I have to agree with your assessment of Eastwood’s PC effort to paint the murderous commanders on Iwo as some sort of modern day ‘saints’, and Americans as ruthless killers of unarmed captives (which I’ve never heard happening on Iwo). It was an awful film, and Eastwood should hang his head in shame for what he was attempting to do (same for his Million Dollar Baby, a careful retelling of Goebbels award winning film at the Venice Film Festival).
I very much disagree that Hollywood thinks war is bad. But since the late 1970s, Hollywood tends to think that Republicans conducting wars are bad. A film about Clinton’s deployment into the Balkans would be very different, and the same for his failed effort into Haiti. If a Dem is elected President in 2008, all association with foreign wars will be lionized as in the 1940s, because it is a Democrat. Hollywood doesn’t hate war – they hate conservative Republicans. People just don’t get that, even in the 21st century.
