iraq

(Part 2 of 7) "You gotta respect the pajama." - Sgt. Brad Colbert

At the end of this episode, I find myself less enthralled with the battle scenes we finally witnessed and more anxious to just hear what these "devil dogs" will say next. Seeing Colbert and the rest of Bravo Company get "lit up" as they rolled through Al Gharraf was impressive, yet it was still nothing new. War is in the movies and it's on TV and this was standard fare.

Thus far, Simon and Burns have stayed very true to Wright's account, and for those that have read the book, the battle descriptions hold nothing to Colbert and Person's banter. Sadly, we know war. What we don't know is the people who are fighting it. Now we do. And apparently, they think that patriotic, "I love America" songs are "straight homosexual, country music, Special Olympic gay."

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(S02E07) Transition. This whole episode felt like a transition from one place to another. Not really very exciting or interesting, just kind of there.

The big news was Roxie getting The Hump Bar reopened as Betty's Bar and Grill. For Roxie, it was all about the process, which included getting the place fixed up while Trevor is starting to pull away because he's managed to get the General to send him back to his unit in Iraq.

I don't know; Trevor is getting what he wants because he acted inappropriately on the TV show. In real life, he would have been reprimanded. Trevor was really happy about being able to complete his duty, but it's going to be really hard on Roxie. You can see it coming.

Anyway, it was refreshing to see Trevor and Roxie having some fights. They are married, you know.

MTV continues its commitment to inspire young people to get out there and vote. As part of the Choose or Lose campaign, on July 4th MTV2 will honor the millions of young men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The day-long programming event will include exclusive messages from both Senator McCain and Senator Obama. The programming block will not only pay tribute to the sacrifice of these young soldiers, but also elevate their issues in light of the 2008 Presidential campaigns.

(S02E01) The Walker family is back, with bells on. Wedding bells, that is. The episode is nicely framed between two video letters to Justin Walker, who is in Iraq. Nora, the fabulous and Emmy-award winning Sally Field, sits before her computer and tells Justin what everyone is up to, which is a nice way of getting the viewer up to speed about what has happened since we last saw the family. As an avid viewer of the show, I didn't need Rebecca's letter at the end of the episode so much, in which she provides her insights into the Walker clan, as the most outsider insider or insider outsider of the bunch, however you want to think of Rebecca. But if you are new to the show, it's a nice, two-bit tour of the family.

What would you do if you were Katie Couric and the first anniversary of your stint as anchor of the CBS Evening News was fast approaching? Would you have a big party to celebrate, get drunk, and dance wildly in your underwear in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City? Or, would you suit up in some body armor and report from Iraq?

Personally, I'd frolic in my underwear. Katie is forgoing that frivolity and going to Iraq.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday Couric will be anchoring the news from Baghdad, which will be her first time in the war zone.

"Mess O' Potamia: Operation Macho Kick-Ass": Part three of Senior Baghdad Correspondent Rob Riggle's live-from-Iraq report! While I was lukewarm about the previous evening's report, I was really jazzed about tonight's. It was funny and soul-crushing at the same time. What a lovely combination!

"America To The Rescue": Israel is going to get a couple billions of dollars to fight their fight. "Ohh, billions of dollars, is there any dispute you can't settle?" This was pretty depressing, actually. Even the fun decade-appropriate graphics weren't enough to bring me back.

Yigal Naor will play Saddam Hussein in a new four-hour miniseries about the Iraq president's reign that lasted from 1979 to 2003.

The miniseries, Between Two Rivers, is being produced by both HBO and the BBC. It will begin shooting this summer in North Africa. It will focus on Saddam's family and his personal relationships. The cast also includes Shoreh Aghdashloo, Christine Stephen-Daly, Said Taghmaoui, Phillip Arditti, Mounir Margoum, Uri Gavriel, Amr Waked and Sasson Gabay.

Rosie O'Donnell has added a new element to her website (regarding her exit from The View): video. She and her producers stylist (who left The View with her) are talking about Rosie's last day and the big blow up between Rosie and Elisabeth Hasselbeck that essentially ended Rosie's time on The View about three weeks early.

Rosie and her producer speak in very general terms, but I interpreted their conversation as blaming the three hosts and the directors of The View for ganging up on Rosie. They talk about "smelling a rat on Monday" before the split-screen debate between Rosie and Elisabeth. It's the split-screen, by the way, that made Rosie quit early. She doesn't really explain why, but her producer compares it to Jerry Springer and I, personally, was reminded of all the chatter on the 24-hour news networks. I think she was tired of being a spectacle.

