the left vs. the military: Act of Valor

[oftheherd1]

I can't say I agree 100%, but I think we're close. My last sentence was this: "I don't believe this is true in most cases." What I meant by that is I believe most movies are just movies. They can be provocative without being propaganda.

I'm saying this because I want to be very clear that I'm not emotionally vested here. I'm not advocating a left wing position. I'm pointing out that the very act of politicizing most movies is pointless and usually off-base.

And if you think I don't have a bias towards the military, you would be wrong. I spent 4 years in the USAF as an ammo troop. I'm the only single term enlistee in my family. My three brothers all have over 10 years each. My mom had over 8, but was forced out when she got pregnant back in the late 60's, and my dad is retired USAF. My family has a tradition of military service that extends back to the civil war. I have a wall in my house with dozens of pictures of family in uniform. I don't wear it on my sleeve, but I'm a proud vet from a family of proud vets.

For what it's worth, while you say you weren't trying to put me down, I will admit that I took offense to your post. That you felt it necessary to write that came off as patronizing to me, kind of like starting off a sentence with, "No offense but..." Always followed by something offensive.

Sorry you took that as a put down. However, I did not agree with all you said as you have not agreed with all I said. Maybe my choice of words was not good. I got the impression that you were trying to justify the unfriendly reviews of the movie, and implicitly, the military. From your background you provided, that was evidently incorrect on my part.

I perhaps get a little sensitive about portrayal of the military. I was born just before WWII, and grew up around people who never doubted why they had served in the military then. So I never did either. I was also lucky to have spent most of the late 60s and early 70s in Vietnam, so I didn't run into what many returning servicemembers did. When I did come home to visit, the area of the midwest where I lived, hadn't bought into military-bashing. Still, we did have newspapers and radio news in Vietnam, albeit mostly military, and we met members who had been exposed to indignities.

So if I was a little too sensitive and insulted you, my apologies. It was not intended. But I still reserve the right to disagree, and support you have that right too.

 

[Flying Crane]

Hello Bill, can I ask please when you say this movie is another installment of "Why does the left dislike the military so much?" do you think it is a natural predisposition of the left to dislike the military of their own nation? Would you explain why this would be the case that it would be more important for a citizen to support a left-leaning political orthodoxy than to ensure safety for their own family and theirselves?

I do not think it is quite the same here in the UK I think political ideology is not the main reason for support or otherwise of the military. Is this how it is in the US? Thank you.

Hi Jenna,

this is Bill's perception. It fails to recognize human subtleties in attitudes, perceptions, ideals, and circumstances, and does not reflect the truth in any overall way, here in the United States. It is an attitude that attempts to take the wide range of human emotions and cram them into an "either/or" world. Needless to say, it doesn't work. It won't stop him from trying, however.

 

[oftheherd1]

For my money, Red Tails was the best military movie I've seen in a long while.

I haven't seen it yet, but look forward to the chance. Your good report makes me even more anxious to see it sooner. Just for curiosity, have you seen The Longest Day, or the series Band Of Brothers? No movie will perfectly display everything that goes on in the military, and if fact, imho, if it tries to do so, it loses much of its impact. That was one of the problems with Apocolypse Now, which was I think, intentionaly surrealistic.Most of what it depected could have been or was true, but all in one short movie? Naw.

Hello Bill, can I ask please when you say this movie is another installment of "Why does the left dislike the military so much?" do you think it is a natural predisposition of the left to dislike the military of their own nation? Would you explain why this would be the case that it would be more important for a citizen to support a left-leaning political orthodoxy than to ensure safety for their own family and theirselves?

I do not think it is quite the same here in the UK I think political ideology is not the main reason for support or otherwise of the military. Is this how it is in the US? Thank you.

Well, Bill is unabashedly conservative. I lean that way myself, but not as militantly since I have some liberal in my veins as well. I think many strong left/liberal people are more inclined to dislike/distrust the military. They are also more likely to look for any reason to stay out of the military. And maybe the two are related. But never doubt there are liberals in the military. Leftists at least in the USA has more of a connotation of communist, and that as a political ideal would not go far in the military. As you can see, I can make some distinctions between leftist and liberalness. Bill may or may not, and that is for him to say or not. But I don't think his support of conservative ideas is any stranger than other's support of liberal ideas, nor any more difficult to agree with or disagree with. They just don't agree philosophically.

