and whenever elections in the region have been held, anti-democratic parties have won, while in Iraq the prospects for democracy are less than stellar and probably decrease in proportian with the length of the occupation .

Lets say you are stupid enough to compare this war with the American Civil War. Imagine what our opinion would be if the South imported more slaves and used them in an amphibious military assault on Maine and Massachusetts where the newly victorious Confederates used the newly imported slaves to staff the dark satanic mills turning southern cotton into a cash crop removing the UK-middleman and providing ports to export PA steel which corrupt steel magnates used to generate personal wealth while simultaneously undercutting the nascent union movement by using drafted 'volunteer former-slaves' into involuntary labor and helping to arm the south which becomes common knowledge amongst the working people of the UK so that they do not oppose the Hawks in Parlaiment who want to intervene on the South's behalf. That would be roughly comparable to the situation we are in today.

Posted by SpinDozer at May 5, 2007 8:28 AM

comment #7

le corbeau says ...

No, SpinDozer, let's say this was the war of the Spanish succession only instead of the claim of the Duke of Anjou you had the bulls at Pamplona being allowed to run through the halls of the Prado and instead of Carlos IV being an inbred idiot he was an eight-foot basketball player from China and Nike was using Chinese prisoners to make wooden shoes to flood the market in Holland causing the tulip prices to crash thus weakening Spain's hold over the Netherlands causing thousands of schoolchildren to drown themselves in the dikes.

I'd love to see some evidence for this smoke you're blowing, such as 1) that the present Iraqi regime is notably incompetent and corrupt (compared to what in the middle east?), 2) that there's a causal relationship between incompetence/corruption and stepped-up brutality (since the stepped-up brutality mostly comes from al-Qaeda in Iraq, hard to see how corruption in the ministry of finance particularly influences that), 3) that anyone expected wholesale change in the region within a few years (see Chou En-Lai from the other day), and so on. You seem awfully sure of these things. How long did you spend Iraq observing conditions?

As long as we're talking Civil War, here's what Robert E. Lee had to say on the subject: "It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most brilliant and gifted to edit newspapers."

Posted by le corbeau at May 5, 2007 8:46 AM

comment #8

Hickenlooper says ...

Or we might say that the Iraq War is Europe in 1938 and the Democrats feel they have the idealistic nobility of Neville Chamberlain.

Posted by Hickenlooper at May 5, 2007 9:12 AM

comment #9

SpinDozer says ...

Or we might say that the Iraq War is Europe in 1938 and the Democrats feel they have the idealistic nobility of Neville Chamberlain

But if we did say that we would be demonstrating that RW are employing the Goering approach to propaganda:

'Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger'

Posted by SpinDozer at May 5, 2007 9:25 AM

comment #10

Craig Kennedy says ...

Mgmax, have you forgotten in the run-up to the war, Cheney was on national television insisting that US forces would be greeted as liberators? Why? Because the crook exile Chalabi said so. Remember that whole "flowers and sweets" business?

Or how about Rumsfeld refering to the insurgency in its early days as a bunch of dead-enders?

How about "Mission Accomplished"?

Posted by Craig Kennedy at May 5, 2007 9:34 AM

comment #11

SpinDozer says ...

Help me out here.

No Problemo.

Your 1st error/strategem in limiting the offending statement to those words that have specifically been uttered by the Bushmeister instead of his team.

To tell the truth, we went through all this last year before the elections when Rumsfeld claimed he had never been overly optimistic about Iraq.
But I guess a refresher is in order, the following were used to debunk Rumsfeld's misleading testimony:

Feb. 7, 2003: â€œIt is unknowable how long that conflict [the war in Iraq] will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.â€

Feb. 20 2003: â€œâ€˜Do you expect the invasion, if it comes, to be welcomed by the majority of the civilian population of Iraq?â€™ Jim Lehrer asked the defense secretary on PBSâ€™ The News Hour. â€˜There is no question but that they would be welcomed,â€™ Rumsfeld replied, referring to American forces.â€

Bonus 3 other team players cited in a single USA Today article:

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm

"Four weeks ago, it was Myers who spoke with reporters about "a short, short conflict" against an Iraqi force that was "much weaker" than it was in the 1991 Gulf War."

