Must see: War Made Easy

This movie, War Made Easy, just vaulted to the top of my Netflix que, and it looks like a good one.

The trailer above is a trip down not-so-great-memory lane - some 1950s footage of some warmongers I don't know, and then just about every president from Johnson through George W. Bush pledging that "we desire peace," when just about every one of them have done things to either provoke war, prolong war, or start a war. It's pretty amusing listening to President Bush say, with a straight face, "We desire peace," isn't it?

The only two presidents I can think of since Johnson who don't have war blood on their hands are Carter and Clinton, and the former had a truly disastrous foreign policy that led to other disasters anyway. Clinton went to war in Kosovo, which was a just and politically courageous thing to do, but he surly must be haunted by the senseless slaughter of our troops in Somalia, as well as his inaction during the Rwandan genocide.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to watching this DVD and writing about it. Based on the trailer, it looks thought-provoking at worst. At best, I hope it's a long-overdue, thorough examination of our warmongering society and mentality.

The movie is narrated by Sean Penn, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I've admired him for his outspokenness in the past on President Bush and the War in Iraq, but his visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is crossing a line that I'm not happy about at all. In fact, it's a disgrace. I'm fan of President Bush either, but meeting with a foreign leader who has verbally attacked the United States and threatened war makes no sense whatsoever. The sad part about Penn's visit to Chávez is that he's probably turned off just about anyone who previously would have at least given him a chance regarding his political views. First we had Hanoi Jane, and now we have Hugo Sean? Shame on you, Sean.

Anyway, the movie looks terrific, and I don't care who's narrating it.

War Made Easy is now available on DVD.