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Collateral Damage
The plot is vintage Arnold. He plays firefighter Gordon Brewer, who is drawn into international terrorism when his wife and son are blown up in a bombing carried out by Claudio ("The Wolf") Perrini. In pre-9/11 movies, the U.S. is nearly as evil as the terrorists, as the perennial bumbling evil C.I.A./NSA secret agents do absolutely anything at all costs by any means to get their way -- just like the terrorists. At the moment, that plot line seems a dubious one. When Brewer figures out that the ever politically squishy U.S. government isn't going to catch the Wolf (to avoid ruffling the feathers of the Columbian government), he decides to do it himself, tracking the Wolf through Panama to the dense jungles of Columbia, where he spends as much time dodging evil U.S. agents as he does hiding from evil Columbian guerrillas.
The movie is full of the now vintage Schwarzeneggerian repertoire of narrow-eyed stares and clunky one liners and explosion after explosion. And let's face it, Arnold is no action adventure spring chicken. His face is lined, his visage distinctly middle-aged. We see him in relatively few action sequences, and he is undoubtedly keeping platoons of stunt men working, judging from the credits.
Watching the film, you can't help but identify with the helplessness of a man who sees his family blown to bits for no particular reason by murderous fanatics who use high-blown rhetoric to justify their butchery. I suppose there are lots of people who wish they could get their hands on Osama Bin Laden's throat.
What makes Black Hawk Down so jarring and effective a film is that it's about a real story. U.S. soldiers really did find themselves in a horrific shoot-out in Somalia, and really did behave heroically under awful pressure. These same soldiers are now crawling around the hills of Afghanistan, their cause clear and powerful. That movie is thus a terrific salute to ordinary people who have to take a deep measure of themselves in extraordinary situations.
But Schwarzenegger's clunky ham-handedness is diminished, not enhanced by reality. The movie is too long, the ending loopy. What was once an entertaining Hollywood cartoon figure now just seems a dinosaur, his sensibility outdated and irrelevant. Schwarzenegger has made some first-rate action stuff. His Terminator series was great (he's making another). He ought to ride off into the sunset while he still has his dignity and pride, and acknowledge that while he had a great ride, the reality of the world has finally overtaken him.
He enjoys these movies for the same reason programmers enjoy reusing code from earlier projects... less work and *generally* equal result. If you got millions of dollars to say the same lines over and over again from movie to movie wouldn't you continue?
There was an article somewhere that discussed a pirate version of BHD making it into MOG. The opinion of the Somalis was that it accurately protrayed the events of those 2 days. If anything the movie minimized the extent that the millitia was using women and childeren as shields, ( ie laying prone on the ground with a wife on eiter side and two kids sitting on your back.
The United States was repeatedly cautioned by other nations to not involve themselves in Somali affairs, as they were a mish-mash of various warlords each having armed forces and all being about as sane as a bucket of loons on a Sunday.
The United States, however, being pricked repeatedly by one particular of these warlords, decided that they, being smarter and stronger than the nations who warned them, would take care of this pesky warlord.
Their execution of this plan was fatally flawed. The soldiers were not familiar with the methods of fighting employed by the locals. They did not know how to act effectively when a crowd of civilians acted as shields for the militants. Basically, the entire effort receded into a "Cover each other and back the hell up" scenario, which just barely managed to get the bulk of US Soldiers out alive.
Heroism? Where? What was heroic? Bad orders came down based on bad policy, executed by ill-prepared soldiers. Is it heroic to survive?
I would gladly send an e-mail to the soldiers involved. Particuarly John Stebbins (name changed to John Grimes for the movie). Ewan MacGregor's character -- You know him? The one who failed in attempting to join the regular forces three times during the Gulf War, before somehow being permitted to join the Rangers? Unfortunately, he probably isn't too easy to get ahold of these days.
The movie was grossly exaggerated and removed from any meaningful context. As a result, it cannot be called "truth". It is entertainment, not a historical document.
-l
unofficialy, nobody ever did.
the people who start a world war deserve to die.
"...to cite the excuse of 4 year old children the world over 'they started it.'"
