Deception at its Best

After watching the documentary, Hearts and Minds, I felt an immediate sense of anger and betrayal. I can't think of a better way to show how we were deceived by our own government than to place their lying faces right next to the emotional scenes of the war they are lying about. The overall effectiveness of this film is that the documentary feel of it hides the argument they are trying to present. When I was watching it, at first, I felt like I was in another history classroom where I was just going to be fed information, and then left to discover my own opinion about the topic. However, Davis (the director) was able to make us feel angry and frustrated with our own government by placing the interviews and speeches of the soldiers themselves right next to the very thing they were lying about.

This technique of placing the representatives of the U.S. right next to the completely opposite situation of the Vietnamese, begins with the first 5 minutes of the film. Davis takes us directly to a village where people are living in poverty and constantly working for a living. We see them as just plain village people, not savages or crazed peasants. Just people in a third world country, trying to live a decent life like you and me. They don't seem to be in any kind of danger, or in need of any immediate assistance, however, as we see them working in the fields, an American soldier walks in the field of view, almost out of nowhere, carrying a weapon. Why do we even need soldiers in a peaceful area? Are we afraid of the woman with the basket in the field? Do we have some sort of obligation to protect those in this village? Or are we simply just taking advantage of the local villagers for food and shelter because we feel they need us and should help us? Davis did a good job of showing how differently we appear in a country we really should never have been in in the first place.

Later in the film, Davis shows the destroyed parts of a village, interviewing various villagers who have lost everything, including people they loved. After interviewing a local man who used to have a kitchen and house, Davis shows us an interview with a former soldier who was doing the bombing runs. He claimed with a cold conscience that he was just doing his job, and that nothing was more satisfying than seeing something explode. It was a professional business trip that concluded in a successful solution. He went on later to say that it was easier for him to do because he could not see the blood and people dying when he dropped the bombs. How does this make it any better? Yes, he was doing his job, but saying that it was OK to do just because he didn't see the immediate effects on the people doesn't make what he was doing right. A parallel can be drawn between the ideal American fortune 500 business meeting around the time of the recent lay offs. Many professionals met in certain areas of the country, discussed what was best for the company in terms of financial stability and saving the face of the company. They executed their orders from the CEO and other high executives without considering how it would effect any lower people in the company. Their way of laying off people with families was a soldier's way of dropping a few well placed bombs here or there, as long as it saves the face of the nation. This makes us all wonder, "Was this war just a professional business decision?"