“Rules of Engagement”: A Highwater Mark in Hollywood Hate Mongering With U.S. Military “Cooperation”

By Jack Shaheen

As soon as “Rules of Engagement” surfaced at our local movie theater, I rushed off to a matinee screening. Afterward, I felt so violated that I was unable to discuss it with anyone—not even with Bernice, my wife. All I could think was that the film’s producers are deliberately fomenting hatreds with the most blatantly racist movie I have ever seen.

The movie takes place in contemporary Yemen, an Arab country of 16 million people with whom the United States has had peaceful diplomatic relations for decades.

But in “Rules,” Yemen is projected as a land of hateful, anti-American fanatics where even little boys and girls are gun-toting killers. In early scenes central to the plot, Yemeni snipers shoot at the U.S. Embassy and Yemeni demonstrators hurl firebombs and rocks.

On a visit to Yemen, the character played by Tommy Lee Jones finds cassette tapes lying all over that “call on every Muslim who believes in God…to kill Americans and their allies, both civilian and the military.” While the taped sermons insist that “to kill Americans is a duty,” almost every Yemeni given a speaking part ends up lying through his keffiyeh to cover up the killings being committed by his countrymen.

Samuel L. Jackson portrays Colonel Childers. He and his Marines launch a rescue mission, arriving at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in time to save the U.S. ambassador and his family from sniper fire during an anti-American demonstration. No context or reason is provided for the violent anti-American protests, perhaps because in reality there haven’t been any in Yemen for the past 33 years, not since the entire Arab world erupted in protest against Israel’s “pre-emptive attack” on Egypt and Syria in June 1967, in which most Arabs wrongly believed that U.S. pilots were employed.

After the Yemenis kill three Marines, the colonel orders his men to “Waste the M—-F——!” The Marines shoot into the crowd, killing 83 Yemeni civilians.

For a while, this shoot-em-up scene leaves viewers with the impression that the protesters were helpless, and that Childers might be guilty of killing innocents, including innocent children. An early scene even shows one young Yemeni girl hobbling around on one leg, eliciting the viewer’s sympathy. But just before “Rules” concludes, the same Yemeni girl is shown in front of the U.S. Embassy, armed and firing away at our Marines.

Final frames disclose what has actually happened at the embassy. The camera shows the crowd, including hateful Yemeni boys and girls, shooting at the Marines. To save his men, the colonel has no choice but to “waste” them. Childer’s repeated slur enforces the film’s “message.” Yemeni Muslims are less than human, meriting slaughter.

Audiences are applauding this film. When a friend of mine saw the movie, some viewers cheered as the Marines “terminated” the Yemenis.

My final shock came with the credits, revealing that the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Marine Corps cooperated with the producers.

Now in my opinion it makes no sense for the Department of Defense to cooperate with Paramount Pictures on a film that slanders Arabs, unless of course that was the DOD’s intent. But if, for whatever reason, the U.S. government wanted to demonize some 300 million Arabs and two million Arab Americans, especially in greater Detroit’s Yemeni community, numbering 15,000 to 20,000 hard-working American taxpayers, the effort succeeded.

How will the young men and women serving in our armed services view “Rules”? Will they leave theaters hating Arabs? And will their impressions have an impact on their behavior when they are called upon to serve their country in the Arab world?

This is not the first time Hollywood has demonized Muslims and Arabs. Since 1970, the industry has churned out 300-plus films lambasting Arabs. And in many recent instances, the U.S. military has cooperated. Consider other films showing Americans killing Arabs—“True Lies” (1994), “Executive Decision” (1996) and “Freedom Strike” (1998). Several U.S. government agencies, such as the Department of Defense and its components—the Army, the Marines, the Navy, even the National Guard—provided all of these named films with technical assistance. And the FBI’s New York office aided producers of “The Siege” (1998), a movie showing Americans of Arab heritage and Muslim Arabs attacking Manhattan.

What’s going on here? Why are U.S. government officials cooperating with Hollywood producers who have purposely set out to pick on real, and friendly, Arab countries and on Arab and Muslim Americans whose taxes are helping to fund the budgets of U.S. government agencies?

Amazingly, Paramount Vice President Blaise Noto defends the racist images of “Rules,” saying, “It is not anti-Arabic…or anti-Yemenite but rather anti-extremist.” What if “Rules” had shown U.S. Marines shooting not Yemeni children but Italian, Irish, or Dutch kids? There would be an outcry, and rightfully so.

Commenting on DOD’s involvement with “Rules,” Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said: “They [Paramount] have a right to make the movies any way they want to make them. We pay attention to how they portray the military.” Bacon’s words suggest that as long as the film’s marines look good, it’s perfectly permissible to show them gunning down Arabs. I wonder, had “Rules” depicted Marines slaughtering Israeli civilians, would Bacon’s words have been the same?

The Pentagon spokesman’s attempt to justify “Rules’” hate-Arab images are troubling, and certainly give rise to questions. No one knows, exactly, the extent of DOD’s “cooperation,” or what it entailed. Did the DOD provide technical advisers for “Rules” for free, and free equipment as well? And what about funding? How much money is spent funding DOD’s film offices? What about the use of federal property, federal personnel?

To paraphrase Mr. Bacon, when government monies are used to enhance intolerance, citizens, too, have rights. I suggest that leaders of Arab and Muslim Americans as well seek out their congresspersons who serve on the Armed Services Committees and ask them to request from the General Accounting Office (GAO) a detailed report on what kind of cooperation was provided for “Rules,” as well as DOD’s involvement with other Arab-bashing films. As part of the review process, all copies of notes and memos pertaining to Department of Defense cooperation with the films should be submitted to the GAO.

It is deeply troubling to me that our tax dollars are being used to support motion pictures vilifying an ethnic group. As an honorably discharged U.S. Army veteran of Arab descent, I am saddened and disturbed to see U.S. government resources so badly misused.

And I am saddened that motion pictures continue vilifying Arabs in the Middle East, while at the same time rendering America’s own Arabs, Sunni Muslims, Shi’i Muslims, Druze, and Orthodox, Melkite and Maronite Christians invisible. For an American Arab, the omission of our contributions is disorienting: it is like looking into a mirror and not seeing yourself.

Media critic Jack G. Shaheen is the author of The TV Arab and Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, both available through the AET Book Club.