But Bill in his right/conservative attitude, is no worse than those here at MT who are unabashedly left/liberal in their attitude. They are just at different ends of a line. Left and Right aren't always going to agree, nor always be correct or incorect. And each one's beliefs will be at odds with the other. You make it sound as if you are left/liberal. So be it. I will not agree with much of what you do. And I may say so. I just hope I do it in a nice way, especially if I have any hope of converting you to my beliefs. I can convert you, right?

But isn't it wonderful how being martial artists, we can all so congeneally get alone even when we are cutting each other's belief systems to shreds? :uhyeah:

To us! :cheers: :drinkbeer

 

[clfsean]

Try to find a copy if The Tuskagee Airmen with Lawrence Fishburne for a much better take on that squadron.

That one was good

 

[Bill Mattocks]

With regard to the Left versus the Right and their support of 'the military', I think you have to first state your framework.

Era:

In terms of era; I am a post Vietnam-era veteran, having enlisted in 1979. The military was not looked upon fondly by the Left in my experience at that time. I'll leave out the histrionics and the 'baby killer' remarks or accusations of being spat upon by hippies; suffice to say I did not experience that myself, but I certainly did experience the attitudes of the times. We were less than respected; little more than low-brow louts. The military was where one went if one had no hopes of college or a minor criminal background and did not wish to 'make something' of oneself. Others may disagree, but that was my experience. The Right by comparison, was broadly supportive of the military, also in my experience.

Prior to my era, the Vietnam era veterans had it worse. It was my understanding from the time I served with them (many were still on active duty when I was) that they experienced so much discrimination and anger directed towards them by the anti-war groups (and yes, that would be the Left) that many of them had a permanent dislike for all things Left-wing. By the same token, many of them had also experienced the pain of being rejected by their fellow veterans of WWII and Korea as being 'losers' in war, and 'dope-smokers' and 'hippies' themselves. They were ostracized, even excluded, from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and when they were finally allowed to join, it was made clear that they were not wanted. This, plus the fact that many Vietnam-era veterans were not in favor of the war in the first place, led them to found their own group, the Vietnam Veterans of America, and to dislike the Right, which the WWII and Korean era vets seemed to mostly be. Please note that today, many of those animosities are gone, thankfully. Vietnam veterans are rightfully seen as the heroes they are.

The WWII and Korean era veterans were, to the best of my knowledge, often members of the Right wing themselves. They had been raised to hate and fight communists and communism. Yes, we fought alongside the USSR in WWII, but not happily, and the way Berlin and Eastern Europe were divided after WWII was proof of that. Many today do not even realize that in the Korean war, we fought Chinese regular troops face-to-face. It was no proxy war, the UN was fighting Red China (as it was known to us at that time). Of course, few civilians had a negative opinion of the military following WWII or Korea. WWII veterans were seen from the beginning as the 'Greatest Generation' of Americans, and Korean veterans were largely forgotten, but certainly not despised or hated.

War:

One must also consider the attitudes of the Left and the Right with regard not just to the troops, but also to the conflict. Basically, the Left was pro-war in WWII, ambivalent during Korea, anti-war in Vietnam, and anti-war (but claimed to be pro-troops) in recent conflicts. There are some exceptions. The Left was pro-war with Afghanistan following 9/11, but anti-war with Iraq during the same time period. The Right has been steadfastly pro-war (as far as I know) in all our military conflicts since WWII (although both the Left and the Right were anti-war prior to WWII).

Anti-Troops versus Anti-Military

I think one must also consider that there is a more nuanced approach that tends to be independent of political leanings, and that is how one thinks of the military versus how one thinks of the people who serve in the military. I have met enough people to know that many do not like the military in general, but they have no animosity towards those who serve in it. It's rather like being anti-union, but not disliking people who drive trucks or build cars. It can be confusing, however, when one is not sure what one is hearing. Anti-military rhetoric can sound a lot like anti-troop rhetoric, unless the speaker makes it clear that they mean one and not the other; and some people have a natural suspicion that others can actually separate the two. For example, in the most recent conflict in Iraq, many on the Left (Moveon, etc) were demonstrably anti-war and anti-military, but they claimed to 'love the troops'. This was sometimes not true (in my opinion) and sometimes true but not believed by others. There was so much dislike and distrust between the Left and the Right in those cases, that few believed the claims of the others, and tended to lump a dislike of the military or the war into a dislike of service personnel and veterans. The fact that some veterans were also members of the Left and anti-war only heightened the distrust and dislike. One also has to remember that although it is not commonly brought up, many members of the Right are technically anti-military also, as the more Libertarian-leaning Right see two problems with the military. One is the prohibition in the Constitution against a 'standing army' initially, and two is the warning against a strong military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us of which undermines Democracy.

In summary, I do not think the Left is generally anti-veteran or anti-military or anti-troops. However, they do tend (in the USA) to be anti-war, which sometimes doesn't come across as nuanced as it could, and there are some who truly do show animosity towards servicemen and servicewomen (and they tend to be seen as representative by some on the Right), and they often seem anti-military by contrast with the Right, which is typically not anti-war, anti-military, or anti-troops.

 

[WC_lun]

In my experience, the only ones saying the left hates the military is those on the far right who want the left viewed as negatively as possible. Most people of any political alignment in the States, whether agreeing with the wars or not, feel people in the military should be treated with respect and honored for thier servece. Of course thier are always exceptions. You do have knuckleheads from the left who think all military personel are murderer wanna be's. You also have equally as knuckleheaded people from the right that believe all military personel can do no wrong and our men and women in uniform should not be held to a standard even in the battlefield.

The original post is just one more example of trying to paint the left as evil.

 

[billc]

Why does the left dislike the military...

1) It is an institution whose purpose is to use violence against other people. In a lot of ways the criticism of the military is mirrored by criticism of American law enforcement. To many on the left, there is never a good reason to use violence. Ask some people if a police officer shooting a killer, about to kill an innocent victim, is the same as the killer killing the victim, there are those who will say there is no difference.

2) The military is seen as a tool used to promote U.S. foreign policy.

3) They see any dollar spent on the military as a dollar wasted, and which could have been better spent on various social welfare programs.

4) They see it as a sexist, racist, anti-gay institution.

5) They see it as an institution that was used to kill people of color around the world.

I don't care if people make anti-military movies, I would just like every once in a great while a pro-military movie. Jerry Bruckheimer likes the military, how can you tell, you can see it in his movies, from Pirates of the Carribean to the Transformers series, and Black hawk down, the military is portrayed positively. Does every movie have to do this, of course not, but does every movie not made by Jerry Bruckheimer have to show the military in a bad light? Especially, non-world war two European theater of operations movies? I make the World War two distinction because the attack is starting on the fight in the Pacific theater. To see this in real life, look up what Tom Hanks, big liberal supporter of Obama, said about the pacific, as compared to fighting in Europe. Also, we used nuclear weapons in the pacific and the left will never forgive the country for that.


By the way, I am still waiting for the positive movies about the military fighting the war against radical islamic terrorists, where the U.S. military are the good guys, the terrorists are definitely the bad guys, and we win the battle. Anyone....

You have all the other movies, besides Dear John, that portray American soldiers in the war on radical islamic terrorism as rapists, murderers, drug addicts, crazy, or sympathetic to the terrorists, or just plain evil. Still waiting for the movie other than Dear John that isn't against the military. Hmmmm...perhaps just one. Empty hands, do all war on islamic terrorist movies have to show our soldiers as the bad guys?

Here is a short list of anti-war on islamic terrorism films...

Redacted
Rendition
Brothers
In the valley of Elah
Lions for lambs
Stop Loss
Just off the top of my head, not to mention the series Homeland on HBO where the marine converts to radical islam and becomes a terrorist sleeper.

As to seeing the military as different from the personel, good point but not quite accurate. My reason for saying this is look at what the left side of the aisle does when any soldier or sailor is accused of doing something wrong, they immediately thing they are guilty. The most recent episode was the marines urinating on the dead islamic terrorist killers. People on the political right believed that they should be punished according to the regulations of the military the UCMJ, seeing it as wrong but something that happens in war, the left, went out of their minds. Check the news coverage, check the reaction of Hillary and Obama to the incident.

 

[billc]

Some good military/war movies...

Zulu (today or yesterday was the anniversary of the battle at Roarkes Drift)
Saving Private Ryan (European theater in World War 2 so it is safe)
Glory
Black Hawk Down
The Green Berets (when I was little I almost cried at the puppy scene, and Lt. Sulu makes an appearance)
Battle: Los Angeles ( yeah, not the best, especially with the shaky cam, but still fun)
Transformers (only the fight against the scorpion thing when you see the U.S. military go into action.)
True Lies ( The scene where the marine jets fly past the helicopter, excellent imagery, and then start shooting) (James Cameron said he won't make another True Lies.)
Braveheart
Lord of the Rings


A short list, I'll think about some more...

Here is a story that points to the dislike of the police by the left that mirrors their dislike of the military...I believe one famous lefty would say the police "acted stupidly."

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/l...ment-film-better-this-world-screenplay-award/

Here is the official film synopsis:

The story of Bradley Crowder and David McKay, who were accused of intending to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention, is a dramatic tale of idealism, loyalty, crime and betrayal. Better This Worldfollows the radicalization of these boyhood friends from Midland, Texas, under the tutelage of revolutionary activist Brandon Darby. The results: eight homemade bombs, multiple domestic terrorism charges and a high-stakes entrapment defense hinging on the actions of a controversial FBI informant. Better This World goes to the heart of the war on terror and its impact on civil liberties and political dissent in post-9/11 America. A co-production of ITVS in association with American Documentary | POV.
​

See that bit about Crowder and McKay becoming radicalized under the tutelage of Brandon Darby? That is total fiction; a lie concocted by McKay as part of his defense strategy. When Crowder and McKay were first arrested for making Molotov cocktails and planning to use them at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota they initially took responsibility for what they had done. Then after they discovered that Brandon Darby had been a confidential informant for the FBI, their story suddenly changed.
But don’t take my word for it. The following is from the transcript of David McKay’s guilty plea.

Mr. McKay started off the case confessing to the FBI, implicating his co-defendant Crowder, never claiming to the FBI that Darby had anything to do with it, and on early jail calls with his father admitted he was guilty, there was nothing more to look into, “I’m guilty of possession, I am going to plead guilty.”
​

Then something changed – McKay discovered that Brandon Darby had been working with the FBI. McKay then starting claiming that the Molotov cocktails were Darby’s idea and that Darby was at the meeting were Crowder and McKay came up with idea. McKay said that Darby and the FBI entrapped him and he testified to that in his first trial.

Here is youtube video that looks at the distortions in this particular film...

 

[Steve]

Sorry you took that as a put down.

Just very quickly, I'm not trying to bust your balls here, but you're hitting on a couple of my pet peeves. The quoted sentence is one of the biggest. Any time the words "sorry" or "apologize" are followed by any pronoun other than "I," my blood pressure begins to rise. You don't get to apologize to me about how I took something. You can apologize for what you said, if you choose to, but saying you're sorry I took it as a put down isn't an apology at all. I'm not trying to be nitpicky, but you're essentially apologizing on my behalf, and frankly, I'm not at all sorry I took offense for what I still believe was a clear insult.

However, I did not agree with all you said as you have not agreed with all I said. Maybe my choice of words was not good. I got the impression that you were trying to justify the unfriendly reviews of the movie, and implicitly, the military. From your background you provided, that was evidently incorrect on my part.

Maybe instead of insulting me and then apologizing for me, you could go back to what I actually wrote and address the content of my posts. That's much safer ground and much less likely to cause unintentional offense. Please be specific, and then I'm sure we can get to the bottom of any misunderstanding.

I perhaps get a little sensitive about portrayal of the military. I was born just before WWII, and grew up around people who never doubted why they had served in the military then. So I never did either. I was also lucky to have spent most of the late 60s and early 70s in Vietnam, so I didn't run into what many returning servicemembers did. When I did come home to visit, the area of the midwest where I lived, hadn't bought into military-bashing. Still, we did have newspapers and radio news in Vietnam, albeit mostly military, and we met members who had been exposed to indignities.

And I'm still not at all clear how you got from my post to the above statement. Are you now comparing me to a 60's/70's era, anti-military zealot? Jesus, man. I have to ask, what kind of a damned hippy do you think I am?

So if I was a little too sensitive and insulted you, my apologies.

No problem. I accept your apology.

