Today's Stories

May 17 / 18, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The View from the Crusaders' Castle

Andy Worthington
Gitmo Trials: Betrayal, Backsliding and Boycotts

May 16, 2008

Stephen Soldz
Involuntary Drugging of Detainees

Jonathan Cook
Police Attack Al-Nakba March

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies of Aggression

Christopher Brauchli
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pharmacy

James L. Secor
Olympic Torch China: the View from Shaoxing

Franklin Lamb
Did Hezbollah Thwart a Bush/Olmert Attack on Beirut?

Linn Washington, Jr.
The Price of Protecting Racist Cops

Dave Lindorff
What West Virginia Means

May 15, 2008

Stan Cox
Big Brother Close Up

Jeff Halper
Rethinking Israel After 60 Years

Greg Moses
Living for the Children of Palestine

John Ross
Why Mexican Justice is a Euphemism

Ron Jacobs
Go to Work, Go to Jail

Binoy Kampmark
Indian Jailbirds: the Case of Binayak Sen

Eve Spangler
We Should Not Celebrate Dispossession

Martha Rosenberg
Meat Wars with South Korea

Website of the Day
Idaho Wolf Killers

May 14, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Oil Wars

Reza Fiyouzat
Torture, a Bully's Creed

Felice Pace
California Water Politics: Of Dams and Water Buffaloes

Hamdan A. Yousuf / Dania S. Ahmed
A Generation Defined by War

Robert Weitzel
Hillary's "Final Solution" to the Persian Problem

Ralph Nader
You're Either with the American People or the Big Auto Bosses

Dave Lindorff
Hillary, McCain and the Stupid Vote

Missy Comley Beattie
White Heaven: Hillary's W. Virginia Idyll

Neve Gordon
Israel as a Site of Struggle

Dr. Susan Block
A Washington Witch Hanging

Website of the Day
Hillary's Downfall

May 13, 2008

David Rosen
Sexual Terrorism: the Sadistic Side of Bush's War on Terror

Alan Farago
Nuclear Florida: Beachfront Reactors in an Age of Rising Sea Levels?

Saul Landau
The Crisis at Home

Saree Makdisi
Forget the Two-State Solution

Paul Craig Roberts
How Empires Fall

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Suicide Bomber

Brother Bede Vincent
The Problem with Rev. Wright--There are Too Few Like Him

Linda Mamoun
Marketing Ethnic Cleansing

David Macaray
The Myth That Won't Die

Website of the Day
Burning the Future: Coal in America

May 12, 2008

St. Clair / Frank
The Pentagon's Toxic Legacy

Ziga Vodovnik
Rebels Against Tyranny: an Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Gary Leupp
Why All of Our Efforts Won't Stop an Attack on Iran

Frankln Lamb
Choufeit's Bloody Pentacost

Suzanne Baroud
The Ambition of Hillary Clinton

Martha Rosenberg
Farmer Ernie's Chamber of Horrors

Dave Zirin
The Boss's Boycott

Carl Finamore
I Ain't Gonna Work No More

Peter Morici
Recession Watch

Richard Rhames
The Third Way to Nowhere

Website of the Day
The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

May 10 / 11, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 Casualties a Year

Franklin Lamb
Hezbollah Eases Up and Beirut Opens Its Shutters

Ciara Gilmartin
A Surge in Iraqi Detainees

Diane Farsetta
Inside a Nuclear Industry Soirée

Kent Paterson
Mother's Day in Ciudad Juarez

Alan Farago
The Social Engineers

Rannie Amiri
Beirut on the Brink

Patrick Irelan
Bolivia, Morales and the Red Ponchos

Robert Fantina
The Lexicon Legacy of George W. Bush

Nikolas Kozloff
El Salvador 2009: Another Feather in the Cap of Chavez?

George Ciccariello-Maher
The Yumare Massacre, 22 Years On

David Yearsley
Bacharach at 80

Ron Jacobs
Rosa Luxemburg's Shock Doctrine

John Holt
Can Yellowstone Survive?

