opinion

The following is a review of 11 Hollywood movies and what America Under Attack can learn from them.

Three Kings (action-political satire-black comedy)

A brilliant movie which also takes a cynical look at the Gulf War. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube play three soldiers who, after "fighting for the free world and justice", are going to steal Saddam's hidden stash of Kuwaiti gold.

The opening words are pure black comedy: "Are we shooting?"

The ceasefire is so new that soldiers are not sure and an Iraqi soldier waving a white flag gets his head shot off in a misunderstanding. Too bad.

Now that Saddam's men have stopped shooting at Americans, they are killing their own people - Iraqi Shia rebels. As one of the characters says: "Bush told the people to rise up against Saddam. They thought they'd have our support. They didn't. Now they're being slaughtered."

This is one of the few Hollywood movies that portray Arabs as real people instead of a faceless mass of evil: They have children who have been killed by American bombs; they, too, are oppressed by Saddam; some of them are American business school graduates who came home to practise free-market capitalism by opening cafes (all bombed to bits); and hey, they drink Coca-Cola, too.

Wahlberg finds himself strapped to an electrical torture device. His torturer, played by Said Taghmaoui, was trained by America (to fight the 'evil' Iranians during the first Gulf War from 1980-1988). His child was killed in the bombing to "save democracy".

He interrogates Wahlberg as to why America made Michael Jackson hate his blackness so much that he now wants to become white? Then they both discover - in the movie's most touching humanity - that they are both fathers who simply want to protect their children.

There are chilling parallels in the current frenzy of America Under Attack. Please. Stop demonising the Afghans as a faceless, non-human group. Most of their economy has already been bombed away over the past 20 years of war. They are now suffering from three years of their worst drought and four million people are threatened with an Ethiopian-style starvation.

Not so long ago, wasn't the Western media fighting for the rights of Afghan women and children against the barbaric Taliban? Why does that media now support bombing those same women and children?

Wag the dog (political satire)

Perception is everything.

Two weeks prior to re-election, the US president is hit by a sex scandal. To distract media attention from this, a political spin doctor (played by Robert De Niro) and a Hollywood producer (Dustin Hoffman) are brought in to manufacture a 'war' against Albania.

Why Albania? Because the name sounds 'sinister' and geographically-challenged Americans know little about the country.

The spin team's motto is "change the story, change the lead" and they launch an advertising-style 'patriotic' campaign which includes slogans, a theme song and of course, merchandising.

Soon, carefully-controlled 'leaks' to the press make it to the evening news, and everyone is going ga-ga over the 'war' even though no shots have been fired. But hey, if it's on television, it must be real!

But can the movies be true in real life? Can the 'professional' and 'fair' American media machine be manipulated like this?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. As a recent AFP report noted, television has a "tendency to anaestheticise the tragedy with slow-motion footage, dramatic music and solemn titles such as 'America Rising', turning coverage into a 24-hour-a-day disaster flick".

Most disturbing were the images, broadcast repeatedly, which showed Palestinians celebrating the attacks. Media analyst Crispin Miller notes (in the AFP report) that "the scene was actually filmed during the funeral of nine people killed the previous day in an Israeli attack. To show it without explaining the background, and to show it over and over again, is to make propaganda for the war machine and is irresponsible".

Miller added that the wave of jingoism "makes Bush's characterisation of the war credible to audiences, that this is a (simplistic) struggle between good and evil. That is exactly how Osama bin Laden sees the world".

Rambo III (action-comedy)

John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) goes to help the Good Guys, the great Mujahideen 'freedom fighters' of Afghanistan. They don't have to do much as Rambo, more or less single-handedly, blasts all the 'evil' Russian invaders to bits.

Now, in the case of America Under Attack, isn't it strange that the Mujahideen have suddenly become the Bad Guys? And that Russia is now the (semi) Good Guy willing to co-operate with America in crushing the "Muslim terrorist threat"?

In the movie, the Americans provide Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down Soviet aircraft.In real life, these are the same missiles that now threaten the "free world".

As Seumas Milne wrote in the Guardian on Sept 13:

"It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his Mujahideen were armed and trained by the CIA and [Britain's] MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland..."

But after the communists had been ousted, "Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push four million people to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures..."

