But Bush Takes A Stand, unlike both Thirteen Days and George H.W. Bush's The Persian Gulf War, has no similar upsetting event, nothing to cause us to understand why the hero suddenly feels compelled to take decisive action. We have to create our own phantom cause (caprice? revenge? boredom? weakness? destiny? the Revelation to John?), doing the work of the filmmakers for them.
The Bush script team, recognizing this flaw, did try to patch it up by providing a "reason" for the war: 9-11. Terrorists atttack the U.S., therefore we attack Iraq. If a real movie did this, it would be laughed off the screen. The sequence: Planes crash into the WTC and the Pentagon, bringing chaos and horror. Cut to: George W. Bush in the Oval Office, telling his advisors, "It's clear, in response to September the 11th, we must attack Iraq."
Huh? There's something missing there. That middle part, where a clear connection is drawn between the Iraqi government and the original crime. You know--like the pictures of what are unquestionably Soviet missiles in Cuba that we see in Thirteen Days.
Sadly, if Bush Takes A Stand actually showed the inside story of the planning for the attack on Iraq, it would look nothing like Thirteen Days. Instead of a White House struggling to find a solution to a vexing problem, Bush Takes A Stand: The Inside Story would show a White House struggling to manufacture a problem on which to apply their predetermined solution.
One movie shows a president trying to avoid war. The other shows a president trying to find war.
Article comments
1 - Kate Sherrod
"But Bush Takes A Stand, unlike both Thirteen Days and George H.W. Bush's The Persian Gulf War, has no similar upsetting event, nothing to cause us to understand why the hero suddenly feels compelled to take decisive action. "
That's kind of like saying the events of Children of Dune had no precedent, either. This is not, by the way, a gratuitous or silly pop culture reference: the whole plot of CoD revolves around Leto Atreides' need to undo the harm done by his father and in his father's name, and to finish the good work that his father started, both.
I see the parallel, oh yes I do! We stopped at Kuwait twelve years ago, after urging the citizens of Iraq to rise up against Saddam and intimating that they would have help. Then we left them twisting in the wind, and suffering twelve years of reprisals from their "own" government and the rest of the world. That was George I's error. George II has a chance to remedy this, and I'm glad he's doing it.
And reducing the dialogue to a question of whether it is or is not "about oil" in a restrictive and Boolean way really clouds this issue. Yeah, it's a little bit about oil. And a lot of other things.
The Dune series is about spice... and the ultimate destiny of humanity... and families... and the benefits and detriments of prescience... and much, much more.
So is this war.
2 - Brian Flemming
Kate,
I'm not familiar with Children of Dune, so I can't comment on that comparison. Wish I could. It sounds interesting.
Your comment about oil I don't quite get--I don't mention it in my review and have never taken the position that this war is only about oil. You're right, it reduces the argument, and that isn't helpful.
You make a very good point, as does Three Kings and your review of it, that the Iraqi people were encouraged to rebel 12 years ago, and U.S. forces abandoned them. (For reasons that remain murky. I'm not saying they aren't there, but nobody seems to know with any certainty the secret diplomacy that led to the decision. H.W. ain't talkin'.)
I agree with you that it's a horrifying tragedy that rebels trying to seize control of their country and make it free were abandoned. It shocks the conscience. We don't have any disagreement there.
But then there is the second matter. Not, was it horrible that it happened or we did it? That question is answered. Yes, it's horrible. And it matters. Agreed.
No, the second matter is a different question, and it's simple. The question is, Is this particular action, in these circumstances, justified in order to rectify this past wrong?
It's a very serious question, and it deserves examination. So here is the proposition, with the actual circumstances included:
"Because the U.S. abandoned the rebels in Iraq 12 years ago, we must take this military action now, even if it requires us to break international law and inflame the world."
I know pro-war folks don't like acknowledging those last two facts, but they are undeniable. (If they aren't significant, I'd like to hear the case for that.) We have broken international law and inflamed the globe. They aren't just miffed. They're enraged--and scared to death.
This is a huge step. Any action that breaks the law and polarizes the planet must have a deep sense of urgency to it. I mean, look at the stakes.
How did a 12-year-old problem suddenly develop such urgency that in the face of it world opinion just doesn't matter? How does the urgency justify betraying the rule of law?
It quite obviously doesn't. Urgency has nothing to do with this war. There has never been a less urgent war in our history. The fact that we tolerated an ever-weakening Saddam--and the situation of the Iraqi people--for 12 years proves it.
Of course the United States should defy the U.N. rather than allow itself to be attacked. There are circumstances that would justify such a move, if it came to that. The U.N. can't tell us not to defend ourselves, and if it did, I wouldn't listen.
But a threat "in one to five years" (Bush) does not count as this category of urgent threat. The world, quite logically, decided long ago that allowing countries to claim potential threats in the future as the justification for a "preventive" attack would lead to global chaos, because it was precisely those kinds of claims and military actions that led to prior world wars. These kinds of claims are possible to make under almost any circumstances--almost any country could attack any other country based on such a low standard of justification.
The U.S. has tossed out this bedrock assumption of our international order. It's gone. The very basis for peaceful relations on this globe is gone.
And why did we take this astonishing, world-changing action? According to the Iraqi-rebels-12-years-ago argument, we did it based on this proposition:
"Because the U.S. abandoned the rebels in Iraq 12 years ago, we must take this action now, even if it requires us to break international law and inflame the world."
Sorry, that just doesn't wash. It's like all of the other justifications. They aren't good enough to justify this momentous thing that has been done.
I think most Americans:
1) Fail to realize how huge this decision by the U.S. is. We're in the strongest country on Earth, so we tend not to think about the U.N. all that much. We don't need it. But everyone else on the planet does. They understand how huge this action is. It's a major turning point in history.
2) Tend, in this case, to value a quantity of arguments over quality. I have yet to argue with a war proponent who does not quickly leap from one justification to another. As soon as he or she gets into trouble on one reason (U.S. must break with the world order to correct a 12-year-old wrong), there is a giant leap to the next lily pad (9-11 changed everything) and then another and another and another.
Not a single reason stands up to scrutiny. Not one. That there are so many justifications for a war of choice should arouse suspicion, not ease. An urgent war would have one compelling reason: Iraq invaded Kuwait. Pearl Harbor. A known imminent attack by another nation.
There is nothing like that here. Nothing.
And the world knows it. And they are not going to just lie down and take it. That's why I'm out there protesting every day. This war could be the end of the United States, and I'm not going to let that happen.
3 - Woland
Wow. Here I thought I was getting a movie review.
Somehow, though, I found one of the most simple, yet effective, historical parallels between past and present. People love to bring up parallels to the inactions of WWII, but few seem to have acknowledged this encounter with 'weapons of mass destruction'.
Very well written, thank you for your thoughts Brian.