Well Here We Are

Conditions: Cold, jittery.

Ding Dong The Witch is Dead.

As I type I can see people celebrating in New York city. They laugh and cheer and carry flags about while chanting "U.S.A" "U.S.A" "U.S.A". They mug for the cameras and smile and dance with each other. It's very early in the morning there, and crowds have congregated to Ground Zero in celebration. In Washington there's another crowd who have gathered outside the white house. They too are singing and laughing. There's a few bagpipers who are playing Amazing Grace. People are thowing streamewrs in to the air. What has prompted this sudden outpouring of good cheer?

Osama bin Laden, the elusive mastermind behind the devastating September 11, 2001, terror attacks that led the United States into war in Afghanistan and later Iraq, was killed in a firefight, President Barack Obama said Sunday.
[...]

Obama said a small team of Americans killed bin Laden early Sunday in the town of Abbottabat, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the capital Islamabad, U.S., Pakistani officials said. The team took custody of his remains and American officials said they were being handled in accordance with Islamic tradition.

- indianexpress.com/news

Yes, after a 10 year man hunt the most wanted man in the world is dead. Executed by special forces soldiers in a Villa in Pakistan. So with the apparent mastermind of Al Queda dead, is that the end of the war on terror? Can America finally now creep out from behind the big rock they've been under, and start regaining some sanity?

LONDON - World leaders from Britain to Japan on Monday hailed the death of Osama bin Laden and urged heightened security precautions in its aftermath. News of the terror leader’s killing by U.S. forces in Pakistan boosted the dollar, sending stock markets higher in Asia and driving down the price of oil.

In official reactions and global media reports, there was a broad sense that the successful operation amounted to a personal victory for Americans and a milestone in the fight against extremism.

- washingtonpost.com/world/

So the stock market is climbing, and it looks like security will be ramped up in the aftermath. Terr-ific.

The mood this morning is likely to be more sober, as Americans cast their minds back on past premature declarations of victory, in Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and at George W Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" triumphalism over Iraq in 2003.

The struggle against terrorism does not give itself easily to neat beginnings and endings. In one sense, the "war on terror" ended in March 2009 when the incoming Obama administration decided it was a counter-productive phrase in the first place, bringing America's enemies together rather than dividing them.

After being driven from Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaida's response was to transform itself into a far looser global network that would be harder to destroy. In its most dilute form, al-Qaida is little more than a franchise that alienated groups around the world can sign up for, exchanging formal oaths of allegiance for the dread that the name inspires in their enemies.

The most likely short-term impact of Bin Laden's death is an increase in al-Qaida attacks around the world, as the martyr effect kicks in and these disparate groups carry out attacks to ensure that the killing of their spiritual leader does not go unavenged. If they fail to do so, their supporters and enemies alike could rightly question whether they are still in business at all.

- guardian.co.uk/world/

And there we have it, the glaring and obvious truth. That the war on terror has been handled so badly that the leader and figurehead of the terrorist network Al Queda was able to settle into life in a Pakistani Villa. His organisation had time enough to reconfigure itself to operate effectively without him. And that when he was finally apprehended he was not arrested and put on trial for his crimes, which I reluctantly feel I should point out would have been the preferred outcome, but instead killed that likely will prompt some kind of retalliation and ensuring any possible victory or value that could have been gotten from this guy has been pissed away. Let the revelry continue.


Film Review: Fast and the Furious 5.

Or Fast 5, or 5ast and 5urious, whatever the kids are calling it these days. Fed up with doing sequels where someone gets in trouble and everyone else has to drive like lunatics to help out, the filmmakers have decided for the latest round of the Fast franchise to do an Ocean's 11 on wheels. Which is the Italian Job. But not the classic 60's Italian Job, more like the recent one with Marky Mark, BMW's, and a dead Donald Sutherland. However even this lowered bar proves a mighty challenge for the likes of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as they assemble a rag-tag crew of people from the last four movies, because they're going up against a notorious Rio drug kingpin who has the entire city's police force in his pocket. Which is just as well since they probably end up killing most of the cops, as well as a significant number of bystanders, in the truly ludicrous finale.

There's an effort to concentrate on the theme of family, where Walker's character becomes a father, and Vin therefore an uncle, and the various other half-remembered faces are included in the family mashup as well. But really, the overall theme I got from the film was a steady undertone of desperate viciousness. We begin right at the end of the last one which was (since no one remembers) where Vin was sentenced to jail and put on a prison bus. Our heroes (? really?) bust him out by triggering one of the biggest bus crashes I've ever seen. But it's ok, apparently no one else escapes, or even gets hurt. This is probably the first film I remember where you know the filmmakers are just flat out lying to you, likely because they know that the audience doesn't really care. Wheee: bus crash. Anyway, our heroes (? maybe?) go to Rio to steal cars for a living, only top fall foul of said drug kingpin. Enter The Rock(tm) playing some kind of American Marshal with the power to basically charge around Rio in a tank as if it's Bagdhad, doing whatever he wants in pursuit of the team. I can't decide whether he puts the term "bad" or the term "ass" into the word "badass". Perhaps it's a full sweep. Eventually he gets his chance to fight Vin Diesel, in a carefully choreographed brawl where Vin wins but totally lets The Rock off the hook. I guess that's why Vin's name is above the title.

Anyway, after much bullshitting around the team decide that instead of some clever plan to steal the bad guys' money from his safe in the building, they can just smash though the walls and steal the safe itself, towing it through the streets of Rio behind two muscle cars. If you've seen the trailer you can imagine how that turns out. This really comes across as a mean film, where everyone is desperate to destroy whatever stands between them and getting paid. And in the end the good guys win (again: ?) and retire to live the good life with all that stolen drug money, and I can't help but wonder exactly why we in the audience are meant to care for any of these chumps at all? Seriously, we all like Vin Diesel, and the other guys are okay, but why in these movies should we give a damn for these characters? Maybe it's my mistake, for looking at characters in a Fast & Furious film, so packed to the brim with roaring engines and stylish flash that there's simply no room left over for actual depth. And being pregnant doesn't count. Two pancaked cop cars out of Five.


-Peace out