Ok, i don't want to deceive you. The title is sort of click-bait. I am not a kind of person who constructs ideas by reading a couple of anti-american blogs or books or tweets and writes a blog post. I rather prefer deriving my own conclusions and keep them to myself. But, there are certainly some aspects of developed countries in the world nowadays, which is mostly lead by USA, that we need to be aware of or have an idea of. Therefore, in this post, i have written about a couple of movies i know, which are mostly about wars, developed countries and the disasters and tragedies coming along. I will also write my own thoughts in general. Because coincidentally, i was thinking about writing this post and Israel - Hamas conflict broke out.
We need both sides of stories. Let me say this in advance. No one wins a war. If you watch the movies i have listed below, you will get a bigger perspective of the world. Also, there are details that we just overlook. I know you can't get the reliable information from movies since they could exaggerate things or could be created for plain and simple propaganda. But i also can't recommend any kind of documentary or something since i can't vouch for them too. I ended up drawing the conclusion that the humankind is basically unable to live peacefully and we need a drastic change of logic in the world. I wonder what you would think. Here is the list of 14 movies i recommend you to watch. The order is not that much important but i see some form of connection among them. I noted some of them as Must Watch. HEAVY SPOILERS here, but you wouldn't watch these for thrill or shocking endings anyway.
This movie is basically about a reckless bomb disarming specialist. Our main character (Jeremy Renner) is assigned as a specialist in middle east to clear hand made explosives. The movie tries to reflect the addictive side of wars, since our main character leaves the Iraqi war with PTSD and eventually joins back the army at the end. USA soldiers are portrayed as friendly angels of course. You'll see that there are both sides of a war causing disturbance and pain for the majority. I see a search for humanity here, but it sort of wears off because of the mentality of wars, which is kill or get killed. I also see the suppressed or oppressed people helplessly watching everything going on there. Even though they want to stay out of it, danger is everywhere whether you are a side or not. A military operation can sound like a game to you but it is way more violent and mindless. It is not to be romanticized. The next movie shows that.
This one takes place in Somalia and based on 1993 Mogadishu war. The story is about a semi-successful operation which involves part of USA army soldiers crashing in the enemy territory. But the enemies here are the people who worship at dawn and lay down hellfire on American soldiers afterwards. Which is a provocative way of screenplay to say the least. We will see the Muslim and terrorist combo in other movies too. These days we are realizing that terror has no nation or religion. This movie is completed before 9/11 incident but released afterwards, maybe to fuel the anger on middle east or Muslims. The director is Ridley Scott. It looks like creating heroic characters of soldiers makes a lot of money at the box office. Because there is another one like this.
I wasn't sure about this movie, but it ended up having a place in my list. It is about a secret unit of American soldiers in Libya, protecting the USA compound where no one is coming for help. The irony in this movie is that eventually Libyan people are the ones who saves them from the hanging tree at the last moment. Plus, the soldiers are evacuated with Libyan police force and aircraft. Again, the enemy is Muslim (shocker). But there is a moment when you realize that big words coming out of big politicians can lose all meaning when your life hangs on a thread while you are fighting for them. This movie starts asking why are we fighting and for who? Is it all heroic acts? Most definitely not. See the next one.
It is about an illegal raid of a couple of USA soldiers in Samarra Iraq 2006. They kill a family and rape a young woman. So yeah, those wars you watch on TV or movies are not all heroic acts. Let alone having any meaningful reason to begin. The situation there, in the under developed countries, is quite problematic. Narrator says solders are under pshcyological pressure to distinguish good and bad people. I would understand their perspective of course, if they are trying to distinguish the right from wrong. But do they always? Another very bad reality is, as narrator points out, half of the Iraqi people are illiterate. You can't even properly defend your rights or even know your rights if you can't get in touch with the world.
I realized the reviews of this movie are a clash of USA 's middle east policies. You have to realize that there is more than supporting your government online. Would you say it is statistically insignificant if there is only 1 woman raped and murdered? Also, would you say this is the one and only instance of an unpleasant event while all those soldiers are under heavy stress? Thousands of miles away from home and death everywhere. These events are bound to happen. You are probably being told a lot of lies or cover-ups. Because they have to. It is called the Body of Lies.
