The first is Brian De Palma's movie debut at the Venice Film Festival. His movie, Redacted, clearly (except to Wulfgar) attempts to implicate all of our troops as rapist and criminals by making a movie about the actions of five soldiers - who are now being tried and sentenced.
"The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people," he told reporters after a press screening.
"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," he said.
Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi was gang raped, killed and burnt by American soldiers in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in March 2006. Her parents and younger daughter were also killed.
Five soldiers have since been charged with the attack. Four of them have been given sentences of between 5 and 110 years.This is how a Hollywood Liberal and I would bet, most anti-war Liberals honestly feel about our troops. Here again, he implies that Iraqi civilians are being killed by American troops, never mind the insurgents and Saddam loyalists who are killing civilians.
The film, shot in Jordan with a little known cast, ends with a series of photographs of Iraqi civilians killed and their faces blacked out for legal reasons.
"I think that's terrible because now we have not even given the dignity of faces to this suffering people," De Palma said.
The second is the national Democrat Party, the Democrat Party of Nevada, the Washoe County Democrat Party and the Carson City Democrat Party have all teamed up and organized a counter-rally against Move America Forward’s “Fight for Victory Tour” kickoff event in Carson City, Nevada on Monday, September 3, 2007.
The goal of the "Fight for Victory Tour" is to show support for our troops and to get the message out there that the war terror is going well.
The anti-war Democrats are demonstrating against the war and against the troops. They don't want victory. They don't want to defeat al-Qaida.The goal is to mobilize national support in advance of Gen. David Petraeus' mid-
September report to Congress on the progress of the war in Iraq."We want to get people to focus on Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador (Ryan) Crocker's report that contrary to the popular misperception, we're actually making a lot of progress on the war on terror," said Sal Russo, a strategist for the
Sacramento-based Move America Forward.
"We've been defeating al-Qaida decisively. It's part of the story that gets lost because so much of the story has been focused on how Iraq has been developing its own government, which is slower than we like."
While they have every right to protest victory and our troops, I have the same right to say they are wrong to do so and to point out their lie that they "support the troops".
These two cases show how the anti-war left really thinks about the troops. It hasn't changed a bit from how they felt about them during Viet Nam.
A few things you need to keep in mind when discussing the left, and especially the Hollywood anti-war liberals.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Hollywood is to truth what a sausage factory is to meat. The truth always gets ground up and adulterated and stuffed into a certain shape; namely, the distorted liberal perspective.
Second, Brian De Palma would be doing life in prison for being a psychopathic serial killer if he had not worked out his sick fantasies in film ( “Carrie,” “Scarface,” “Carlito’s Way,” etc.) So he found a sick subject, perhaps based on a few sick individuals, and he decided to make another sick movie—what is new?
Third, liberals hate America generally, and that definitely includes America’s armed forces. They hate anything manly, aggressive, or decisive. Thus, soldiers and war are very high on the liberal’s list of hated objects. Of course, being born liars and dissemblers, liberals like to say that they “support the troops” but not the war. Nobody believes that, not even them, because the liberal’s long history of undermining America’s war efforts and her troops is there for anyone to read.
Last, keep in mind the main goal of the left, Hollywood liberals, and the Democratic Party today: do everything possible to make sure America has lost the war in Iraq before the next election.
“If you go to war, you realize it is not primarily about victory or defeat, it is about death and the infliction of death and suffering on as large a scale as you can make it. It is about the total failure of the human spirit. We don't show that because we don't want to. And in this sense journalists, television reporting, television cameras are lethal. They collude with governments to allow you to have more wars because if they showed you the truth, you wouldn't allow any more wars." Robert Fisk
ReplyDeleteI was opposed to this war long before it was announced. Nearly every prediction I made concerning the subsequent results of the Iraqi war have been born out - in full. Lest you think liberal Democratic partisanship plays even the smallest role in my critique of our incursion in Iraq, I was also one of the first to oppose a Democratic president - Johnson, when he announced our Vietnam War via the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
Pro war blog reactions to Brian De Palma’s film have been as vitriolic as can be expected toward anyone right or left who is critical of the legality, the goals or the means involved in the “pacifying” of Iraq. Their prevailing view remains firmly wedded to the unshakable notion that what our soldiers are doing in Iraq (as they did in Vietnam) “is not murder and war crimes it is the work of quiet professionals giving their lives so that you have a safe environment to create counter productive “art”.
Benjamin Cook http://arenablog.blogspot.com/
For the sake of the focus of this post, I am willing to grant your statistically ludicrous assumption that 95 percent of our incursionary forces bears no more guilt for war crimes than did the soldiers in Vietnam or the German foot soldiers in WWII who were “…just following orders.” Who then remains to be criticized for their actions and their participation in this latest war?
In a similar way that no one in the anti-Vietnam war movement blamed the soldier for that war, (No case has ever come to light of any of us ever spitting on a soldier, as has been widely reported in the urban myth department) so too the Americans who “serve” in Iraq and Afghanistan should bear only a secondary responsibility for the atrocities that have so come to characterize our presence in the middle east theater of operations. Our benighted soldiers are actually to be pitied, certainly not ever to be in any way admired or treated as heroes. They are perhaps truly at best pathetic victims. Their suffering, their injuries and even their deaths should be a distant second in our hearts to the innocent Iraqis they have been directly and indirectly responsible for killing.
These brightest and best of our youth have suffered a four part betrayal: 1]lied to by recruiters 2] understaffed, over deployed and propagandized shamelessly during their tour(s) 3] cheated in the medical treatment they are entitled to after they have been used up by this war. 4] and perhaps the greatest betrayal of all: not being discouraged nearly enough by brain dead parents, public and press from being forever mentally and morally stained by participation in one of the most illegal and immortal enterprises since Hitler’s attempt to dominate the world.
I am not saying this because of any partisan interest. I am saying this solely because I am a human being who is watching helpless as his economy, his Constitution and his respect for human life is being daily disregarded by ninety five percent of our elected hypocrites who instead of ending this horror, have the unmitigated presumption to lecture us on the lessons of patriotism, ethics and faith.
Would anyone be bold enough to say of our soldiers’ atrocities as has been said of the corruption of our politicians?
“The ninety-five percent of corrupt politicians give the other five percent a bad name.” Henry Kissinger
Oops! sorry, I promised I wouldn’t bring the subject of atrocities up.
Bob Boldt
Jefferson City, MO
"I was opposed to this war long before it was announced."
ReplyDeleteBob Boldt—You’re a clairvoyant pacifist!
Or are you just "Bob Dolt"?
"Bob Boldt—You’re a clairvoyant pacifist!"
ReplyDeleteThanks. You overestimate my divine powers however. I think that is the problem with Bush. Many overestimate his prescience - and his divinity. The Romans learned the hard way the hazards of making their leaders into gods. If it hadn’t been for that (and an over expansive foreign policy) we might all be speaking Latin today. My objections to the war were just the result of a careful reading of the comments and estimates of those who had spent their lives studying the situation in the Mideast. Even a person as intellectually and morally challenged as Colin Powell knew it was a bad idea.
"Or are you just "Bob Dolt"?"
I would appreciate if you would not try to be so cute. I didn’t disparage your intelligence and I would appreciate your not doing the same to me.
Peace,
Bob Boldt
"This is how a Hollywood Liberal and I would bet"
ReplyDeleteShould be
"This is how a Hollywood liberal and I would bet"