A Few Good Men: the Sequel

With all the talk of what the Vice Presidential debate will be like tonight, one thing to keep in mind is question of whether life imitates art. One only has to think about the movie A Few Good Men and the final courtroom scene and imagine John Edwards playing Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Dick Cheney as Colonel Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson)

Will we see the "moment" where Edwards catches Jessep/Cheney in "the lie" on Iraq? Will Cheney turn like a cornered rat like Jessep? Will Cheney finally tell the truth and thereby sink the Bush/Cheney ship?

In the film Kaffee puts together a case showing how Jessep lied about ordering the code red on Private Santiago, much like Edwards should do to Cheney regarding how he lied about the prewar intelligence on Iraq, lied about a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and badly estimated the reaction to the Iraqi response to the US.

One only has to look at recent news to see that the administration lied on prewar intelligence; that, as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, there was no connection between Iraq and Al Quida; and as Presidential Envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer said, the administration was warned that more troops were needed to go into Iraq to maintain order.

Confronted with his lies, all Jessep could say was "You little bastard," which seems right up Cheney's alley. One can imagine Cheney saying "You want Answers" and Edwards saying "I want the Truth!"

Jessep's final reply seems eerily like something Cheney would say.

You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

The problem is that just as Santiago probably posed little threat, so too may have Iraq if sanctions, inspections, and international pressure remained. Unfortunately, Jessep, like Cheney and Bush acted on their convictions rather than reality. In the movie, such convictions cost at least one American his life. In reality in Iraq, it has cost more than 1,000 American their lives.