Iraq and Afghanistan

We may be witnessing something truly remarkable in Iraq:

OK, the New York Times is writing about it on the front page ... do we dare talk about it now? The possibility of non-defeat?

The Iraq War is a curious thing. It may very well end up being the first war where opponents of it get to paint it as a defeat, and the proponents get to declare victory, with no one being able to conclusively prove the other wrong.
















Nevertheless, as the NYT shows, even some longtime opponents of the war are just about ready to admit that things might be ever-so-slightly improving for Iraqis...

Is this permanent? Who knows. Is it reassuring? Definitely.

Does it jibe with what the Michaels (Totten and Yon) have been saying for weeks? Yes it does:


Here is some absolutely riveting writing from Michael J. Totten on the Anbar Awakening:

One night,” Lieutenant Markham said, “after several young people were beheaded
by Al Qaeda, the mosques in the city went crazy. The imams screamed jihad
from the loudspeakers. We went to the roof of the outpost and braced for a
major assault. Our interpreter joined us. Hold on, he said. They aren’t screaming
jihad against us. They are screaming jihad against the insurgents."

“A massive anti-Al Qaeda convulsion ripped through the city,” said Captain McGee.
“The locals rose up and began killing the terrorists on their own. They reached the tipping point where they just could not take any more. They told us where the weapon caches were. They pointed out IEDs under the road.”

Another missive from Iraq, one that dares give us hope that Iraqis can overcome their deep sectarian rifts: Muslims go to church

Then, on the other hand, there is Afghanistan:

The Senlis Council just released a sobering report, entitled Stumbling Into Chaos: Afghanistan On the Brink, which reminded me of something shocking Michael Yon posted on his site a few weeks ago.

I am far from a defeatist, but I must say that I am profoundly troubled. In the last year, the situation has deteriorated to the point that NATO is heading for a failure in its first major test as an organization. The implications of this are staggering, and we should not fool ourselves: A defeat in Afghanistan would be a fatal blow to the organization's credibility, and the dissolution of NATO thereafter would be likely. If NATO goes, what happens to Afghanistan? What happens to Canadian defence policy, for that matter?

So, given all of these developments, what will U.S. foreign policy be like in a post-Bush world?

Does the end of the Bush administration mean the end of empire? Not yet, says Macleans.

From the lips of Hilary Clinton:

"There is a refrain that we should intervene with force only when we face splendid little wars that we surely can win, preferably by overwhelming force in
a relatively short period of time. To those who believe we should become
involved only if it is easy to do, I think we have to say that America has never
and should not shy away from the hard task if it is the right one."

Looks like the next few years offer little in the way of certainty or reassuring platitudes from the heir-presumptive to the presidency.



Bonus heart-rending content:

A poignant remembrance of those who have fought and fallen there:

Last Letters from Kandahar

All my life I bugged my parents about when I could have a brother, and here I have all the brothers I could want.

Plus: Christopher Hitchens deals with a death

Instead of wasting your time going to see that Robert Redford flick, just read this. Trust me.

Invested in Defeat

Box office defeat, that is! Brian DePalma's Redacted is another failed campaign in the Hollywood War On Terrific Filmaking (HWOT):

As usual, Mark Steyn has some very interesting insights into a subject that has exercised me a great deal lately:

What the preview crowd were telling Berg is, hey, we'd love to see one film where our guys kick serious terrorist butt — and there isn't one, and there hasn't been one for six long years. If you buy the argument that Hollywood's anti Americanism derives necessarily from its role as purveyor of entertainment to the entire planet, well, so what? Terrorists killed a bunch of people in Bali, Madrid, London. Alongside the kick-ass Americans, sign Hugh Grant as an MI6 agent and Penelope Cruz as his Spanish dolly bird and Cate Blanchett as the head of the Australian SAS and Russell Crowe as her Kiwi bit of rough. As long as the enemy's the enemy, and not a Dick Cheney subsidiary. It's fine to show the American war machine warts and all, but Hollywood is showing only the warts — and, even if you stick perky little Reese Witherspoon in the middle of it, it's still just another pustulating carbuncle.

What is it with some of these filmakers? Do they really feel morally obligated to pontificate the way they do? Do they really see their role as educating the masses on what is really going down? Just where do they derive their expertise, or their moral authority, for that matter?

I could go on at great length about some of the new "secular religions" that have arisen lately, and the self-appointed popes who would be the guardians of orthodoxy... but also I'm starting to think that the problem lies with hybridization and the breaking down of barriers between education and entertainment.

More and more, when it comes to movies, the lines are blurring between the two. How many times do you hear that it is important that people watch a certain film to "learn something", and open their eyes to this or that particular issue?

That's absolutely fine by me, as long as people remember they also have to do some reading to supplement whatever that nicely-packaged, easily-digestible, inevitably slanted movie just taught them. The movie is context --an adjunct-- not the Gospel itself. Consider the danger of watching a piece of AgitProp like Loose Change free of any context or additional information.

I think back to all those days in Grade 12 English, watching movie adaptations of famous works of litterature. What if I had just watched the films and not read the books? Would Romeo and Juliet look like Baz Luhrman's South Beach, or Zefirelli's Verona? Having read the play, my Romeo and Juliet doesn't have to look like either... I can make up my own mind! I have additional information that gives me more context.

Do you go to the monkey cage at the zoo expecting a dissertation on Schopenhauer? Do you go to university, for that matter, expecting the professor to gibber, grimace and fling feces? So why should those who entertain us also have the role of educating us?

I say to Hollywood: Never mind the message movies... dance, monkey, dance!


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Bonus: In addition to making reprehensible movies, DePalma is now torpedoing the careers of hungry young actors by allowing them to make fools of themselves and get eviscerated by critics.

Novice thespian challenged by role of improbably-obese, grotesque and ridiculous Marine caricature in Redacted

Bond-age

I've been watching some of the old Bond flicks that MPIX is showing ahead of their premiere of Casino Royale, the shockingly good "reboot" of the 007 franchise starring Daniel Craig.

After watching two of them back-to-back, I noticed that the famous "gunbarrel" opening was subtly different for each one.

I later found this video, which shows each opening montage in sequence, from Dr. No, all the way to Casino Royale.



Personally, I get a kick out of tracing the evolution of men's fashion as exemplified by the ever-stylish 007: The hat, which was de rigueur for a secret agent in the early sixties, has disappeared by the end of the decade. The seventies brings a bell-bottom sporting Bond, and the eighties puffier Bond hair. by the nineties, we have gotten a bit gimicky... a dapper tuxedoed Bond fires a bullet right down the barrel in one opening sequence!

It's also amazing how many variations people have come up with for Monty Norman's iconic theme. Each opening features a different take on the tune: Most of the big and brassy versions from the earlier Bonds I love. Some, like the late seventies disco version, I find hilarious. I also find a couple of the later ones horridly sythesized and overdone. Sure, they get points for trying to be original, but as far as I'm concerned, if it doesn't have that famous dum-da-da-dum-dum, dum dum dum, dum-da-da-dum-dum... it ain't the Bond song!

I also discovered that Monty Norman and legendary James Bond film scorer John Barry have each claimed credit for the creation of the theme, going as far as taking the whole thing to court. The issue was certainly worth a fight, given the royalties Norman must have been collecting.