Drudge headline on Venice show's war horror film

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

The gargantuan headline at Drudge shouts, actually they just used al Reuters phrase, but everything looks so much bigger and louder on Drudge.

FILM ON ABUSES BY TROOPS IN IRAQ STUNS VENICE

I gotta disagree, I don't think the film stunned anyone who was there. I think that the vast majority of those watching had long ago determined that Americans are base and that our jack-booted thugs rape, kill, pillage and burn all over the planet. Sadly they have us confused with UN "peacekeeping" troops. What it did was confirm their pre-conceived notions in a glorifyingly horrifying manner; they get to have their violence and condemn it as well.

I despise the scum who did this infinitely more than my "betters" in Venice because unlike them, I know the truth about our troops. The few that get the attention are vile, but they get the full crushing might of the military justice system and these vermin now make small rocks from large ones. The rest of our troops would better serve as ambassadors for what is good and right about America than every Brooks Brothers wearing weasel conducting formal lying in formal wear in our diplomatic corpse.

I have lived in both Europe and Asia for more than six years, I've been around the world twice and seen goats float in a boat. There ain't nothing you can tell me that will shock me. And I will take the good old USA over any of the other options on this, the crappiest planet I have ever lived on bar none. Just out of curiousity we have a huge waiting list of the planet's best and brightest signed up to immigrate here, how many folks are trying to get into Europe, aside from Muslims doing the leg work for the new Caliphate. Never mind I know the answer. Europe is cool because as comedian Eddie Izzard says "It's where the History comes from", but I care less than little what the Elite Euros think about us. Plus I figure Sarkozy and Merkel will forge a new pact soon since it's been a couple of generations since the Germans have marched on anybody, so they're due. They will scarf up the intellectuals and smarty arts farty type usual suspects just like clockwork.

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Comments

[Deltabravo]

Jimbo, you and FrenchFroggy are asking the same basic questions today. What appalls me is that there is a market for this drivel in our country. What percentage of US citizens have a spouse, son, father, brother, sister, mother or themselves have been over there and KNOW that the nu-Hollywood image of the US serviceman is WRONG on its face! I'm all for a boycott of theaters that show this movie by anyone who knows the truth out there. Any cinema showing that movie wouldn't see my business while it was on the marquee. If America's military families would start using the power of their collective pocketbooks, maybe something could be done. We're everywhere and we are legion.

[chiropetra]

To quote the article:
"The film's title refers to how, according to De Palma, mainstream American newspapers and television channels are failing to tell the true story of the war by keeping the most graphic images of the conflict away from public opinion."

In that at least De Palma is perfectly correct. We have been shielded from the graphic images of the war and that has influenced public opinion.

Where are the video clips of the Al Queda beheadings of innocents? Where are Michael Yon's pictures of the exhumed bodies of massacred children? Where are the photos of the kids maimed by IEDs and mutilated as acts of terror?

Those images exist. We know they do. You can find some of them on Jihadist web sites. You can find others posted on YouTube and similar places.

But where are they in the media?

I haven't seen them.

Media outlets have a long history of censoring images they consider to be too graphic. For the most part that's a good thing, having been the reporter present at some Gawd-awful scenes in the United States.

But images of the dead and wounded supposedly the result of Coalition action are common fare. Not especially graphic as such things go, but constant.

The result has been a kind of one-sided censorship which has seriously distorted the picture of the war.

De Palma has his horrible examples -- and horrible they are. The horrors commited by the other side are seldom portrayed graphically in the media.

De Palma went mining for "Redacted" images to support one side. It's high time the world was exposed to the other images redacted by the media and others -- the images that show just what we're fighting.

[pst314]

After 9/11, many in the media said that they would not re-show footage of the towers falling, much less of people leaping to their deaths, precisely because they did not want to do anything that might stir up American anger at muslims. So I think we know which side these newsies are on.

[Deltabravo]

You're exactly right, Chiropetra. But this is beyond one or two stories. This is a whole industry that seems to relish spitting on the U.S. Serviceman.

They've gotten rich and fat suckling on the teat of American liberty, yet they never grew up.

