The Price of Military Tech Assistance In Movies 212
derekmead writes "Last week at Camp David, President Obama met up with fellow NATO leaders to discuss the road ahead in Afghanistan. Although no one there used the language of defeat, the implicit message was clear: the war has gone nowhere in the past few years and it's time to start packing up. Meanwhile, what raked in $25.5 million at the box office? Battleship. And who provided director Peter Berg with the war technology that beats the aliens? The U.S. military. He's not the only one: the past few years have seen an explosion of high-profile cooperation between the armed forces and the movie industry. If the most powerful armed force in history isn't winning in reality, it certainly is on the big screen. And like so many problematic aspects of late capitalism, the military-Hollywood complex has a grimly understandable logic."
What An Awful Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Do editors here do any proofreading at all, whatsoever? Irrelevant statements, useless commentary, and almost no coherant point of the headline.
No wonder people are leaving this site in droves. Slashdot = the myspace of tech sites.
Agreed (Score:2)
Not even sure exactly what the summary was about. Something about a shitty movie and a shitty war still going on.
Re:What An Awful Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Do editors here do any proofreading at all, whatsoever? Irrelevant statements, useless commentary, and almost no coherant point of the headline.
No wonder people are leaving this site in droves. Slashdot = the myspace of tech sites.
Oh I do agree with you and I've been here for years, long since before registering my account (I had another account prior to it, and prior to that I lurked).
I come here because I can directly contact individuals who can reason and think critically. I can also directly contact petty spiteful people who are easily revealed to be what they are. Both are good when handled correctly. I also come here because I can listen, read, and learn from people who have knowledge that I do not. I find that if I am at least slightly thoughtful and write well, I am modded up; if I am not, someone will speak up and tell me precisely where I failed. Both are good when handled correctly.
It is the users who make this site what it is. It is not the editors. They are not worthy to be called "editors" because they cannot even handle automated spell-checkers, let alone true proofreading. They would not last one day working for a tabloid -- they would be fired for incompetence and underwhelming performance. This site succeeds in spite of their stumbling, comic, pathetic attempt to master their native language.
I could personally do a much, MUCH better job than a dozen of them. I could do that with no serious effort. In this job market, I am hardly alone in that sense. I wonder if they appreciate the cushy job they can so thoroughly fail to do day after day with no serious consequence? I mean their idea of a "job consequence" is using their infinite mod points to down-mod posts that criticize them too heavily. It's a coin toss whether or not this one gets their attention, for they may be asleep at the wheel.
If they think I speak falsely, I hereby invite them to post with their own accounts and confront me, like men. I will have a multitude of previous examples to justify my position. They aren't going to say a damned thing against me because they know this is easy to find.
Re:What An Awful Summary (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet with the editors running more and more fearmongering bullshit and stupid flamebait (it used to be at least decent flamebait with some substance) the audience too has shifted from a good mix of differing opinions to paranoid libertarians and fanboys pretending to be shills. When interesting links stop appearing completely I too will be gone.
You're aware of the problem and by articulating your view in a thoughtful way, you are participating in the solution. That's why I come here.
In a way, I disagree with the pessimism you show. Yet I am not in conflict with you. I just don't feel that way myself but I see how someone could. It's other than bickering because I don't need you to be wrong.
That's also why I come here. That's what will make me look elsewhere if it should relocate. Too many places are too polar and unreasonable.
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Do editors here do any proofreading at all, whatsoever? Irrelevant statements, useless commentary, and almost no coherant point of the headline.
No wonder people are leaving this site in droves. Slashdot = the myspace of tech sites.
Hey now, it takes real editorial genius to come up with the "from foo department" jokes.
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No, they don't. The summary posted looks to be a copy and paste job, as you can see by the "derekmead writes" intro and the blockquote around it. So derekmead is to blame for the terrible summary. The choice to post it we can blame on Soulskill, but I would not call Soulskill an editor. The opposite, actually, a non-editor.
I try to save the "editorializing" complaints for the stuff after the quoted material, when the non-editor decides to add their opinions to the submission.
Abbot and Costello? (Score:5, Informative)
Skipping over the editorializing in the summary, I would like to point out that the Military using Hollywood for promotion is not a recent occurence.
It should be noted that Abbot and Costello's "Buck Privates" was used to help spur enlistment.
As was "The Green Berets".
As was "Top Gun".
As was a number of other films (these three jump out at me as being some of the best examples).
myke
Re:Abbot and Costello? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Abbot and Costello? (Score:4, Interesting)
Skipping over the editorializing in the summary, I would like to point out that the Military using Hollywood for promotion is not a recent occurence.
