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Today's Stories December 29 / 30, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Options in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby December 28, 2007 Farzana Versey The Complex Electra Wajahat Ali A Pakistani Requiem Binoy Kampmark Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy Ayesha Ijaz Khan Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives Anthony DiMaggio Turkey's Bombing of Iraq Ray McGovern Creeping Fascism Jim Goodman Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going Ron Jacobs Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted Russell Hoffman Mini-Nukes by Toshiba John Murphy Greens Gone Wild Website of the Day Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"   December 27, 2007 Dilip Hiro A Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party? Murtaza Shibli Who Killed Bhutto? Stephen Soldz Fallujah, the Information War and U.S. Propaganda Bill Quigley Locked Outside the Gates Paul Craig Roberts The Great American Lock-Up Omer Subhani Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan? Marjorie Cohn The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go? Allan Nairn Cataclysm By Money Whim Jacob G. Hornberger Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT Norman Solomon Channeling Suze Orman Patrick Irelan Rumsfeld Spills the Ink Ben Tripp Pass the Razor Blades Website of the Day Quagmire, For What It's Worth   December 26, 2007 Charles Tripp From One Saddam to Fifty Paul Armentano No-Knock, You're Dead Rannie Amiri Lebanon in Search of a Government Stanley Heller Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War John Walsh Two Unreasonable Men Martha Rosenberg The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb Norman Madarasz Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within Website of the Day Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas   December 25, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Conscience and Empire December 24, 2007 Andrea Peacock A Dark Ride on the Border Tariq Ali Thinking of Edward Said Uri Avnery Help! A Ceasefire! Jill Jameson Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot Steve Melendez Russell Means Goes to Washington Mike Whitney The Big Fix Chuck Munson Not Getting It About New Orleans John Walsh Clueless Crusaders Farzana Versey Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion Richard Neville Dreaming of a White House Christmas Website of the Day Back in the USSR December 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Mike Huckabee's Ascending Chariot Ralph Nader Politics and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way Andy Worthington Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons in Afghanistan Ahmad Faruqui The Comedian of Pakistan Bill Moyers Society on Steroids Rev. William E. Alberts Blessed are the Peacemakers Timothy J. Freeman From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over? Anthony DiMaggio Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq Fred Gardner Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol Paul Krassner Enhanced Hazing Techniques Seth Sandronsky 17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law William Loren Katz Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake Okeechobee Michael Dickinson In the Dungeon of the Zabita Ron Jacobs Why Leon Russell Still Matters David Vest Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?" Poets' Basement Orloski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend George W. Hates Santa   December 21, 2007 John Ross New Massacres Loom in Mexico Jacob Hornberger Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq Dick J. Reavis A Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes Peter Morici Business as Usual as Recession Looms Jack McCarthy Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie Kerik) Raúl Zibechi Sex and Revolution Steve Early How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist David Macaray Union Aftermath Patrick Bond Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa Lakota Freedom Delegation A Declaration of Independence from the USA Website of the Day Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape   December 20, 2007 David Rosen Mitt Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer Alan Farago The Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Laura Carlsen Standing Up to NAFTA Ashley Dawson The Return of the Bread Riot Wayne Smith and Jennifer Schuett Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates Website of the Day How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter   December 19, 2007 Saul Landau Is the NIE Bush's Watergate? Paul W. Lovinger Hillary the Hawk Norman Solomon The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck Dave Zirin George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice Marjorie Cohn Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes Sen. Russell Feingold The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation Sonja Karkar A Christmas Reflection on Palestine Anthony Papa Open the Drug Gulags Christopher Ketcham Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions Davey D Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop? Website of the Day When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV   December 18, 2007 R. F. Blader The Politics of Teen Pregnancy George Wuerthner Gunning for Wolves in Idaho Steven Higgs Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped? Vijay Prashad Encounters with Ghadar David Macaray The Free Rider Problem Ralph Nader Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays Eva Liddell Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home Martha Rosenberg While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters Dave Lindorff When Impeachment is Out of Print Peter Morici The Consequences the Trade Deficit Website of the Day Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America   December 17, 2007 Mike Whitney Staring