Cusack and Scahill Go After War Profiteers on Amy Goodman Show

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted May 24, 2008.

John Cusack's new filmWar, Inc., takes on issues few in Hollywood today would dare to: war profiteering, mercenaries, political corruption and embedded journalism. A political satire, the film stars Cusack as Hauser, a hit-man for hire who is deployed to the fictional country of Turaqistan to kill a Middle Eastern oil baron. Hauser's employer is Tamerlane, a secretive for-profit military corporation headed by a former U.S. vice president played by Dan Aykroyd. We also speak to Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Any Goodman: John Cusack joins us now from London, where he's shooting a new film. In addition to starring in War, Inc., he also co-wrote and produced the film. His other Iraq War-themed film is Grace is Gone. It came out last year, and it's coming out on DVD next week.

We're also joined by Democracy Now! correspondent, Jeremy Scahill. His book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, is coming out next week in paperback.

John Cusack, welcome. Thank you for taking time from making your new movie. Talk about the genesis of this film, War, Inc.

John Cusack: Well, hello, and thanks for having me on the show. I'm a great admirer of it.

I think, probably like a lot of the great journalists that you've mentioned and the other guest you have on the show, Jeremy Scahill, I think I was probably trying to put the Iraq fiasco into a larger context and maybe put it through a different sort of lens and tell a different narrative than I think the corporate narrative that we've been getting about the Iraq War and explore some of these themes.

When we hear these words like "privatization," you know, what does that mean? In the case of the Iraq War, it meant outsourcing what you would imagine to be the very core functions of government and the very thing that makes you a state, to turn that into a for-profit business. And we've gone so far down the rabbit hole now, where actually torture is being outsourced. So it's strange and savage times. So that was really kind of the genesis of it.

And there's also a climate where people were telling Americans to watch what they say and the hypocrisy and the stench of lies was so intense it would make your eyes water. So, as a filmmaker and citizen, you think, well, how do you contextualize this? And so, that was really why I wanted to make it.

Juan Gonzales: Well, John Cusack, obviously you're dealing with weighty and tragic situations, but you've chosen satire. Why the satire approach?

John Cusack: Well, I think all satire or absurdism does is take current trends to the logical conclusion, you know, if you follow it a couple weeks or a couple years down the road. And some would argue, I think rightfully so, that we're already there. So I think at times you have to put a different lens on it in order to kind of process the information. And, you know, there's a great tradition of satire mocking power elites -- whether they be kings or corporate kings -- and shaming them and naming things and calling things what they are.

Amy Goodman: John Cusack, what about Hollywood in this time of war? Your assessment of your industry?

John Cusack: I don't know. I think that there are individuals out there who are trying to do good work, and so I don't like to lump people into a kind of groupthink -- I don't like to sort of think that way. Obviously, the industry really wants to make money and protect itself, and I think, like the rest of the country, people have been, I think, kind of zonked spectators just going along this conveyor belt and not really wanting to face what this particular administration has done to the Constitution and to the very idea of America and democracy. So I think a lot of people are numb and kind of checked out.

Amy Goodman: Jeremy Scahill, your book Blackwater has had such an important effect, and actually it's as if a part of this film, we're watching the -- sort of what it looks like on film. You wrote a really positive piece about War, Inc. and its importance, especially in the Hollywood commercialized climate we're in today.

Jeremy Scahill: Well, first of all, John Cusack is really to be commended for this. I mean, he and I have had a dialogue ongoing over the years. It's kind of funny. When you talk to a lot of unembedded independent journalists who have been to Iraq, almost all of us started receiving calls from John Cusack shortly after the invasion of Iraq began. And John was calling people not because he was saying, "Hey, I'm going to do a movie," but because he wanted to know what was going on. And so, he was calling me, he was calling Naomi Klein, he was calling other people who had been in and out of Iraq and was trying to gather information.

See more stories tagged with: war, iraq war, blackwater, privatization, erik prince, john cusack, grace is gone, inc.

Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from World! Sign up now »