Hearts and Minds

Dahr Jamail in Slash and Burn reports on civilian casualities and recounts the stories of some who’ve witnessed the ongoing horrors of Fallujah.

He ends with this observation:

“The comparison of Iraq to Vietnam is becoming more valid by the day here.”

I recently viewed the 1974 documentary about America’s unnecessary war against Vietnam by Peter Davis called Hearts and Minds. I know the film exists thanks to this Stuart Klawans’ review of it for The Nation.

It’s heartening that “the Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has spent two years restoring Hearts and Minds, and Rialto Pictures is putting the new prints into national release.” But because I agree with Klawans that “some subjects, America does suppress,” is why I think this 1975 Oscar-winning documentary should be showcased on a network channel that is available to every American and it should be re-aired until it’s the talk of the nation.

This haunting precursor to the pre-emptive strike on Iraq and its brutal aftermath is too revealing of our culture to be left to the whims of theater owners to decide whether to run it or not. Offering it for purchase on DVD, as I was able to view it, will not suffice.

Klawans wrote:

“Davis got all sides into the movie: American Presidents, generals and planners; Vietnamese leaders, prostitutes and peasants; French colonial officials; US veterans, from the heartbroken to the vehemently prowar; mourners; flag-wavers; coffin-makers; amputees; even a high school football team, whose coach helps set the tone for the movie by instructing his players to kill. By creating a counterpoint among these many voices, Davis composed a work that is simultaneously an Exposé of the history of the war, an exploration of American martial culture and a deeply humane portrait of the victims.

In Hearts and Minds, Peter Davis managed to understand everything. Then, against convention, he forgave nothing.”

It is long-past time we forgive the pro-war zombies in this country nothing. This film reminds us that five American presidents and their administrations intentionally misled their country into war. It shows with illusion-shattering detail an American public that is not only easily fooled, but cling to their falsehoods in embarrassing acts of extremism.

In the film, a distraught father demands that the blood-soaked shirt of his daughter, who was killed by a bomb whilst feeding the pigs, be thrown into the face of Richard Nixon.

I say throw this film into the face of all Americans so they might finally wake-up to the reality that the United States gov’t is a serial manipulator of their good/blind faith, and hiding behind their ill-gotten blessing, go on to murder innocents in its name.

At least, they’d be stripped of excuses for not knowing.