It was not intended. But I still reserve the right to disagree, and support you have that right too.

By all means, knock yourself out.

 

[CanuckMA]

Why does the left dislike the military...

1) It is an institution whose purpose is to use violence against other people. In a lot of ways the criticism of the military is mirrored by criticism of American law enforcement. To many on the left, there is never a good reason to use violence. Ask some people if a police officer shooting a killer, about to kill an innocent victim, is the same as the killer killing the victim, there are those who will say there is no difference.

But, but, but...

I thought that all the acts of genocide were carried by the left?

 

[billc]

Hmmm...who said anything about genocide? Yes, the socialists did kill close to 100 million, but that wasn't the American military. Do you consider world war 2, vietnam, korea, the gulf war and the war on terrorism acts of genocide?

 

[billc]

Oh, I was incorrect about the HBO show Homeland. It wasn't one elite, marine, scout/sniper who converted to radical muslim terrorism to conduct jihad against the United States, but two elite, marine scout/snipers who converted to radical islam to conduct jihad against the United States. Sorry I missed that.

 

[Josh Oakley]

I think my biggest problem about using terms like "The Left" or "The Right" is that they wrongly unify and monolithize those who fall more left or right, politically. Trying to say "The Left hates the military" is as demonstrably false as "The Right loves the military". In both camps, there is a diversity of opinion.

 

[oftheherd1]

...
No problem. I accept your apology.

...

Thank you for that sir.

 

[CanuckMA]

Hmmm...who said anything about genocide? Yes, the socialists did kill close to 100 million, but that wasn't the American military. Do you consider world war 2, vietnam, korea, the gulf war and the war on terrorism acts of genocide?

Your position is that 'the left' is responsible for all ills and murders in the world, buthen you posit they hate the military because the military kils people. Can't have it both ways.

 

[billc]

yes, the left is responsible for over 100 million innocent deaths. How is it possible when the "left" dislikes the military. There are democratic socialists, the ones who like big government to give us "free" healthcare, which isn't free because we just pay up front, and all the other government goodies. They dislike the military because they see it as interfering with the government hand outs. Then there is the extreme left, the national socialists, the communists and so on, who use the military to enforce their desires to change people. That is the problem that was mentioned in my post about star trek and the "nazi" episode. Once you start giving government more and more power and control over your lives, you are consolidating power that can and eventually will be misused once the wrong people get control of it.

From the Star Trek thread...

And while it is true that many liberal stories involve people fighting against oppressive governments, it is important to note that they rarely (if ever) criticize the concentration of power itself. Instead, they merely attack those who would misuse the power, i.e. those who would use the power for purposes of which the liberals don’t approve; this is why oppressive governments in liberal stories are always police states, military dictatorships or theocracies. And in many cases, the resolution of the story involves the replacement of the evil government with a benign council of experts or bleeding hearts who will then use that same monolithic power “to help people.”

I say to people, once you pass a stupid law, you need to create stupid police to enforce it. My example is school lunch programs. Once the government mandates that each lunch must have fruit and vegetables, even lunches from home, eventually you will need someone to enforce that rule. For example, the recent stories of lunch room "police" going thru the homemade lunches of students and then forcing them to buy the school lunch if the homemade lunch doesn't fit the government mandate. So too with everything else. Once the left is in control of a government for long enough, and those silly people will just not sign on to their wonderful programs to improve the lives of the "little" people, they need someone to enforce their wonderful plans. Eventually, that leads to more police, and then more soldiers. That is how Stalin and Hitler and Pol pot and the other lefties came to embrace the military, at its worst. Stupid government planning eventually leads to the need for guys with guns. That is why the democratic left ends up getting purged. As Ann Coulter once said, "Communists are socialists who really mean it..."

From the star trek thread...The episode where the federation historian tries to use the extreme left, nazi model to createe a "good" society, and how that will always fail...

“Patterns of Force” rejects this as faulty logic. It warns that you cannot have a benign dictator. It warns the problem is the concentration of power itself, because the misuse of that power is inevitable. And no matter what the intentions may be for the creation of the state, the very concentration of that much power will attract someone who will misuse the power for evil.

that is why the democratic left can dislike the military, and then fall victim to the extreme left, who embraces the military's ability to use violence, to control the people they want to "improve."

