Fifty years ago, the film “12 Angry Men” had its premiere. Based on a play originally performed on television, “12 Angry Men” had an all-star cast. Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Ed Begley, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden and Martin Balsam, among others. The film is about the 12 men, jury members deciding the fate of a young man from the tenements of New York accused of murdering his father.
Set almost completely in an airless jury room, Fonda is initially the lone vote for acquittal. Over the course of an afternoon – condensed to 96 minutes on film – Fonda convinces the other jurors, one by one by one, to shed their prejudices and change their guilty votes to not guilty.
The final holdout is played by Lee J. Cobb, a bitter man who isn’t on speaking terms with his son. He considers his son ungrateful, and reflects that prejudice in his consideration of the boy in the murder case.
I consider the film to be one of the finest ever made. There were no special effects. It was shot and edited in a unique way, requiring the viewer to pay attention to the detail of dialogue. It also attacked socio-economic schisms in ways you didn’t expect in 1957 America. Its starkness in black and white heightened your awareness of the shades of gray that exist in our lives.
The film came back to me as I considered our nation at war in Iraq. Back in 2003, as the winds or war increasingly blew, opposition to the war was minimal. Shaken by the attacks of Sept. 11, we believed in our leaders and what they told us. Four years later, opposition has increased, and our trust in government has once again been battered and bruised. There are calls from all corners of our country to bring the troops home. There may be a difference in those who call for an immediate withdrawal and those who favor some kind of phased pullout, but the desire is clear, that it is time to come home.
Like the jury in “12 Angry Men,” a majority want our involvement in Iraq to end, while President Bush and Vice President Cheney assume the stubbornness of Lee J. Cobb in continuing to pursue a strategy that hasn’t worked.
When asked about his strategy or his decision to send a troop surge to Baghdad, President Bush recounts his conversations with families of the more than 3,000 Americans who have been killed fighting this war. He says they tell him to stay the course, to show that their family members didn’t die in vain.
Unfortunately, this emotion doesn’t answer the question of how many more of America’s young must be sacrificed, or what the President will say to the parents, spouse or children of the last American to die in this war. And, this doesn’t even look at the other hard costs of the Iraq War. Imagine what that money could buy in health care, in education or in energy independence. This isn’t about illustrating lack of support for the war by cutting support for the troops. Far from it! Be at an airport as troops return from duty and watch people applaud.
Anyone who has visited the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto knows that our soldiers, sailors and marines on duty in Iraq are America’s finest. And, those being treated at the hospital are exhibiting yet another type of bravery, as they work to rehabilitate their bruised and broken bodies back to health. Visiting the patients at the Palo Alto VA Hospital illustrates how people can support the troops but oppose the war in Iraq.
There are those who can’t detect nuance and subtlety and they are the ones who shout down those who are able to make the distinction between their support for the troops and their opposition to the war. But we live in a word of nuance and subtlety that shades our thinking, much as nuance and subtlety shaded the opinions of the individuals serving on that jury in 12 Angry Men.
David Cohen, a member of this newspaper’s
editorial board, is a corporate speechwriter. He also serves as president of the Community Law Enforcement Foundation of Morgan Hill, a grassroots organization in support of the
Morgan Hill Police Department.