David Michael Green
It's So Over

Ben Terrall
Dealing Sleep

Kim Nicolini
The Best Film of the Bush Era?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Frisella, Gladstone-Gelman

May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
A Wild Day in Beirut

Andy Worthington
The Afghans of Gitmo

Benjamin Dangl
Polarizing Bolivia

Mark A. Huddle
Remembering Mildred Loving, an Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement

David Macaray
Hollywood Gives SAG the Brush Off

Dave Lindorff
Team Clinton: Going Down Ugly

C.G. Estabrook
The Way We Live Now

Matt Kosko
McCain, Clinton, Obama and the Wages of Lesser-Evilism

Robert Weissman
Big Business is not the Solution to Global Poverty

Michael Dickinson
Jailing the Joint

Website of the Day
The Role of Third Parties in the U.S.A.

May 8, 2008

Sharon Smith
Rockefeller Family Fables

Saul Landau
The NATO Axiom

Laura Carlsen
A Primer on Plan Mexico

Binoy Kampmark
Food Riots are Coming to the U.S.

Kenneth Couesbouc
China's Paper Feet

Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan's Constitutional Shenanigans

Franklin Lamb
Blindsided, Hezbollah Mulls Its Response

Sen. Russ Feingold
Government in Secret

George Wuerthner
The Problems with Conservation Easements

Richard W. Behan
A Brief Exposé of a Fraudulent War

Adam Federman
Marching for Sean Bell

Website of the Day
State of the Air

May 7, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
Drowning in Dollars

Joanne Mariner
Torture After Dark

Col. Dan Smith
It's Lying and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops

Brian M. Downing
Reports From Foreign Provinces

Andy Worthington
Who are the Prisoners Released with Sami al-Haj?

John Stauber
Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online, But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?

Christopher Brauchli
Outsourcing Tax Collection

Nelson P. Valdés
Cinco de Mayo and Cinco de Agosto: Mexican History and Manufactured Identities

Rep. Keith Ellison
High Court Deals Blow to Voting Rights

Dan Bacher
Undam the Klamath, Mr. Buffett!

Website of the Day
Green Porno

May 6, 2008

Pam Martens
The Obama Bubble Agenda

Nikolas Kozloff
U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia

Marjorie Cohn
Under U.S. Law Torture is Always Illegal

Ralph Nader
America's Pay-or-Die Health Care System

Yigal Bronner
Archaeologists for Hire

Brian Cloughley
No Laws for Bush America

Jacob Hornberger
Killing Enemies Without Trial

Walter Brasch
People Who Don't Need People

Paul Krassner
An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Running Mates from the Imaginary Plane

Website of the Day
Some People

May 5, 2008

Pam Martens
Obama's Money Cartel

Conn Hallinan
The Syrian Affair

Corey D. B. Walker
The End of Politics

Uri Avnery
Crusader Anxiety: Israel at 60

Dave Zirin
Refocusing Olympic Protest

Corporate Crime Reporter
Wiist's Crusade Against Corporations

Robert Jensen
The Selling and Shaping of Our Souls

Daniel White
What People Want to Hear About in Austin, Texas

Benjamin Dangl
May Day Raid on General Dynamics

Website of the Day
McCain's Pastor of Hate: "Starve. I Don't Care. Starve."

May 3 / 4, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?

Nikolas Kozloff
The Shameful Failure of the Black Congressional Caucus

Diane Farsetta
What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side

Tariq Ali
New Labour is Dead

Harry Browne
The USA's Other Island: Irish Leaders and the War on Terror

Wajahat Ali
Pakistan's New Daughter of Destiny? An Exclusive Interview with Fatima Bhutto

David Yearsley
A Challenge to Jeffrey Eugenides

Greg Moses
Salamat, Riad Hamad

William Blum
Rev. Wright, the CIA and the AIDS Thing

Robert Fantina
The Rhetoric of John McCain

Fred Gardner
The Greatest Story Never Told

Dave Lindorff
Blame It On Paraguay: The Bush Family's Bad Real Estate Deal

Seth Sandronsky
Standardizing Learning

Binoy Kampmark
Brown, Boris and the British Council Elections

Howard Lisnoff
The Lost First Amendment

Daniel Cassidy
Slanguage: Paddy Works on the Erie

Bill Moyers
Shrink-Wrapping the Theology of Rev. Wright

Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up

Poets' Basement
John Holt / Akbar Khan

Website of the Weekend
Ed Abbey, Patron Saint of the Walker's Rights Movement

May 2, 2008

Andrew Cockburn
Secret Bush "Finding" Widens Covert War on Iran

David Isenberg
The Return of Limited Nuclear War?

