Price

Conditions: Cold, Worn


Defeat.

Because that really is what it is. After about 9 years of chaos, the American military has handed over it's last base to the Iraqi forces ahead of the final stages of it's withdrawal before the end of the year. It leaves behind a country that is still shattered, still rocked by attacks, still in mourning. President Obama has gallantly tried to talk of how the troops were brave and true, serving and sacrificing for their country with honour, and that's fine. But the elephant in the room remains ignored. America invaded Iraq in 2003 based on lies, greed and arrogance. A different America leaves Iraq, chastened, bitter and perhaps a little stunned. And of course the Iraq left behind is much changed as well. Released from under a dictator, it is nonetheless a broken country that requires help and a lot of time to possibly rebuild.

The cost of war is more than numbers, of course. Losing a family member or a lifetime of disability are incalculable.

“The end of former Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime represents a considerable global good, and a nascent democratic Iraqi republic partnered with the United States could potentially yield benefits in the future,” Duss and Juul of the Center for American Progress write. “But when weighing those possible benefits against the costs of the Iraq intervention, there is simply no conceivable calculus by which Operation Iraqi Freedom can be judged to have been a successful or worthwhile policy.”

That’s a political and historical judgment that no doubt will be debated for years.

- www.csmonitor.com/

And so what happens now? With Iraq in such a state, hardly any military and no air force, it is vulnerable to it's neighbours. America may be less likely to jump headfirst into another middle eastern conflict in the near future. The balance of power around the world has been rocked. The instigators made their money and got their medals, there will be no real comeuppance for them. The only real hope we have is that it is a lesson learned, and learned hard.



Film Review: The Debt.

The Debt is one of those two-stories-in-one kind of movies, telling the tale of three mossad agents on a mission in East Germany in 1966 in order to capture and escort back to Israel a Nazi doctor, while in present day the same three agents try to deal with each other and the lingering aftermath of how that mission turned out. While unable to bring the criminal back home to justice, they do apparently kill him, so are lauded as heroes. But they're not heroes, in actual fact the doctor got away and they just made up a story about killing him to save face. Now all these years later a journalist has apparently found the same old Nazi in a hospital somewhere, and in order to keep the secret they've got to finish him off.

The film is ultimately about truth, and how lies make us prisoners. It's also a bit of a commentary on the Mossad's practice of abducting people after World War 2 that they believed were war criminals, although there's not much to be said on the subject. Switching back and forth between the two stories is a bit of a juggling act, but since both stories are interesting ones it works quite well. The casting is excellent, too, with the highlight being Helen Mirren as the older version of the female Mossad agent. Essentially caught between her two partners, she has to live with the choices they have made, and ultimately is the only one who can try to make it right. She's really good at conveying a strength and a regret at the same time.

The film is well made and quite authentic. It's a tribute to them all how well it comes across. I guess the main problem is somehow a lack of overall dramatic tension to the film. Everyone does or is doing what they need to do, in both time lines, and there isn't a separate element trying to stop them or catch them (other than the faceless police/security forces). As good as it is, I think it needed an extra element of opposition somehow to really sharpen the point. The ending is a bit abrupt as well, with lingering questions. So overall a pretty interesting film, but perhaps not the full knockout punch it could have been. Three and a half drips out of five.


- Peace out

Questions, questions

Conditions: Tough

Counter-Counter Point

Now while I am no fan of Republican candidates Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann, I did note that both have come under heavy criticism for some comments they made about science, scientific shortcomings and schools recently.

Well maybe the science points to the fact that maybe science doesn't explain all these things. And if it does point to that, then why don't you pursue that? But you can't, because it's not science, but if science is pointing you there, how can you say it's not science? It's worth the debate.
[...]

I do believe that God created the earth and I believe that there are issues that need to be addressed -- the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the issue of irreducible complexity, the dearth of fossil record. Those are all very real issues that should be addressed in science classes.

Naturally this did not go down well with certain analysts, and both have come under fire for the idea that they are essentially trying to get creationism back into schools.

What's truly troubling is that both Santorum and Bachmann imply that evolution and religion are in conflict and that students should be exposed to religion in their science classes. Santorum, at least, should know better since he claims to be a devout Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church is comfortable with evolutionary theory and as I've pointed out in the past, Santorum's decision to ignore the teachings of his own church is an act of
unbridled hubris on his part.

- huffingtonpost.com/

While I think that separating church and state is a good idea, I also think that teachers and the schooling environment need to have an open mind about things. And science itself should be open to everything, since that is essentially what science is all about. So if there are problems, gaps or controversies in scientific fields, then why can't that be explored? Why does it have to be like a raw wound, as if we're not allowed to mention it in polite company? Why is it anti-science to wonder or explore possible problems with scientific methods or explanations? Has science become so sacred that it is not allowed to be questioned? That's kind of a slippery slope, isn't it? It's a big wondrous universe, and who really knows what's out there.



Film Review: Drive

Ryan Gosling stars in this gritty crime film about an L.A stunt driver by day who drives getaway cars for criminals by night. His is a lonely existence until he meets his cute next door neighbor and her son, and the three of them start to connect, bringing the driver out of his shell. Then the neighbors husband gets released out of prison, and everything goes to hell. That's as basic a film premise as you can get, and this is a stripped-out and hunkered down film. A film that revels in drawn out moments of silence and shared looks between it's characters. You know, in this day and age, and given the fact we live in a world where there are five Fast and Furious movies, this is a pretty bold direction to take. The focus is on the relationships and the characters, and the direction is very careful and considered - even the driving sequences are done mostly from the perspective of the driver.

Once out of prison, the husband gets dragged into one final job for some mobsters (played brilliantly by Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman), and our driver decides to help out too. And everything goes about as wrong as you'd expect "one last job for some mobsters" would go, prompting our driver to go on a blood-soaked rampage in order to try and keep the wife and kid safe. It's the kind of film where you understand the hows and the whys, and the surprises aren't really all that surprising. It's really about the journey, about letting the director play you his music, and take you down his favourite roads for a bit.

I guess the problem is the massively ultra-violent ending, where people start getting killed, and blood pouring all over the place. I have to say I'm not a fan of ultra violence. It always seems like a bit of a crutch to make up for the director running out of story to tell. But here it seems like Drive really didn't have much more it could do anyway. The situation was screwed from the start, and ends up an inevitable mess. So while the opening scenes are fantastic, the film really starts rolling downhill at an alarming pace, albeit in a very pretty and self-assured manner. Two intersections out of Five.


- Peace out