Shales: Right-wing flapping, Pentagon worried over brilliant "Baghdad ER"

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: 'Baghdad ER': Saluting Valor On the Medical Front Lines
By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 20, 2006; Page C01

To read political motives into "Baghdad ER," a poignant and powerful documentary about military medical personnel working in Iraq, would be to insult and diminish not only the film but also its subjects. Even so, the right wing has started flapping already, and the Pentagon reputedly finds the movie worrisome.

Truth is always worrisome to those with vested interests. Those who would denigrate the film -- which is a lesson in humanity, not politics -- presumably have chosen to ignore the printed prologue on the screen: "This film is a tribute to the heroism and sacrifice of the soldiers who are the patients and staff of the 86th Combat Support Hospital" -- men and women working feverishly and around the clock to put wounded soldiers back together amid the horror of a bedeviling war.

"Baghdad ER," premiering tomorrow night on HBO (with a timely encore on Memorial Day at 10 p.m.), deals far more in actions than in words -- the sometimes desperate actions of medical personnel who repair wounds, alleviate suffering and try to restore the spirits of soldiers who arrive in the hospital with bodies riddled by shrapnel or with severely mangled limbs....

***

HBO leaked a print of the film to an op-ed pundit who wrote about it weeks ago and noted that it was neither pro-war nor antiwar. It sets one to wondering: What kind of documentary filmmaker of measurable sanity would set out to make a pro-war movie? Haven't the lunacy and inefficiency of war been fairly well established after all these centuries?...

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"Baghdad ER," which brings the war home more painfully than perhaps any other film has done, or tried to do, is sheer, if bitter, brilliance.

(Baghdad ER (60 minutes) airs Sunday night at 8 on HBO.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901984.html

[acmejack]

1. Let them see MASH without the jokes.

real blood and pain. Everyone who thought this miserable fucking war was a good idea should be made to watch. Especially all of our courageous leaders who still won't admit we need to bring our kids home now! we need to be scheming more Cindy & Colbert moments we got get people fired up coming down the stretch.

throw the bums out & pray it ain't too late.

[tjwash]

2. There's a war going on?

Oh that's right, they just stopped reporting everything after the carnage started making the thief in power look like the fucking power hungry cretin that he really is.

I have seen more stories about Paris Hilton's mutt the past month in our fish wrap out here, than what's happening in the M.E. right now.

[madrchsod]

4. yes -the mexican american war

iraq is so yesterday

[tanyev]

3. God forbid people see the true ugliness of war.

It makes it very hard to keep catapulting the propaganda.

[DearAbby]

5. There is a reason in their twisted little minds

not to show the coffins, not to have the news, like they had during the Vietnam war. The public will see exactly what the costs of this war are.

That is the very reason they try to silence Cindy Sheehan. This movie will bring the war into American livingrooms...and they cant have that. People will begin to ask the same question, Cindy has. What noble cause...?

I dont have cable, so I will be unable to watch this film. But I applaud those that produced it. American has gone on too long, with her blindfold on. We need to see the horror of war, maybe then people will stop creating it.

That is the reason the Pentegon is worried about this film, IMHO.