Tinseltown
pictures are not what they used to be. Scripts nowadays are suffused
with politically correct clichés. Activism has replaced acting. Good
stories have been supplanted by sermons. Instead of a good yarn, expect
a big yawn.
I’m no
fan of Hollywood, but I am a fan of the truth. Truth, observed one wag,
“is the foe of tyrants, and the friend of man.” Truth be told,
conservative commentators have been less than honest about the film
“Redacted.”
Director
Brian De Palma’s fare doesn’t deserve to be lumped with the Ang Lee or
Clooney two-hour long lectures; “Dressed to Kill” and “Scarface” were
fabulous films. The same cannot be said for the boredom of buggery that
was “Brokeback Mountain,” and the “Syriana” snooze.
Still,
the likes of Laura Ingraham and James Hirsen railed against “Redacted,”
calling it “fictional”—a figment of De Palma’s warped imagination,
intended to symbolize the metaphoric rape of Iraq by the US. The film,
the two raged, portrayed an “unreality” and was positively libelous.
Michael
Medved went barking mad: “The…worst, most disgusting, most hateful, most
incompetent, most revolting, most loathsome, most reprehensible
cinematic work I have ever encountered. ...It portrays the members of
our Marine Corps in the most disgusting way imaginable. ...This film is
an atrocity.”
How dare
De Palma and his financier, Mark Cuban—the maverick, libertarian
mogul—“put a movie out that shows US troops … raping and killing a
14-year-old, burning her and her family,” Bill O’Reilly fumed.
There’s
one pesky problem with all the indignant huffing and puffing: “Redacted”
is based on a true story. It’s a docudrama. Moral grandstanding
notwithstanding, our mighty mediacrats have failed to mention that minor
detail.
De Palma
has, at least, bothered to commemorate the vanquished young victim at
the center of “Redacted.” To Rupert Murdoch’s protégés in Mainstream
Media, Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi is redundant, a castaway. The same
broadcasters who won’t quit braying when an American youngster is
harmed pan De Palma for widening his lens to include an Iraqi girl’s
ghastly demise at the hands of American soldiers.
When MSM
have mentioned Abeer, unburdened by facts, they’ve described her as a
woman, rather than as the 14-year-old girl she was when the American
servicemen murdered her parents and 5-year-old sister, and took turns
with her.
For different reasons, likely, the liberal wing of MSM
has been as indifferent. Should an American girl choke on a large potato
chip, trust Anderson Cooper—Dr. Sanjay Gupta in tow—to profile the
porker and demand potato-chip regulation. Why didn’t Cooper mince on
down to Mahmoudiyah to find out who this Iraqi girl was, and what her
life was like before and after the Americans came?
In all likelihood, CNN and MSNBC are just too busy
inundating their viewers with breaking news about the imperiled planet,
pets, and other pestilence—flu, food poisoning, and the nation’s
ballooning bigotry and bodyweight.
So who
was Abeer Qasim Hamza? A mop of hair, a delicate face and big black
eyes: The only image we have of her is the one plastered on her Iraqi ID
card. It was taken when she was a two-year-old tot. She lived with her
mother, father and three siblings in the village of Yusufiyah near
Mahmoudiyah.
Unfortunately for them, their farmhouse was situated near an American
traffic checkpoint. The neighbors later said soldiers would watch the
girl go about her chores, and gesture lewdly. The culprits, led by
ringleader Pfc. Steven Dale Green—a school drop-out with a police record;
recruitment standards are being lowered to fill quotas—would stage mock
raids on the family’s home during which Green fondled Abeer.
Finally,
Green, accompanied by Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spc. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse
V. Spielman, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard, hatched a scheme to rape Abeer. In
they went, shooting and killing Abeer’s parents and sibling, and then
gang-raping her. When they were through with Abeer, they summarily
executed her with a shot to the head.
A
correspondent for the “Guardian” described walls and ceilings covered
with soot and splattered with blood. A neighbor who had rushed to the
scene said, “The poor girl, she was so beautiful; she lay there, one leg
was stretched and the other was bended and her dress was lifted to her
neck.”
In
“Redacted,” Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek finds significance, if not
solace: “‘Redacted’ isn't great De Palma—it may not even be good De
Palma—but it's pure De Palma.”
It’s also
true De Palma.
So, stop
the spin. Let Abeer rest in peace.
©2007 By Ilana Mercer
WorldNetDaily.com
November 30
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