2008-10-02 - 2:20 p.m.
It takes a lot, and I mean A LOT, to gross me out. But it has happened.
I recently watched a video titled, "Buried in the Sand: The Deception of America".
If you are a fan of gore and blood on television, going so far as watching the "Faces of Death" series of videos, then I can attest that you may have what it takes to watch Buried in the Sand all the way through. But I do not back down from saying that you will still be sickened by the graphic images of the film.
It is not just that there is blood or death in the film. It is also not a "horror flick" in that it does not seek to entertain. These things, many people can withstand.
Buried in the Sand shows actual videos taped during torture, mutilation and agonizingly slow murders of people in the Middle East. There is no censorship of what is graphic. There is no help to the viewer as they witness the sounds and sights that accompany the death of a person. It is full-frontal agony. It is an assmbly of "snuff films" with nothing held back. I was sickened to the core.
The intent of the film, from the very beginning, is to convince the viewer that the actions of the United States in the Middle East are justfied. The portrayal of such brutality at the behest of dictators and in the hands of religious zealot fanatics is meant to drive home the message that we, Americans, must not stand in the way of our leaders who seek to deliver the Middle Eastern people from such insanity. The very real demonstration of torturers and murderers doing what they do, without guilt, without empathy, and with full realization of their actions presents the enemy that we mean to drive out of those lands. Not just the enemy physically, but also mentally.
The problem hidden beneath the sights and sounds of the film, is the mentality that pervades the area, and which allows such events to take place among human beings. It should demonstrate the ferocity of an ideal held so fast that the perpetrator of such heinous actions is not as sickened as I am by the death throws of their captive before they expire. That one human could extricate the life and soul of another human with their bare hands, not for self-defense or in a struggle, but as they lay utterly bound with animalistic terror in their eyes at a gun that is aimed or a blade that is raised or a baton that is wielded. Just before they are tortured. Just before they are maimed. Just before they feel the life worthlessly leaving their dying body. Just as they see their mothers, fathers, wives, sons and daughters there watching the act occur. Watching them die in agony.
One thing the makers of Buried in the Sand did not do well was to explain to a typical, often sarcastic and cynical, viewer that without a 100% turn-around in the entire region's mentality of gloom-and-doom, and the perceived unfortunate disposition of their lot, our intervention-driven change would inevitbly revert back to the same ideology and mistreatment presented in the film.
We cannot blame the people of that area for what is happening to them. We cannot blame ourselves or the Western World for what is CURRENTLY happening to them. We can blame their leaders for their greed. We can blame their governments for being so stubborn as to not deal with the democratic world, the way the democratic world operates. That is to say, true distribution of national wealth, with investments in infrastructure and the people. With the idea of freedom of the people. That the people are not cattle. They are not fodder. They are not tools for making money. They are free-thinking human beings who think and feel and express themselves as humans do. If these people were idealized to be above livestock for the powerful, worthy of trust and honor and freedoms, then maybe such disgusting things as seen in the film would not be happening. Maybe the people would be empowered to take care of themselves and each other. Maybe the idea of mutual support would become popular. Maybe the mentlity of forgiveness and enfranchisement would replace that of torture and retribution. Maybe people would not treat other people as animals.
�
�
