Trigger Warning: Mentions of torture, sexual violence, and war crimes
The Gen Z-beloved film production studio, A24, recently released Warfare (2025), a film that follows a surveillance platoon of U.S. soldiers during the Iraq War. This war epic is directed by an Iraq War veteran, Ray Mendoza, and claims to give an “honest” reflection of “real-time” warfare in US-occupied Iraq. Despite my discussion of this film, I honestly have no desire to see Warfare, which is currently only available in U.S. theatres. My discussion surrounding this film focuses more on the socio-cultural implications of producing this film in the first place. The Iraq War was one of the biggest displays of war crimes that the new millennium has recorded, and while these atrocious acts were being committed, the U.S. military received overwhelming support from U.S. citizens.
The Iraq War
The aftermath of 9/11 left the U.S. government and citizens feeling unsure about their safety from terrorist attacks, and this led to an influx of extreme security measures as well as rampant Islamophobia in the U.S. In addition to many new national security programmes, the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq. Bush believed invading Iraq was essential to preserving the safety of U.S. citizens, as he believed that Iraq was developing and distributing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that would be used against the U.S. Bush also claimed that Iraq’s then-president, Saddam Hussein, was working with terrorist group al Qaeda and played a direct role in 9/11. However, despite Bush’s convictions, there was no evidence proving either of his claims, neither before nor after the war.
Despite the lack of evidence for his claims, in October 2002, Bush was still able to get approval not only from his own intelligence agencies, which themselves admitted they had no concrete evidence, but also from the majority of American citizens. This support was largely fueled by patriotic and Islamophobic propaganda, which resonated deeply with a population left vulnerable and insecure in the aftermath of 9/11. The influence of Western media was so strong that many Americans not only believed Bush’s unfounded claims, but also assumed there was widespread international support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, despite clear opposition from the UN Security Council. This, of course, created an environment that allowed for extreme support for Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. By March 2003, the U.S. had invaded and occupied Iraq, and a war was declared.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq led to the violent death of an estimated 601,027 Iraqi citizens. The U.S. military employed war tactics, later labelled as war crimes, such as occupation of Iraqi homes, detainment and torture of Iraqi civilians, and rape and sexual assault of innocent civilians. One of the most infamous examples of these abuses was the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, which was occupied by U.S. soldiers to interrogate alleged “suspects.” At Abu Ghraib, civilians were subjected to horrific acts of torture, including electrocution, forced nudity, coerced sexual acts, and attacks by dogs. They were routinely humiliated—having human feces thrown at them—and were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, in direct violation of their Islamic beliefs.
Despite the numerous war crimes and severe human rights violations, the U.S. never found any WMD, nor did they find any evidence of such a WMD programme existing in the first place. Although Saddam Hussein was captured and overthrown, there was still no evidence that Hussein was involved with the al Qaeda terrorist group, and it was therefore presumed that he was not involved in 9/11. This meant that none of Bush’s claims were ever legitimized, thus proving that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and ultimately destructive.
A24’s Warfare
Here’s where the problem with A24’s Warfare lies. The film’s choice to centre a platoon of American soldiers who experience the traumas, hardships, and brotherhood of warfare creates a narrative that sympathizes with these soldiers and ultimately victimizes the U.S. military. Warfare’s director, Mendoza, made this film to honour his war companion, who had become severely injured in the Iraq War and lost all memory of the incident that led to this injury. Because of this, Mendoza made this film directly from memory as a way to allow his fellow veteran friend to relive this moment, which can ultimately help him overcome the trauma of it all. While this is an endearing sentiment, Western media’s constant attempt to victimize and/or portray the U.S. military as heroes tends to alienate groups of people that were truly made victims by the U.S. imperialist empire.
As much as I can understand the importance of exploring the physical and psychological traumas experienced by U.S. military soldiers, I do not understand why these are the stories that are constantly being platformed and commercially supported as opposed to stories of the oppressed people who experienced the invasion. While I don’t doubt that the film highlights the grey areas of the U.S. choice to invade Iraq, I fear that a film that centres U.S. soldiers will never be able to offer true respect to the Iraqi people who are currently still experiencing the long-term effects of this war. At best, Warfare can take a neutral or centrist stance—and in today’s global political climate, where the U.S. government plays a significant role in the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, neutrality is not enough. So yes, stories of U.S. military soldiers’ trauma are important, but so are stories that illustrate the destruction that the U.S. creates in places like the Middle East and Global South. For this reason, I truly wish that more highly commercial film production companies would create films that accurately depict the atrocities that the U.S. military performs on civilians, instead of further perpetuating Western ‘victim/hero’ propaganda. For this reason, I sincerely hope that more major film production companies begin to invest in narratives that hold the U.S. military—and by extension, the U.S. government—accountable for the atrocities they commit. These stories would not only be innovative, but they would also address the major gap in representation within the war genre in the West.