It dates back to the very beginning of motion ptctures:
[in 1899] the limitations of film equipment prevented the filming of actual battles, so Edison offered reenactments of the fighting made for the most part in New Jersey using National Guard troops. Film reenactments such as "Shooting Captured Insurgents " showed Spanish soldiers killing Cuban prisoners, while "U.S. Infantry Supported by Rough Riders at El Caney" and "Skirmish of Rough Riders" offered patriotic glimpses of the popular Rough Riders fighting.
The War in Cuba [loc.gov]
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John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Major General (Ret.) Jimmy Stewart. Hell...we could probably go back to 1916 and Lon Chaney Sr., in If My Country Should Call.
What a BS submission.
Re:Abbot and Costello? (Score:4, Informative)
It is interesting to read about some of this stuff, though.
For example, the US Military declined to assist the film Apocalypse Now [imdb.com] , the Philippine government did and they had plenty of old helicopters. The US Air Force did not provide assistance for the film Iron Eagle [imdb.com] because the characters hack into Air Force computers. However, the Israeli Air Force had no problem helping out and they had plenty of F-16s. The US Military would not assist in Independence Day [imdb.com] unless they removed all references to Area 51. [imdb.com] And the US Military was glad to help out with the movie Stripes [imdb.com], much to Ivan Reitman's surprise [imdb.com], because while some characters are buffoons, the lead characters all become successes after joining the Army.
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Not to mention that Hollywood pays their way - military assistance is paid for completely by Hollywood and that includes wear and tear on equipment, fuel, personnel, etc.
The only thing DoD does is approve use of personnel and equipment for that purpose (or not) and determine schedule of rates to charge out. Reasons to deny have included national security, they have doubts the film will do well, they don't like the premise of the film, etc.
Especially when the fancy new equipment rolling off the line is shown
The war went fine...it was the peace that got us (Score:4, Insightful)
The poster is trolling on a lot of levels. Late capitalism?
Anyway, as usual, the war itself went great - it was the peace that was the problem.
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Anyway, as usual, the war itself went great - it was the peace that was the problem.
I'm really curious as to how you define the situation in Afghanistan as "peace."
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Anyway, as usual, the war itself went great - it was the peace that was the problem.
I'm really curious as to how you define the situation in Afghanistan as "peace."
It isn't obvious to you?
The way I saw it, he was talking about the reason why the situation in Afghanistan is so violent. If peace is the "problem" the violence is the "solution". That's the problem. In other words, the addictive part of war is that it is so good for the economy and the people who most influence the economy do not personally fight wars
The military-industrial complex needs enemies. If it does not have them, it will demand that they be found. If they cannot be found, they must be m
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The way I saw it, he was talking about the reason why the situation in Afghanistan is so violent.
I think you're giving him way too much credit.
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The proper term would be nation-building. The problem with both Afghanistan and Iraq is that the period after the war was half-assed. Either we should have gone in and wrecked EVERYBODY remotely connected to our enemies in the area, then pulled out, or gone in as we did and then settled down for some SERIOUS nation-building. Which realistically takes a minimum of 20 years and a fuckload more resources than were put into either Afghanistan or Iraq.
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The problem with both Afghanistan and Iraq is that the period after the war was half-assed.
The point is that talking about "after the war" is meaningless in Iraq and (particularly) Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan is still going on, and the situation in Iraq is best described as a poorly enforced cease-fire.
Wars don't end when people say, "Hooray, the war is over!" They end when large bodies of armed men stop trying to kill each other. That hasn't happened in either place, and it won't for the foreseeable future.
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capitalism (Score:4, Funny)
what does this have to do with capitalism? I hate it when people don't have the discipline to leave their own biases out of objective writing formats like summaries.
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what does this have to do with capitalism?
Actually, he said "late capitalism," apparently as a Marx-affirming flourish. Problem is, 20 years post-USSR, this comes off more like a Marxist version of the Black Knight from Monty Pythom & The Holy Grail... "It's only a flesh wound!"
Economics of modern war (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA spends close to a million dollars per soldier per year. The enemy has to spend maybe 5% of that per "enemy combatant" at most. Probably a lot less. To field a force that would be numerically equal to our forces would cost them maybe $50 million. They'd need a lot more than that to defeat us in battles, because our side is better armed. But this is not about battles. There have been very few battles. In this kind of war, the resistance avoids direct confrontations and chooses to strike where and when its forces can do the most damage to the stronger side -- or just make them look ineffective. Most of the American forces are busy trying to protect every place where the enemy might strike. It's extremely inefficient. So the Taliban only needs a small fraction of our forces to keep the Americans busy -- and going broke.