That sound you hear is John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart and others like them who made Hollywood great and understood their right to create was a tenuous one protected by our Armed Forces rolling over in their graves.

I hear AQ doesn't go much for movie theaters. Has someone told De Palma?

[Uncle Jimbo]

Well said all y'all.

You can't just lie about us, we defy you!

Cordially,

Uncle J

[Some Soldier's Mom]

after reading the al reuters story -- just what the hell is "Halfway between documentary and fiction"?? Seems to me it is either truthful (documentary) or imagination (fiction). Is that kind of like, ummm, you know, fer sure, "based on a true story"?? One story, many tales.

and I about burst out laughing when I read, "The media is now really part of the corporate establishment," he said. bbbwwwahhahahahaha Right on, brother. Power to the people. Peace, love, dope. Idiot.

[elly]

Why has it become chic to heap ordure on your own civilization and the troops who protect it even as you wallow in the prosperity they make possible?

Brian de Palma gleefully ferrets out every bit of evidence he can find with which to condemn America, while ignoring the bestial atrocities that are SOP for its enemies. Can he really not see that he's giving the only victory that matters, the propaganda victory, to people who would have him put to death for decadence? Baffling.

"We are in a battle, and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media." - Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Q No. 2

[mindy1]

First-I hope the movie shows that those involved got very long sentences. Second, I just ordered The Real Stars by ben stein-he writes how soldiers,cops etc deserve more attention than lindsey,britteny, etc. I just wish people would stop insulting soldiers-it is so annoying.

[Caper2]

De Palma is never going to put the other side very real atrocities on film. He knows that contrary to our measure reaction, on that case his life would be forfeit.

El Coqui

[liontooth]

from the article:
"When I went out to find the pictures, I said (to the media) give me the pictures you can't publish," he said, adding that because of legal dangers he too had to "edit" the material.

"Everything that is in the movie is based on something I found that actually happened. But once I had put it in the script I would get a note from a lawyer saying you can't use that because it's real and we may get sued," De Palma said.

What he really means is we found 'something' (anti-Anerican, anti-miliary, etc) on an al qaeda web site and when it's challenged in court, we'll lose the case.

[couch1971]

covered here too.
http://stoopidpeopleshouldntbreed.blogspot.com/2007/09/get-rope.html

Depalma's piece was pure propaganda, period. calling it a documentary is a farce.

[Mommynator]

Thank you for another debunking. I do not understand their hatred of things they know nothing about.

My son ships for his second deployment to Iraq on Tuesday. I'm here at Fort Drum to help him take care of some personal stuff.

He would no more do deliberate harm to any civilian or bystander on purpose or with any malice in Iraq than he would here amongst his neighbors. And battle is not necessarily atrocity - just the business of the fighting man (and woman).

It must be nice for this idiot to live in fairyland.

[jordan]

Does De Palma's ilk ever consider that it's the American soldier who pulls them out of raging flood waters, who fly in food and water after an earthquake (as often happens in California), and who protect life and property after natural disasters? Who save ten times more souls from the true predators than they take?

Their constant trashing of the very people who they would need in extremis to help or save them seems adolescent, even insane. Where does this persistent need to badmouth the military (the establishment, the Man) come from?

Will these boomer children, who were handed tremendous affluence and opportunity by the American soldiers of WWII's Greatest Generation ever grow up? No. They so take for granted the peace and sixty years of prosperity that Generation's sacrifices bought that now they're smugly righteous about smacking down the new Greatest Generation. Just for entertainment, of course. Sandwiched between two Great Generations, heck, I'd feel inadequate, too.

Leave them to their natural disasters and terrorists. When these perpetual malignant adolescents finally install a socialist healthcare system, I'm sure euthanasia for the costly elderly will be included. Even boomers get old.

Let this be a lesson to today's Greatest Generation: teach your children well. As for the film industry, please do continue to highlight the tiny few ugly, negative misfits and malcontents, and leave the uplifting, positive stories of Jason Dunham, Paul Smith, Brad Kasals, and Eric Kurilla untold. Brush aside the beautiful and strong. Only focus on the worst, debased degenerates of mankind.

It would be a fitting legacy for today's Hollywood leaders to leave behind, making them even more forgettable than they already are.

