War, Inc: Cusack's Savage Satire Strikes a Chord with Soldiers and Their Families
This post originally ran during War, Inc's theatrical run. It has just been released on DVD.
"Whose top advisers are linked to war profiteers?" asks John Cusack in a new TV ad linking John McCain and George Bush ("Both...Bet you can't tell them apart"). The ad, produced by MoveOn.org, starts airing today and is already being passed around the Internet.
Cusack's righteous rage over the billions being pocketed in Iraq by companies like Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel is the beating heart of his brilliant War Inc. The film, a corrosive, audaciously funny takedown of the Right's push toward privatized war, has become a surprise, grassroots-driven hit -- despite having almost no ad money behind it.
I saw the film before it was finished, and even before the final edit, the music, etc., I was overwhelmed by how it captured the insanity going on in Iraq. War Inc. has pulled off the near-impossible: it has a found a savage, reality-altering humor amidst the tragedy of Iraq.
It masterfully wields my favorite creative weapon: satire. It punches you in the gut, making you laugh, wince, and become outraged all at the same time. Naomi Klein rightly calls War, Inc. "one of those rare satires with the danger left in."
Political satire designed to confront the powers-that-be with painful truths and to produce not just laughs but change is rarely seen in today's multiplexes. And that's not surprising; it's a high-wire act few even dare to attempt. But when someone does and succeeds at it -- think Stanley Kubrick, Paddy Chayefsky, Joseph Heller, Billy Wilder -- the effect is indelible.
Lewis Lapham identified the satirist's project as "the crime of arson, meaning to set a torch of words to the hospitality tents of pompous and self-righteous cant." And that great satirical arsonist Mark Twain wrote that exposure to good satire made citizens less likely to be "shriveled into sheep."
The great satirists have always been passionate reformers challenging the status quo. "Sometimes," says Paul Krassner, whose satiric and radical journalism inspired Cusack and his co-creators, "humor is just a way of calling attention to the contradictions or the hypocrisy that's going on officially. ... That's the function of humor -- it can alter your reality." Which is exactly what War, Inc. does.
When in 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote the most famous work of political satire of all time, "A Modest Proposal," he was seeking to light a fire under the indifference toward the twin Irish crises of hunger and over-population. His proposal was to feed young children to hungry men. "I have been assured," he wrote, "that a young healthy child, well-nursed, is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."
You can imagine the blowback from those who failed to grasp the satiric point Swift was trying to make. Similarly, the satire-challenged Right has tried to attack Cusack and War, Inc. as (all together now) unpatriotic and a slam on American troops. They've also gotten their knickers in a twist, outraged that someone would try to find humor in the death and suffering of U.S. soldiers.
But Cusack's targets are not our troops but private military contractors, war profiteers, and flag-waving politicians who, as Cusack puts it, support "keeping our troops in harm's way in Iraq but not the bipartisan G.I. bill of rights to support them when they return home." (And, yes, he's talking about you, Messrs Bush and McCain).
Indeed, since the film's release Cusack has received many moving emails and postings on his MySpace page from soldiers and military family members supporting the film and its message. Their missives run from disappointment to disillusionment and fury over being asked to serve and sacrifice while mercenaries are better paid -- and often better treated.
Among the emails:
From Sgt. Brent Sammann, an active-duty soldier in the US Army:
(Click for full-size image --
check out the two flags)
I'm a first-hand witness to the exploitation by KBR and other companies lending their services to the war effort -- services us soldiers are fully capable of doing ourselves.... The military is being overcharged by these companies on a regular basis. Also, the poor service and treatment we get from some of their employees who make three times as much as those of us serving our country that are not in it for the money but are trying to make the world a better place for everyone.
From SPC (P) Johnny Rhodes in 3/2 SCR Infantry based in Diyala, Iraq:
After being awake for 3 days I may be a little bit out of it, so excuse any rambling or incoherence on my part. Off the top of my head, I can easily say that KBR in particular is of no help here in my area of Iraq. They do, jobs soldiers could do, get paid way better for it, but the work is almost always substandard.... at any given time there are hordes of these guys tying up the phones and internet, cramming the chow hall, etc. Which makes the soldiers have to wait. And wait. And wait. They also paid way more than me, for a job, I could do with my eyes closed.
