From campaign commercials to cocktail parties, the war in Iraq is a constant source of conversation these days. And though it’s the most important topic going, it makes for boring conversation. Most of us have made up our minds what we think. We’re waiting to see what new talking points the election, or perhaps the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group, will generate.

But Sen. Kerry’s Oct. 30 comment about the troops that everyone claims to support was anything but boring. “You know, education, if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq,” Kerry said.

Kerry has since said that he was really poking fun at President Bush, who has an MBA from Harvard, if that counts for anything. But it’s hard to give the benefit of the doubt to a man who launched his political career by characterizing many of the common folk he served with in Vietnam as war criminals. Or to a party whose plans for winning in Iraq and combating terrorism are woefully ill-defined.

Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” is in theaters at a perfect time to prompt deeper, if not different, thoughts about both the current conflict and war in general.

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Based on the 2000 book by James Bradley, “Flags” unravels the story of the photograph of the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman (the author’s father, John Bradley) raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Only three flag-raisers made it off the island alive, brought back to the states to capitalize on the photo’s iconic power in a “buy war bonds” publicity tour.

During the tour, Corpsman Bradley (played by Ryan Phillippe) constantly looks over his shoulder and into his own memory of battle, where the most colorful thing is the dead grass covering the holes the enemy hides in. We see only the muted horror in his eyes when he finds out what the Japanese troops did to the corpse of his captured friend.

The film’s heart is Adam Beach’s Oscar-worthy performance as Corporal Ira Hayes, the Pima Indian immortalized in the song written by Peter LaFarge and sung most famously by Johnny Cash. He drinks to medicate the guilt he feels over being lionized for what he sees as a trivial act. All he wants is to prove his own worth and the worth of other Native Americans on the battlefield. He succeeds, but also fails.

We eventually find out that the picture, though not staged, was not quite what it looked like. The famous six were actually raising a second flag that replaced the first, smaller one that was taken down to adorn the wall of a commanding officer.

Hayes, Bradley and everyone involved with the PR campaign swallow their objections to the smudged truth because they know something greater is at stake. They know that media images on the home front can serve the same purpose as flags in battle: To muster courage for a cause worth winning.

Eastwood has said that “Flags” is about “the futility of war.” But our current war, like World War II, will be futile only if we lose it. Those of us who realize that are frustrated by the perception that the media seems to revel only in negative images from Iraq, like the sadistic Lynndie England at Abu Ghraib and American soldiers being killed by snipers from a group calling itself the “Islamic Army.”

Just like most of the American troops an Iwo Jima, most of our all-volunteer, highly professional armed forces believe in what they are trying to accomplish. Thankfully, they will keep at it, even without the support of John Kerry and a short-sighted media establishment.

Aaron Keith Harris writes about politics, the media, pop culture and music and is a regular contributor to National Review Online and Bluegrass Unlimited. He can be reached at aaronkeithharris@gmail.com.