The Pleasantly Surprising 'Green Zone'
by David Swanson
I expected to be disappointed by
"Green Zone.” I mean the movie, not the chunk of Baghdad we've spent
seven years and trillions of dollars killing over a million people to
steal for an "embassy" containing 21 buildings on 104 acres.
I'd been told that this movie was
Matt Damon actually following the guidance of his teacher Howard Zinn.
I'd been told this was a movie to expose the war lies. I remained
dubious. And then I finally got a chance to see it.
Have you ever fantasized about what it would be like if
popular culture wasn't devoted to making our world a worse place, more
hateful, more violent, more stupid and petty, more greedy and
acquisitive? "Green Zone" is it.
This is a movie that looks and feels exactly like a truly
stupid, meaningless, or revenge- and greed-based Hollywood movie. But it
isn't.
I expected the war lies to get a brief mention, and the lesson
taught to actually be that violence is fun and necessary. I expected
underlings to get the blame for the lies. I expected the plot to fall
down around the contrast between its protagonist's stupidity in
believing the lies about weapons and his genius in grasping impossible
connections during the course of the story. I was wrong on all points.
The characters are composites, to be sure. Names and details
have been changed, although certainly not to protect the innocent. But
the basic account of what happened is laid out clearly, as well as
cleverly, and gets it exactly right.
The hero demonstrates the
value of trust, including the importance of trusting Iraqis about
Iraq, the importance of pushing back against authority, the need for
restraint in violence but expansion in honest communication, and the
crucial requirement that those guilty of the most serious crime
imaginable -- lying a nation into war -- be held accountable, even if
they wear nice suits and offer nice bribes to keep you quiet.
Yes, this is a look at the crazy WMD lies from the point of
view of someone who believed them, rather than from the view of those
of us who didn't. But that's an important angle to take, and one that a
majority of Americans may be able to relate to, whether they are eager
to admit it or not.
It has not, after all,
been very long since all that nonsense saturated our airwaves. The war
is in fact -- and it may be a little known fact -- still going on.
This movie is far more relevant than most movies revealing
war lies. There aren't many such creations at all, and they tend to
come out decades after a war has ended. In fairness, wars did used to
end.
"Green Zone" has not been shown in any theater in my town. Places it has been shown may be done showing it now.
Buy, don't rent, the DVD.
Show it to groups of people. Start a chapter of Screening Liberally if
you don't have a local group that hosts such events:
http://livingliberally.org/screening. And invite your member of Congress.
David Swanson is the author of the new book Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union by Seven Stories Press. You can order it and find out when tour will be in your town: http://davidswanson.org/book. [This article previously appeared at WarIsaCrime.org.]