Basically, this kind of war is not winnable in a traditional sense. The resistance can carry on with a small number of soldiers and on a shoestring budget almost indefinitely.
That's not to say that guerilla forces can't be defeated. They can be, if the populace cooperates with the central government to deny them aid, deny them new soldiers and help ferret them out -- and if the resistance doesn't have cooperative govenrments across the border.
That's not the situation in Afghanistan, so it's highly questionable whether we can win at any cost.
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Errm... It would cost the Taliban maybe 5 billion for the numerically equal force.
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Actually they do pay and train them.
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Basically, this kind of war is not winnable in a traditional sense. The resistance can carry on with a small number of soldiers and on a shoestring budget almost indefinitely.
That's not to say that guerilla forces can't be defeated. They can be, if the populace cooperates with the central government to deny them aid, deny them new soldiers and help ferret them out -- and if the resistance doesn't have cooperative govenrments across the border.
Reminds me of how people used to speak of Iraq - the coalition was losing an unwinnable war until the final bitter taste of victory.
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It's not the asymmetry in tactics that makes a "war" like this unwinnable. It's the lack of any definition of "victory".
In a traditional war, you win by seizing territory and national resources, forcing the leadership of the enemy to capitulate. In something like the Afghan War seizing territory and national resources is only the opening move. There is nothing left to seize. The enemy leadership is not going to capitulate because there's nothing they have, including their lives, that are seriously under t
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Closer to half that.
1.46 million active-duty military, not counting Reservists who might be deployed.
Only $740 billion in military budget....
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Perhaps you have overestimated the effect that weapons (esp. Stingers) supplied to Afghan islamists back then had on the balance?
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Actually, the Soviets had it harder. The West was giving the insurgents high tech weaponry, was diplomatically supporting Pakistan in giving the Taliban a safe haven, and was paying for the indoctrination of new fighters.
It was quite reasonable to think that things would be easier without a superpower supporting the enemy. After all, in the beginning, Russia helped a lot.
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When the war in Afghanistan was just starting up (this recent one with direct US, NATO and UN involvement) I actually thought "this time it might be winnable". But, I suspect the main problem for us is that we're not willing to go to the same lengths as the soviets were. Sure, some people like to trot out claims of carpet bombing and collateral damage, but the point is that the soviets fought their war in Afghanistan a lot more like a proper war. And did pretty decently considering that they were fighting a
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Boy, it's not like we didn't watch Russia do the exact same thing... *bangs head on table*
Your *shoe* comrade, you're supposed to bang your *shoe*.
Bozhe moi.
Emblematic of problems in late capitalism? Wat (Score:3)
The author doesn't delve further into this assertion after that intro sentence, I wonder what that's all about? The rest of the article basically "reveals" the shocking truth that the military views media as a way to invest in its image (like every government, company, individual on the planet). It seems like he's grasping for dark villainy, but pulling back fistfuls of grey self-interest.
total war (Score:2)
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The problem with that war is that it never was about razing Afghanistan. Sure, the US military can do it, many times over, but that wasn't the goal. In fact, there wasn't any clear goal at all, other than some vague "war on terror". That kind of war is unwinnable by definition.
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No. (Score:3)
As it was, the US defeated Japan but made a half-baked attempt to invade Europe,
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The US way of doing things (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm typing this right now, and sending to a web server on the Internet, a computer network which only exists because the US taxpayer financed the Pentagon, who in turn gave the money to military contractors like BBN, SRI and so forth.
That's what it is, and that's how it had to be. It's how Magnitogorsk was built in the USSR, how Volkswagen and the Autobahn were created in Germany, and how things like this happen here in the US and how they had to happen. There's some kind of emperor's new clothes things where people can't say the decades long creation of Internet was financed by the taxpayer via the government. I have heard so many US politicians talk about how the Internet was created by the "free market" (whatever that means), capitalism, private enterprise and so forth and how it shows the innovation that can come from that. Of course, we all know better, or at least those of us old enough to have owned 300 baud modems back in the early 1980s know that.
While we hear from the news commissars and politicians of how broke the US is, with a huge deficit, and how we have to cut back, notice how a massive military bill just sailed through Congress. Americans have to tighten their belt, and go with less garbage pickups, or shorter library hours, and that sort of thing, but there's plenty of money for military bases in Djibouti and Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan. The US is spending a ton of money to ramp up the US military presence in the Pacific (shades of the late 1930s), on a new class of aircraft carriers and so forth. Meanwhile, all of this heavy duty equipment is completely useless against small cells of anti-imperial Arab nationalists that are willing to go on suicide missions.
