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"Dirty Wars"
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
"Dirty Wars" is a movie filled with both hard and circumstantial evidence of America's twisted 'war on terrorism.' I found it quiet, compelling and evidence enough to warrant sadness about the losses the American fabric has sustained.
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Comments
Does it have a 'happy ending' by any chance?
Well, well, thank you @ThailandTom, for that insightful bit of uncharitable B.S. on your part.
I feel so.... 'schooled' now because of your wise words.
Yes, I'm sooo willfully ignorant, like all Americans, Thanks for pointing that out to me. Your compassion is boundless.
And you know, on my way to taking my Mom to her oncologist, today, (you do know what an oncologist is, right?) I'll
certainly think - long and hard- about your comparison between my hesitation to watch something, and having cancer.
::: SMH :::
Added: Oh and by the way... my husband is a Vet. Two purple hearts, 100% disabled vet with moderate to severe PTSD;
I LIVE with a glimpse of war and its reality every day for the last 40 years, thanks.
I wonder where this is going to end IRL. On that vice documentary it stated that the Afghanistan police after the troops leave will do 1 of 2 things, join the Taliban or leave the police force and form militant forces. Throughout that documentary you can see it written over Strueber's face, he knows it is a lost game, he knows and sees first hand day in day out the suffering and endless problems that have no resolution. I hope he does not end up killing himself as it stated many of the people in his position have ended up doing that.
Basically for those who cannot be bothered to watch it, he an American troop with a heart of gold who has to baby sit the Afghan police and troops whilst watching everything unfold and deal with the never ending problems. He has limited power and for some reason he cannot lie on camera which is what makes it so transparent. He is a great man and I respect him very much for what he has tried to do and has done, but it is a lost cause. Come 2014 I have no idea what chaos will ensue.
@ThailandTom
If you are not directing [your] comments specifically to one person, then don't quote them in yours.
Of course, maybe *I* just have my wires crossed, yet again. :rolleyes:
Many of us cannot even understand a personal situation and go out and change our own lives, let alone the world. So now, you have this miraculous information about dirty wars. And what action is that leading you to? "simply scroll the net most days, work from home, sometimes I will go to the market on an evening or go skating." How has this information you have gleaned made one iota of difference to how you live or what is happening? You siad, "When presented with hardcore, raw reporting shows things for how they are, people either reject it, ignore it totally or they watch it and then forget about it. That IMO is the wrong action to take, this issues are major and if you adopt the Buddha Daharma you cannot help but feel compassion and a sense of urgency to do something." Fine. What exactly are you doing about it?
What good is compassion and a sense of urgency if you have no power? If you want to work for a better world you have to be in it. Talk is cheap
Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again.
Unfortunately, most of JFK's agenda, if accomplished, was accomplish by LBJ, even though JFK was approaching the end of his elected term when he will assassinated. The real legacy of JFK's actual accomplishments was a "dirty war" culminating in the flop -- the Bay Of Pigs Invasion, which led to Khrushchev bringing about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Not to mention that it was Kennedy who began laying the groundwork for what evolved into the Vietnam War.
My point here is not to disparage Kennedy...I'm a Democrat, and Kennedy certainly was better than most of the alternatives that the other party was offering (Goldwater in 1964, for example, which eventually led to Reagan and the Tea Party). But it is one thing to say flowery things about, "No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings", but in reality we really haven't found that to be true. And this gets down to my complaint about this thread -- talk is still just talk.
I did read synopses of the movies. I get the point. And to be honest, it was pretty much along the lines I thought the Bush administration was going.
I do give you credit -- at least Jeremy Scahill and Ben Anderson are respected journalists.
You aren't giving an 'opinion' actually- you are sitting in judgement of others, and making derogatory assumptions about them, (and as usual, gleefully bashing Americans & America), all because they can't, won't, or don't have time for watching a video that YOU deem unimaginably important.
So this makes us all willfully ignorant, 'bad' people right?
And who, in any of these comments, mentioned your 'social disorder'?
Please... You really need to start thinking before you type. Right Speech, much?
And when someone calls you on your commentary/BS, own it, and stop making excuses. Hey, maybe try apologizing once in a while, instead of telling others they're crazy or have 'crossed wires'.
But the point of using a part of his speech was to say that it is better to take one step toward peace in the face of overwhelming odds than to not take one step because you think war is inevitable.
Talk is just one step. Without talk, nothing would have been accomplished.
What I do think about the video alluded to in the OP is that, like other information, pleasant or unpleasant, thoughts and opinions are given the opportunity to become wider. No, there is probably not much I can do about a socially-entrenched desire for more war, continued hunger, second-rate education or whatever other Big Issue is out there. But I can become somewhat better informed so that when, perhaps, the chance and intention to act does come along, I can act with less self-righteous idiocy. Please note, I said "less" self-righteous idiocy, not "no" self-righteous idiocy.
^^ Wow, you really are seriously clueless, aren't you?
But Ok, no problem-
I will be very happy to ignore all future posts (and threads) from you, please do the same for me.
Apparently, you aren't even on the same planet as most of us here, and I'm not getting sucked into your nonsense, again.
And yes, isn't it odd that we had a right to have our missiles in Turkey, but Russia didn't have the right to have missiles in Cuba. I don't call that a "power play"; I'd call that an attempt to "level the playing field". Kennedy increased our military presence in Vietnam 16-fold! Kennedy played the game of using smaller countries as substitutes for an American-Russian war. Now that was dirty. And he did not, generally, take significant steps toward peace.