From Brenda Clampitt, of Baton Rouge, LA, the wife of a soldier stationed at Camp Adder in Tallil, Iraq:
[My husband] drives the trucks and Humvees and escorts the KBR around where they need to go. He doesn't understand why they get paid way more then he does when [he and his fellow soldiers] are the ones doing the protecting, and are the ones getting shot at and blown up. He has seen soldiers die in front of him; he has seen lives destroyed and the country torn apart. My husband would serve his country whether he got paid or not, that is just how he is. He loves his country and wants to protect it but he sees first hand what is going on over there and he doesn't like it.... I myself am sick and tired of this war. It is dragging on and on and it is all about the money. I am not anti war. But I am FOR everything your movie is about.
Today's lead editorial in the New York Times, titled "Interrogation for Profit," decries "one of the Bush administration's most blatant evasions of accountability in Iraq -- the outsourcing of war detainees' interrogation to mercenary private contractors" and calls on Congress to approve "measures to make war-zone contractors liable for criminal behavior." The editorial concludes: "The way out of the Iraq fiasco must include an end to the outsourced shadow armies."
This indictment has the same urgency of War Inc. Especially with John McCain reminding us that it's "not that important" to him when our troops come home.
Click here to watch a new interview with Cusack in which he talks about War, Inc, war profiteering and the McCain campaign's race-baiting.
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Cusack is way over interested in himself. Not to deny there are truths to some of the charges contained herein. As a teacher in Ca. I've had Middle Eastern students tell of their whole village running for it's life after Saddam's gunmen murdered their neighboring village down to the last child, all disappeared under the desert sand by noon. It appears Cusack would prefer that his political cousin, Saddam (in that they both fear the liberty of the Iraqi People) still be in power, still practicing state-sponsored, politically motivated mass-murder on a scale closer to Cusack's closer political cousin, Stalin. Some truths are just bigger than others.
I wonder if Cusack would be so "brave" and "speak out" so, if he lived under Saddam, Mao, Stalin, or Pol Pot. Though he does seem perfectly willing to help send untellable numbers of other people to their deaths, but, hey, it's just "other people" who get to die. Cusack indulges in his self-righteous attack and likely "feels good". Is it murder if you use foreign gunmen to do your killing for you, in service of your political aims?
In listening to my foreign students and their parents, I've learned that I, who once believed these Hollywood fools, was dramatically wrong. Hollywood fools pontificate; millions of "other people" die in service of Hollywood's marxist god. Cusack deeply fears such journalists as Michael Yon, who overtly cares for the good of the Iraqi People, in sharp contrast to his stone(d) heart.
The movie should have been called “War, LLC”. Although “Inc.” (for Incorporated) makes the Military-Industrial connection, it is out dated; the current indicator is LLC which stands for “Limited Liability Corporation”—the emphasis is to limit responsibilities and oversight a company is exposed to.
The Department of Homeland Security (DoHS) is nothing more than a clearinghouse to privatize the “War on Terror” and has provided a system that socializes risk and privatizes profit for War Profiteers.
The DoHS procures products and services from the private sector through the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (the SAFETY Act). From the DoHS’s website https://www.safetyact.gov/ (my emphasis):
“The goal of the SAFETY Act is to encourage the development and deployment of new and innovative anti-terrorism products and services.”
Through the SAFETY Act, the DoHS provides liability protections with a “liability plan” which basically guarantees companies that they won’t get sued if something goes wrong, or at the most, caps the amount of liability insurance a company would have to carry. The SAFETY Act also protects companies from public scrutiny. It is because of the SAFETY Act that companies like Blackwater and KBR have been operating under the radar.
Amazingly, many of these companies are complaining that the DoHS liability plan invades privacy by asking for unnecessary financial info, such as who the financial backers are and how much money was invested.
See http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/18_15/21951-1.html
Our country is trillions in debt because of the war. Not to mention all the dead and wounded. Bush & Cheney are bed partners with a lot of these private companies, and they are making money on the war!
To jackieblu23: Remember those British Memos, Gw Bush and Cheney Schemed and lied to go to war in Iraq, THEY BOTH SHOULD BE FORCED TO RESIGN, call your congressman, threat of impeachment caused NIXON TO RESIGN
As long as the likes of Blackwater, KBR, remain in Iraq with a strong presence, there is absolutely no hope for anything resembling peace in Iraq. The only solution that will promote peace is an economic solution. If even a small number of the foreign contractors in Iraq were replaced by Iraqi nationals, that fact alone would gut much of the resistant movement and give those who feel they have no option but to join the militias (often for economic gain and to fight off the latest in many millenia-worth imperialists invasions) a sense of pride in ownership in the wealth of their own country. Make no mistake, no amount of troops, military bases, or paying off insurgents to not shoot at US personel will bring about lasting peace. The ONLY stabilizing factor in any nation is the existence and perpetual growth of an politically influential Middle Class. This can only be achieved when Iraqis seize control of the economic machinery of their own nation.