[Deltabravo]

"Where does this persistent need to badmouth the military (the establishment, the Man) come from?"

I suspect that is a whole generation that has tremendous daddy issues. And the military is a prime archetypal daddy figure.

I also suspect their relationships with the God who holds them in the hollow of His hand is equally FUBAR'd.

Perpetual teenagers who are existentially demanding unfettered use of the family car while they rant about the "sellouts" and their "immoral bourgeoisie jobs" that pay for said car, gas and insurance.

Just my little Saturday morning armchair psychology. But I haven't had my coffee yet, so maybe I'm off.

[rick554]

I'm with couch and UJ on this one. My Son leaves Monday for someplace too. I KNOW for a fact that these are the best of their generation. Our Country's future leaders are patroling Baghdad or Bosnia as we speak.These TROOPS are the best ambassadors we have. And I know that they are making a difference. This depalma clown is literally a fart in the wind compared to ANY of our TROOPS. History wont be kind to depalma and his crowd.

[Uncle Jimbo]

Blue Skies to all heading in country anywhere.

Cordially,

Uncle J

[Ghost of Habu, The Pit Viper]

Well, just as a piece of news:

This crap is going to be distributed as an HD feature for Mark Cuban's and Todd Wagner's HDNet Films.

Cuban's website is www.blogmaverick.com/

Now on his website, he tells how proud he is of the work they do at HD Net.

Now, otoh, Cuban started the Fallen Patriot Fund to help families of U.S. military persons killed or injured during the Iraq War, personally matching the first $1 million in contributions with funds from the Mark Cuban Foundation.

But I keep going back to the this garbage film being distributed by HD Net. Why not start sending emails to Cuban asking why they are so into supporting hacks like DePalma when the people who really know the story (and have sweat blood and tears to get it) are being ignored?

Now, there's been a whole lot of talk about Mark Cuban being a player in buying the Chicago Cubs. Well, if this is the type of crap that his companies are pushing, he just lost a supporter. And I doubt I'll be the only one.

Every decision has unintended consequences. It's just about whether you can afford the price.

[liyak]

Did you ask anyone else,before
posting this?I doubt it!I've seen,at least a hundred posts
in this same vein.

[MICHAEL in MI]

Ghost of Habu, The Pit Viper - Mark Cuban (or his company) was also involved with financing the next release of "Loose Change", that 9/11 Conspiracy crap movie. Ever since I found that out, I have despised Cuban. I found out about it during the NBA season and was rooting against his Mavericks in the playoffs. Needless to say, I was extremely happy to see them lose in the 1st Round. I hope he doesn't buy my hometown Cubbies, because I am against anything with his name on it.

[MICHAEL in MI]

Here are the articles and YouTube of O'Reilly on Mark Cuban looking to distribute the Loose Change movie:

Google Results: Mark Cuban Loose Change movie

[Mr.Sparkle]

This was an awful case but it is an unfortunate film. A far better anti-war film would play on the very real fears of parents with children serving, or spouses, about how war changes people. He could have focused on the accidental and the collateral death. The real pain of doing those "bad things" you never dreamed you would or could. The degradation and humiliation that occurs. And the days that serve as the worst in peoples lives, friends injured and hurt.

Then relate those things to the profiteers in Washington and the blundering post-war from the pentagon.

Finished with half the retired US and UK military saying what a giant clusterf*ck it has been.

That would make a better anti-war film than focusing on a crime that happens all the time.

[NH Trooper]

When I think it cannot get any worse these people go ahead and PISS ME OFF again. If these people really want to make a movie about atrocities maybe I can offer a few examples. How about contractor Paul Johnson, trussed up like pig having his head cut off on a mattress? How about the Englishman Bigley bound and blindfolded, rocking back and forth while some animal reads behind him prior to beheading him. No doubt Mr. Bigley knew what was about to happen after probably seeing his two collegues suffer the same fate. Or how about a film about Pvts Tucker and Menchaca? Remember them?? These people are the ABSOLUTE scum of the earth. Cuban can make himself feel better by giving money to a soldier charity if he wants to. Kinda like Tony Soprano taking care of the families of people he wacked. Doom on all of these people. They suffer from some undiagnosed sickness in my humble opinion. WTF!!!