DiCaprio and Russel Crowe plays in this movie. It is about a CIA agent working in middle east. He eventually and naturally, realizes the situation is far uglier than he knows. He eventually decides to quit all his duties and settle in middle east for a peaceful life. Again, Muslim looking people talking in the name of Allah here. The director is again Ridley Scott.
I kinda feel like there is a subliminal message in this movie saying "we are watching you" :D Because there are lots of intelligence and surveillance tech roaming around. I know it is partially true with all those high tech equipment developed FIRST for the army and national security. Then i also ask how did you miss 9/11 happening. These days we are asking the same question for Hamas attack on Israel too. Anyway, if you want to talk about wars, ask the guys on the ground, not keyboard warriors or politicians. Because the ones in the field are the most effected and closer to truth.
I guess that is why you need to fabricate more and more patriots to suppress those who try to object the mentality of wars. I also guess that is why we have games like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor or Battlefield. I am somewhat interested in games and i can say these games were the pioneers of the innovations in FPS games back in the day, with top notch fluid gameplay and motion capture, which i think is not a coincidence.
One last thing attracted my attention is towards the end of the movie, our agent decides to go solo and quit and the chief (Russel Crowe) says "You are turning your back against USA". DiCaprio answers "don't confuse yourself with USA". This is the kind of logic behind all those motivated soldiers in the field, patriotic exploitation. I have another exploitation example of this in the next one.
Talking about high tech and patriotic exploitation, Zero Dark Thirty comes in. This movie is about the CIA operation in Afghanistan that took a decade and resulted in killing of Osama Bin Laden. Eventually the movie is based on a true story but i can't help but ask, all those billions of dollars spent for military and it took a decade to capture Laden, seriously? There is this one scene in the movie where the head of operation (Jessica Chastain) wows for revenge and says "i am gonna kill Laden". I immediately said in my head "it doesn't work that way honey. They kill them when they are expired and no use anymore". One more aspect of this movie is the eventual tragedy of wars is turning a normal average person into a dedicated agent. Self feeding, never ending, mindless cycle. Wait, are we still talking about an evolved and conscious species?
Well, actually yes, we are an evolved family of living things. Even though nonsensical madness going all over the world and making a lot of noise, there are good and bad people too. This movie shows that. It is about a French journalist being kidnapped by Taliban and rescued by special forces of France. Oh don't worry, French movies are the same as the Americans, you know angry looking Muslim terrorists looking grimm, yelling, shouting and killing and etc..
So the special forces say we are here to fight the bad guys while not harming the good ones. Then i would ask who are you and who do you consider as bad guys? I need these answers to be able to choose a side or not. In this movie you will find the answer to both questions. Also, i think distinguishing good and bad and knowing who is promoting them, is the key. Where does good come from, where does bad come from? Let's take a look at another aspect of this.
This movie is about Canadian a doctor working in Palestine. She witness the horror and pain at the first hand and naturally, humanly, starts questioning how do you become good, or bad. You don't have to dig into the past of Israel and Palestine to draw humanitarian boundaries. The reviews of this movie are divided into a leftist and rightist fight. This causes me to lose hope in humanity again.
A young Palestinian boy is crushed under the military vehicle in the movie. Lots of children are suffering from wars as usual, everywhere in the world. Do you think arguing with your limited knowledge or being a leftist or rightist is helping? There is a friend of the doctor in the movie, an Israeli soldier woman, says "it is not your war". Well, whose war is it? Does that matter? does that justify the silence? Why don't we raise our voice when people are forced out of their country or killed and called as collateral damage? Is it because the some people are making money out of arms dealing?
Most of the humankind's conflict is a result of greed or ignorance. It is probably ongoing for thousands of years like this. And some people know this very well. Lord of War is about an arms dealer (Nicholas Cage) who is finding his way around law everytime and creating a huge international network. Eventually he is captured in the end of the movie. But then he is released to walk free and continue what he is doing. That is where the whole idea is explained.
He says "the people who assigned you to catch me for arms dealing is also the people assigned me to be the arms dealer". It is a very lucrative business. People say capitalism wants stability to exploit. No i don't think so. These days, capitalism needs conflict to fuel them by selling weapons and tech and disinformation. Plus, they are going to have a prosperous life on top of the blood they cause.
