Does anybody remember Iraq?

Well, I admit the title for this post may seem a bit odd, what I mean is that we tend to get so used to both good and bad things when they last for too long and seem to remain static that we end up forgetting about them even if years ago they were at the very centre of our worryings, ambitions or obsessions.

I've watched a couple of outstanding films in the last month that have made me aware of how we've left a mantle of oblivion fall over the tragedy in Iraq. News about massacres, suicide bombers, clashes between factions... are no longer news, but routine, a routine that leads to indiference.

Back in 2003, even though I was a convinced leftist, my support of the Kurdish National Liberation and my natural mistrust of the Muslim world (it has increased over the years, but has been there since very early, maybe because I'm too young to have lived the hopes of the "Arab Socialism times" and old enough to have read news about Salman Rushdie, Jomeini and the attrocities of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria) made me accept the Weapons of Mass Destruction theory and be in a dubious position with regards to the invasion. Of course, now I'm more than aware that this has been a total disaster that has destroyed a whole country and given justifications to the Fundamentalists...

The 2 films that I mention above gravitate about the same topic, the Weapons of Mass DECEPTION thing, how the USA government misled us all with fear and hope, fear of a the crazy Saddam attacking the West, and hopes of the new, happy, prosperous and grateful Iraq that would spring up after the invasion... and show us how fiercely the government tried to keep the lie secret.

The Green Zone is a political action film, starring Matt Demon and directed by the guy behind The Bourne, you can expect what it brings you: a good plot and huge doses of frantic action (the last 30 minutes are particularly intense) in the war-devastated streets of Baghdad. A honest American soldier begins to suspect that the reasons for war may be not the ones they had been told and starts off his search for the Truth.

Fair Game is another excelent film (I'm not sure how to classify it: thriller, action, spionage...), based on true (and kept rather hidden from masses) events, the story of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, and her husband, a former USA ambassador. Two highly regarded people that will find out some dark clouds around the WMD story and will be attacked by their own people to keep them quite. Pretty interesting (and of course, having such a goddess as Naomi Watts as the main character makes it even more appealing).