Into the Abyss Tom Barry Planning the War on Immigrants Uri Avnery A Gaza Masada? Greg Moses Crossing the Line in Texas Allan Nairn Terrorism; Counter- Terrorism: Excuses for Murder Patrick Bond South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers Stephen Lendman Police State America Charles Jonkel Grizzly Right of Way Laray Polk An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza Stephen Fleischman Pawns in Their Game December 15 / 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh A People's Penny for the Magna Carta Howard Zinn Bomb After Bomb Standard Schaefer The Greening of Big Tobacco Raymond J. Lawrence Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas Alan Farago Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine Saul Landau Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists Jenna Orkin Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up Ahmad Samih Khalidi Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct Robert Fantina Politics By Photo-Op Missy Comley Beattie Resistance Amid the Ruins Ramzy Baroud Of Mormons and Muslims James L. Secor A Vision for China's Future Elijah Wald Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten Website of the Weekend The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support   December 14, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski The Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him John Ross Iraqi Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax Jacob Hornberger Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened? Allan Nairn "Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes Dave Zirin The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners Dave Lindorff The First Cut is the Deepest Misty MacDuffee Toxic Grizzlies Ben Terrall What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine? Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi Prerequisites for Peace Website of the Day Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"   December 13, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Shrinking the Dollar from the Inside-Out Mike Whitney Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding Ron Jacobs Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy Norman Solomon The USA's Human Rights Daze Peter Morici The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch Sandy Mayes Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia Franklin Lamb The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling? Jacob Hornberger Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It Nadim Rouhana An Interloper in My Own Land Dave Zirin On Pigskin and Petrol Website of the Day Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support! December 12, 2007 Allan Nairn US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian Phones Alan Farago How Sprawl Eats Its Young Ray McGovern Torture, Lies and Videotape Winslow T. Wheeler The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts Evan Jones The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell Doom for the US Farm Belt James Petras An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers Joel Hirschorn The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine Joshua Frank Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention Sherry Wolf Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul Dan Bacher Survey of a Fish Graveyard Website of the Day Men Eating Bugs   December 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn What's Really Happened During the Surge? Diana Johnstone The Next Kosovo War Paul Craig Roberts It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution David Macaray Impasse in Hollywood Ralph Nader Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs Andy Worthington Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result Martha Rosenberg No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers Steve Champion / Anthony Ross Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams Kim Nicolini Tangled Up in Dylan Michael Dickinson Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent Website of the Day A Charming (and Worthy) Pitch December 10, 2007 Uri Avnery How They Stole the Bomb From Us Debbie Nathan The Perils of Journalism and Child Porn JoAnn Wypijewski Is There a Left Here Left? If So, What Can It Do? Steve Kelly Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness Donna J. Volatile Welcome to the Revolution   December 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Coup Against Bush and Cheney Brenda Norrell Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists Saul Landau The Ruins of Empire R. F. Blader A Rape in Every Drink? Ray McGovern Spinning Iran's Centrifuges Allan Nairn Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia Linn Washington, Jr Spotlight on Death Row Paul Craig Roberts When Will Bush Come Clean?   December 7, 2007 Sean Penn Piano Wire Puppeteers Arthur Versluis Mining Water in the Desert M. G. Piety Racism and the American Psyche: Some Thoughts on Race and Intelligence Pam Martens Banksters Gone Wild Alan Farago Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia? Sprawl and the Credit Crisis Allan Nairn It Takes (Out) a Village Col. Dan Smith Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday Alice Slater The Iran Opening Robert Weissman The Story of Stuff Website of the Day Something About Mitt   December 5, 2007 Mike Whitney Why the CFR Hates Putin Sharon Smith The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden and the Dead End Democrats James Petras Venezuela in the Aftermath Ron Jacobs The Iran Charade Dave Zirin Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Time to Choose Peter Zinn Covered in New Orleans Niranjan Ramakrishnan Impeach Pelosi Instead Alan Farago The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida Heather Gray US Meddling in Australian Politics Website of the Day A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas   December 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in Ann