In the name of the Father (drama)

A chilling, yet heart-warming movie based on a true story. On Oct 5, 1974, an IRA bomb explodes in a pub in Guildford, England, killing five people. Public demands for 'justice' pressure the police to pounce on the most likely suspects. They're Irish anyway - who cares if they really are innocent?

With the help of forced confessions, the (media-demonised) 'Guildford Four' are found guilty. Later, the police find solid evidence of their innocence but they keep it carefully buried. It takes a human rights lawyer (played by Emma Thompson) years to ferret out the truth before they are finally freed.

In the case of America Under Attack, we might ask: "Is Osama bin Laden being set up as an all-too-convenient fall guy?"

After the Oklahoma City Bombing, there was a knee-jerk response to pin it on "Arab terrorists". The bomber later turned out to be the all-American Timothy McVeigh.

This time, the media have been more careful. But with Osama's face and name being flashed through TV ever so often he is already guilty - by sheer repetition - in this trial by media. Now that President Bush has already decided who the "prime suspect" is, does real evidence matter anymore?

JFK (drama-thriller)

President Kennedy is assassinated. America and the world are in shock. The "prime suspect" then was Lee Harvey Oswald - who supposedly had links to the 'evil' Soviet Union. However, the movie suggests that it is actually shadowy American interests which are behind the killing.

Why? Because JFK was thinking of pulling out from Vietnam. The real bosses of America - the weapons manufacturers and big bankers - would have lost billions of dollars in contracts.

Of course, this is just another stupid Oliver Stone movie with absolutely no relevance to the present America Under Attack scenario. And "we strongly deny" any motive to imply that America or Israel were somehow behind the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Sorry, just a taste of CNN-style "prime suspect" innuendo for you.

Above the law (action-drama)

Steven Seagal's first (and best) movie with a deeply disturbing message behind the slick aikido action scenes. Nico Toscani (Seagal) is recruited into the CIA and sees first-hand how America is 'saving' Vietnam from communism via some friendly torturing of locals.

Years later, he becomes a cop. But suspects caught red-handed with drugs are allowed to walk while he has to hand in his badge. Sure enough, there's a bigger conspiracy. The CIA wants to assassinate a senator who's about to expose its role in the torture and killing of "innocent civilians" in Nicaragua.

Nico's priest is sheltering refugees from the carnage. On the pulpit, he preaches, "We have an obligation to find out the truth. We need to question ... what they (the government) are doing in our name..." Then a bomb goes off in the church. What a coincidence.

Later Nico tells an old CIA buddy: "So war is still the greatest business, huh? Do we kill our own senators now?"

The buddy replies: "Why not? The Romans did it."

"Are we the Romans?"

The buddy answers: "We're an Empire too..."

Enemy of the state (action-thriller)

A similar plot to Above the law . Except that Will Smith and Gene Hackman are up against the electronic Big Brother known as the US National Security Agency.

Apart from the stunning scenes of satellite surveillance, we see how easy it is for Smith's character to be discredited via bogus newspaper stories and planted evidence of an extra-marital affair.

Judge Dredd (action-comedy)

Yup, after three Rambo movies, Sylvester Stallone plays another mumbling right-wing hero again - Judge Dredd . While Steven Seagal's CIA were Above the law , Judge Dredd cries out (as memorably pointed out by veteran The Star's WeekEnder movie reviewer SB Toh): "Ayam Telor!" (I am the Law!).

Dredd - prosecutor, judge, jury and on-the-spot executioner in a future America overrun by crime and rude punks - is the ideal hawkish Republican solution to crime. Nope, the way to fight crime is not by addressing its root causes - such as greedy American factory owners laying off thousands of workers at home and relocating to China (incidentally, another 'evil' country with a 'bad' human rights record). The only way to fight crime is with even more suppression. Fight fire with fire, not with water.

Ditto, with America Under Attack, the only way to fight terrorism is not to address its root causes such as America's babysitting of Israel's state terrorism against the Palestinians (which includes a proudly declared policy of political assasinations). The only way to fight terror is with more terror (bombs) against starving Afghans.

America is The Law. Despite the lip service of fighting the "dastardly evil" of terrorism, the politicians of Washington DC are reluctant to obey international law. They have refused to ratify several United Nations conventions against terrorism - after all they once supported the "freedom fighter" Osama bin Laden in the 1980s.