[Deltabravo]

Mr. Sparkle, I'm a lady, so I will not reply to your comment in the language it deserves. Don't you have a deadline to meet for al-Jazeera or something?

[Mr.Sparkle]

With respect I wasn't intending to produce it. All those things I mentioned have credibility as the much more serious sickness of war, the crime this film is depicting on the other hand appears to not be a reflection of this.

I'm just clueless as to why he picked it.

[MICHAEL in MI]

"All those things I mentioned have credibility as the much more serious sickness of war, the crime this film is depicting on the other hand appears to not be a reflection of this.

I'm just clueless as to why he picked it."

Yep, I am curious as to why he picked this crime, when, if he wanted to show the horrors of war, he had multitudes of crimes committed by Muslims during the past 30+ years of their waging war on the West. Crimes which are part of their culture and part of their playbook.

Instead of exposing the horrors of the Islamic terrorists who use children as human shields, use children as suicide bombers, use children to cook and feed to their parents to intimidate and strike fear into innocent civilians and who propagandize and brainwash children using cartoons and childrens TV to teach them that Jews and Americans are evil and they (children) should aspire to martyr themselves killing said Jews and Americans... instead of doing a movie on that, he picks this topic. Interesting.

[eaglesdontflock]

Yes, Mr. Sparkle, you are clueless. Do you read your words, or just scrabble them out?

Something is wrong with the distribution of wealth...Soros, Cuban, Buffett, Gates, Lewis, Streisand, and on and on and on. The wealthy liberal left spending their fortune to go after the US military. Promoting conspiracy theories to discredit the US and fan distrust in the gullible American populace.

My family members have served in OIF and OEF and I believe what they tell me. How can citizens of my country see things so differently. How can citizens of my country betray her so seditiously.

There is no rational explanation for "Redacted" other than enemy propaganda by people bent on destroying our democracy, not saving it.

[Rich Casebolt]

Then relate those things to the profiteers in Washington and the blundering post-war from the pentagon.

Care to provide some "backup" to those charges from profittering, other than another Smedley Butler quote?

Being an engineer in a defense contractor myself ... and someone who sees how his work SAVES LIVES of warfighter and innocent alike (in part, because it makes the warfighter more effective at killing the enemy, and ONLY the enemy) ... I do take offense to it.

Finished with half the retired US and UK military saying what a giant clusterf*ck it has been.

Care to provide some backup for that "half" metric?

Methinks that way more than half would tell you that, despite the mistakes, it still beats the most likely alternative proposed by the critics: INACTION.

[Mr.Sparkle]

For one I was not being judgemental. If you want to create an anti-war film you obviously are coming from some political position against it.

Someone here wrote about how great the defence industry in the US is because it shows how Americans can make positive things (profit or creation) from bad things.

There are plenty of people, including politicians, who are making money or will make money when they leave office from the war. (Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Richard Blum - former CIA Director James Woolsey too?)

Also "do it all" companies like KBR appear to charge excessively for all their trade. Cheney was involved with these people.

Half was tongue in cheek, the last two UK Chiefs of the military have given great criticism towards the wars. I remember there were a number of retired US generals who also offered criticism.

INACTION has another name, coined by the Cold War fighters, CONTAINMENT. We made Iraq a far greater problem, and we made it our problem.

[Rich Casebolt]

There are good reasons in nearly all cases for the prices the government pays for goods and services used in the war effort.

Many years ago, I learned how stuff like the $500 toilet seat and $150 hammer becomes a reality ... in large part, it is because the government -- unlike the commercial world -- can not or will not accept statements based on engineering judgment or theoretical analysis alone as proof of performance.

A lot of the price, pays for the extensive testing and documentation that the government demands to assure that what they are buying meets specifications ... both to make sure our warfighters aren't let down on the field of battle, and as "defensive proof", like defensive medicine, against charges of favoritism being leveled by firms who don't get the contracts because they are perceived as inadequate beforehand.

When it comes to in-theater services like KBR provides, there are significantly higher costs when you need the capability to build support systems from scratch (or keep them ready to deploy) in a war zone on almost zero notice.