Arbor Andy Worthington Guantánamo and the Supreme Court Paul Craig Roberts The Lies at the End of the American Dream Ray McGovern No-Nuke Iran Winslow T. Wheeler Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are Too Small Allan Nairn The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just Want Food" Russell Mokhiber The USA v. Al Arian Nikolas Kozloff As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American Left John V. Walsh Peace Movement Paralyzed Ghada Ageel Will Peace Cost Me My Home? Stephen Soldz The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist Involvement in Interrogations Website of the Day Hands Off the People of Iran     December 3, 2007 Tariq Ali Venezuela After the Referendum Bill Quigley New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor, Tax Credits for Developers Eric Walberg The Bible and Middle East History Uri Avnery After Annapolis Marjorie Cohn Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed Dave Lindorff Vengeance Isn't Sweet Stephen Fleischman Homeless in Paradise Martha Rosenberg Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile Website of the Day So Just Lead!   December 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift in a Sea of Booze Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West Mike Whitney "Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir Rosen Shemon Salam A Visit From the FBI Roger Burbach The Battle in Bolivia Benjamin Dangl New Politics in Old Bolivia Brian M. Downing The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? Greg Moses Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story Sonja Karkar The "Never-Never" Peace Conference Saul Landau Ethics and Evil in South Boston Margaret Kimberley Black America Left Behind John Ross What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution? Reza Fiyouzat Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran Judith Scherr Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays Lance Olsen Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy Christopher Brauchli Mr. Bush and the Despots Robert Fantina Iraq as U.S. Colony Dan Bacher Fish Triage on Prospect Island Michael Donnelly Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency Website of the Weekend Appalachian Voices   November 30, 2007 Peter Stone Brown The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan Wajahat Ali The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's Former Minister of Information Allan Nairn Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers Alan Farago The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash John Ross The Death of Latin America's First Revolution Corporate Crime Reporter America's Corporate Crime Capitals Lucia Alvarez Diego Gonzalez Argentina's Political Future James Rothenberg The Iraqi Miracle Website of the Day Bio-Bling?   November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran Stephen Soldz War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire Sheldon Richman Iraq 3.0 George Wuerthner Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws Felice Pace Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis? Col. Dan Smith The Meaning of Annapolis Harvey Wasserman Terror Target Nukes Nikolas Kozloff Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08 Paul Krassner Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike! Dave Lindorff News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela? CP News Service The One State Declaration Website of the Day A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter November 28, 2007 James Petras CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces on Venezuela Jeff Halper Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One Way Street Pam Martens Crashing Citigroup Peter Morici Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession Mohammed Khatib Separate and Unequal in Palestine Helen Redmond The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America William S. Lind In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm? Ben Tripp We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges Jeff Berg Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran Website of the Day The Lies of Joe Klein   November 27, 2007 Joe DeRaymond On the Road to the Torture School Paul Craig Roberts Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary and Rudy Marjorie Cohn Remembering Victor Rabinowitz Mike Whitney A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp Ron Jacobs The Myths of Military Progress Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work Ralph Nader Family Learning Karim Makdisi Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut Christopher Ketcham Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop Ronan Bennett Martin Amis Does a Coulter Website of the Day Celebrating the Uncensored Media   November 26, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Heading for Annapolis Paul Craig Roberts The End of All That David Macaray Enter Mediator Sameer Dossani Pakistan's Wounded Dictator Roger Burbach The Final Battle in Bolivia Mark Scaramella Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire Brian McKinlay Howard's End Rick Kuhn The Fall of a Racist Union Buster Binoy Kampmark Ruddslide and Dull Alec Monica Benderman What Do You Know of War? Brenda Norrell Return to Alcatraz Website of the Day Ghostworld by DJ Spooky   November 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, MD Robert Fisk Darkness Falls on the Middle East Saul Landau Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P. Jeffrey St. Clair Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism Rannie Amiri Beirut's Black Friday Christopher Brauchli Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace Daniel Gross The Gap and Black Friday Mike Whitney "A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions" Marjorie Cohn Iran and the 2008 Elections David Rosen Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans David Michael Green If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom .... Kenneth Rexroth When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan Muhammad Iqbal Trans. Shahid Alam Ghazal Website of the Day Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill November 23, 2007 Gary Leupp Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat Valley Laura Carlsen Coming to Terms with Diversity in Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP David Macaray Keeping Labor Unions Out Andy Worthington Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden Clifton Ross Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant Seth Sandronsky Battling Sodexho Dan Bacher Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation William A. Cook The Myth of Middle East Peace Website of the Day Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short Film   November 22, 2007 Alan Farago Who Lost America's Everglades? Greg Moses A Thanksgiving Basting Dave Lindorff Impeachment is Back on the Table Mike Ely Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving Omar Azfar Gore for President of Pakistan?   November 21, 2007 Vijay Prashad Our Dictator, Their Democracy Martha Rosenberg Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Epiphany on the Glacier John Ross The Last Days of Mexican Corn Brian McKenna Cancer Terrorists Unmasked Stephen Soldz Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo Monica Benderman Needing Peace Ben Terrall Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar Website of the Day Mercy for Animals               Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition December 29 / 30, 2007 Redacted, a Review Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage By KIM NICOLINI Brian De Palma's Redacted is hard to watch. When I first left the movie, the one word that held fast in my mind was "hard." The message of the movie is hard. The truth of the movie is hard. The way the movie challenges us is hard. Based on the real life incident involving US soldiers who raped, murdered and then burned a 15 year old Iraqi girl, this movie is not easy. This movie is like De Palma's scream of outrage. By whipping us back and forth through various video medium ­ hand-held camcorders, internet video, surveillance cameras, and documentary footage ­ , De Palma's movie is a scathing and damming document that underscores the absolute absurd, irrational, and senseless violence of the war in Iraq. It also reminds us how sheltered we have been from the harsh truth of the bloodshed, murder and atrocities that are occurring on a daily basis (that are occurring even now as I write this). Redacted is an indictment of the war and the media censorship that has hidden the war from the public. It shows us how the reality of the war has been excised from mass media and the public eye, and it unveils in graphic and shattering detail the consequences of the war and media censorship. Critics have had a hard time with De Palma's movie. It's jarring, confusing, and disorienting. It leaves us psychologically and physically shaken up. Watching it literally makes our head spin just from the sheer velocity of the images being thrown at us. The whole movie is layered with a kind of digital noise as our eyes and senses try to adjust to violently shaking hand-held video, dark and murky infrared shots, and gritty low volume surveillance footage. It's a movie that is physically challenging to watch. It hurts our eyes. Our ears struggle to hear. We fight to make sense of what we are seeing. We leave the movie feeling a lot like this clip makes us feel. At first I wondered what I could possibly say about this movie that slapped me so hard and left me so shaken. How can I possibly sit here and theorize a film when there is an actual war going on and people are dying? But the more I thought about the movie, the more I realized how brilliant, innovative, and important it is. This movie is like a cinematic act of protest in which De Palma manipulates video media, gets in our face and forces us to confront the war and ask questions. It opens with the soldier Salazar talking into his own video camera, and we immediately lose our ground. We don't know if we're watching real video footage or a fictional recreation of real footage. Then De Palma uses authentic documentary technique and launches into a French documentary about US military checkpoints in Iraq. Again we are not sure if we are watching a real documentary that has been incorporated into the film or a simulation of a documentary. This disorienting effect goes on and on as we are pulled back and forth between our sense of what is real and what is simulated. There are a number of web videos presented in the film, including an American site dedicated to soldiers' wives and an Iraqi site that shows the execution of an American soldier . De Palma has gone so far as to create entire web pages that fill the movie screen. They look so real that it is hard for us to fathom that they could possibly be fiction. The confusing line between fiction and fact itself makes us think about how manipulated we are by the media and the information we are given (not given) about the war. The information we are given in mass media is "redacted," edited, manipulated and filtered so the actual war is removed from it. Whatever "true" images we are given from the war is provided by these outside mediums ­ blogs, personnel camcorders, cell phone photos, or appropriated surveillance footage. We do not see the graphic representation of the casualties of war that deluged the media during the Vietnam War. Speaking of which, it's interesting that the one overt film reference in the movie (because it wouldn't be De Palma without an over film reference) is from Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) in a scene in which we watch a scorpion get killed by ants. The Wild Bunch is ostensibly a Vietnam War movie set in the Wild West. The Wild Bunch is a fictionalized account of the massive senseless killing of the Vietnam War. It follows a troop of men and