Warfare, in a long tradition of similar cinematic efforts, purports to depict war in its actuality, the brief moments of humanity and heroism, the violence and shock, and so on. It constructs the cynical artifice of objectivity and in doing so erases any humanity or needed characterization within the film, and simultaneously denies any potential for meaningful sociopolitical commentary. This artificial objectivity, this ostensible facticity, is all the more pernicious due to the film’s subject matter; erasing Iraqi perspectives or…