Londoners don’t seem that interested in the war anymore. Hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched past Big Ben in February 2003, but now when I mention Iraq to my buddy Andy around the barbeque, he flips the sizzling lamb kofta and declares, “We are eating peace food tonight.
I declare the propagandists have actually won.
People are looking forward to watching Jason Bourne, the defunct CIA agent, battle his corrupt former employer in the third instalment, “The Bourne Ultimatum, that opens next week in London. But they don’t have 90 minutes to debate the rising death count.
There have now been 3,958 soldiers from the invading armies killed; approximately 1,000 US citizens hired to do the laundry and other outsourced jobs are dead; and 26, 558 US soldiers have been wounded.
We all know this war was ill-conceived, a mistake, or as Clint Eastwood said in his 1980s film, “Heartbreak Ridge, about the invasion of Grenada, a “cluster f**k, referring to the stars on the shoulders of those charged with making decisions.
If only Clint, maybe John Wayne and Ernest Borgnine were in Iraq, they would know what to do. Clint could’ve really “smoked ’em out, John Wayne and his Green Berets would have taken no prisoners and Ernest Borgnine and his Dirty Dozen would be too street smart for any wily insurgent trying to plant roadside bombs.
There is a great line in Paul Kennedy’s book, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, and to paraphrase, “From Hannibal to Westmorland, no invading army which crosses the seas has been successful, who hasn’t first defeated the main body of their enemy’s army in a decisive battle.
America is not going to win this one. But unfortunately, I think too many Americans believe what I call the myth of the Special Forces. For far too long, Hollywood has pumped out formula cinema depicting gung-ho Marines, Delta Force commandos and Navy Seals saving the day. It just doesn’t happen – i.e. – Ridley Scott’s, Blackhawk Down.
Such entertainment is propaganda. And when a nation – or even worse its military leaders – believe these political lies, they are doomed.
President Richard Nixon loved to watch the film “Patton when he was in the White House. And did the tanks ever cross the Mekong River and crash through the jungle to defeat the Viet-Cong in a decisive battle?
Tom Hank’s character in “Saving Private Ryan takes Omaha beach on D-Day in 1944 and is then assigned to find a lost soldier. In 1944, that actual mission was led by a Catholic Chaplain, not a US Rangers Captain from Pennsylvania. This is another example of spoon-feeding the American public with the myth that their Special Forces, on a secret mission, will save the day.
Why was it that when American television revisited the Korean War, it was through the eyes of the medical staff in the series “MASH ? Why did black comedy say it best? Was it to difficult to find conventional heroes from that stalemate with the Chinese?
Remember “Wag the Dog ? Maybe a retro cinema in DC should show that film again? I remember it being quite “right on about the media and war, President Clinton’s sex scandals and the power of propaganda.
The Americans are the bad guys. They are the ones wearing the black hats in Iraq. It is a paradigm shift to now find oneself on the wrong side of history, bracketed together with a long list of other historical baddies – conspirators, invaders, tortures who are indifferent to the Geneva Convention. Best fire the scriptwriter.
What would be the brief for the new writer? That’s easy. As the theme song to the 1970s TV spoof on Westerns, “F-Troop , goes:
The end of the Civil War was near
When quite accidentally;
A hero who sneezed abruptly seized
Retreat and reversed it to victory.
A hero and a propaganda victory, a tall order. The Americans had a hero, Osama Bin Laden, who led the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. He would have been useful, but alas he is batting for the other side now.
There must be another Sunni hero in the wings in Saudi Arabia. Another Jihad commando who can trade blows on the street with the Iranian backed Shiites. Find him, arm him and get the hell out of Dodge.
And for a propaganda victory, a ticker tap parade of course along Wall Street for the thousands of Iraqi civilians, who worked, helped and supported the invasion force, celebrating their new American citizenship. Then, proclaim mission accomplished.
