Cusack and Scahill Go After War Profiteers on Amy Goodman Show
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!.
A conversation about privatized war with John Cusack, producer of the new
film, War, Inc., and Blackwater author Jeremy Scahill.
John Cusack's new filmWar, Inc., takes on issues few in Hollywood today
would dare to: war profiteering, mercenaries, political corruption and
embedded journalism. A political satire, the film stars Cusack as Hauser,
a
hit-man for hire who is deployed to the fictional country of Turaqistan to
kill a Middle Eastern oil baron. Hauser's employer is Tamerlane, a
secretive
for-profit military cor****ation headed by a former U.S. vice president
played by Dan Aykroyd. We also speak to Democracy Now! correspondent
Jeremy
Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the
World's
Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Any Goodman: John Cusack joins us now from London, where he's shooting a
new
film. In addition to starring in War, Inc., he also co-wrote and produced
the film. His other Iraq War-themed film is Grace is Gone. It came out
last
year, and it's coming out on DVD next week.
We're also joined by Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill. His
book,
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is
coming
out next week in paperback.
John Cusack, welcome. Thank you for taking time from making your new
movie.
Talk about the genesis of this film, War, Inc.
John Cusack: Well, hello, and thanks for having me on the show. I'm a
great
admirer of it.
I think, probably like a lot of the great journalists that you've
mentioned
and the other guest you have on the show, Jeremy Scahill, I think I was
probably trying to put the Iraq fiasco into a larger context and maybe put
it through a different sort of lens and tell a different narrative than I
think the cor****ate narrative that we've been getting about the Iraq War
and
explore some of these themes.
When we hear these words like "privatization," you know, what does that
mean? In the case of the Iraq War, it meant outsourcing what you would
imagine to be the very core functions of government and the very thing
that
makes you a state, to turn that into a for-profit business. And we've gone
so far down the rabbit hole now, where actually torture is being
outsourced.
So it's strange and savage times. So that was really kind of the genesis
of
it.
And there's also a climate where people were telling Americans to watch
what
they say and the hypocrisy and the stench of lies was so intense it would
make your eyes water. So, as a filmmaker and citizen, you think, well, how
do you contextualize this? And so, that was really why I wanted to make
it.
Juan Gonzales: Well, John Cusack, obviously you're dealing with weighty
and
tragic situations, but you've chosen satire. Why the satire approach?
John Cusack: Well, I think all satire or absurdism does is take current
trends to the logical conclusion, you know, if you follow it a couple
weeks
or a couple years down the road. And some would argue, I think rightfully
so, that we're already there. So I think at times you have to put a
different lens on it in order to kind of process the information. And, you
know, there's a great tradition of satire mocking power elites -- whether
they be kings or cor****ate kings -- and shaming them and naming things and
calling things what they are.
Amy Goodman: John Cusack, what about Hollywood in this time of war? Your
*****sment of your industry?
John Cusack: I don't know. I think that there are individuals out there
who
are trying to do good work, and so I don't like to lump people into a kind
of groupthink -- I don't like to sort of think that way. Obviously, the
industry really wants to make money and protect itself, and I think, like
the rest of the country, people have been, I think, kind of zonked
spectators just going along this conveyor belt and not really wanting to
face what this particular administration has done to the Constitution and
to
the very idea of America and democracy. So I think a lot of people are
numb
and kind of checked out.
Amy Goodman: Jeremy Scahill, your book Blackwater has had such an
im****tant
effect, and actually it's as if a part of this film, we're watching the --
sort of what it looks like on film. You wrote a really positive piece
about
War, Inc. and its im****tance, especially in the Hollywood commercialized
climate we're in today.
Jeremy Scahill: Well, first of all, John Cusack is really to be commended
for this. I mean, he and I have had a dialogue ongoing over the years.
It's
kind of funny. When you talk to a lot of unembedded independent
journalists
who have been to Iraq, almost all of us started receiving calls from John
Cusack shortly after the invasion of Iraq began. And John was calling
people
not because he was saying, "Hey, I'm going to do a movie," but because he
wanted to know what was going on. And so, he was calling me, he was
calling
Naomi Klein, he was calling other people who had been in and out of Iraq
and
was trying to gather information.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/86356/?page=entire
During the Second World War, we had the Contract Renegotiation Board to
keep
an eye on excessive profiteering. The fact that we no longer have that
board
reveals the moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration.
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