De Palma's Redacted Sizzles Emotions Over Iraq

One of eight movies on the Iraq war scheduled for release over the next year, Redacted by Brian De Palma sheds light on a night of gruesome crimes, while Bill O'Reilly organizes protests.

Redacted comes out this week at select theaters

(SALEM, Ore.) - 'Redacted' is more than a shocker of a movie, it's Brian De Palma's beyond brutal, no-holes-barred journey through the camera lens and into the minds of two twisted young men in Iraq who showed no hesitation in raping a young girl and stealing her life, as well as those of her family.

Shot from the movie 'Redacted'

The release of the new film later this week has the FOX network's Bill O'Reilly agitated and running at near boiling point, but people who operate with bad information like O'Reilly are almost never right, unless you are talking about politics of course.

O'Reilly's political fanaticism is causing a frenzy as he encourages the intimidation of people who simply plan to watch the movie.

He is trying to rally right leaning veterans to protest and boycott 'Redacted' because it shows bad soldiers in a bad light. There is nothing wrong with telling the truth, regardless of how hard some people take it.

The movie represents the horrors of Iraq, it plays with quotes drawn from places like "FOX News" where reporters never did tell Americans that Iraq was not connected to the 9/11 attacks.

I think most Americans care about things on this earth in the right order, but for those who insist on going the other way, this mental midget named Bill O'Reilly is there to hold the torch high.

His perspective is frightening, that of the little man in his suit and safe surroundings, rooting, urging, demanding the blood of people in Iraq and consequently, the blood of our own. He sure as hell isn't over there, he wants your sons and daughters there.

He isn't willing to accept the truth of what we are doing in the war in Iraq, veterans say it is a horrible nightmare that is going to plague thousands for many years to come.

The movie may touch a raw nerve with Americans, particularly veterans, but O'Reilly's point of view equates to more divisiveness, more polarity. If the crime this movie centers around happened in the continental U.S., the nation would be horrified. We still should be.

The movie revolves around the rape of 15-year old Abeer Qasim Hamza, pictured here as a younger child on an Iraqi Identification card

It can't be proven, but one Oregonian and one Texan were almost certainly murdered over the rape of the young Iraqi girl that is the basis of the storyline in Brian DePalma's new movie, and O'Reilly's desires to discredit and grumble over this thing we call 'freedom' in this country is not closely tied to any notions of freedom.

Some veterans groups have joined hands with O'Reilly in denouncing the movie and calling for protests and demonstrations. They apparently fall somewhere between the "bury the truth" and "well that's what happens in war" mentalities.

Most Troops Would Never Consider it

Just remember, most soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen will never even consider a major crime like rape or murder in their lifetimes. Why are we supposed to accept this crazy notion that "things like that happen in war"? What a mistake every person makes when they parrot this statement. Killing is war, yes. Plotting the rape of a young girl is not part of it. Don't try to confuse such entirely different subjects.

There is this strange belief in the United States that we should be able to commit war crimes and not have to answer for them. Hell, Bush and his team have tried to write it into the laws and they have succeeded to a degree with that.

I don't want movies or facts like this to exist either, but they do. Still, O'Reilly wants to persecute De Palma and in the end, it will only bring the movie more attention.

Do you remember when Tommy Tucker of Redmond, Oregon and Kristian Menchaca of Houston, Texas were captured, tortured and beheaded in the summer of '06?

Brian De Palma of the movie 'Redacted'

It wasn't standard combat, their deaths were more likely a revenge killing for the rape of the Iraqi girl, 15-year old Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi who lived near Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, and the murder of her family. They were attached to the same military unit as the offenders, but they were the ones that were captured, they are the ones who paid with their lives.

Tortured and beheaded, even though they had nothing to do with the rape of the girl and the murders. They were just soldiers, and they died because a group of dirtbags decided that human life is worth less than a night of depraved sex and death.

A group in Iraq released a graphic video in July '06 showing the bodies of PFC Thomas Lowell Tucker and PFC Kristian Menchaca, after they were allegedly kidnapped, tortured and beheaded by insurgents.

A voice at the beginning of the video states that it is being presented as "revenge for our sister who was dishonored by a soldier of the same brigade." The video referred to the Mahmudiyah incident, in which the five U.S. soldiers murdered the Iraqi girl named Abeer Qasim Hamza, after murdering her mother, 34-year old Fakhriyah Taha Muhsin; her father 45-year old Qasim Hamza Raheem; and her sister 7-year old Hadeel Qasim Hamza.

A statement issued along with the video stated that "God Almighty enabled them to capture two soldiers of the same brigade as this dirty crusader."

Don't worry Bill, that is how most people already feel about you

In his stupid statements and dark heart, O'Reilly is sticking up for the rapists and murders, not the 99% of the troops like Tommy Tucker and Kristian Menchaca who would never consider hurting an innocent civilian family. That's what it comes down to.

He seems to think that major crimes and criminal acts that are in-your-face violations of the very laws we are charged with enforcing, should be ignored and passed over.

O'Reilly is not a friend of the troops. The good of most is being forgotten as his tirade gets louder.

He knows that our nation has been plunged into despair over Iraq, he knows about all the mistakes our leaders have made, yet he thinks it is more important to scandalize this movie than just accept that having a truly free nation means you deal with a lot of things you don't like.

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He should know about dislike, he is one of the biggest polarizers and dividers ever imagined under the guise of freedom of speech. A hate conductor with few parallels, countless thousands of Americans believe O'Reilly should be locked up for the lies he injects into the minds of the public on FOX News.

One big difference between O'Reilly and De Palma is that O'Reilly is a known liar and propagandist, while De Palma is another tortured soul who is willing to take his craft to the most uncomfortable place.

Truth Hurts

O'Reilly doesn't consider how this movie may snap people into line, scare them straight, and make them realize that they will be brought down if they stray over the line. Since Bush and Cheney urged the Congress to begin accepting enlistees from category 4 on the AZVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test) the rate of crimes in Iraq has gone up. The same events preceded the worst war crime of Vietnam.

Redacted is put together with what appear to be, real clips from soldier's video cameras, and Internet clips from sites like YouTube. One scene shows an American peace activist who makes a statement on the Web that sets true all of the right wing propaganda about how Hollywood sees life:

This is the one who everybody should blame, rapist and former Army Private Steven Green

"You don't see the My Lai Massacre in the movies, because the truths of that fascist orgy, are just too hellish for even liberal Hollywood to cop to. Oh, but that doesn't stop them from making another movie about 9/11, because an American life is worth so much more than a Vietnamese life, a Palestinian, a Lebanese or an Iraqi life because we are the uber race.

It is doubtful, but maybe De Palma didn't realize that the liberal Hollywood mentioned in this movie has decided that the story of My Lai, the rape and massacre of over 400 civilians in Vietnam, is going to hit the screen soon also. Oscar-winning director and Vietnam vet Oliver Stone says he wanted his film portrayal of the 1968 My Lai massacre by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam to serve as a reminder of war atrocities.

De Palma said the same thing about Iraq.

But we have to remember that these storylines aren't about soldiers, they are about the actions of criminals and animals in war and there is not ever an excuse for raping or murdering human being. Only the shrills of O'Reilly and others like him spread their stain to make it be about all of our soldiers. It is about a sad few who influence so many.

A fictional story inspired by true events, 'redacted' is a gut wrenching cinematic statement about the war in Iraq from one of film's greatest provocateurs.

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with almost twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist and reporter. Today, in addition to his role as a war correspondent in Afghanistan where he spent the winter of 2006/07, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor. Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated only with Google News. You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com