"* March 11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."

* March 16, Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months." He predicted that regular Iraqi soldiers would not "put up such a struggle" and that even "significant elements of the Republican Guard . . . are likely to step aside."

Truth be told, it would be asinine to claim that Bush's Major Combat Operations speech wasn't perceived as a statement that after a breif rebuild the troops would be back home.

Confusion is a common tactic with this administration...orange terror alert, you may need to coat your home in plastic because of likely terrorist attack, & please work & live a normal life & enjoy disney world. That way if terrorist succeed in delivering an attack, you can say 'told you so'. & if there is no attack you can say, we told you so.

Posted by SpinDozer at May 5, 2007 9:47 AM

comment #12

SpinDozer says ...

"...war of the Spanish succession..."

The gibberish defence. It's the single thing you do well.

My contra-factual history example was to demonstrate that comparisons to other "sucessful" and "good wars" like the Civil War are imprecise and generally misleading as there are obvious and critical differences between the wars.

I'd love to see some evidence for this smoke you're blowing, such as 1) that the present Iraqi regime is notably incompetent and corrupt (compared to what in the middle east?),

Did I say the Iraqi regime is "notably incompetent and corrupt" or compare it to other regimes in the Mid-East? I don't think so. My comment about incompetance and corruption was directed to the US administration.

But in the interest of giving you what you asked for here is one story form the LA Times (Nov 06):

"The democratically elected government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has proved a grave disappointment. Security has worsened since Maliki has been in power. Ignoring the pleas of U.S. officials, he has been unwilling to crack down on the militias and death squads that fuel sectarian violence Ã¢â‚¬â€ and the mass kidnapping from a Ministry of Higher Education building in Baghdad on Tuesday by gunmen in police uniforms shows the consequences."

"Corruption remains corrosive. Maliki's administration has hemorrhaged hundreds of millions of dollars. Oil revenues and foreign aid disappear. Maliki and his allies treat ministries as mechanisms for patronage. They dispense jobs to political loyalists, not able technocrats. Officials in the Shiite-dominated Health Ministry, for example, have replaced experienced doctors with uneducated militiamen."

Seriously, do you limit your knowledge to that which comes through FoxNews and Neo-fascist blogs? Its not hard to find this stuff.

I'm not going to give you a source or citation, though I don't think it would be too hard. This is mainly an excercise in rational thought.

The most obvious example of incompetance would be in following the plan devised by Gingrich's buddy that was recommended to Rummy and used too few soldiers to secure Iraq (described in Cobra II), combined with admin's man in Bagdad, Bremer's, de-baathification policy created the footsoldiers for al-Qaeda in Iraq (brutality on the Iraqi side). The whole torture memo fiasco
lead to brutality on our side (followed by more brutality on the Iraqi side, etc.)

Corruption by US would be a little less well documented, I haven't read the book on Blackwater yet, but the use of these mercenaries with close ties to the white house is not the type of thing that will lead to less brutality. They are not governed by the same rules of engagement as the regular army and I am pretty sure they commit more atrocities than the regulars and can hide behind their contracts & "national security" concerns.
Incomp

2) that there's a causal relationship between incompetence/corruption and stepped-up brutality (since the stepped-up brutality mostly comes from al-Qaeda in Iraq, hard to see how corruption in the ministry of finance particularly influences that), 3) that anyone expected wholesale change in the region within a few years (see Chou En-Lai from the other day), and so on. You seem awfully sure of these things. How long did you spend Iraq observing conditions?

3) that anyone expected wholesale change in the region within a few years (see Chou En-Lai from the other day), and so on.

See comments by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheyney and Myers above.

'As long as we're talking Civil War, here's what Robert E. Lee had to say on the subject: "It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most brilliant and gifted to edit newspapers."'

armchair generalship criticism is one thing, giving the world's greatest military force a politically impossible job and insufficient resourses is quite another.

Posted by SpinDozer at May 5, 2007 10:22 AM

comment #13

Teh Awesome says ...