Excuse me sir, who is this ambiguous 'they'? From what I can see, we've already killed at least 3700 people (see UNH report) who had nothing at all to do with the attacks on September 11th. Furthermore, we have pledged to continue our holy quest until terrorism is erradicated. Now, I might be in the minority in all of this, but I don't see any possible way that terrorism can be wiped from the face of the earth. Whether you like it or not, it's the single most effective way for marginal groups to get the world's attention. Who knew how to pronounce Tajikistan before September 11th? Would anyone care about the catholic/protestant struggle in Ireland if they weren't blowing up busses and harassing schoolgirls and whatnot? I'm not condoning terrorism; I'm simply acknowledging its inevitability in our current global climate. The only way to end terrorism, to wipe it from the face of the earth, is to stop it at its roots. Any effort to try for greater equality and efficacy in the world will be beneficial to this end. Let us examine whether the United States is truely trying to stop terrorism. First, we recommend that developing nations sell their soles to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The policies of these organizations may seem somewhat noble, but it doesn't take much to recognize the rapidly accelerating gap in economic equality in the world over the period that they've reigned over the finances of developing nations. There are a few instances of success with their plans, especially in southeast asia, but I would argue that this success could've come without their intervention. Furthermore, one only needs to look towards Argentina to see disasterous failure of their plans. And what more, the policies of these organizations promote sweatshop labor and corporate control in these nations. It will certainly be interesting to see the state of Afghanistan in 15 years after it fully succumbs to the IMF. Also, despite championing the struggle for democracy as our reason for upsetting the Taliban, Bush continues (and to be fair, Clinton before him) to support dictatorships (pakistan et al) and monarchies (Saudi Arabia et al). Our goals in this war on terrorism are not noble. The war, thusfar, has led to a loss of rights at home, and genocide abroad (see the Time report on the Afghan school slaughter for proof of this). I can guarantee you that in 5 years, US interests will profit greatly off of Afghan labor and property in Afghan soil (eg: gas/oil pipeline through the country) just as they did after the noble affair in Yugoslavia. The real tragedy in all of this, however, is the use of the "Bush Doctrine" by other countries to stamp out rebel groups in the name of anti-terrorism. Clearly, Israel is the best example of this, but there are others. Our country was founded on the idea that those suffering the burden of an oppressive government have an obligation to humanity to overthrow it and create a more just government. In this new bush order, revolution is impossible unless sanctioned by The United States, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. This makes a perfectly stable, bland, and corrupt world. Wonderful for profit, horrible for humanity.
When Arnold was on The Tonight Show one of them (he or Leno) made a joke about how the delay of the release of this movie would leave Arnold out of contention for an Oscar. Arnold further joked that "They've passed me over 25 times already."
This is the tone for Arnold's movies. Nobody in their right mind would go see an Arnold movie and expect anything more than, well, an Arnold movie. If ever you walk out of one having expected something else, you just don't know Arnold movies.
In this case, though I have not seen it (yet), I'm guessing that Arnold catches the terrorist, and that while he doesn't bring back his murdered family members, he does exact revenge in much the same way alot of the audience would like to for attacks here in the US. Arnold movies are escapist, entertaining (for some), and delivery what they promise, and that isn't so bad.
Since Hollywood is the pumping heart of mind-control media production for the West, is it any wonder they had films already in the bag designed to keep the embers of war-mongering public hate and nationalistic pride burning brightly?
What blows me away is that they would be so blatent! You'd think they would at least wait until after the 9-11 display, just to keep the books clean, so to speak. The fact that can get away with this sort of thing demonstrates just how little work there is left to do in terms of programming the public.
Oh. And here's an interesting tid-bit: In Toronto, there is a fellow claiming to be a U.S. Navy spy claiming that he had foreknowledge of 9-11. The interesting part is that he was locked up in a Canadian jail back in August. He was screaming and yelling about the impending September attacks, to the point where he signed a document to this effect, had it witnessed and court sealed, several weeks before they happened.
You can read the article here
-Fantastic Lad
Death camps in America filled to capacity before this decade is out. They are empty and waiting already. .
I don't know if something noteworthy happened on the ninth of November, but if your talking about the day when a bunch of Islamic terrorists crashed a couple of planes in NY it reads 11/9!
Flamebait, -1 (where's your moderator points when you need them)
We all have our own cultural interpretations. In Mexico, they celebrate "Cinco de Mayo". We don't correct it and tell them that it's "Mayo de Cinco"...
The attack happened in America, on primarily American people - where we use the month/day convention. The other reason that it's sometimes referred to as "nine-eleven" is the similarity it has with the emergency telephone number "9-1-1".
Perhaps the terrorists chose this day on purpose to strike fear into the hearts of Americans by using our own culture against us. Perhaps they wanted us to forever remember that day as the "day of emergency". They failed, for the heroism of the emergency personnel (who happen to respond when you dial 9-1-1) turned out to be the great shining light of the day.
In summary, I feel it fitting to refer back to one of this nation's most important events in history as "September 11th", or "nine-eleven", or even "nine-one-one".
If, or when someone invades Europe from another continent and smashes 2,000+ people - perhaps your press will report it as 2.000 people, and you can refer to that date in infamy as "day/month". But until that time, get used to us Americans using "month/day". It's our culture. We tried to jetison the English measurement system for metric, it didn't happen.
- passion