After WWII, in Japan there were NO US corporate contracts handed out to help with the rebuilding. Thus, Japan went from a militarized nation into an entreprenuerial one. Capital earned from rebuilding was invested in corporations like Sony, Toyota, Nissan. The imperialist for whom the Iraq war is really being fought for do not wish to have a Middle Eastern version of Sony or Toyota. This means they don't want real competition let alone lasting peace.
POV of regular KBR employee in Iraq? Anybody? Or are we to assume they are all blood-thirsty mercenaries who just kill for the hell of it?
just saw the movie. its good, see it!
critics have been pretty rough on it, but they're wrong. its funnier and more interesting than anything else you're likely to see in the theater.
I am thankful for the satirists, because the horrendous crimes are so many and so vast that to address them without levity would overwhelm any citizen advocate. Without our doses of Stewart, Colbert, and sardonically witted citizens, we would all be paralyzed into dysfunction.
It occurs to me that not only is the Constitution not good enough for this administration ("If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier." Bush 2000), or our laws of obtaining warrants to invade the privacy of US citizens, but apparently neither is our judicial system, or our military. Why else would he need military tribunals and Blackwater? It appears that the only thing this administration likes about our country is the money and power, of which we have less of both due to him.
And that is not funny.
No, no, no.
This can't be.
Sean Hannity says this war is about our country's security!
Yeah right, you hawk-@sshole.............
I responded to another blogger who had issues with my linking corruption to Republicans. this was his quote:
"Was this little attack piece vetted by the DNC? If so couldn’t they have toned it down a bit? This is way over the top. To wildly claim that the Republicans lost the House principally because of corruption is looney tunes. Ever heard of Iraq!"
This was my response:
The fact that you don't understand that Iraq is the quintessential example of REPUBLICAN CORRUPTION is not merely "loony tunes", it's pathetic--blindness to the inth degree. The travesty of our fallen soldiers; the dilution of our Constitution; the creation of a country mired in despotism; the money making greed machines of Halliburton and Blackwater; our evaporated national treasure; the LIES, LIES, and more LIES; the international embarrassment of unethical detainment and military torture; the lack of maintenance for our medical facilities; the refusal of this administration to increase the benefits of our brave young men and women, all evidence of the true priorities of our Republican "DECIDERS!" The men that taunted terrorists with terms like "BRING IT ON!"
We will not forget what Republican leadership has brought upon our country, and though I must admit that complacency was clearly bipartisan, history will record this administration's pathetic CORRUPTION.
Derail deplorably dismissive diabolical despots'
Obama '08
Saw the movie. Yup. It´s like that. Bummer.
Vote Republican so our children can fight in Iran. For the children.
Please take a look at "Trading With the Enemy" by Charles Higham, "The Splendid Blonde Beast" by Christopher Simpson and "The Sovereign State of ITT" by Anthony Sampson. You will find that during World War II, some 380 U.S. corporations continued to "trade with Axis [enemy] powers", in a formally declared war, throughout World War II, You will also see a copy of an Order of Exemption to Trading with the Enemy Act, signed on December 8, 1941 by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, allowing, under the banner of national security, some exemptions for some U.S. corporations to continue to trade with Axis Powers. Nonetheless, the Union Banking Corporation, controlled by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, was broken up in November of 1942 for selling Nazi securities in violation of the Trading With the Enemy Act. As late as 1967, ITT received $27 million for reparations payments for the Allied bombing of a German Focke Wulf 190 plant in Hamburg that was an indirect subsidiary of ITT (The Sovereign State of ITT by Anthony Sampson).
Why are war profiteering, cronyism/political patronage/nepotism in awarding contracts, theft of government resources, calculated non-performance and breach of defense contracts and Trading With the Enemy not regarded as outright treason and prosecuted and/or grounds for impeachment as such?
They are. But the people we're talking about are above the law. The rule of law so hallowed in this country by those that have some motive (and these motives vary widely, in general and in detail) to hold it aloft would be worthy of such admiration if it were held to the crucial standard of "equal justice under the law." One might reply that we need the law anyway because it protects us from the dangerous people in our society. On the surface this may seem so, and this dream even comes true once in a while. Yet I can't help but question the authorities occupation of the moral high-ground when the fellers on top are the plundering psychotic sociopathic mass-murderers you so correctly imply they are in your posting?