Bob Richardson was the genius behind the visual facture of the early and classic Oliver Stone movies.

Posted by Teh Awesome at May 5, 2007 11:15 AM

comment #14

D.Z. says ...

Mgmax: "and if you regard the shocking news that people die in war as a prima facie case against that war, then I guess you'd have let the South go in 1861 with slavery intact."

Lincoln could have bought all the slaves with that money and set them free in the North...Really, though, war wouldn't have had to happen in the first place if the founders didn't let it slide for so long, because they didn't think black people qualified for the same rights as white people. The U.S. didn't have to go to war to give women the vote, but it needed National Guard troops just so black people could go to white schools. It really indicates how divided we are as a country on race.

"(Thanks, Hollywood, that's the most useful message about geopolitics since The Siege told us that it was only our own racism that made us think Muslims might ever blow anything in New York City up for Allah.)"

If they updated it, it could be our dependance on oil. Civic Duty seems to go for that paranoia angle, too. http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/civicduty/
But yeah, racism's pretty much why we ignored McVeigh and defended Koresh.

Mgmax: "Could you find a citation in one of Bush's speeches, say, to support this? You know, one where he didn't say this:

"Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty, except the certainty of sacrifice." (3/18/03)"

He also said we should have a timetable and a withdrawal date when Clinton was in Bosnia. http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/01/bush-timetable-2
Anyway, what the hell does a draft-dodger know about sacricifice?

That's not what Pentagon official Ken Aldeman said. He claimed the war would be a "cakewalk".

"1) that the present Iraqi regime is notably incompetent and corrupt (compared to what in the middle east?),"

The other governments aren't simply puppets of occupiers like the Iraqi government, which is what makes them more corrupt.

"that there's a causal relationship between incompetence/corruption and stepped-up brutality (since the stepped-up brutality mostly comes from al-Qaeda in Iraq, hard to see how corruption in the ministry of finance particularly influences that)"

No armor means better target practice for terrorists and snipers. What don't you get about that?

"3) that anyone expected wholesale change in the region within a few years (see Chou En-Lai from the other day), and so on."

Anyone from the neoconservative school of thought believed that.

Hickenlooper: "Or we might say that the Iraq War is Europe in 1938 and the Democrats feel they have the idealistic nobility of Neville Chamberlain."

Chamberlain did what was right for him at the time. Even if he had chosen to go to war, he would have been vastly under-prepared, and it showed when he finally intervened on Belgium's behalf.
The last war pretty much removed Britain from superpower status, and the second war cemented the change. Anyway, I like how Republiscum like to bitch about Chamberlain while their businesses were profiting from the Nazi regime. But for the record, the Dems gave Bush the ok to bomb Iraq in case of a threat, and Bush used that ok to start an undeclared war, anyway.

Posted by D.Z. at May 5, 2007 12:05 PM

comment #15

D.Z. says ...

he=Churchill.

Posted by D.Z. at May 5, 2007 12:06 PM

comment #16

christian says ...

and i've been waiting for bush to hit nixon negative poll numbers and we have a new record this week of 28 percent!

wway to go america!

Posted by christian at May 5, 2007 1:14 PM

comment #17

jeffmcm says ...

Good lord, DZ. Even when you're right, you're wrong in attitude and spirit.

Teh Awesome: Robert Richardson didn't _edit_ any of those early Oliver Stone movies.

Posted by jeffmcm at May 5, 2007 1:23 PM

comment #18

christian says ...

terrorism is up 26 percent this year in the world.

and all you iraq war boosters, none of your kvetching will change the unarguable fact that the bush administration with assist from many sheepish dems invaded iraq under false pretenses, presented false information to the nation and systematically slimed those who challenged the war rationale.

how many more bush officials have to come out and claim all this? we're at about number 20 by now with tenet.

and i have a great memory. i watched the media service bush and propagandize the war. it's all there if you want to go back and suffer the footage.

and you water-carriers are noticeably silent about kevin tillman's damning remarks and jessica lynch's rebuke to the military on lying and using them.

they served, suffered and they're pissed. go explain to them.

Posted by christian at May 5, 2007 6:11 PM

comment #19