Huh? (Score:2)
How does a NATO meeting and a war in another country connect exactly with how the military handles movies? Could that have been stretched any further?
I agree (Score:2)
Scratch (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm amazed the U.S. Navy supported "Battleship". (Score:4)
Clearly, the DoD criteria for military movies don't include the movie making any sense. The U.S. Navy supported "Battleship".
A Navy vs. aliens movie might make sense. "Battleship" isn't it. (It does beat "The Navy vs. the Night Monsters" (1966), but it cost about 100x as much to make.) One based on a board game is an indication that Hollywood really is out of ideas. They've already done all the fairy tales (there are two Snow White movies this year), all the top-tier comic book characters, many of the second-tier comic book characters, and have made sequels to almost everything that ever turned a profit. ("Police Academy 8" is in development.)
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Hey, Clue wasn't bad.
And I could see Hungry Hungry Hippos being an awesome SyFy movie-of-the-week.
Well, what else would they do? (Score:2)
I attended a Comic-Con panel last year where some of the military liaisons to Hollywood talked about their jobs. They were pretty open about having criteria for accepting a script. It's not clear to me why anyone would expect them to spend time and money helping filmmakers portray them in an unflattering light. The article does give a couple odd examples of rejected films (Independence Day?), but aside from that seems to make a mountain out of a molehill.
IIRC, the panelists said that the US military doesn't
The movie TANK scared me (Score:2)
I saw the movie TANK -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_(film) [wikipedia.org] -- in the on-post movie theater at Ft. Hood, TX, which at the time was home to the world's largest concentration of tanks. And one of the most boring spots on this planet. Watching a theater full of young tank crew guys cheer this movie was a bit scary. How many of them would go back to their units and decide to take out a bar in Killeen (nearby town) where they'd been short-changed or something like that? Or maybe invade Mexico for the hell o
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I saw the movie TANK -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_(film) [wikipedia.org] -- in the on-post movie theater at Ft. Hood, TX, which at the time was home to the world's largest concentration of tanks. And one of the most boring spots on this planet. Watching a theater full of young tank crew guys cheer this movie was a bit scary.
People enjoying a movie about a father rescuing his son from a corrupt sheriff scares you?
No one EVER learns from history... (Score:3)
There are two countries you don't invade:
The Germans, the French, the British, etc. But did the USA learn ANYTHING from this? No. Stupid USA.
Rihanna (Score:2)
Rihanna [pop star in her first lead movie role here] can make anything sexy - including militarism (also note the _Hard_ music video). This can be dangerous. :P
some of the assistance had to do with helping her and the other actors/actresses get in character.
Also, actual US Navy sailors were extras.
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Matthew Alford, film researcher and author of Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, is even harsher in his critique. âoeThe Pentagon has a manual. Basically, it will only provide full cooperation to propaganda pieces,â he said in an interview.
Is this against the law?
Against the law? If anything it should be the law. Why should the military spend its time and money on projects which aren't relevant to recruitment or combat/training?
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The idea is that it (anything generating enthusiasm, sympathy, etc., for the US military) IS relevant to recruitment. The movie is a feature-length recruiting ad, afterall...
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Insightful)
It IS relevant to recruitment. It basically started with Top Gun in the 80's years ago when they realised the idealised portrayal of going to war led to a sharp increase in recruitment.
It was so successful that recruiters even had booths set up outside the cinema to catch these people.
http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-05/entertainment/ca-20403_1_top-gun [latimes.com]
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Funny)
It's worth noting that homosexual agenda recruiters also set up booths outside the cinema to catch men who had questions about their sexuality after that shirtless Tom Cruise volleyball scene.
Re:Illegal???? (Score:4, Interesting)
As François Truffaut said, "there is no such thing as an anti-war movie because it will invariably look exciting up on screen."
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"Stripes" was what made me decide to join the Army
Did you find out if the commies were, in fact, pussies?
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How, then, do you rationally have a problem with the military industrial c
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Informative)
So, anything that doesn't kill 30,000 people is OK? That's an interesting metric.
Some other bits:
- We get have an opinion on how our tax dollars are spent. That's called being a citizen.
- Civilian deaths in Iraq are likely greater than 100K, so something is off with your math.
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Civilian deaths in Iraq are likely greater than 100K, so something is off with your math.
The vast majority of which were killed by terrorists and insurgents who did things like explode car bombs in busy markets, and use truck bombs to level entire villages.
If Saddam had stayed in power and killed at his long term average, there would probably have been 50-100% more dead than there were. Saddam is out of power now, and the terrorist and insurgent violence is down by something like 90%. US combat forces are out of Iraq. Iraq is a functioning, if troubled, democracy. And now the Iraqis are rebuilding, putting up schools and libraries instead of another batch of enormous palaces for Saddam [telegraph.co.uk].
