Category: Cinema

last night i had the mis­for­tune to watch some bla­tant anti-Iraq pro­pa­gan­da. Live From Bagh­dad is noth­ing more than a mod­ern day Divide&Conquer. Not only is the film a giant com­mer­cial for CNN, but it also presents such a fright­en­ing pic­ture of Iraqi despo­tism that it might as well just come out and say ‘All your base are belong to us.’ It makes about as much sense. Twelve years after the first war, it can already be pro­duced by HBO as a nos­tal­gic reminder of the courage of Amer­i­can jour­nal­ists in their noble quest to uncov­er the truth of what is hap­pen­ing in Iraq. Of course, Robert Wein­er (Michael Keaton) is sym­pa­thet­ic to the desire Iraqis have for not going to war, but para­dox­i­cal­ly, his empa­thy is sub­sumed by the fact that they are always at gun­point. Typ­i­cal of Hol­ly­wood, on the sur­face it takes away US respon­si­bil­i­ty for start­ing the war, by mak­ing us asso­ciate Wein­er the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of gen­er­al US ide­ol­o­gy. In fact it solves no prob­lems and mere­ly facil­i­tates the growth of anti-Iraq sen­ti­ment. Most telling in the film is the por­tray­al of the Kuwaiti baby killings as fact, when it was lat­er proven to have nev­er occurred.