Blood diamond is about chaotic Sierra Leone. The people there are suppressed by the bully types with weapons and forced to work diamond mining. This is not about a military operation or anything but you'll see it is inevitable for people in power to stay clean in these dirty parts of the world. A lot of people's tragedy is literally some people's wealth in this world. This is not capitalism, maybe cannibalism. You can't just stay silence.
Ok, so far it is all about wars and blood. At this point, after watching couple of these movies, you would realize that violence can never establish peace and you need to seek truth and peace in all this. Otherwise the humankind would fight for billions of years if possible. But it is getting harder and harder to extract or even defend the truth these days. Let's take a look at what happens during this search.
This one is about the endurance to share the truth and stand by it. A government worker (Katharine Gun played by Keira Knightley) in UK shares the information about United Nations voting being rigged and the war in the middle east is basically fabricated. Then the Official Secrets act kicks in and she gets in all sorts of nasty troubles, even though the facts that she presented are true and shockingly corrupt. It feels like when it comes to governments, all bets are off. We are basically witnessing the elected people doing what they want, when and how they see fit. This movie is directly pointing out this logic and to no one's surprise, the person is punished in the name of official secrets act. It can be translated into "we can do whatever we want and you cant talk about it". Governments are not sacred entities, in fact they are far from it. They are not to be blessed. They can turn their back on you.
Yes, this is the biggest example of governments doing illegal or inhumane acts and they hunt down who exposes them. Snowden is the person who exposes that NSA of America is gathering information about people's life and invading their privacy. This movie is about part of his life. I take him as a hero actually. Truth is so scarce, that is why it is so expensive. Lies are everywhere, looking into your eyes, completely professional and blatant, therefore they are cheap. This is why you need a tool to spread more truth so that the price go down, right? Try my mobile app, WhoShares, here :) We created black boxes and they became black holes, that suck everything good or bad.
This is just an honorable mention, because i love Kate Beckinsale :) This is not about wars or USA or middle east in particular. Our journalist exposes information about a secret CIA agent and as usual, goes to jail for it. She protects her source at all costs, which is just a kid. But also, she knows CIA would disregard the facts if the source is turned out to be a kid. Ultimately, everything she exposes is right.
The whole point of the movie is that the truth, unorthodox CIA operations in this example, is shadowed by the dilemma around it. People start talking about the journalist and focus shifts away over time. This is what's happening right now, people tend to beat around the bush or focus on sensation, therefore losing the sight of what they were looking for and what was the main subject. Basically, we should be asking why the fuck are we ready to go into a war rather than questioning why? I am sure if you are reading this blog post, you are already interested in the state of the world in general. You most definitely have some ideas. I am trying to convince you to drop all those ideas and recreate a mindset from scratch.
In the end, believe me, a war has no winners. This is the point i wanted to express through these movies. There are tons of other movies that i don't even know of. Some are biased, some are objective and honest. But it doesn't matter. The cycle of violence is like a never ending book. Each chapter ending in a violent note to pave the way for a new but similar chapter. Other than a very small group of "people", everybody is effected or hurt.
None of these movies can truly reflect the whole truth, they can only shed light on one aspect of the conflict that humanlind is creating. I am sure most of you would like to chose the side of the good people. But the question is, can you distinguish? All you can gather is just an overall idea of how fucked up the situation in the world is. And it is mostly driven by developed countries, hence the title, which have the most powerful armies and the most spending for military.
But we don't have to rediscover America, we need to discover humankind, ourselves. We don't have to talk about the past, the middle east or Israel these days. Because somehow, despite all the technological advances in the world, we are still unable to create prosperity for all, or even for one quarter of humanity. Even though we have internet, we are more and more divided. That much gap would eventually create chaos. My message is, we are failing to live on this earth, but nevertheless, we are looking for new planets to live on. Ask yourself why. Ask yourself do you have any part in this. Look around you, around the world, and ask yourself, what mentality brought us here?
This was a bitter and a little bit unorganized post. Watch these movies and you might derive the same conclusion. Living on this world is a gift to us and it was meaningful. We became selfish or simply ignorant and started unproductive fights. Sadly, we seem to be unable to get out of this madness. We are not just on the wrong way, we are headed in reverse. See you on the next post, hopefully with peace.
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