Two ABC News journalists were ambushed and killed in Iraq as they were headed home from the ABC News Baghdad bureau yesterday, ABC announced.

Thirty-three-year-old cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, and 26-year-old soundman Saif Laith Yousuf were in their car when they were "reportedly ambushed and they were killed by unknown assailants" after being "stopped by two cars full of gunmen," ABC's web site reported. The network's Baghdad correspondent, Terry McCarthy said, "Today we've lost two family members, and it really hurts."

One hundred and four journalists have been killed while covering the Iraq War, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Notably, one of ABC's anchors, Bob Woodruff, sustained serious injuries while covering Iraq in January 2006.

National Geographic has eight new series (and some returning series) on tap, set to roll out over the next several months.

Inside the Green Berets airs June 3 at 9:00 p.m.

Inside the Taliban airs June 4 at 9:00 p.m.

Critical Situation, a new series that explores how people responded when faced with some of the most dramatic moments in history kicks off June 12 at 9:00 p.m. I'll be posting a preview of this new series soon.

"Mess O' Potamia": Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in a spot of trouble. Bush is getting caught in a mess of his own words. What else is new? I was surprised to see Giant Head of Brian Williams again. I wonder if he's going to end up being a bit of a recurring character now, acting like an actual installed piece of the new set.

The night's guest was Ali A. Allawi, author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. I thought it was a really powerful move to ask Allawi about the grieving process because of our country's own collective feelings about the Virginia Tech shootings. I think with the mourning still in its early phases, many of us still have the pain fresh in our hearts. The rest of the interview was all right...

Arab news network Al Jazeera launched an English language network almost half a year ago. But the network hasn't had much luck getting on air in the United States, where many broadcasters consider Al Jazeera to be biased against America and Israel.

So what does Al Jazeera do? They go and partner up with YouTube, creating an online channel for their material. The channel went live today, and while the introductory video has been watched a couple thousand views, most of the actual news stories have only been clicked on a few times so far.

HBO has given the greenlight to Generation Kill, a seven-hour miniseries based on the true stories of Marines fighting in the Iraq war. The series will focus on the early movements of the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. The series is being co-written by David Simon and Ed Burns of The Wire and is based on Evan Wright's nonfiction book of the same name. Wright was embedded with U.S. troops during the war's first phase in 2003.

Expect to see nothing but Iraq war films, miniseries and television shows coming out of Hollywood over the next couple of years. Enough time has passed since the war's inception to see all manner of first person narratives and analysis published and snapped up by production companies. What distinguishes Generation Kill is its look at the war's earliest days, the specificity with which it addresses military bueracracy and its characterization of today's soliders. They are not their WWII and Vietnam counterparts. As Wright described them, Marines are "on more intimate terms with videogames, reality TV shows and Internet porn than they are with their own parents." Different generation. Different war.

Last month, I wrote about a special that ABC's Bob Woodruff, who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in January of 2006, was putting together. The special was to discuss his recovery and interview eyewitnesses to the attack, and the military medical personnel who helped get him to safety. That special airs tomorrow night at 10 PM on his home network.

In advance of that special, Woodruff spoke to reporters about the bombing and his recovery. He described what he saw and felt right before the explosion, and what he said to cameraman Doug Vogt -- who was also severely injured -- right afterwards. He talked about being in a coma for 36 days, and having to put his memory back together as he recovered. "I couldn't remember my two young daughters - not their names but their existence," he told the reporters. He did say he may not ever be 100% recovered from his injuries, but "maybe if I get somewhere in the 90s, that would be pretty damned good."

Woodruff will be interviewed by Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America tomorrow morning, and Oprah Winfrey will also interview him on her show tomorrow.

Back in 2003, were you wondering why the mass media was beating the drum to war in Iraq? I sure as hell was. I was so confused as to why Tom Brokaw would go on David Letterman and advocate a war, and I was stumped as to why the New York Times continued to plaster reasons for war all over its front pages.

Frontline is going to explain it all in a four-part investigative series that I cannot wait to see. Starting next Tuesday (Feb. 13th), the PBS program will investigate the way the Bush White House planted confidential tips in the media and then used subsequent media stories as evidence that America had no choice but to invade Iraq. The first hour "untangles the snarl of events" that show how the Bush administration won approval for the war from the public and the media. The second half of the program, on Feb. 20th, investigates just how much the press can reveal about the government's "war on terror" without putting the nation's security in jeopardy. The other two hours, on Feb. 27th and March 27th, look at the future of journalism in the U.S. and at journalism around the world.