Baer naked

The new film Syriana (see a preview here) is sure to stoke the fires of political polarity this December. The main character, Bob Barnes, is supposedly loosely based on Robert Baer, author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism and Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude. Mr Baer now writes for The Atlantic Monthly along with our Mr Kaplan, and is credited as a writer for Syriana. He has appeared in another movie Uncovered: The War on Iraq which I haven’t seen and cannot comment on. (Anybody else that can, please speak up).

To get to the point, I am concerned at the mixing of Mr Baer (who I admire for his career and first book) with the likes of George Clooney (who I admire as an actor) and Matt Damon (MATT DAMON!). Reading Slate’s take on Syriana it looks my “realist” sensitivities are to be insulted:

Champions of the current administration like to label people who question its rhetoric””?who simply raise the possibility that acts of terrorism emanating from the Middle East have as much to do with the U.S.’s historical role in the region as with terrorists’ “pure evil” and “hatred of our freedoms”“”?as “fifth columnists,” “traitors,” “hate America firsters,” “Chomskyites,” “Michael Moore-ish conspiracy nuts,” etc. Given that climate … it’s a bloody miracle to see a movie like Syriana (Warner Bros.) emerge from a major studio. … The more we learn about How Things Work in the global economy, the more we despair that the rock will ever be lifted and the maggots exposed to sunlight.

This rubs up on one of my main sources of reverse-culture shock when talking to people at home who think that the rest of the world looks just like our nice, safe little post-modern suburbia. Doesn’t anybody read Hobbes anymore? Anyway, I am not sure how moralistic and/or judgemental Syriana will be, but I am sure the War Studies crew will be down there to check it out and rip it apart. Anybody else going?