"We're not evil, just misunderstood!"
Explosives Ordnance Disposal, incredible professionals portrayed in "Over There"
as total slackers. (Photo by Michael Fumento)
Posted on 08/15/2005 10:32:51 AM PDT by OESY
"Peace at any price" purveyors are going gaga over the new FX Channel series "depicting" the Iraq war, "Over There," produced by Steven Bochco of Hill Street Blues fame. "Wow! Anybody else watch Over There last night?" gushed a writer for the heavily-read antiwar blogsite, Daily Kos. "Within a few minutes . . . it was obvious that Iraq was Vietnam all over again."
How a fictional show shot in La La Land could make anything about Iraq policy "obvious" is hard to fathom. But the series does tout its realism, as have some reviewers who've never gotten closer to Iraq than filling their gas tanks. Further, Bochco claims it's politically neutral. Unfortunately, "Over There" puts reality in a body bag and is as unbiased as if scripted by a guy named Allen Qaeda.
If "Over There" has a true military advisor, he deserves the firing squad. In the first episode a squad is pinned down while besieging a terrorist-filled mosque. The unit remains for about 36 hours with no air support, because "Air is dedicated to another area." Never mind that planes or choppers are always available within minutes. They request artillery, again to no avail. There's no armor.
In order to include women, two females from a transportation unit just happen to join the siege. In fact, they just happen to tag along for the rest of the series! Reality is sacrificed to the God of Diversity. Why didn't Bochco also include a Klingon?
Towards the end of the show a troop transport pulls off to the side of the road, an idiot thing to do since that's where improvised explosive devices are almost always buried. Naturally they roll over a powerful IED, even though the bombers have kindly marked it with little white flags. A horribly wounded soldier is then evacuated in a type of chopper not used in Iraq.
Clearly this is a military that can't even tie its bootlaces and in the immortal words of Pogo: We have met the enemy and he is us.
The terrorists are downright chummy compared to U.S. commanders. The besieging squad repeatedly suffers because of the idiotic orders of a general 75 miles away. Another off-site officer orders the troops to move forward from a relatively safe ridgeline to a completely open area. In another scene, a GI declares he'd rather risk being blown to bits than tell a sergeant he's wrong.
Particularly appalling to me was a slam against Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). It simply fails to show up to disarm a vehicle packed with enough explosives to blow up Rhode Island. I was embedded with the EOD unit of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion at Camp Fallujah. They react to calls with the speed of firefighters (or Domino's pizza) and coolly and professionally carry out some of the most dangerous jobs of the war.
The GIs ARE depicted as both brave and dedicated, as they must be in order to be proper pawns. Conversely they're also hot-headed; they constantly bark at each other like obnoxious poodles and there's a knife fight by the second episode. Do the soldiers beat and torture prisoners? Do you have to ask?
Meanwhile the terrorists, who in reality favor "soft" civilian targets, are braver and tougher still. They make the Viet Cong look like pansies. One literally has his torso blown off and yet his legs incredibly keep marching forward. A metaphor, perhaps, for the invincibility of the terrorist Jihad?
As for American policy, that's depicted in a dream sequence in which a capture GI is given a litany of reasons for why we're over there such as wanting to steal Iraqi oil, and then asked, "Your masters are liars and thieves, and yet you obey them. Why?" He doesn't deny it, rather providing the pawn answer of "Because I'm a soldier!"
There have got to be a thousand true inspiring stories of courage and kindness by coalition troops during the war, but don't expect to see them on "Over There." The wealthy Mr. Bochco certainly had the resources to tour Iraq before slandering our military and turning FX into the Al Jazeera Channel. But he didn't. Perhaps he was afraid of seeing what the real truth is over there.
Exercise your freedom of choice and don't watch that crap.
I've seen all three episodes so far, and it's already starting to grate my nerves.
Agreed.
Its not like people are going to track down and sanction leading Hollwierd lefties.
I simply don't tune in to their TV and rarely go to the movie theater.
The Commiewood Left is the propaganda arm of the enemy within.
Of course if a liberal leftist watched "Saving Private Ryan" they would think WWII was another Vietnam. War is war is war.
I saw a 30-second coming attraction and KNEW it was gonna be a bunch of leftist bovine feces.
Ratings for the show dropped more than 30% from first episode to second. If you want to see it, better catch it fast.
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/2005/08/jungle-law_10.html.
And he likes our guys, you can tell.
As M*A*S*H taught us, Vietnam was Korea all over again.
I haven't watched it, and I don't plan to either.
I figured it would be a propaganda crap fest, and now you are pretty much confirming that.
Sorry you had to sit through that, but thanks for posting it.
Regards,
Joe
I had all I could take in three minutes.
I saw an interview with the producers before this show came out. Of course, the interviewer got it out of them that the show would be non-partisan. Considering the show is on a Fox network, I thought, maybe just maybe, they'll be fair.
I must be losing my friggin' mind, I should know better than to ever believe anything these people say.
Once, my wife remarked that she was surprised to learn that some celebrity was a leftist. I gave her this advice, "any time a face appears on your TV screen, assume that person is Leftist unless otherwise notified."
I sometimes fail to heed my own advice.
I watched it last night for the first time and it's better than your average TV, but that's not saying much.
It had to do with a captured terrorist who an officer thinks knows the whereabouts of a truckload of stinger missiles. One solider tells the others there will be no close air support until the missiles are located.There is a subplot about an injured soldier at a US hospital who lost his leg and is trying to wean himself off of morphine.
One soldier appears to be troubled about the interrogation tactics (all legal BTW) and Abu Ghrab is mentioned. Eventually the officer brings in the sister of the prisoner and threatens to turn her over to the Pakistani security services who will beat and rape her daily. There is a fire fight that seems a bit lopsided and the entire squad is pinned down by two terrorists on a roof top out in the open. Eventually they are taken out in an airstrike.
The terrorist gives up the loacation of the missiles, a farmhouse, but only tells the location if the officer promises not to kill the farm hands who dont know what is really being hidden there. The rest of the soldiers seem to have no sympathy for the terrorist and several in fact suggest he be tortured for information.
The final scene is the farm hosue, we see the farmers walking around, innocent enough looking. Then we see another young terorists carrying an AK-47, possibly the brother of the captured terrorist. He walks into a building witha canvas flap for a door (there is no way the farmers dont know what's there) and we see piles of missle containers. The last thing we see and hair is the roar of jet engines and the imagery of some type of targeting system and something very large targets and destroys the farmhouse.
So its's pretty unbelievable, not too biased, but just silly. They are so worried about the missing missiles, so instead of raiding the farmhouse to see if the missiles are accounted for, they blow it up in an airstrike?
I don't think so.
Well .. you're stronger than me .. I lasted 5 minutes and I knew it was a bunch of bunk!!
seen this?
The only show on F/X that I watch is "Rescue Me" for it's truly off the wall dark humor, but I skipped watching this one, because even the previews gave off an "Abu Ghraib=America Bad!" smell. Not suprised to say I'm not surprised this is correct.
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