Lessons in Futility

Conditions: Soaking wet.


Finding The Turd Of Truth

This week some airstrikes in Afghanistan, targeted against Taleban, killed a number of civilians. Which tragically, is nothing new. But what is a little new is the response of the Afghani president.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called on the US to halt air strikes in his country, following an attack that reportedly killed scores of civilians.

Mr Karzai, who is in Washington, told CNN air strikes were "not acceptable".

Afghan officials say more than 100 civilians died when US jets attacked targets in the western Farah province.

The incident overshadowed a summit on Wednesday between the President Barack Obama, Mr Karzai, and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari.

"We demand an end to these operations... an end to air strikes," Mr Karzai told CNN.

He said the deaths were "definitely" the result of US air strikes and not Taleban militants, as some US military officials had suggested.

"We believe strongly that air strikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism, that air strikes rather cause civilian casualties and does not do good for the US, does not do good for Afghanistan," he said.

- news.bbc.co.uk/

Yes! Fighting terrorists with air strikes is like treating sunburn with limb-removal. Not helping. Surely this will force the Americans to re-think their operations in the already-ravaged country.

Pentagon officials believe that about 12 civilians were killed in U.S. airstrikes this week in Afghanistan, far fewer than numbers cited by Afghan provincial officials and the Red Cross.

Provincial officials said as many as 147 people were killed in fighting between insurgents and Afghan soldiers backed by U.S. forces. The International Committee of the Red Cross also has said there was a high civilian death toll.

Officials of the U.S.-led military command planned a news conference in Afghanistan today to discuss the incident.

The airstrikes on Monday, in the western province of Farah, were requested by Afghan army and police forces in the midst of battle against Taliban fighters and also killed an estimated 30 militants, Pentagon officials said.

A senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday that American officials believed the civilian toll was grossly exaggerated as part of a public relations war.

"We are just too slow to get our message out on this. It has to be instant," the official said.

- latimes.com/

Oh. Oh, I see. So according to the Afghani officials, air strikes are a really stupid way to try and get terrorists. And according to the American officials, the priority is to do a better job of counting the number of civilians who get killed.

Sigh.



Film Review: Wolverine.

Question: What’s more frustrating than a revenge film that doesn’t have any revenge? Answer: A revengeless revenge film that’s also a prequel. Yes, despite it’s abundance of claws, fangs, and a great deal of rage, Wolverine turns out to be a bloodless, unfulfilling, waste of time. Set before the three X-Men films, it is therefore assured that the Wolverine himself will survive. And Sabertooth, Stryker, Cyclops, Gambit and all the other X-Men characters will also soldier through in order to keep their appointments in the set future. So nothing can really happen that we didn’t already know would happen. No one can even get hurt, especially since the two leads are essentially invulnerable. And that pisses me off.

The one thing that everyone truly understands is a ripping good revenge story, and it appears that Wolverine gives us a doozy. Our hero and his equally mutant brother, Vincent, run away from home and spend the next 100-odd years fighting various wars. They end up in an elite unit of other mutants just in time for Wolverine to decide he doesn’t want to fight anymore, so he quits. Which pisses off Vincent. Time passes, Wolverine has a nice life and a nice wife, and before you can say “huh?”, Vincent kills the wife for, well, no reason at all. So Wolverine wants revenge, and Stryker steps out of the blue to offer to help him by turning him into a weapon. Although odd, it does finally lead us up to a confrontation, only to get it all sucked away like oxygen out an air lock. See, the wife isn't dead at all, she was in on the plan from the beginning. - You know, the plan to turn Wolverine into an invulnerable weapon, that then runs amok. Sorry, but, is there any part of this plan that makes sense? By revealing the wife is not dead, and is part of the plan, the whole point, the entire central core of the film is lost. Now Wolverine doesn’t want to fight anymore, although he and his brother are forced to battle some crazy last-minute mutant experiment in order to use up the last of the effects budget. And everyone walks away sad. Except the wife, who accidentally gets shot. But it’s OK because by then Wolverine has had his memory wiped. I wish I could say the same.

This is ridiculous. It’s the most bloodless, unfocused, defused revenge story in the history of cinema. What is the freaking point? That Wolverine has anger issues? That his skeleton has metal grafted to it? That mutants is scary? We already know all that! Despite the point that the film has been shot fairly well, the entire thing is just an aimless wander through the X-men universe, leading us right back to where we started from. Some stories shouldn’t be told. One and a half drills to the face out of Five.



- Peace out