 

[WC_lun]

More of the left is evil nonsense. "The left are socialist." "The left likes big government" "The left dislikes the military" All statements menat to inflame people against others that have political view points left of thier own. Yet none of those statements are based in fact. They are opinion stated as fact so the average person accepts them as truth.

The one about big government is pretty easy to research. Just do a bit of research and see when the government has grown the most. Quickly you see that governmental growth is a more complex issue than the left does it or the right does it.

 

[Empty Hands]

By this curious logic, anarchists are the ultimate conservatives...

This is what happens when you twist the English language for a goal.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Although it can be abused (and has been in this thread, I'd say), it is appropriate to generalize when speaking of groups. Otherwise, one could not discuss them at all. What do Democrats believe? What do Republicans believe? Individually, they believe so many different things that you can hardly make even one statement that would be true of all of them. So one has to generalize, and likewise, one has to accept that generalities do not necessarily apply to individuals.

The 'Left' does hold certain beliefs when spoken of as a general group, as does the 'Right'. One cannot win an argument by merely denying that one personally does not hold the identical beliefs as the general membership of the group. One can say that the Left tends more towards socialism than the Right. This is a true statement. Just because one considers oneself a member of the Left and NOT a socialist does not negate the fact.

Does the Left hate the military? I believe it does not; but it is a true statement that the Left tends to be more anti-war than the Right, and this can cause others to doubt the Left's true feelings about the military and about military members, as well as the fact that if some few do dislike both the military and military members, they are more likely to be found on the Left than the Right.

Not much to be done about that, I believe. For myself, I am cut with the same sword; as a member of the Right, I find myself tarred with appellations like 'racist', which are not true in my case (I believe), but if racists there be, I would have to accept they are more commonly found in the Right than the Left.

 

[billc]

Here is a look at the critic's reviews of the movie...yes, these guys like the military alright...

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/c...decry-pro-military-pro-american-act-of-valor/

Time Out New York’s Joshua Rothkopf calls the film “scary,” with a “ridiculously limited view of American righteousness.”

Tampa Bay Times critic Steve Persall dubs “Valor” “a land mine movie for anyone to review who isn’t a military veteran, who hasn’t bought into the cult of warfare,” later adding “pacifists won’t be nearly as impressed.”


How ’bout audiences who realize terrorists are a legitimate threat, and that military intervention is often necessary to prevent them from wiping out hundreds, if not thousands, of innocents?


Philly.com’s David Hiltbrand seemed upset by sequences in which people responsible for the capture and torture of a CIA agent met their gruesome fate:

You watch as one of our snipers dispassionately and from a great distance lays out these scruffy untrained campesinos one after the other with graphic head shots.
​

So, as long as you’re a “scruffy, untrained campesino” we should give you a pass for torturing a woman. But Hiltbrand’s moral confusion intensified as the film wore on:

Near the end, the film degenerates into an extended, chaotic firefight. You know who you’re supposed to be rooting for because they’re the ones wearing uniforms, but it’s easy to lose touch with why.
​

Here’s a clue – the folks who want to commit terrorist acts are the bad guys and need to be stopped. The ones stopping them are the heroes. Now, how hard is that?

And of course we can't leave out the soldier as a nut job opinion...

But Ebert can’t help compare the film with “To Hell and Back,” a new documentary following a soldier who joined the Marines because he wanted to kill people.
Why Ebert would compare the heroism on display in “Valor” to a single soldier with serious mental issues is beyond comprehension.

And to the heart of the matter...

No film should be above criticism, but the nature of the attacks above has less to do with quality and everything to do with scribes uneasy with the notion that Navy SEALs should be considered heroes for their bravery in the face of live fire – on and off screen.

Those reviews vs. this review by a certified righty...

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2012/02/24/i-am-a-navy-seal/

Actually, Hollywood dropped the ball on World War IV. Too many films have remained invested in exposing the CIA and American military forces as corrupt and greedy torturers, and as psychiatrically traumatized and murderous ex-soldiers (Syriana, Valley of Elah, Safe House). This obsession has trumped showing viewers who, exactly, declared war on America for the last 33 years (Khomeini began it when he took the American Embassy personnel hostage) and whom we must now fight.

You can add Syriana, and Safe House to the list of anti-war on terror movies...