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CounterPunch
February
19, 2003
War as Hollywood
Western
Cowboy Dreams
by STEVE PERRY
There are moments when the noisy rush to war is
a little too much to absorb, and the whole scene slips into dreamtime.
I have no idea who or what populates your dream of war, but mine--well,
say that we are all extras in the last epic Western.
I. High
Noon, every day about this time
The town is astir--again, always--with
news of hostiles gathering nearby, occupying rich territories
yet to be conquered. The sheriff is mightily agitated. Bush is
a High Noon man: He likes the idea of standing alone in
the middle of the street, squinting into the sun. If you do it
any other way, you wind up having to share Grace Kelly after
the picture's over. Friend, would you want to share Grace Kelly?
II. Howard
Hawks hated High Noon
He said that was why, years later, he
made Rio Bravo. He believed that the romantic loner who
stood tall against every outlaw was a dangerous, juvenile lie.
So Hawks made a movie about a group of men and women finding
the best part of themselves in a crisis, and surviving together.
They're screening it at the UN this month.
III. But
remember
This is a Western, which means somebody
has to pay in blood.
IV. George
W's Dream
He's not a bad kid. Rambunctious, sure,
but that's good. You'd never figure a squirt like that to turn
out tougher than his brothers and his daddy, but he did. He's
wiry as hell. He ain't all about oil like they say. That's the
spoils. He means to protect the Alamo from the Mexican bandit
Saddam Hussein, simple as that. In his heart he just wants a
good fight, a chance to stand up and be the kind of man his mama
taught him.
V. Dick
Cheney's Dream
There's so goddamn much to do that the
star of the movie never even sees, so many backroom meetings
choked with cigar smoke (and him with his bad heart!), and guys
like Dick Cheney never even wind up with a big part. They are
the ones who hang around the saloon in string ties and fancy
vests, sitting at tables of their own in the back, making the
deals that keep the wheels greased. These guys never get their
due in Westerns. You realize they 're powerful, sure, but do
you really understand what would become of your shitty little
epic without them? There's a whole other world behind the scenes
of a big-budget movie like this, and if you want to enjoy the
picture, better you don't know about it.
VI. They
Died With Their Boots On
But this is a latter-day Western, a tragic
picture. You know the posse's past its prime and all the easy
pickings are gone from the frontier and it's time to settle down
and learn to live with what you've got. But the head guy is a
callow little bastard. He's bitten off more than he can chew
and wants more. It isn't that he's going to come to ruin anytime
soon--the way he goes about picking fights, how could he? But
the point is, all the various Indian tribes are talking amongst
themselves now. That's never really happened before. The little
bastard hears of this and shakes his head. He tells his men he
doesn't want to have to kill them all, but his eyes say otherwise.
(The truth is, he is just trying to look like John Wayne in The
Searchers: no more, no less.) By now some of the men can
see he's dangerous; others will forever believe he would not
be the head man if he weren't always right. But they all know
you don't fuck with John Wayne just because, in this picture,
he happens to be crazy.
Steve Perry,
long time CounterPunch contributer, is theeditor of the Minneapolis/St.
Paul alternative weekly City
Pages. Email him directly at sperry@citypages.com.
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February 15
/ 16, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Colin
Powell and the Great "Intelligence Fraud"
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
The Whole World is Watching
Edward Said
A Monumental Hypocrisy
Wouter Hijink
Report from Amsterdam
"War: Do Not Feed!"
Linda Heard
At Last! Proud to be British
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
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A War Without Legitimacy
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Cold Fronts:
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Norman Madarasz
French Kisses from the Citizens of France
Adam Lebowitz
Scott Ritter in Tokyo
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Bring Us the Head of Osama bin Laden
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The Revolt in Bolivia
Col. Dan Smith
Irrelevance and Credibility:
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Wayne Madsen
The Lies of Tom Lantos
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The Invisible Modernities of the Islamic World
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Who's Safe Now?
An American in Cairo
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Website of the Weekend
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
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by Alexander
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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