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One thing to consider is that in the last 20 years, warfare has changed dramatically. The enemy doesn't even have an army so to speak, there's a rather blurry line between what counts as a civilian and an enemy combatant.
Take for example, what do you do with e.g. a mother of three who actively sends a warning to somebody waiting around the corner with an RPG ready to fire at an incoming HMMWV? Yeah technically she had no weapons, but she was obviously taking part in the battle.
But that's not the only proble
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No you are not required to treat "enemy combatants" as legitimate army because according to the Geneva convention they are not a legitimate army. The problem is that unless you treat them as such they are civilians. The problem is that the "enemy combatants" is not clearly covered by the Geneva convention(
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Someone who warns enemy forces about military presence is a combatant, mother or not. It's war; you don't get to make your side immune from being killed by making sure you are using mothers to do your military work for you.
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Insightful)
More people die on the highways in the US each year than have died or been injured in combat in both wars, and the "collateral damage" isn't too far beyond that number either.
So the more people die in accidents in a country the more murders that country is allowed to commit? In other words what you're saying is that if the roads in Nazi Germany were more dangerous that'd make the Holocaust ok. That is not how it works. If I kicked you in the balls and explained it's fine because that happens to people everyday would you accept the excuse or try to beat me up for kicking you in the balls?
(Accidental) Road deaths in the US: ~30k/year
Civilians murdered in Iraq: >100k (total)
So you're wrong. More people died in the Iraq war (which, by the way, would be very easy to prevent by not invading it) than die per year in road accidents in the US (road accidents are only preventable to a degree (unless you don't use roads, obviously)).
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Funny)
In other words what you're saying is that if the roads in Nazi Germany were more dangerous that'd make the Holocaust ok.
Wait... did you just invoke Godwin's Law AND make a car analogy in the same post? Is this a definition of a perfect /. post???
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. More people died in the Iraq war (which, by the way, would be very easy to prevent by not invading it)
Actually, not invading would probably have killed more people. Saddam's long term average for killing Iraqis was higher than what occurred in Iraq after his fall. Now Saddam is gone and terrorism is way down, so objectively the Iraqis are much better off with Saddam falling.
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Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Informative)
Contrary to popular opinion in the US, the reason for extremists from the middle east and areas of asia isn't because "they hate freedom", its because US foreign policy over the past 70 years has been screwing over whole populations of people in order to have 'friendly governments' available to them. If these governments were not willing to do anything the US wanted, a new government was installed by any means necessary. Generally speaking, if you surpress a population for that length of time, you'll have a backlash. I don't know if your politicians are either grossly ignorant of these basic facts or they are simply misleading the population, but the US isn't known around the world for freedom and democracy, they are known for oppression and tyranny. So tell me, if you knew a country known for oppression and tyranny, what would you do? Oh yeah, we've already seen that, you'd bomb the fuck out of them, be damned how many civilians you kill until "democrats" crawl out of the rubble and promise to be good little boys and girls. I swear, how people don't see the cause and effect in all this is beyond me...
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Just a suggestion, but stop fucking up peoples shit around the world and people wont have a grudge against you and you wont have to intimidate people. . . . Contrary to popular opinion in the US, the reason for extremists from the middle east and areas of asia isn't because "they hate freedom", . . . . I swear, how people don't see the cause and effect in all this is beyond me...
The reason it's beyond you is that you really don't understand what is going on. Here is some starter material. Yes, they do hate our freedoms - including the freedom of religion, and self governance under the Constitution. Their ultimate goal is to restore the Caliphate, which existed up until ~ 1924, and conquer the world for Islam.
bin Laden's 'letter to America' [guardian.co.uk]
Goal - coerced religious conversion, replacement of Constitution with Sharia law, with an end to drinking, gambling, fornication, etc., etc..
Bin Laden obviously a Slashdot regular; (Score:4, Interesting)
(xi) You have destroyed nature with your industrial waste and gases more than any other nation in history. Despite this, you refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement so that you can secure the profit of your greedy companies and*industries.
(x) Your law is the law of the rich and wealthy people, who hold sway in their political parties, and fund their election campaigns with their gifts. Behind them stand the Jews, who control your policies, media and economy.
(xi) That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?
(xii) Let us not forget one of your major characteristics: your duality in both manners and values; your hypocrisy in manners and principles. All*manners, principles and values have two scales: one for you and one for the others.
