Regarding Harrison Ford's willingness to be Hollywood's propaganda for Falluja

Yesterday I actually watched some TV. I skipped around from show to show as they got boring and as advertisements broke in. One show that I came back to from time to time was a focus on Hollywood director Phillip Noyce (an Australian), who directed a couple of movies with Harrison Ford portraying Jack Ryan, the CIA operative in Tom Clancy's novels.

I haven't liked Harrison Ford since the Star Wars movies back when. He is one of the most overrated, in my opinion, of Hollywood's stars - a one-dimensional character whom they say is just like the guy you see on the screen. Today's John Wayne (another terrible actor). Director Noyce was talking about how they decided to make Jack Ryan react differently to a viewing of murders than author Clancy had the character react in the book Patriot Games, which movie Noyce was directing. He said Clancy was very unhappy about the way they changed the character from someone who stonily appreciated the killing aspects that were a large part of his career. Noyce and Ford decided Ryan should be a sympathetic character for the audience. They looked on him as a hero, and they didn't believe a hero would be so cold-hearted. Obviously they understand very little about the CIA.

But, see how that works? It's the same mentality Americans have about all their war "heroes". Our guys have good hearts. Their killing is of a heroic, selfless nature. Harrison Ford is just portraying on screen the delusion that we wish to maintain about ourselves. Bringing you entertainment, not a portrayal of life. (There should be a different category for people who perform those roles - just call them entertainers, not actors - that insults the really fine actors out there.)

So anyway, it comes as no surprise to me this morning to see that Mr. Ford is considering another role guaranteed to entertain you and keep you divorced from reality.

Producers at Universal Pictures are developing what would be Hollywood's first feature film about the war in Iraq, with actor Harrison Ford ready to portray a U.S. general in the movie, the studio said on Friday.

The combat drama would be based on the upcoming book "No True Glory," an account of the battle for Falluja by Bing West, a Marine veteran and former U.S. assistant defense secretary now covering the war as a foreign correspondent, a studio spokesman said.

[...]

In "No True Glory" he would play Maj. Gen. James Mattis, the U.S. Marine commander ordered to lead an assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, after four Americans contractors were killed and mutilated there by a mob in March 2004.

The offensive was halted the following month, and the Marines were withdrawn until U.S. forces renewed their assault on the Sunni Muslim city following the American presidential election in November.

Reuters article

Here's the author Bing West (covering the war as a "foreign" correspondent??) on December 8 at MSNBC online:

The city's warlords, Janabi and Hadid, paid obeisance to the arch terrorist Zarqawi and competed for his favor by assassinations and bombings. They bragged their "martyr battalions" would cut to pieces any American force entering the city.

Deciding otherwise, the residents fled the city, leaving a few thousand jihadists to their fate. In a swift offensive, American soldiers and Marines swept in and hunted them down, destroying every house and mosque where Zarqawi's soldiers stood and fought. Seventeen-thousand buildings were searched, uncovering cache after cache of weapons. The numbers were staggering: Over 100,000 explosives found in just one section of the city.

Bulldozers and backhoes are now shoveling the debris from the streets. The few remaining insurgents emerging from the ruins have been quickly cut down. The other day, four of them fired from a cluttered alley at two passing Humvees. Half a minute later, they were dead. A Marine battalion commander, Lt. Col. Pat Malay, shot the last of the four.

"It's a good day when you get into it," Cpl. Michael Yerena, the vehicle commander in the second Humvee, said to me. "You feel you've earned your pay."

[...]

Politically, Fallujah was as infected as the air at the torture house at the corner of the park. Many of the residents were complicit in the reign of terror. Whether the city returns to its murderous ways depends on the resolve of the Iraqi security forces now moving into the city. Voter turnout in January will be an indictor of how the political winds are blowing.

Militarily, the battle of Fallujah was an unqualified success. Zarqawi has been deprived of his sanctuary. He will spend more time on the run and have less time to blow up and decapitate people.

And here's the reality of Falluja in today's news (which is very scantly reported; try changing your search to "al-Anbar", the province in which Falluja is located):

The US military has renewed its aerial assault of Falluja amid reports of fierce clashes with the city's resistance, an Iraqi journalist said.

According to independent Iraqi journalist Fadhil al-Badrani, US warplanes targeted Falluja's eastern and southern districts.

He said fierce clashes had broken out in the city centre between US forces who have been in the city since 8 November and Iraqi fighters who had infiltrated back in across the Euphrates river.

"There is no way to determine the number of casualties as US authorities have barred journalists and aid workers from entering Falluja," al-Badrani told Aljazeera.

Aljazeera article

U.S. forces, fighting what they now acknowledge as formidable foes in Iraq, are improvising along the road to an exit that Washington can call a success.

American-led forces face "a very, very sophisticated enemy," Major General Stephen Speakes said this week -- a change in tone from early postwar talk of a "dead-end" rabble of Saddam-era "thugs" which U.S. commanders said they were mopping up.

With troops taking hundreds of casualties a month, American commanders on Thursday tripled the bonus paid to reservists who re-enlist and almost doubled the initial recruitment bonus.

[...]

Falluja is a virtual ghost town, but Marines were still shelling guerrilla strongpoints on Friday, clouding hopes that most of the city's 300,000 residents can return home soon.

U.S. generals concede the Falluja attack did not quell the insurgency, but say it unsettled its Iraqi and foreign leaders.

Yet the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, Lieutenant General Lance Smith, also said this week the guerrillas were "becoming more effective", particularly at disrupting convoys.

Arab Times Online article

"U.S. forces will allow families to return to the Andalous area starting Friday under a 10-day timetable," Mahmoud Ibrahim said, referring to a neighbourhood in the southwest of Falluja.

But there was no immediate evidence of anyone returning and witnesses said U.S. forces still battling pockets of die-hard insurgents shelled Falluja on Friday.

Sign On San Diego article

Reuters has the headline for this report as: "Falluja refugees to start returning". Always misleading.

There was no immediate evidence of anyone returning.

More than 200,000 people have yet to go home and many are in need of aid as night temperatures in Iraq sink toward freezing. U.S. forces have so far prevented refugees from returning, saying basic facilities must be restored first.

The city has been without power or water since the attack, which also destroyed hundreds of buildings and left power and communication lines severed and lying in the streets.

Iraq's interim government said on Thursday civilians would be allowed to start returning home next week.

Reuters article

Because they are going to have power and water by next week? Sure. Those "renewed" airstrikes should be a nice invitation to return, as well.

Aljazeera is reporting a little differently than Reuters (surprise!).

The US military had earlier said it could not recommend to the Iraqi interim government the return of residents to Falluja.

"At some point we will make a recommendation; we have not reached that point," Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wilson, a deputy commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, told reporters in a military base near Falluja late on Friday. Aljazeera article

And let's review the plan for when they do return, anyway.

Residents will now officially be denied entry until at least Dec. 24; and even then, only the heads of households will be allowed in, a few at a time, to assess damage to their residences in the largely destroyed city.

With a few notable exceptions the media has accepted the recent virtual news blackout in Falluja.

[...]

Entry and exit from the city will be restricted.

[...]

Fallujans are to wear their universal identity cards in plain sight at all times.

[...]

No private automobiles will be allowed inside the city.

[...]

Only those Fallujans cleared through American intelligence vettings will be allowed to work on the reconstruction of the city.

[...]

Those engaged in reconstruction work - that is, work - in the city may be organized into "work brigades."

Alternet article

Zieg heil. Bet they can't wait to get home and get cracking.