Pictures Can Win the War

This is a letter I wrote to the writer of an article printed in TIME magazine about the courageous films that are soon to be released about the Iraq War. Here's the letter:

Dear Mr. Corliss:

I’m writing in response to your article printed Saturday, September 01, 2007 entitled “Iraq War Films Focus on Soldiers.” In particular, I’d like to address the final statement of the article, which refers to the final images of the films and the message they display: “We need help…when we can no longer help ourselves.” Your article, along with In the Valley of Elah and Redacted, makes the claim that because of America’s presence in Iraq, we have destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals, ruined our reputation throughout the world, caused the “toxic inflammation” of the entire Middle East, and continue to recklessly endanger U.S. soldiers’ physical and mental health, all for a cause that provides neither the opportunity to “kill the enemy or have sex with the local ladies” (which was apparently the reason for sending soldiers to fight in World Wars I and II). The only thing to do now, according to the article and the final images displayed in the films, is to raise the American flag upside-down, signaling our utter helplessness in the situation. What I would like to suggest is that we can help ourselves! We can end the atrocities that war inevitably brings! But the rabid anti-American propaganda put out in these films makes it much more difficult.

We should be making films that present the successes in Iraq, the heroism of our soldiers, and the courage of the Iraqi people. Of course, this might be seen as a type of propaganda as well, designed to keep the public in a state of ignorance, and as worthy to be condemned as anti-America propaganda, if it weren’t true. But the fact is, there are good things happening in Iraq. In fact, I have a brother-in-law serving there now as a nurse in a hospital built by the Americans, and every week, he’s happy to report about another Iraqi citizen who’s been treated and cured in the state-of-the-art facility – an opportunity that certainly did not exist before we came to the country. Stories like these abound, and if filmmakers would present these positive stories, would it not serve everyone better than presenting the atrocities? You might argue, “No! It wouldn’t. The surest way to stop the killing is to get the soldiers (whose job it is to kill) out.” And that makes sense. But pragmatically speaking, a premature withdrawal of the troops is unlikely – there’s simply too much at stake now. Ceding a victory to an enemy as ruthless as the terrorists cannot be an option. So logic says: the troops will be allowed to return only after the mission has been accomplished. And reason would suggest that the mission could be accomplished easier if we support it, rather than undermine it.

Of course, there are many people, perhaps even a majority (including yourself, Haggis, and De Palma), who don’t believe in the mission. Obviously, if you don’t believe in the mission then you wouldn’t want to see the successful completion of it. Perhaps I’m taking the quote from your article too seriously. It may have been meant more as an off-color joke than a statement of your belief, but if it is true that you believe soldiers go to war to murder and fornicate, then I can see why you would find it hard to support them. I myself would never want to send people of that ilk off to war.

I, however, espouse the notion that there are noble reasons to go to war, and one of those reasons is found in Warner Brothers’ Three Kings. The premise of the film is especially apt to this conversation, and its themes deal with precisely the same argument: bring the troops home? Or stay and finish the job? The circumstances are slightly different, but not by much. In fact, the film takes place in the same country as the current conflict, and is about what happens to the local Iraqis when the U.S. pulls up its stakes to head home, leaving them in the hands of a ruthless dictator. Ironically enough, Hollywood, in this case, chose to condemn the military for leaving. Now they condemn the military for staying. The point the film makes though is worth some consideration: America’s presence in a volatile country actually helps to stabilize it and make it safer for its citizens.

Some would argue, as does the article, that it’s our presence that as made the nation volatile in the first place. But I find it hard to believe that we could have caused the “toxic inflammation,” of a region that has already been charred black from decades of terrorism and genocide. The list of unwarranted attacks on innocent civilians is almost too long to record. The Munich Olympic Massacre (1972), the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut (1983), the first World Trade Center bombing (1993), the Khobar Towers bombing in which more than 400 people were either killed or wounded (1996), and of course the horrific events that took place on September 11th, leaving 3,000 people dead, millions mourning, and a world transformed. If anything good came out of that attack, it’s that it woke us up to the truth that terrorism has been raging in the Middle East for years, long before we ever considered sending troops there. Their presence is meant to quell the fire, to prevent the list from getting any longer, and allow the citizens to live freely in relative peace and harmony.

In addition to handling the protection and security of a foreign nation (Iraq in this case), war can serve to protect our own rights and to secure our own safety here at home. It’s a well-known fact that Iran’s president would like to see us wiped off the map, not to mention what he’d like to do with Israel. If his nuclear ambitions were ever realized, the world would be in for some true destruction. Thankfully, due to our decision to take the battle to the terrorists, his resources have been tied up, and the possibility of an attack at home is more unlikely. The same goes for other terrorists and terrorist organizations in the region; taking the war to them prevents them from bringing it to us, as they did on September 11. Granted, this is speculation. Who’s to say that an independent cell of terrorists, or even “home-grown” terrorists won’t just decide on their own to make war on our soil? There’s nothing the troops in Iraq can do about the cells within our own borders. So wouldn’t it be safer for America to bring the troops home? To that, I would say that the threat of the terrorist organizations in the Middle East is far more grave than the threat of the cells at home. As we’ve seen from recent arrests in London and in Florida and Canada, the local law enforcement and intelligence agencies are well equipped to handle the plots at home.

