eric-young Review of The Pentagon Wars

The Pentagon Wars (1998 TV Movie)

this black comedy especially relevant under the Bush II administration

[8/10 · 31 October 2005]

First I want to stress how wonderful Kelsy Grammar is as a pompous, self important, dilettante pentagon bureaucrat general, and how a lesser actor would probably been unable to portray a character sharing so many character traits with a character he is best known for (Frazier Crane), while creating a totally distinct individual character without a scene that the other character creeps in a little. Gen. Partridge is a classic privileged twit of the first order, and I never confused him with Frasier for a second. Richard Schiff is equally good as a career officer trying to hold his wits together without jeopardizing his career. He watches his simple, common sense defense department project spiral out of control into one of the most publicized and outrageous examples of the military industrial complex run amok in recent history. What makes this so relevant today is the attitude of "we'll fix the problems in the field" and the casual disregard for life and limb of the troops who face death of injury due to the decisions of those at the highest levels of power. Our current leadership had an agenda to go to war in Iraq from it's outset, but neglected to ramp up military production of armored Hummvees, body armor, etc. in the 2 years from when it took power until the Iraq war started. Whether you support the war or not, this is troubling, especially when you take into account that large portions of our defense budget went to develop a missile defense shield system that shows little progress, does not address the most likely threat we face, but puts billions of dollars into the hands of a company with close association with a secretary of defense who told troops "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want." Both sides of this issue can find source for outrage.