Part Three: The Shock and Awe of a Bullet Entering the Body

Three Kings helps us interpret this position by describing the harm brought about by what Iraqis perceive as American betrayal and pirating of Kuwaiti oil during the first Gulf War.

When Gates, Barlow, Chief and Conrad approach the bunker hiding the Kuwaiti bullion, they encounter no resistance from the Republican Guard. In fact, the Iraqi soldiers offer to help the Americans by setting up a fire brigade to load the gold bricks onto the truck. While our Three Kings are looting, Conrad stands watch from behind his machine gun above ground. "We are here for your safety and protection," he tells them. After they get the gold, the boys try to leave, but Iraqi peasants cling to them: "We love the United States of Freedom!"

The use of the word "freedom" is telling in this context: The scene's political undercurrent is that there is cruelty in American troops in Iraq offering hope that Saddam would be overthrown, then leaving after the Kuwaiti oil fields, not the Iraqi people, were liberated.

As the boys try to escape from the village, they encounter a large tanker truck, which the audience initially believes is an oil rig. Saddam's men fire at it, provoking something far worse than burning oil: The tanker is carrying milk for the Iraqis, which cascades across the sand. The peasants suck the milk from the sand, revealing the true crisis: Saddam's men are going to starve the people to keep them from revolting. As Hersh's article says, Saddam's troops wouldn't engage Americans after the war because their main objective was to quell the uprising. Seeing the film for the first time, you brace for a Bruckheimerian explosion from the tanker, and so it's a comic moment when milk comes spilling out.

The tone quickly changes, however, when you see the Iraqis slurping the sand — caught in the crossfire of the overall conflict were the Iraqi peasants, like the Iraqi woman who is killed in the next scene. The Kings and the Republican Guard square off over an argument not about the gold, but about the treatment of the people. A bullet is fired that kills a civilian while her family looks on. The Iraqi leader is also killed in the skirmish, and Gates is wounded.

The scene is remarkable in how it, again, toys with perceptions of conflict. In most Hollywood action movies, waves of bullets fly without consequence; nameless, faceless bad guys throw up their weapons and flail to the ground. Here, Russell shows each bullet in super-slow-motion; we hear each bullet fired; we hear the thud resonate as the bullet enters the body. Some critics accuse Russell of trickery, but the point is very clear: In real battle, each bullet has a consequence, each death is the end of a life, be they friendly forces, enemy forces or noncombatants. Even a small skirmish inspires shock and awe.

Russell's point extends beyond empathetic humanism. Earlier in the film, Conrad talks about wanting to see some action and kill some "camel jockeys." Gates then describes to Conrad what physiologically happens when a bullet enters the body. Later, during the above scene, Gates persuades Conrad not to fire:

No unnecessary shots, Conrad, 'cause we know what they do.

Make infected pockets full of bile, sir.

That's right, Conrad, that's what they do.

This is more than the usual artistic statement against violence; it's a response to the antiseptic perception of the Gulf War.

At this point, Chief and Barlow disagree about the mission. Barlow, who killed an Iraqi in the opening scene, is much less enthusiastic about being entangled in conflict:

Hey, I don't know if I can do this. I got a family. If I'm gonna shit in a bag for the rest of my life because I got shot after the war was over, that'd be pretty fuckin' stupid, wouldn't it?

As they get ready to leave, Barlow says, "Let's just stick to the plan. The plan is for the gold." Chief, who believes that Jesus put the treasure map in their path, changes his mind: "Hold on, we can help these people first. Then we'll be on our way." They load the civilians onto the truck and take out across the desert. The Republican Guard fires chemical weapons at them, the truck nearly slams into a mine and Gates ends up herding everyone into an underground bunker. An educated Iraqi, Amir Abdullah, sees through what's going on: "We are fighting Saddam and dying, and you're stealing the gold." Gates, clearly caught in a compromising position, offers them a share of the gold. Amir responds:

What good is it if you leave us here to be slaughtered. Huh? The big army of democracy beats the ugly dictator and saves the rich Kuwaitis, but you will go to jail if you help us escape the same dictator?

Whether you agree with Russell's political statement, Amir's statement echoes the sentiment of many progressive Arabs. It's not American ideals, products or wealth they reject, but American double standards set according to its interests in wealth. The Washington Post has done several articles recently on the topic: Even Western-educated Arabs have turned against the United States because they perceive that the United States no longer represents "American" ideals.

The peasants refer not to the "United States of America," but the "United States of Freedom" — it's not "America" they need, it's freedom. Iraqis, educated or not, will not accept "America" if they cannot equate it with "freedom," which, in the current context, many apparently cannot. The idea is developed several times in Three Kings: As Amir tells Conrad, "Well, we just want to get rid of Saddam … live life … make business."