Perhaps, om..., if we, i.e., a large majority of the citizens here, could stop hoping that the powers that be (of which the government is only one facet; another being, as you well know, powerful corporate entites) will someday, somehow start being responsible citizens, we could begin to move on from how things are. Otherwise, we should EXPECT more of the same. To me this means lay low and try to have a better day without even considering the isms that drag us down all the time. People could be okay, but our creepy ethics that make us all into commodities to be traded overwhelms most of us.
Nice referencing and question. Thanks.
Your entire last paragraph is absolutely true; true in my experience in the various school districts all around Sacramento, Ca., where the schools here are just a tiny part of the entire educational system in Ca. and the United States, where the bulk of the money is wasted on new untried buzzword programs favored by those who mandate from the state, and on really expensive plant/physical equipment; all while simultaneously smashing and starving really great programs that are tried and true which excite excellent student interest and skill mastery. Much of the "for the children" money is diverted to many well-paid adults who work far, far from the kids, never deigning to spend time with anyone but the other growing phalanx of bureaucrats installed by controllers to control, further driving education into the ground, despite their abundance of well-appointed offices and nicely typed reports which say nothing of material use.
Is Cleveland Oh. area on the schedule for showing?
Privatizing the military has been going on ever since the Bush-push administration got hold of the reigns. We're in BIG trouble once profiteering is punctuated by big business. Isn't anything sacred anymore?!?
War, inc. Is not being shown in Houston, and I doubt if it will be shown. ..
However, if it is shown in Houston, the supposed energy Capital of the world, American HQ's for KBR and Hallbooboo, I am quite confident that heavy survelliance will be used to monitor every person that comes to see that movie for future reference, when the supposed "end times" come, and they feel it is time to lock everybody they don't like up for Jesus.
One way or another, I hope to see it eventually.
Iraq is about judgment and courage in making the tough decisions. Obama has neither:
Once again, it’s about judgment. The Washington Post:
All of this will be sorted out in the days ahead. But in the meantime, for Obama to suggest that Johnson is floating in some outer orbit of his campaign raises questions about the candidate’s willingness to deal forthrightly with controversy.
Meanwhile John McCain’s campaign weighed in, according to Jake Tapper’s update:
…It’s preposterous for Senator Obama to claim that the leader of his VP selection committee isn’t working for him. Barack Obama has castigated Countrywide Financial, but now that Jim Johnson has been exposed for taking sweetheart deals from Countrywide’s CEO - Obama is in a state of denial. It’s that brand of weak leadership and hypocrisy that shows why Barack Obama has no record of taking courageous stands or making change in Washington.
That's really wishfull thinking about Johnson. First of all, the guy did nothing wrong. He left Countrywide in 98, and the precepts that became controversial about Countrywide's system was not in force until 99.
If you ask me, he should have stuck it out, but he did not want to be a distraction to such an important process, and that speaks the better of him.
McCain AND your comments show that the right will never stop at making the most chicken sh*t comments, hopefully making something out nothing that deserves the public's ear.
You're right about one thing, it will be sorted out in days to come, but all that will be revealed is that as usual, the rightwingers speak from a vantage point that has little more credibility then a public bathroom stall.
I'm feeling downright hostile towards the repukes these days--they will forever be the party that betrayed the American people as far as I'm concerned.
Look at the remarks made over the recent Supreme Court decision by the fanatical right-wing Anti-American Bush sympathizers:
Majorie Cohn about the Supreme Court's habeas corpus ruling:
". . .I was trying to think to myself, look, if I were President Bush, and I had heard that this case had come down, and I'm out of office in a few months. My ratings, my popularity ratings are pretty low, I would have said at this point, that's very interesting that the court decided this, but I'm not going to respect the decision of the court because my job is to keep this country safe."
And check this out:
"Michael Reagan yesterday noted that a new group was sending letters to U.S. soldiers arguing that the U.S. Government had a role in the 9/11 attacks and then said this about people who argue that:
Take em out and shoot em. . . . They are traitors to this country, and shoot them. . . . Anybody who does that doesn't deserve to live. You shoot them. You call them traitors. That's what they are. And you shoot em dead. I'll pay for the bullets. The rant went on like that for awhile. . ."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/14/various_items/index.html
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