Elah is the Aramaic word for god. It means the awesome one. Also the place where David slew Goliath. You folks should have a field day with that.

The English language isn't stagnant & new words are continually being created. But they come about to fill a void - to describe something more clearly.

That's not the case here with the use of unmooring. Making up words or using obscure terms is an indulgence for any writer. And good editors should work hard to make sure that while the writer's voice and word preferences remain - meaning is not unnecessarily obscured.

When I first saw this - what can only be called a nonword - in the review of Mighty Heart - it stopped me in my reading. I reread the article trying to figure out what was meant because this was in no way obvious.

Was it a typo - meant to be unmoving? Hmmmn - no, that doesn't seem to be what she's saying. But it's not a word. If it was a word - what would it mean? Unmoor is a word - albeit with nautical meaning - it means release - so released? That makes no sense - what is she trying to say? And why did I just spend a few minutes trying to figure this out?

Salon's language is generally clear & to-the-point. I appreciate that. And I enjoy reading articles - agree or disagree - that make me think. I believe that's what many people enjoy about Salon. However - I don't want to spend time trying to figure out what a writer is trying (but failing) to communicate.

is a word. At least according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

un·moor (n-mr)

v. un·moored, un·moor·ing, un·moors

v.tr.

1. To release from or as if from moorings.

2. Nautical To release (a ship) from all but one anchor.

v.intr.

To cast off moorings.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/unmooring

So PUHlease stop complaining about it every time it shows up in a movie review.

While I think it's a good movie, it's a pretty transparent call to "stay the course" no matter what the war's cost is on the home front. It also was made in the middle of the war, when it was still in doubt whether the Allies would ultimately win. Best Years of Our Lives is more of a retrospective and the sucessful end of the war (from the Allies standpoint, anyhow) gave a whole different context and meaning to the characters' sacrifices.

The current slate of Iraq war movies are hardly government propaganda, and I doubt any will have the message of Mrs. Miniver. But it's true that a bit of mental and temporal distance from the war will provide a different artistic and political perspective for filmmakers (not to mention novelists, musicians, visual artists, etc.). It's been this way in every cataclysmic event, that you cannot encompass it when you are in the midst of it.

The US has been engaged in the Iraq Wars and others like it for decades now. In this most recent phase since the US ground invasion of March 2003, the first Iraq War novels were written in 2003 and have been well received, to the extent that they have been acknowledged.

For what it’s worth - the good and the bad, and the in-between - an incomplete list of Iraq War fiction:

IRAQ WAR NOVELS:

Hocus Potus - Malcolm MacPherson

The Sirens of Baghdad - Yasmina Khadra

Last One In - Nicholas Kulish

Homefront - Tony Christini

Still the Monkey - Alivia C. Tagliaferri

The Scorpion’s Gate - Richard A. Clarke

The Human War - Noah Cicero

“Greendale” as graphic novel - Neil Young & Joshua Dysart

Homeland - Paul William Roberts

Outsourced - R. J. Hillhouse

Body of Lies - David Ignatius

IRAQ WAR PLAYS:

The Wolf - Sean Huze

1984 - Tim Robbins

Peace Mom - Dario Fo

Stuff Happens - David Hare

IRAQ WAR FICTION FILMS AND VIDEO:

Lions for Lambs

Over There

Valley of the Wolves Iraq

The Tiger and the Snow

Stop-Loss

The Situation

G.I. Jesus

24

A Mighty Heart

Home of the Brave

Grace is Gone

In the Valley of Elah

Rendition

Redacted

Homecoming

Embedded

Body of Lies

Iraq War Documentary Films and Video:

list at Wikipedia

Links to each of the above:

http://apragmaticpolicy.wordpress.com/2007/08/11/iraq-war-fiction/

re: "Is it too soon to make sense of a war we're still fighting?"

It's not too soon -- it's too late.

Shouldn't we be tired of movies that give us Americans as victims, rather than the peoples of the world who are devastated by our imperial wars? How our wars affect us might be better understood if we looked at how our wars affect everyone else. Stories about the tortured souls of the slave owners or war mongers are masturbatory exercises in affirming our all too sentimental views of our own humanity and are pretty offensive to the real victims of our adventurism.

"Stories about the tortured souls of the slave owners or war mongers are masturbatory exercises in affirming our all too sentimental views of our own humanity and are pretty offensive to the real victims of our adventurism."

So people serving in the military, or in our current situation very likely the reserves, some of them on their third or fourth deployment, and the families who lose them, are equivalent to slave owners? The 3700 plus soldiers killed are victims or military adventurism?

What will you ask the Wizard for first -- a brain or a heart?

Someone might be offended or confused.

"So people serving in the military, or in our current situation very likely the reserves, some of them on their third or fourth deployment, and the families who lose them, are equivalent to slave owners? The 3700 plus soldiers killed are victims or military adventurism?"

Yes, they are the victims, not only of the actual war mongers but of our use of them as surrogates for our own "suffering" while we walk around the malls not even thinking about them.