(a)The freedom and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you call the 'American friends'. Yet you prevent them from establishing democracies. When the Islamic party in Algeria wanted to practice democracy and they won the election, you unleashed your agents in the Algerian army onto them, and to attack them with tanks and guns, to imprison them and torture them - a new lesson from the 'American book of democracy'!!!
(b)Your policy on prohibiting and forcibly removing weapons of mass destruction to ensure world peace: it only applies to those countries which you do not permit to possess such weapons. As for the countries you consent to, such as Israel, then they are allowed to keep and use such weapons to defend their security. Anyone else who you suspect might be manufacturing or keeping these kinds of weapons, you call them criminals and you take military action against them.
(c)You are the last ones to respect the resolutions and policies of International Law, yet you claim to want to selectively punish anyone else who does the same. Israel has for more than 50 years been pushing UN resolutions and rules against the wall with the full support of America.
(d)As for the war criminals which you censure and form criminal courts for - you shamelessly ask that your own are granted immunity!! However, history will not forget the war crimes that you committed against the Muslims and the rest of the world; those you have killed in Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Lebanon and Iraq will remain a shame that you will never be able to escape. It will suffice to remind you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan, in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than 1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah alone knows how many people have died by torture at the hands of you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies, looking for anyone remotely suspicious.
(e)You have claimed to be the vanguards of Human Rights, and your Ministry of Foreign affairs issues annual reports containing statistics of those countries that violate any Human Rights. However, all these things vanished when the Mujahideen hit you, and you then implemented the methods of the same documented governments that you used to curse. In America, you captured thousands the Muslims and Arabs, took them into custody with neither reason, court trial, nor even disclosing their names. You issued newer, harsher laws.
What happens in Guatanamo is a historical embarrassm
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The reason it's beyond you is that you really don't understand what is going on.
And you in turn have failed to dig deeper into this.
Sure, bin Laden was an extremist, but the reason he has an audience at all in the Middle East, is that generally the US Policy towards regular people has been "fuck all of you, we need oil, therefore we're going to support viciously repressive regimes for market access". Like Saudi Arabia, Iran (shah days), etc. That generally doesn't win hearts and minds, especially when coupled with an immediate followup into "democracy, rights, voting, freedom, blah bla
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I remember the Military withdrew its support on the making of Independence Day because they wouldn't remove reference to Area 51. If they gave the movie their support despite it including Area 51, it would look like they were confirming its existence.
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Crimson Tide (Score:2)
The US Navy didn't help with Crimson Tide because of the mutiny plot point. So military technical help came from somewhere else.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimson_Tide_(film)#Production
Re:"worst kept secret" (Score:2)
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Why should the military only act in its own interest? It should act in the interest of the people it serves and who pay for it.
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Propaganda?
So are we trying to convince people that we should fight space aliens that attack from under water?
Recruitment != Propaganda.
Even things like the Thunderbirds and Blue Angles are for recruitment and public relations. Things like fleet day, airshows, and even cooperating with model airplane makers fit that category.
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Here's why: (Score:4, Interesting)
Against the law? If anything it should be the law. Why should the military spend its time and money on projects which aren't relevant to recruitment or combat/training?
Because it's not "military money". It's "tax payer's money".
From a purely military perspective, you want severe propaganda, and censorship. You want information to be restricted. To the people at home, you give positive information about the military. And to those abroad (potential enemies), you show some muscle. Some Shock and Awe. That will give the best results from a purely military perspective.
However, the military still listens to the government (doesn't it?). And the government is interested in an open and free society (isn't it?). So, from that perspective, it would be necessary to have some opposition (right?). So, why not give that opposition some financial backing too?
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"The Pentagon has a manual. Basically, it will only provide full cooperation to propaganda pieces"
It might be interesting as a producer / director to "play" the military by promising a "propaganda piece" and delivering something else after "full cooperation" and the cost associated with it is delivered...
Re:Illegal???? (Score:5, Funny)
Who wound NOT promote themselves? (Score:3, Interesting)
To me it's silly to stray anywhere away from the very basic fact - any organization will be happy to contribute resources to efforts that make it look good.
Call it propaganda if you like, but it's really not that - it's common sense. True propaganda comes if the organization builds its own media (which the military does to some extent but they did not make Batlleship).
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To be fair, Clue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clue_(film) [wikipedia.org] was pretty good.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is bullshit. In real drone strikes, there is no guarantee that only "terrorists" are the victims. All the press reporting in the US takes the military at their word, and casualties are never identified as "collateral damage", i.e. innocent bystanders.
It's a real war, and there are always non-combatants who are killed and injured. Pretending this never happens may be good to keep support up at home, but it is a damned lie. Honesty is a better policy in the long run.