And, some of the charges made against KBR have been ludicrous ... Those protesters I met each Friday afternoon at Halliburton's Dallas offices in the summer of 2004 were, among other things, protesting "overcharging" by KBR for supplying such things as soda. I don't recall the numbers, but I remember when you looked at the numbers, the protesters should have gone down to Six Flags to protest them for the same kind of "fraud" in the civilian sector.

************

Containment only works, Mr. Sparkle, when your enemy has the rationality to perceive he will lose more by engaging in active aggression, than not.

The Soviet Union had that kind of rationality ... something you have when you know that nuclear warfare will bring a Pyhrric victory, at best ... and when you lost well over 20 million of your people in the last World War.

Saddam Huessein demonstrated that he lacked such rationality, in Kuwait -- and by talking out of both sides of his mouth regarding WMD, instead of following the example of South Africa and openly disarming.

Mamood and the Mullahs aren't much better, between holding conferences on the Holocaust as fiction, continual support for Hamas/Hezbollah/Islamic Jihad, and puffing their chest about nuclear power in the face of sanctions.

Our INACTION, or INADEQUATE ACTION, in response to events like Black Hawk Down, the 1993 WTC bombings, the African embassy bombings, and the USS Cole only reinforced their bad behavior ... they thought they could still get away with it.

I remember that statement, supposedly made by one of Saddam's sons just before we invaded, to the effect that "Bush is not Clinton ... this is the end."

Saddam also actively pursued ways to skirt containment -- from supporting terrorist surrogates as a Godfather who, in the future, could requre them to "perform a service" on his behalf, to corrupting the international body many trusted to oversee his conduct, through Crude-For-Food.

Containment is a leaky bucket, in a world where terrorists can do the bidding of state sponsors while maintaining their plausible deniability ... where a significant military presence from responsible, rights-respecting nations can't be guaranteed in perpetuity ... and where national soverignty cloaks preparations for aggression until it is too late to stop it, since the window of direct detection for a terrorist attack is very, very small.

Even if it works, it only delays wars ...

... confrontation ends them, just as it ended the Cold War, and just as we stopped Saddam in 1991.

If we had only stopped listening to the critics back then, and pressed on to take Saddam out then ...

[Rich Casebolt]

Also, containment does not end wars when your enemy knows you have a conscience about shedding innocent blood ... while they do not.

It only gives them time to plan new and better ways to use the innocent as defilade.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Interesting stuff about the documentation and testing! Beaucracy is something I've dealt with a few times now and it's astonishing how much money can be wasted.

About the soda, I guess people just consider a war on a different paradigm to normal life. These companies appear to secure monopolies and then make huge profits.

***

Iraq. Has it been more costly to "deal" with the problem than contain it? An almost unanimous yes.

Had Iraq been the threat that our governments had made it out to be in propaganda then it may have been worth it.

Also remember the US and UK have... not so many qualms about shedding innocent blood in our aims than we might like to think. I realise this is a necessity, but one well remembered.

[Ymarsakar]

My family members have served in OIF and OEF and I believe what they tell me. How can citizens of my country see things so differently. How can citizens of my country betray her so seditiously.

Different philosophies. Some people believe and some people don't believe. Some people believe in Marxism/Lenism, others don't. Some people believe that America is the greatest nation in the history of the Earth, others don't.

[Mr.Sparkle]

If they make you shout it loud enough and long enough in bootcamp you will believe whatever bullshit.

[Rich Casebolt]

Actually, Mr. Sparkle ...

... the absorption of BS happens more often, when they tell you over and over, with great and flowery erudition, that you are "speaking truth to power" ...

... and/or are Sticking It to the Grand Bushitlerchimpian Military-Corporate-Neocon-Joozish-PNAC-AIPAC-Halliburton-CFR-Conspiracy.

[Mr.Sparkle]

The crazies give criticism a bad name, undeniably.

I know the defence industry is important but I also know Dwight D. Eisenhower told you to be vigilant about its monstrous size and power.

The Jewish lobby, it does exists and exerts lots of influence. The Israelis are one of the major winners of the war in Iraq because it cements the United States and UK into defence of their security interests.