They have also rejected treaties to create an International Criminal Court and to ban land mines which continue to maim farmers and schoolchildren (i.e., "innocent civilians") worldwide. These politicians now also want to rip up the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty since it's inconvenient to "America's interests".

Perhaps, it is rather unfair that innocent American civilians in the World Trade Center now have to reap the bitter harvest sowed by the short-sighted policies of their leaders - who, including President Bush, went hiding in 'secure' bunkers once the trouble started.

Dave (comedy)

The US president has a heart attack and a look-alike stands in for him. The new guy is no hostage to Washington's 'special interest groups' and its system of political paybacks, so he starts solving the nation's problems with simple common sense.

For instance, the huge budget deficit is balanced by a normal accountant friend with a pocket calculator. More money to health and education, less money to weapons. Ah... if only the world were so simple!

Pay it forward (drama)

Do a good deed, a big one, for someone, anyone. No, don't thank me. Pay it forward to another three people. Haley Joel Osment plays the young hero of this deeply moving movie. He tries to help both his alienated teacher and his alcoholic mother by matchmaking them. He doesn't live to reap the sweet fruits of his efforts - but he sparks off a nationwide movement of love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

With America Under Attack, the point is, terrorism should be absolutely - without exception - condemned in all forms. Whether it's individual terrorism in the name of religious fundamentalism, economic terrorism in the name of IMF free-market fundamentalism or state terrorism in the name of superpower fundamentalism.

But what's the solution? Should we fight terrorism with more terror? Fire with fire? An eye for an eye, as in the Bible's Old Testament, so that the whole world may go blind? Or do we Pay it forward ? Fight fire with water? Hatred with love?

History recommends the second approach. The greatest mistake after World War I was the imposition of crippling, punitive sanctions against a defeated Germany which eventually led to economic despair and the rise of Nazi-fundamentalism. Many Germans, motivated by the hatred of America, Britain and France, were cheerfully chanting the equivalent of Hitler-o-Akbar! in the 1930s. We should never forget that Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 through a popular democratic election.

After winning World War II, America decided to fight hatred with economic love. Massive aid was poured into Western Europe through the Marshall Plan, ushering in a new era of immense prosperity. It was a move of enlightened self-interest - if only to prove that people would be better loved and cared for by capitalism rather than communism - and both sides of the Atlantic have long reaped the win-win benefits of economic growth.

America has fought hatred with more hatred. The result was called Vietnam. Now it's poised to repeat the mistake in Afghanistan.

Priest (drama)

When the homosexuality of a priest is discovered, he is sent off to a dreary, loveless reform centre. In the movie's climax, another priest asks the homosexual to return to church - and give out holy communion. The church members, full of self-righteousness, unleash a flurry of condemnation against the homosexual priest. He replies: Forgive, so that God may forgive you. Forgive, not once, but 77 x 7 times. Only one parishioner - a sexually-abused girl whom the priest had helped - finally accepts communion from him.

Will the American people be like the self-righteous parishioners of Priest in demanding retribution instead of reconciliation? Let him who has no sin cast the first stone. Let the country which has done no wrong cast the first cruise missile.

Or can the American people rise up from the current tragedy and forgive others? And seek forgiveness from the world for its own wrongs? Despite the misguided policies of its leaders, ordinary Americans may yet gather the moral courage to decide: the cycle of violence ends here with us. Let us begin to heal the world.

The American people must be the first to forgive. Why? If the (supposed) Muslim terrorists are indeed as "fanatical", "cowardly", "crazy" and irredeemably "evil" as claimed by the media, then they are basically beyond help. We cannot expect them to take the first step to beat their swords into ploughshares.

On the other hand, as the service at Washington's National Cathedral two weeks ago put it, Americans are supposed to be "God's people". Didn't that God teach its followers to recite a daily prayer: "Forgive us our wrongs even as we forgive those who do wrong against us"?

So please, America. To end this global civil war, the world needs to see, feel and taste the goodness and greatness that your civilisation has to offer.

Tomorrow: Lessons from Hollywood, Part 3

ANDREW SIA is a journalist and columnist with a local newspaper. This is the second of a three-part series.