Apart from liberating a people from the fetters of a dictatorship, spreading the light of Democracy, and protecting our own nation from further attacks, the troops serve to protect those “inalienable rights” that have been preserved by the blood of so many courageous soldiers of the past. It might be naïve to think that those rights are at stake. In fact, I would concede that it’s unrealistic to believe that our country would be taken over by these people, and that we’d have to surrender our rights to them, except for the fact that our soldiers are there preventing it. Historically though, that’s what it would have meant. To the victor go the spoils! Our troops are there to see that there’s no chance of that ever happening.

I believe that it’s these and other values that inspire thousands of young men to volunteer to enter the force. It’s truly disheartening and disgusting, tragic, that something as horrific as what is portrayed in Redacted occurred at the hands of our own troops. As you said in your article, that kind of action is expected from jihadists, but when it happens in the American armed forces, we must ask why. I have no problem with that. In fact, I agree. But there’s a world of difference between asking why something like this could have happened and presenting it as somehow indicative of the way our troops behave or an inevitable consequence of a war such as this. It’s neither!

In every barrel of apples, there’s bound to be a few with bruises. In a barrel that contains as many soldiers as the U.S. military, there are bound to be some rotten ones. And that’s why this happened. There were some truly rotten apples in the batch, and I don’t think it goes much farther than that. The vast majority of our soldiers have volunteered their time – surrendered their lives – to see to it that these poor Iraqi citizens, who have been through more than you or I could imagine, be given the chance to live a life according to the dictates of their own conscience. They’re there to prevent war from coming to this nation, and to protect our God-given rights. While thousands of lives have been lost, hundreds of thousands have been saved, and future generations will have hope where hope has never existed. It’s a shame that so much effort is being spent in Hollywood to undermine that, because of the actions of a few bad apples.

During WWII, Hollywood took a much different approach. In films such as Freedom Comes High, It’s Everybody’s War, Ring of Steel, and Baptism of Fire, just to name a few, American soldiers were saluted and citizens were inspired to sacrifice for the war effort. In his article “Hollywood Goes to War,” Clayton R. Koppes relates some of the morale-building scenes that graced the silver screen during that time. “A marine, having just dispatched a horde of treacherous Japanese attackers, pauses to utter a paean to democracy. A young mother, newly widowed when her husband was killed in combat, chokes back the tears and tells her infant son that daddy died so he could have a better future. A Norwegian town rises up as one against Nazi terror…” Admittedly, from today’s perspective, these films seem quaint and even manipulative, and they provoke us to ask why Hollywood would bother with such rote prototypes. The answer is simple: Hollywood wanted to boost the war effort! They knew, as De Palma noted in your article, that pictures move people. “Pictures are what will stop the war,” says De Palma. If that’s true, then the reverse must be true also. Pictures are what will win the war! Imagine if Hollywood had been hell-bent on giving the American audience a look at what WWII was really like! The images that could have been compiled from a single front of that war would make Iraq seem like nothing more than a schoolyard brawl. Public support would have most certainly waned, and outrage increased. All the efforts made to conserve resources at home, and to devote time and energy to the support of the military would have been hindered, and we may well have lost! And not because we couldn’t have won. Thankfully, Hollywood knew the power of pictures, and chose to use them in an inspiring and positive way.

I don’t think filmmakers ought to abandon their beliefs and their standards in order to support a cause they don’t believe in. So it’s hard to say that they shouldn’t make these films. Perhaps a better answer can be found in the Viet Nam war movie model. During that war, public support wasn’t nearly as strong as it was during WWII, which is certainly the case now as well. But as Emily Friedman points out in her article “Iraq War Comes to the Silver Screen,” during the conflict in Viet Nam, “…the Hollywood machine waited for two or three years [to release movies].” Despite their discontent and outrage over the war, filmmakers chose to show a little more discretion and give a little more respect to the soldiers fighting the war.

Whether you support the Iraq War or not, we’re there, and making films while we’re there about how terrible America is and how barbaric our soldiers are only serves to endanger their lives, cut down their morale, embolden the enemy, and tarnish the image of America, which is believed to be tarnished by our administration’s foreign policy. I was living in Ukraine when the news was announced that we had declared war in Iraq, and I saw first-hand how that decision negatively affected people’s opinion of our country. I don’t dispute that our image has been tarnished in some regions. But then again, when I look at the recent elections of pro-Western/pro-American candidates in Ukraine, Germany, France, and other countries around the world, it makes me think that our image really hasn’t been as tarnished as the media makes it out to be. Rather, there are individual citizens in all countries around the world, including America, who disagree with our policies, and they are not afraid to make their voice heard. I would say (believing in De Palma’s assertion that pictures are what really move people) the films that he and his fellow filmmakers are producing “trash” our nation’s reputation more than our foreign policy decisions.

And so I ask the question, respecting your beliefs and your genuine disdain for the atrocities of this war, would it not be more beneficial to make a film praising the troops for their courage, supporting the founding principles of this nation, inspiring support from the people at home, and improving our image abroad? Would that not help to end this war sooner, thereby allowing the troops to come home?

We can help ourselves. The pictures are what can stop this war if the pictures help to win.

Sincerely,
Douglas W. Bailey