One of the reasons that Pakistan is not letting NATO resupply convoys go through it's territory is because of the toll taken by drone strikes. It is a huge issue with the Pakistan population. By not admitting to any civilian casualties in the US press, there can be no meaningful debate about how our policy is effecting US standing in the Middle East.
Personally, I think that the Pakistan government is not worth spit as an ally, and they are directly supporting our enemies. We would be better off if we cut most military aid because of their backstabbing behavior. Even so, the practical, ethical and political effects of our use of drones should be much more publicly debated, rather then being swept under the rub by what is effectively military propaganda.
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I think that scene in Iron Man was using a bit of satire to make exactly the point you are trying to get across. It was so over the top as to be an obvious fantasy.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:4, Informative)
You may be right. However, the more important issues are how the larger audience interprets it and how it affects their perceptions of reality. Satire is a dangerous tool when used on the uncritical.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:4, Insightful)
Superheroes inherently do things which if performed in the real world would get a lot of innocent people caught in the crossfire as well. That scene may not have been an example but even if it had been, it has nothing to do with the involvement of the military--just consider that superheroes tend to do warrantless searches, use gratuitous violence against suspects (and maybe even threaten them with physical harm to get information), gratuitously destroy property, etc. which would be really disastrous if performed by real-life law enforcement officials (and sometimes are when they are).
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This is bullshit. In real drone strikes, there is no guarantee that only "terrorists" are the victims. All the press reporting in the US takes the military at their word, and casualties are never identified as "collateral damage", i.e. innocent bystanders.
Obviously you are not a politician. Just say that everyone killed by a drone is a terrorist because, obviously, if they were not they would not have been killed by a drone...
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:4, Insightful)
In the first Iron Man film, Tony Stark is in a village in the Middle East and he kills a bunch of "bad guys" who are mixed in with a bunch of innocent civilians. He trivially distinguishes between his targets and the rest of the population.
This is bullshit. In real drone strikes, there is no guarantee that only "terrorists" are the victims. All the press reporting in the US takes the military at their word, and casualties are never identified as "collateral damage", i.e. innocent bystanders.
It's a real war, and there are always non-combatants who are killed and injured. Pretending this never happens may be good to keep support up at home, but it is a damned lie. Honesty is a better policy in the long run.
One of the reasons that Pakistan is not letting NATO resupply convoys go through it's territory is because of the toll taken by drone strikes. It is a huge issue with the Pakistan population. By not admitting to any civilian casualties in the US press, there can be no meaningful debate about how our policy is effecting US standing in the Middle East.
Personally, I think that the Pakistan government is not worth spit as an ally, and they are directly supporting our enemies. We would be better off if we cut most military aid because of their backstabbing behavior. Even so, the practical, ethical and political effects of our use of drones should be much more publicly debated, rather then being swept under the rub by what is effectively military propaganda.
In a real war soldiers of both sides are wearing uniforms.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:5, Interesting)
Your facts are not in order.
Pakistan is blockading NATO due to an air strike that kill two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border outpost. The Pakistanis reportedly made the unfortunate "mistake" of firing at US and Afghan commandos [wsj.com] which they sometimes do when they forget which side they are supporting. Pakistan is demanding an apology for the incident, and is also using it as an excuse to try to jack up the transit fee from $200 to $5,000 per truck. [philly.com]
The overwhelming majority of non-combatants being killed in Afghanistan are being killed by road-side bombs placed by . . . guess who. . . the Taliban. The Taliban also visit murder and massacre on the various tribes and villages. Unlike NATO, the Taliban deliberately targets innocent non-combatants.
As to drone strikes . . .
Pakistan Says Drone Strikes Have Been Effective [voanews.com]
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The official paper distributed among reporters says that there have been 164 drone strikes in the militant-dominated region of North Waziristan since 2007, killing 964 "terrorists". There were 171 al-Qaida fighters among those killed, mostly belonging to central Asian and Arab countries.
Analysts like former army general Talat Masood suggest that the rare admission by the Pakistani military about the effectiveness of drone attacks could be exploited to make the general public understand the dilemma their country is facing. "Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.
Ayesha Siddiqua is a social scientist with deep insight into Pakistani military affairs. In a country where the army is seen as the main power broker, she says the acknowledgement about drones being a useful tactic against militants is likely to help political leaders to seek legitimacy for the strikes in public discourse.
"It basically means that the political dispensation is under greater pressure, is much more answerable to the people and, therefore, they have to at least cook some stories. But in reality, the military which is not answerable to any public, it is also a party to the decision of conducting drone attacks
Observers say the Pakistani military's nod to the effectiveness of the U.S campaign could serve the interest of both countries in sending a message to critics of the drone program that they are avoiding civilian deaths and that the strikes are militarily effective.