That's precisely what many in a generation of wealthier, progressive Iraqis came to the West to learn and bring back to their homeland. Even American products have been embraced: There's also a running debate between Chief and Barlow about whether Lexus makes a convertible. The answer is supplied by a leading Iraqi dissident who procured a fleet of luxury cars from the Kuwaitis. He is not only versed in Western automobiles, but a shrewd business man. Gates tries to let them use the cars to help get the families across the border:

George Bush wants you! Many nations! United! Kick Saddam's ass! Fight for your freedom, and we will follow! God bless America! And God bless a free Iraq!

This is so transparent that the salesman sees through it immediately: "No deal."

Gates: "OK, we'll buy them."

The irony plays as a swift joke, but darkness lurks underneath: How can the Iraqi people accept America's sincerity of "liberation" when its conduct provides so much evidence to the contrary? Or, in the language of Three Kings, how can American liberation be sincere when the country is being looted? Noam Chomsky has argued that if not for US-led economic sanctions on Iraq, the people might have had the resources to rise up against Saddam. That position is rather tenuous, but it's more difficult to defend the American government's undisclosed contracts that were bid on by Halliburton (the conglomerate where Vice President Cheney was recently the CEO), Perle's resignation over a conflict of business and government interests in the Middle East and other such incidents.

Again, the complexity of the conflict might, for some, render this view reductionist. But from some perspectives, this sort of conduct can galvanize anti-American sentiment, especially for those whose cooperation is necessary to win the war and rebuild a civil society. Many reports from the current war indicate Iraqi resistance to the American forces has been severely underestimated on most fronts. Part of this is fed by lingering fears of Saddam (as in Three Kings when the Republican Guard flees after a fleet of limos pulls up and an Iraqi yells "Saddam is very disappointed in all of you! He has come to kill you!"), but reports from inside Baghdad indicate that the shock and awe tactics have only emboldened the people to resist "invasion," no matter their hatred of Saddam. As a stationery supply seller in Baghdad told Jon Lee Anderson in a recent New Yorker article,

Bush and Blair … They said this would be a clean war … This is not clean. This is dirty — a dirty war … Don't be sorry, it's not the American people. Most of them are against this war. We know this.

How did this Iraqi miscalculate recent polls indicating 70 percent approval for the war?

I saw the director Michael Moore on TV yesterday.

This sort of incongruence is reminiscent of the scene in which Sergeant Barlow calls home from an Iraqi bunker from a cell phone. He's trying to escape Iraqi captors; she's talking about changing diapers. He's trying to give her military coordinates; she's writing them down on a Post-It. If anything else proves the ease of misperception across continents, even in the era of instant media, it's the thought that Michael Moore represents American opinion.

True understanding requires broader perspective. Again, Three Kings provides a perspective apart from apparent administration miscalculation, showing that people will accept a local, known evil to an unknown foreign one. As Gates, Chief and Conrad try to organize a reconnaissance mission to bring back Sergeant Barlow, Barlow is being tortured by one of Saddam's loyal troops. Hooked up to electrodes, Captain Said (Said Taghmaoui) interrogates Barlow about his mission in the Persian Gulf, with a surprising acumen for American pop culture:

What's the problem with Michael Jackson? You make the black man hate himself like you hate the Arabs, and the children you bomb over here … Do you army care about the children in Iraq? Do you army come back to help them? … My wife is bombed, legs cut off by big block of concrete … My son is killed in his bed … Can you think inside your heart how it feel if I bomb your daughter?

Barlow responds: "Worse than death."

Russell not only suggests it, but he shows it to us in dream sequences. He shows us the poor Iraqi child being crushed by concrete, following it with the same image, only with Barlow's wife and baby. He's intent on putting us through a guilt trip, for sure, the point is powerful enough to warrant it.

Said and Barlow have the following conversation:

I got weapon and training from America. Where do you think I learned my English? Americans come here to train us when we fight Iran … You are here for save Kuwaiti people? Really? A lot of people in trouble in the world, my man, and you don't fight no fucking war for them.

You invaded another country. You can't do that.

Why not do it?

'Cause it makes the world crazy. You need to make it stable.

For what? For your pickup truck?

For stability. To stabilize the region.

"This is you fucking stability, my main man." And he uses a CD to pour motor oil down Barlow's throat. Critic Rick Ferguson called this "the most audacious political statement in American film since JFK," but the moment could have been embarrassing had the two actors not given each other so much in the scene. Taghmaoui tortures Wahlberg, but retains his humanity in the speech about his daughter. They even reach common ground on why they joined their respective armies. Said joined because he had a family and Saddam rewarded him with a home and a car — confirmed by recent intelligence reports on why Republican Guard generals refuse to surrender.

"Yeah, I joined for the extra cash, too. I had a child on the way," replies Barlow. Wahlberg invests enough humanity, even while sweaty with fright, that his act when freed (not shooting Said when he has the chance) doesn't seem like a token gesture of the screenplay. And yes, to reduce the argument solely to oil is reductionist, but the persuasiveness of this viewpoint must be considered when dealing with the Iraqi people. The Bush administration has done little to dissuade this view, which is why movies like Three Kings are essential to the public consciousness.

Part Four: "You Do The Thing You're Scared Shitless Of, And You Get the Courage After You Do It, Not Before You Do It"