Posted on 06/20/2006 3:36:36 AM PDT by xzins
I wondered if Hollywood tried to put a liberal slant on this particular aspect of the movie Lawrence of Arabia.
But maybe if they filmed that scene as it actually happened, the audience probably would have sided with the Arabs and Lawrence.
For a 3 to 4 year old girl was truly terrified of someone from her village coming upon her and trying to help - because of the atrocity committed BY THE TURKS in the village of Tafas on September 27, 1918.
In this case, the greater atrocity was committed by the Turks - the murder of women and little children.
And the movie omits the last breaths of a dying little girl, with blood gushing out of her as someone from her village tries to comfort her.
The civilized thing to do was to capture the Turks and then string them up for their war crimes on this defenseless village.
After reading some of those paragraphs from Lawrence's book, I can understand what happened, and not blame Lawrence or the Arabs. It was the Turks that committed the greater atrocity.
With some of our soldiers/marines/sailors on trial for the supposed murder of Iraqis, may this part of history (that of Lawrence of Arabia and the village of Tafas) might need even greater reflection.
The real problem America faces today is the illness from the Liberal Media - they tend to blow things out of proportion so that they can attain their liberal goals - they will crucify our troops if it serves their liberal goals.
Congressman Murtha of Pennsylvania, in my opinion, is the worth of these people.
He, of all people, should not be so quick to be the judge, jury, and executioner of our troops. He should be their advocate.
Instead, because of party affliation, I believe him to be a poisonous snake that is filling our country with poisonous thoughts...
Sorry for the long commentary...
But maybe one should reflect on the events around the village of Tafas in Syria on September 27, 1918.
But given what is going on in Iraq, that is a very minor problem considering the problems facing the Iraqi people...
At least in my opinion.
One problem the story does not relate is that there was a delay in recovering the bodies since the bodies were booby trapped. That allowed for information to flow to the Iraqi authorities, who were probably quite hotly involved in trying to find the missing GIs.
This was also the size of the Arabs led by Lawrence, some of which did not have guns to fight the Turks with.
The movie does have earlier scenes where Turks were made prisoners and showed how humanely they were treated. When the US war correspondent asked questions about this, King Feisal tells of how the Arabs were treated by the Turks - which is just too harshly to describe.
With this in mind, I think Hollywood did overblow the fact that Lawrence's column did not take prisoners - the Turks had committed atrocities themselves.
I do remember a scene from I believe the movie The Longest Day where the US Rangers that took the cliffs with German gun emplacements.
In that scene, the Germans were trying to surrender saying bitte, bitte.
After one of the Rangers after killing the Germans saying that, asked another Ranger: I wonder what bitte means.
Bitte in German is not surrender but PLEASE...
In that case, since it was American soldiers it was slanted another way than what happened at Tafas...
A contrast of the new Liberal Hollywood versus the older, more traditional Hollywood - the traditional, conservative Hollywood knew how to make money at 10 cents a ticket rather than the new Liberal Hollywood that loses money with movie tickets costing 10 dollars...
Well, I think Lean was using that scene to really hammer home the idea of Lawrence (the movie version) descending into madness and egomania. It's interesting how the scene is so close to a straight depiction of the true events, but small tweaks added such a different meaning.
As far as the Turkish atrocities, I wonder if the depiction of the dead village had to be toned down to meet the standards of the day. Personally, I thought the blowing scarf and the upright sword were pretty powerful...
The scene between Feisal and the reporter is one of my favorites; especially the "with me, it is merely good manners" line...
I originally thought about this.
But you could still have had a scene where there is a terrified child that is apparently dying, giving the expressions as described in the book. It is possible to do that in such a way as to it tastefully and not have lots of blood as part of the scene.
But even more important was the description by Lawrence that it was not easy to defeat this Turkish column. There were some positions that were very well defended, and it was unclear if they would be defeated and and allow the advance on Damascus.
Where the movie strays is that Lawrence says that he did have to fight one of the two columns, and that he chose to go around the column of 4 thousand Turkish soldiers and take on the column of 2 thousand soldiers.
The key point from my perspective is that unless you read both the previous several chapter and the chapter where the No Prisoners action takes place. But in the previous chapter, Lawrence said that the Howeitat did not take prisoners. So the book makes for some gray lines the movie does not depict...
The chapters in question are only a few pages long each. It is just how the book is written.
It is probably an important literary work, as the events in the book helped to shape the Middle East as we know it today, to some extent. So this book and the other one by Lawrence might be work the time spent reading...
June 23, 2006, 2:42PM
HOUSTON SOLDIER
Three slain troops were left behind to guard bridge, military says
Inquiry to focus on why they were alone, a possible protocol violation
Associated Press
TIKRIT, IRAQ - Two missing soldiers whose mutilated bodies were found after a massive search had been left alone at a checkpoint near Baghdad while other vehicles in their patrol inspected traffic, a military spokesman said Thursday.
Soon after Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston and another private vanished and another soldier was killed last Friday, one Iraqi told reporters that insurgents had managed to separate a three-Humvee convoy by opening fire and forcing two of the vehicles to give chase.
Other Iraqis told reporters that the vehicle carrying Menchaca and his two companions had fallen behind the convoy and was attacked by insurgents.
Those reports now appear to be wrong, said Lt. Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, a U.S. spokeswoman in Tikrit.
Menchaca and the two other soldiers had been left with one Humvee to guard a hydraulic bridge at a Euphrates River canal about 12 miles south of Baghdad. When the Humvee was attacked by insurgents, others in the unit could not see the vehicle and were checking on their colleagues by radio, Martin-Hing said.
She said a focus of the investigation will be to determine why the three-man team had been left at the canal. Army protocols are designed to prevent such attacks.
"The investigation is going to look at whether proper procedures were followed," Martin-Hing said.
The bodies of Menchaca, 23, and Pfc. Thomas Tucker, 25, of Oregon were found late Monday in Yusufiya, a few miles from the attack scene, during a search by about 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops.
The bodies were sent to Dover Air Base in Delaware for DNA testing. The body of the third soldier, Spc. David Babineau, 25, was found Friday at the scene of the attack.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3994673.html
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