So to recap, the Pakistani general have several reasons to misrepresent the truth and can therefore not be considered a credible source concerning the effectiveness of these drone strikes.
Besides, who where the other 793 "terrorists" killed by drones but apparently not al-Qaeda?
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If the argument is that we shouldn't do it because it's wrong, it absolutely is about reality. Killing lots of innocent people is immoral; being perceived as killing them because of propaganda, is not immoral.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the press reporting in the US takes the military at their word, and casualties are never identified as "collateral damage", i.e. innocent bystanders.
I don't believe that to be true, I've head of many admissions from the pentagon that they have caused collateral damage. Sure they sometimes seem to hem and haw a little, but claiming what you do is just another form of propaganda.
Re:jump: Afghanistan - Battleship? (Score:5, Interesting)
All the press reporting in the US takes the military at their word, and casualties are never identified as "collateral damage", i.e. innocent bystanders.
That's becuase in the real world, people like you don't understand the definition of "collateral damage" nor do they seem to understand that war is hell; and certainly not fair.
If you are within a certain proximity of someone you are legally considered a sympathiser and therefore, a legitimate kill. A massive number of legitimate kills are later claimed to be "innocent civilians." In all of these conflicts, where possible, they leave the bodies by take all the weapons. They then claim "innocent civilians" were murdered and small minded idiots everywhere believe them. Now then, that is not say to innocent people don't die. A lot of innocent people have died and will continue to die in any and all future conflicts. They have died in every war known to mankind. But this is also why the military's numbers never match everyone else's numbers. The truth is, the truth is somewhere in between.
I can't tell you how many documentaries I've watched or how many armed forces I've spoken too who all tell the same stories. Someone starts shooting at them. They take out the enemy - frequently with optics; thusly confirming it was a combatant. When they arrive their weapons are gone and all the locals insist they were "innocent civilians" who never harmed anyone. The military's count is correct. Then bleeding heart idiots come in and interview people and find the bodies had no weapons. They declare the military murdered people. Their count is incorrect and woefully over-inflated; even if they have good intentions.
Bigger problems come from the use of bombs. All too frequently, there actually are "innocent civilians", who were forced under threat of murder to stay with the bad guys. They are there in case they are attacked, such that THEY can murder them and claim the military is murdering "innocent civilians". Of course, should a bomb be dropped, or if they are attacked, "innocent civilians" are killed. The problem is, the military dropped the bomb, but they didn't kill them. Also, when attacked, frequently the "innocent civilians" are actually killed by scum - or they are forced to pick up weapons and are killed by the military.
The deal is, its never anywhere as cut and dry as so many ignorant, bleeding heart suckers like to depict. The fact is, the "innocent civilians" counts are factually, way, way, way over blown. Secondly, that number does not clearly indicate who actually killed them or what the situation was. The fact is, once they pick up a weapon or become part of their entourage, they are no longer "innocent" - legally. And all this ignores the fact that in many cases, the "innocent civilian" deaths are frequently lower than before the top fell. Which means, according to a lot of these agencies, "innocent civilians" deaths are okay so long as the US military is not involved.
Long story short, while we know the military's count is too low, its far, far, far more accurate than most accounts of "innocent civilian"" deaths - by far. The truth is, the actual numbers are somewhere in between - and likely closer to the military's than you think.
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Not sure what a super hero movie abojt a guy wearing a magic suit has to do with drone strikes. But lets agree, yes, war is hell.
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You're making the fallacy of applying Western Christian morality to a foreign culture. The "Pakistan population" protesting the drone strikes cares more about t
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In the first Iron Man film, Tony Stark is in a village in the Middle East and he kills a bunch of "bad guys" who are mixed in with a bunch of innocent civilians. He trivially distinguishes between his targets and the rest of the population.
This is bullshit.
Really? You're calling out a Superhero movie, because the guy in the impervious flying suit of armor equipped with future tech repulsor blasts and powered by a cold fusion reactor the size of a paperweight, didn't hit any civilians with his inch sized AI guided missiles? But the fact that he didn't slaughter civilians is the great lie that the movie is perpetrating?
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You do know that often the 'civilians' buried in drone strikes are the associates of terrorists in the compounds, or just terrorists who aren't carrying guns at the time, yeah? There have also been cases where donkeys got killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan and the villagers buried it and claimed the compensation for a 'civilian' killed. The US drones don't just fire willy nilly on villages for the fsck of it. They actually have Special Forces to observe and target terrorists. These guys do hold back o