Vijay Prashad
Driven to Terror: the Case of the Lackawana Six

William Blum
Spies Without Borders

David Macaray
Shutting Down the West Coast Ports: the ILWU's May Day Strike

Rannie Amiri
Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?

William James Martin
The Carter Coup

Stephanie Westbrook
As Italy Lurches Rightward, a Ray of Hope from Vicenza

Linn Washington, Jr.
A Battle Over Murals in Parisian Ghettos

Anthony Papa
How the Byrne Fund Corrupts Cops and Destroys Lives

Website of the Day
The Serota Petition

May 1, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Fed Sinks the Dollar

Behzad Yaghmaian
Blaming the Yuan for the Deficit with China

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight: the Real Rise of Obama

Dedrick Muhammad
Senator Obama, Please Come to Your Senses

Cynthia McKinney
Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity

Corporate Crime Reporter
Farm Broadcaster Fired After Ripping Monsanto's Goon Squads

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Speech That Might Have Been

Reza Fiyouzat
Stop Obliterating Yourself!

Leigh Saavedra
Suspending the Federal Gas Tax

Tom Semioli
Hollywood Hypocrite: an Open Letter to Michael Moore

Website of the Day
Why Won't McCain Release His Medical Records?

Subscribe Online

The Actor Battles to Un-Embed Hollywood

John Cusack's War

By JEREMY SCAHILL

Back in 1989, in his smash hit "Say Anything," John Cusack famously stood with a boom box above his head outside the home of the woman he loved blasting Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes." With his latest films on the Iraq war, Cusack is standing outside Hollywood with a TV above his head broadcasting his political movies calling on the public to wake up and "Do Something." John Cusack began working on his new film "War, Inc.," which premieres in LA and New York May 23, about a year into the US occupation of Iraq.

From the moment US tanks rolled into Baghdad, Cusack was a voracious consumer of news about the war. He took it deadly seriously, regularly calling independent journalists and asking them questions as he sought as much independent information as he could. Watching the insanity of the erection of the Green Zone and the advent of the era of McWar, complete with tens of thousands of "private contractors," Cusack set out to use the medium of film to unveil the madness. He wanted to do on the big screen what independent reporters like Naomi Klein, Nir Rosen and Dahr Jamail did in print.

Over these years of war and occupation, Cusack has become one of the most insightful commentators on a far too seldom discussed aspect of the occupation: the corporate dominance of the US war machine. Cusack is no parachute humanitarian. While he continues to do the Hollywood thing with big budget movies, he is simultaneously a fierce un-embedded actor/filmmaker who has been at the center of two of the best films to date dealing with the madness of the Iraq war.

Without big money sponsors and the backing of powerful production companies, Cusack has spent a lot of his own money on these projects. Cusack's film "Grace is Gone," was one of the most under-rated and under-viewed movies of 2007. Cusack should have been seriously considered for an Oscar for his portrayal of Stanley Philipps, a man whose wife dies while deployed as a soldier in Iraq.

The film centers on Philipps's painful inability to explain to his two young daughters (powerfully played by two amateur actors, Shélan O'Keefe and Gracie Bednarczyk) their mother's death. Instead of telling his daughters the terrible news, he embarks on a surreal road trip to a theme park with the girls as he fights for his own sanity and grapples with his own support for the war that has just taken the life of his wife. The film is a jolting picture of a man caught in the free fall of a nervous breakdown and the ricochet impact of the death of soldiers in the war.

