The Middle East Quagmire: Mid-November Edition
This has been the deadliest month of fighting thus far in the war in Afghanistan. Usually Iraq gets the dub’yus (new spelling of dubious) honor, but apparently the Ol’ Taliban is kicking it up a notch. It’s been a pretty deadly month in Iraq too, but we’re used to hearing that. It’s not even deemed newsworthy anymore.
Speaking of the war in Afghanistan, I saw the movie Lions for Lambs last night. I guess it got a lot of bad reviews because it wasn’t cut and dried Hollywood stock enough, but that’s what I liked about it. Meryl Streep played a very Dan Rather-like figure, Robert Redford played an ultra-cool liberal college professor and Tom Cruise played a pretty good neo-con Senator. It’s three stories about the “War on Terror” from three very different perspectives. The movie is really engaging and timely. It’s not visually spectacular though, so save a few bucks and wait ‘til it comes out on DVD.
Oh and speaking of alleged “War on Terror” the US Army and forces from our allies (is that still called the Coalition of the Willing? Does Tonga still have our back?) have established a military base on top of one of Iraq’s off shore oil rigs. Could we be any more obvious? The Pentagon says it’s all about surveillance. Surveillance. Phew. I thought for a minute there we were fighting this war for oil.
And how about that Musharraf rascal in Pakistan? The cool thing about him is that he’s learned a lot of lessons from George Bush about cracking down on civil liberties. He keeps talking about this national emergency, and that he has every intention of lifting martial law as soon as the emergency is over, but won’t give any time frame. Turning an ongoing conflict into a constant emergency – add a lack of a time for ending the conflict – and voila – Bush’s war strategy.
Thankfully he does it on a much grander scale than President Bush is currently able to. And with President Bush’s commitment to democracy cemented with a stern tongue lashing of Musharraf, I don’t think he need fear any interference from Yankee do-gooders.
Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban, Lions for Lambs, Meryl Streep, Dan Rather, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, War on Terror, Coalition of the Willing, Musharraf, George Bush
Filed under: Politics on November 12th, 2007
The new forgotten war, except unlike Korea this one has been forgotten while it still rages on. I have a friend in the reserves who is getting ready to ship out. I hope she’ll be ok. I hate these wars, I hate war.
I haven’t paid much attention to that movie lions for lambs but I this is the first possitive review I’ve heard of it. The right wingers are saying it’s doing lousy in the box office because of the politics, the left is countering with it’s just a lousy movie, personally I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at Tom Cruise without thinking about him being completely insane. I don’t even think I could enjoy Top Gun anymore. When I was a kid I had the best version of that movie ever, my parents taped it but skipped all the romance stuff, not because they thought it was inappropriate but because they knew I just wanted to see the planes.
I know Iceland has pulled their troop out of the Coalition of the Willing, and yes troop is singular.
I’m not saying Tom Cruise is a great actor, but if you discounted great actors for their weirdness you wouldn’t have much left to work with.
Oh weirdness doesn’t phase me, you should meet my friends, its bug-fuck insane that I have trouble getting past, and using your celebrity to try to influence people with flat out lies, that irks me a little too.
I have a tough time not looking at Gary Busey as a psycho too, but he usually plays a crazy person so it doesn’t take away from his performance, plus hes often in a small roll so it doesn’t affect the movie much.
Cruise on the other hand is always a lead roll and is expected t be taken seriously and I doubt I’ll ever be able to take him serious again, if he was doing comedy it might not be as big a deal. Then again doesn’t he play the Neocon in the movie? Maybe having a crazy person playing a neocon wouldn’t hurt the movie much after all….