Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

The reporter Christopher Hooks of  Texas Monthly wrote a scathing review of  My Stretch of Texas Ground, in which he divulged every twist and turn of the story to make sure it would be spoiled for anyone reading it. Today, when I tried to post a comment announcing the film's presence on Amazon and Vimeo, it was quickly taken down. 

So, I resubmitted the comment that follows, and I know it will be removed again, and that's why I am posting it here. And it really comes down to pure censorship. 

This is the second time I am submitting this comment, and when you consider the magnitude of the scathing attack that Christopher Higgins made against the film, you'd think that, in the spirit of free thought and intellectual honesty, that he would allow me to update the situation with the film. It is available for streaming now on Amazon and Vimeo; that is the new edit by Geoff Ryan, in which all the faulty visual effects were fixed, and his streamlined editing has given the film a much faster pace.

So, Haladin and Hassan are barreling towards each other, like opposing trains on the same track, except the trains are moving much faster now. And, the idea is that the global conflict between the United States and the Muslim countries it considers its enemies settles on this small town in Texas and is embodied by two men, Sheriff Joe Haladin and Abdul Latif Hassan. However, it is not a conventional story. It is not like Captain America, nor is it like an old Western. The movie decries the killing of innocents in the post-9/11 wars, and keep in mind that there is no question that a horrific number of people have been killed. Varying numbers of casualties have been put forward by different researchers, but they are all horrific. There is no doubt that America has killed over a million people since 9/11. The Physicians for Social Responsibility said it was at least 1.3 million in 2015!

So, Christopher Hooks started by slamming visual effects that fell short, including ones that the vast majority of people would not notice, and certainly not in a first-time viewing. But, he unwittingly did us a favor because every single one of them has been fixed. There are no such defects left in the film. Acclaimed filmmaker Geoff Ryan fixed them all.

But, Hooks' real beef is with the message of the film and its depiction of the U.S. War Machine. But, his problem is with reality, with the truth, because the film tells the truth. Every citation given in the film about the death toll from the wars, and I mean the actual numbers cited in the film, are accurate. Painstakingly accurate. Nothing was made up or exaggerated. And I'll give you an example:

We learn from Hassan that "America's wars and the Embargo of Iraq have caused the death of 500,000 children." But the number actually cited by the UN was 576,000 children and that was in 1995. So, it only pertained to the first Gulf War and to the Iraq Sanctions which followed. It did not include any of the children killed in the post 9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. And remember that Secretary of State Madeline Albright said on national television (60 Minutes) that it was worth it to kill 500,000 children in order to contain Saddam Hussein.

Of course, some disputed the results, but after the initial UN report, UNICEF confirmed it. Then, Richard Garfield of Columbia University was brought in specifically to deunk the horrific number, but guess what? He ended up declaring that the excess child death toll in Iraq up to the year 2000 was most likely 350,000. But, even if he is right, and I don't say that he is, that is still over a third of a million dead children, and it's before you start counting any of the dead children from the post 9/11 wars across the Muslim world, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria.

So, when in the film Hassan says that "America's wars and the Embargo of Iraq have resulted in the death of 500,000 children, he is absolutely on target.

And that is really Christopher Hook's problem with the film, not the "hot men" in it, as he referred to them. He defends the murderous U.S. War Machine, as every journalist who works for the Mainstream Media is expected to do and does.

My Stretch of Texas Ground is a radical movie, but it is also a very responsible one. It will shake you up about what has happened, about what the U.S. government has wrought in its devastating wars, but all within the context of a story that is very intense and very gripping. As movies go, it is a good one.