Hollywood - those damned lefties

Barely two minutes into the premiere episode of Over There, Steven Bochco's gritty television series about soldiers fighting in the Iraq war, and already the myth of the "stab in the back" – the nutty idea that we are, somehow, not being allowed to win by pansy generals and public relations hacks – had reared its ugly and all-too-familiar head. The Americans are moving in on a mosque that is chock-full of insurgents, taking fire, while "Sergeant Scream" – AKA Chris Silas, played by Erik Palladino – is bellowing at his troops that he's being kept in Iraq for an extra 90-day stint. All the while they're being pinned down by enemy fire, he's complaining that they aren't allowed to just go in there and blow everyone to smithereens "because al-Jazeera has a reporter in there" and "some general 1,000 miles away" is more concerned with "public relations" than with winning the war.

Sergeant Scream's ranting rages continue throughout episode one, and, one suspects, throughout the series, although we are soon no doubt to be clued in that he really has a heart of gold. This rapid-fire stream of abuse, self-pity, and untrammeled rage is echoed – albeit less harshly – by the rest of the platoon, all freshly recruited to our noble Iraqi enterprise. These people are constantly talking – even as they're blowing apart insurgents, taking enemy fire, slinking through the desert, or just hanging out back at their base. The chatter is incessant, like the sound of cicadas in summer, and always about the same subject: their lives, their troubles, their cliché-ridden histories. What few Iraqis we see are merely stick figures waiting to be mowed down, moving through the garish yellow of the desert like zombies in Night of the Living Dead. This war might as well be taking place in an Arizona trailer park for all the characters seem to be aware of or even faintly curious about their surroundings. It isn't about Iraq, it's all about the Americans – their feelings, their class and ethnic divisions, and their endless narcissistic banter.

  Antiwar article

Yeah, well, that's what it is about to the folks who will be watching the show.

Talk about military PR. Sheesh.

There's also a new show coming on that's all about the Pentagon: E-Ring.

And I've noticed there are numerous TV shows and movies now all glorifying the CIA, JAG, and war in general.

Yeah, Hollywood is all liberal commies.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.