It was an outright shame that "Grace is Gone" did not get wide distribution. I was at a screening of the film in New York and there were not many dry eyes at the movie's conclusion.

Perhaps the film's lack of commercial success was due to the so-called "Iraq movie fatigue" that took hold in Hollywood a couple of years ago. But "Grace is Gone" is not simply an "Iraq movie" or a "war movie." It isn't even really an "anti-war" movie. It is a haunting and moving film that cuts across political lines to tell the story of the suffering and shattering of so many US military families with loved ones deployed in Iraq. Had it received the distribution it deserved, "Grace is Gone" would have resonated strongly with both supporters and opponents of the war, a rare accomplishment.

"War, Inc." is a radically different kind of movie. In fact, it really defies genre. It is sort of like this generation's Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and The Wizard of Oz mixed together with the un-embedded reporting of Naomi Klein, spiced up with a dash of South Park. It is a powerful, visionary response to the cheerleading culture of the corporate media and a pliant Hollywood afraid of its own shadow.

On the surface, "War, Inc." appears to be a spoof of the corporatization of the occupation of Iraq. Cusack plays a hit man, Brand Hauser, deployed to Turaqistan with the mission of killing a Middle Eastern oil baron (named Omar Sharif). Hauser's employer is a secretive for-profit military corporation run by the former US vice president, played by Dan Aykroyd. We first meet Aykroyd's character as he sits, pants down, on a toilet seat during a closed-circuit satellite videoconference call to give Hauser his mission. Hauser arrives in the Turaqi capital and heads for the "Emerald City" (read: the Green Zone), where his cover is director of a trade show for the military corporation, Tamerlane, which is basically running the Turaqi occupation.

Hauser soon falls for a progressive journalist, played by Marisa Tomei, who is in Turaqistan to investigate Tamerlane, and what follows is an insane ride through Cusack's interpretation of the radical corporatization of war. Singer Hilary Duff gives a surprisingly fun performance as a pop star, Yonica Babyyeah, who performs a song in the war zone with the lyrics, "You say you want to invade me, baby/Enslave me, baby." As Duff delivers the song, she caresses a phallic gas nozzle decorated with diamonds while singing, "I want to blow you....up."

Obviously Cusack and his co-writers, Mark Leyner and Jeremy Pikser (REDS/Bulworth), sought to tap into the extreme nature of the corporatized war and take it to another level, but anyone who thinks the premise behind "War Inc." is "over-the-top" has not been paying attention to real life.

Cusack, Leyner and Pikser are not predicting the future, they are forcefully--and with dark humor and wit-- branding the present for what it is: the Wal-Mart-ization of life (and death) represented in the new US model for waging war. With 630 corporations like Blackwater and Halliburton on the US government payroll in Iraq getting 40% of the more than $2 billion Washington spends every week on the occupation, Cusack's "futuristic" film is not far from the way things really are.

A powerful, for-profit war corporation, run by the former US vice president "owning" the war zone; tanks with NASCAR-like sponsor logos speeding around the streets firing at will; "implanted journalists" watching the war in IMAX theaters in the heavily-fortified "Emerald City" to get "full spectrum sensory reality" while eating popcorn; a secretive "viceroy" running the show from behind a digital curtain are all part of Cusack's battlefield in the fictitious Turaqistan. But how far are they from the realities of the radically privatized corporate war machine Washington has unleashed on the world?

"War Inc." is already an underground cult classic and will likely remain so for years to come. The film is not without its shortcomings--at times it is confusing and drags--but its faults are significantly overshadowed by its many strengths. It also accomplishes the difficult feat of being very entertaining and funny, while delivering a powerful punch of truth.

"War, Inc." is a movie that deserves a much wider viewing than the barons of the film industry are likely to give it. But by filling the theaters in the opening days, people can send a powerful message that there is--and must be--a market for films of conscience.

Visit the official website of "War, Inc." or John Cusack's website to view trailers, get info on tickets for the premieres and to read more about the film.

Jeremy Scahill is author of The New York Times-bestseller "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.". He can be reached at jeremy(AT)democracynow.org

 

 

 

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