Entertaining the Crew of the Death Star

By Demon

“Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
- Noam Chomsky, Media Control

Operation Iraqi Freedom - a military operation, a film title, or both? It sounds like a film title, right next to Operation Condor with Jackie Chan and

Gulf Wars: Clone of the Attack
Movie poster by Mad Magazine
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Operation Wild Geese with Klaus Kinski. But with the message behind the mission built so desperately into the title, it can only be one of those hawky military ops that say one thing but are up to another.

Operation Just Cause, that was another one. Remember when America liberated the “oppressed Panamanians” from “the Hitler of Central America” who lived just “a day’s drive from the U.S. border?” For some reason, the more the name of the operation strives to explain itself, the shakier the moral ground behind the action in the first place.

On first pass, Operation Iraqi Freedom might actually make a good movie for the American audience. A mad dictator gasses his own people and constructs weapons to destroy the world; the world’s lone superpower, has a moral obligation to intervene. It is a classic good versus evil scenario, straight from Star Wars.

However, zoom out the camera a bit and perspective changes. Suddenly, we see the superpower and the mad dictator cutting deals for oil and weapons. We see the superpower turning a blind eye while the dictator exterminates and tortures his own people. Next door, we see the superpower in cahoots with another regime that systematically strips away the land, life, and liberty of its people.

Wait, this movie is going to need an intermission!

Then there are those other countries where torture and horror are a daily part of life, but the superpower does nothing. Cut to Rwanda, where over 1 million people died a decade ago. Cut to Sudan, where slavery still exists - not metaphorical, figurative slavery, mind you, but whips and shackles, the whole bit.

Three part trilogy?

So why Iraq and why not Rwanda or Sudan? What mysterious Spice lies beneath the sands of this Dune that makes these people special while others are not?

Time for a rewrite: Operation Iraqi Freedom is no longer entertaining enough for the multiplex. But maybe with a little editing it will work on television as reality tv.

Make it like Cops. Put it on Fox. Americans can take the brutality of it, matter of fact, they won’t be able to turn away. They like seeing doors get kicked down and brown belligerents taking a beating. Subtle difference: Iraqis wear their wifebeaters on their heads. And if there is anything truly upsetting, like three year old kids getting their arms blown off by stray bombs, just leave that part out.

Stay away from Iraqi civilian casualty figures too, because those demoralize our troops. In fact, stay away from Iraqi military casualties too, some of those guys are only 15 years old and forced to fight because they live in a police state.

Here’s a novel idea: leave it up to the Iraqis to report their own casualty figures. It’s a perfect catch 22: they won’t report troop deaths because of pride; and their civilian deaths will sound like exaggerations. The irony, of course, is that even if they want to this regime won’t be able to report anything with any sense of accuracy once the fighting starts - their communications network will be in total disarray. Definitely leave those figures up to them.

Matter of fact, the Iraqi information service’s take on Operation Iraqi Freedom will provide some needed comic relief from the heavier bits, like when American’s accidentally bomb a hospital or something.

Cut, snip, chop, delete, pause. We’re pulling something together here. Gid rid of that part, emphasize that, that’s too complicated for the average viewer so put it in the can. Chop, edit, slice, snip. We can show that later when the heat dies down. Okay, it’s starting to look good.

Ah, yes. I think we’ve got it nailed. Let’s call it something simple like “News Coverage”. The crew of the Death Star will love it.