Gag Me With A U.S. Military-Issued Spoon

From the Corner on National Review Online:

Has anyone seen, does anyone know of, a movie depicting the war we are in now, the fight against the barbarians? We've had movies about the first Gulf war, and a morally ambiguous fiction about something or somewhere called Syriana--but anything about our over-four- year- old fight for civilization against the Islamist barbarians, based on fact? Anything? Anyone?

Is he kidding?

Please, tell me he's kidding.

It's not enough that our troops are fighting and dying in Iraq? Now you want to be able to pay ten bucks to sit in the comfort of a reclining theater-seat with a tub of popcorn and a vat of cherry coke and vicariously get off on fictional recreations of war?

Isn't there, like, a REAL war going on....right now?

Comments like these make me sick. They also reinforce my opinion that the gung-ho supporters of the war in Iraq have no conception of what war actually means. They want to be entertained by it. It's a big, fun, video-game/action movie to them.

People like Mr. Bennett make a big show out of "Supporting the Troops," but what does that actually mean? Does it mean that Bennett's fighting for more armor for our troops? Does it mean that he's demanding at least a loose time-table for bringing our troops home?

No, apparently it means that he wants to watch stuff blow up real good. And he wants to see "the Barbarians" get what's comin' to 'em. I have no idea whether Bennett's ever fought in a war, though he's certainly served his country in the political arena. But his website gives no indication that he's ever seen combat. Again, though, this seems par for the course. It's the people who aren't fighting that seem to want to glorify this conflict the most.

I'm an outspoken and unequivocal critic of our justifications for invading Iraq. I think we made horrible miscalculations, questionable decisions, and continue to do so even today. I don't question the necessity of regime-change in the middle east, but I object to the way in which we've handled this so far. It's been, for lack of a better term, piss-poor.

But....

Y'know who I respect more than most people on this earth? Soldiers. They do a job I can't imagine doing. They do it selflessly; accepting a pitiful pay-check, increasingly shrinking benefits, the constant promise of maritial infidelity while they're away, and shifting public opinion. They're Big Damn Heroes, of the First Fucking Degree.

Instead of bemoaning the lack of bloody, cinematic entertainment - featuring actors who earn more in a week than our soldiers earn in a year, playing people who they cannot begin to possibly understand, because they live their lives in a world where selfishness is king - why not spend that ten bucks on some freakin' BODY ARMOR, Bennett.

What's more important? Movies, or our soldiers' lives?

Longing for a filmed recreation of our current war seems to me to be a longing to be comforted by the relative black-and-white world of the movies - where the good guys always win and the Barbarians are defeated. In other words, fantasy.

Bennett doesn't want a movie about Iraq. At least, not an accurate movie. Because that film would be just as "morally ambiguous" as Syriana, if told honestly. What Bennett wants is Saving Private Ryan in Baghdad. In other words, fiction.

If Ridley Scott shot a film on this war and included scenes of civilian Iraqis being bombed, or our military allowing for the looting of Muslim holy places, or of the vast and inarguable incompetence that was, and is, our nation's "plan for war," or of soldiers who die for no other reason than their own country's failure to adequately or reasonably protect them, would Bennett be happy? I don't believe he would. Not even if these scenes were a relatively-small portion of a movie dedicated to glorifying our efforts.

I hadn't meant to unleash this much venom. I'm sure Mr. Bennett believes he really is "supporting the troops" by asking these sorts of questions. But it's absurd, self-deceptive, and unrealistic to argue that spending between 40 and 100 million dollars on a film (not including marketinb, of course) is in any way supporting them. Send your ten bucks to Iraq, Bennett.

Grrrrrrr.

(heads-up, courtesy of alicublog)