the uncensored violence and bloodshed for which they are responsible just as we see in Redacted. The overt reference to film further complicates the web of media that winds its way around us in this movie. Interestingly, the effect of using hand-held video cameras, surveillance cameras and web footage should provide a more "immediate" and "real" sense of the war. Instead, it actually conflates the "real" and the "artificial." While the presentation of the footage seems trustworthy as video documents given the intimacy of the medium, the actual digital medium itself also distances us. The technology of the medium leaves us feeling disoriented and unclear. Everything is pixilated, fragmented, grainy, and distorted. We simultaneously feel like we are watching something as reliable as a "home movie" but also feel like we are left outside the screen given the distortion of the medium. There's an agitated realness coupled with a kind of electronic noise that simulates stasis. Stasis is an effect of this movie as well. There are a number of long shots in which the soldiers do nothing. We sit and watch them holding their guns absent-mindedly at the checkpoint. They stare into the sun and dust and say nothing and do nothing. We get a sense of the ludicrousness of the war, that these soldiers are in Iraq killing time while killing people. We get a sense of emptiness and boredom laced with the threat of death and random violence. The flat affect of the soldiers compounds this effect. The two "villains" in particular seem as though they are operating on some kind of low budget sitcom set. Their banter seems canned and empty, like the entire depth of their existence reaches only as deep as a video game. The digital format of the movie exaggerates this effect. In addition, the soldiers distance themselves from the reality of war through their video cameras. Salazar is filming the war to get into film school and watches everything through his camera lens. He has turned his tour into a project and therefore distances himself from the reality of his situation, until he gets his head cut off in an act of revenge. He and one of his buddies who is also filming the war negotiate a trade of film footage should one of them die in the war. Without being overt, we get the sense that these men live mediated lives, whether through video/computer games, the internet, or their own camcorders. They are one-step removed from the violence in which they participate because they are insulated by the media. In fact, De Palma's overall point is that the media insulates and manipulates us, so that the war and its ceaseless murder, torture and crimes can continue to be committed safely out of public scrutiny. The overall effect of this film is unsettling and horrifying. It's no surprise that De Palma, a master of the horror genre, has created a horror film about war. The effect of the film is like watching The Blair Witch Project in Iraq. We are violently tossed through the landscape of the film like we're riding some kind of crazy roller coaster. The rape and murder scene reminds us of the final scenes in the abandoned house in Blair Witch when we finally arrive at the site of the horror. Indeed the house in Redacted is also the site of the horror. But this is a real life horror. American soldiers did rape, murder and burn a fifteen year old Iraqi girl. How do we process this information? De Palma gives us a fictionalized account of a real event. He manipulates media to show how we are manipulated by media. He conflates fictional violence with real violence, and he forces us to try to understand a situation that is beyond comprehension. As theoretically complex and interesting as this movie is to think about in terms of media and how it has filtered the war ­ the role of blogs, camcorders and other personal media devices compared to mass media coverage ­, in the end we are left outraged and mortified. De Palma ends the movie with a series of still photos of carnage from the actual war. Shot after shot after shot fills the screen. Dead bodies, dead babies, women screaming, men's heads blown off, and finally the actual burned corpse of the girl who was raped and murdered. In this sequence, he shows us what we don't see. We are no longer confused by the source of the material. This is not a blog or youtube. This is the real thing. What's remarkable is how different the actual still photographs are from the video footage, how much more real they seem. We realize the extent to which we have been sheltered from these kinds of images of the war. While documentary photos were all over Time and Life magazine during the Vietnam War, we rarely see these kinds of pictures today. De Palma forces us to witness that from which we have been censored, and it is horrifying. That is why it was hard for me to write about this movie or wonder what I can possibly say about it. More than anything, it is De Palma screaming his outrage. And we should be outraged. All of us. But now what do we do now? Writing a review of a movie certainly seems like an impotent act of self-indulgence after seeing that girl's corpse on the screen. The real problem with the movie isn't the movie itself or our inability to understand what De Palma is doing. It's our inability to understand something that ultimately cannot be understood ­ the war, the casualties, the horror. The real problem with the movie is not understanding what we should do now that we have seen this movie. Like I said, it's hard. Real hard. Kim Nicolini is an artist, poet and cultural critic. She lives in Tucson, Arizona with her partner, daughter, and a menagerie of beasts. She works a day job to support her art and culture habits. She is currently finishing a book-length essayistic memoir about growing up as a punk sex worker in 1970s San Francisco. Her work has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Bullhorn and Berkeley Review. She can be reached at: knicolini@gmail.com. Your Ad Here

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