War, Inc., which is subtitled, Cusack’s Savage Satire Strikes a Chord with Soldiers and Their Families, is being played up at Huffington Post as a rage over the billions being pocketed in Iraq by companies like Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel. So who wants us to stay in Iraq for a 100 years? Their greatest benefactors, George W. Bush and John McCain.
First it was Big Oil, the friends of Cheney; then it was Israel and their propagandists stationed in the Pentagon, the right wing Zionists Wolfowicz, Feith, and others who fudged the Iraq data; and now it is the military-industrial complex represented this time around by Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel, but also the many companies benefiting from the largest Defense budget in history. Is there no end to the cast of characters willing to spend American lives and those of Iraqi civilians for the sake of their own special interests? Reminds me of the companies which profiteered from the use of napalm and Agent Orange in Vietnam. Their capital gains and dividend margins made them great investments.
“Whose top advisers are linked to war profiteers?” asks John Cusack in a new TV ad linking John McCain and George Bush (“Both…Bet you can’t tell them apart”). The ad, produced by MoveOn.org, starts airing today and is already being passed around the Internet.
Cusack’s righteous rage over the billions being pocketed in Iraq by companies like Blackwater, Halliburton, and Bechtel is the beating heart of his brilliant War Inc. The film, a corrosive, audaciously funny takedown of the Right’s push toward privatized war, has become a surprise, grassroots-driven hit — despite having almost no ad money behind it.
I saw the film before it was finished, and even before the final edit, the music, etc., I was overwhelmed by how it captured the insanity going on in Iraq. War Inc. has pulled off the near-impossible: it has a found a savage, reality-altering humor amidst the tragedy of Iraq.
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Indeed, since the film’s release Cusack has received many moving emails and postings on his MySpace page from soldiers and military family members supporting the film and its message. Their missives run from disappointment to disillusionment and fury over being asked to serve and sacrifice while mercenaries are better paid — and often better treated.
The piece makes clear that Cusack’s targets are not our troops but the private military contractors, war profiteers, and flag-waving politicians who support “keeping our troops in harm’s way in Iraq,” while voting against a G.I. bill of rights to support them when they return home. Clearly, Cusack is talking about Bush and McCain, when he us talking about War, Inc.
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Apologize if this topic has been posted already. But even twice around may not be enough.
