At the Movies

So has anyone in my newsroom been to see "United 93"? You've got to be kidding. The people who lined up two and three times for "Fahrenheit 9/11" are made visibly uncomfortable by this film. They seem to just wish it would go away.

Actually, one person has seen it -- the new guy. Poor new guy. He hasn't picked up the culture yet. He thinks it was powerful. People have no response except to change the subject.

It's funny: the anti-Bush diatribes have been going non-stop since "United 93" came out. It's now almost non-stop, at one corner of the room or another, for one or two people to be holding forth about Dear Leader the Chimperor. Everything gets dragged up and recycled. I even heard "Jeff Gannon" rehearsed again, in detail.

I used to think it was my imagination, but this time I predicted it. Every time some accumulation of events in the real world rises so high it threatens to overwhelm the notion that there's really nothing wrong with the world except Americans, and that the only thing we have to fear is Bush and Cheney, the media pod people start to chant their mantras and wave their talismanic totems.

Like savages panicked by an eclipse, they bang the pots till it goes away.

Then they do their best to forget it ever happened. A known and predictable universe is worth any price.

And while we're caught up in filmmaking that brings us face to face with jarring reality, keep your eyes out for The War Tapes.

This movie is the tip of the iceberg. It is my hope that people will start to really see that War is not a video game and soldiers are not little Republican or Democrat robots running around without an original thought. It smells, it hurts, and it sucks! We went through a lot and all came home alive. Thank God!

Greyhawk sez: "The feedback on the film I've gotten from military folks who've seen it has been 100% positive."

War or No War

The op-ed by Todd Beamer's father, based on the Flight 93 movie, is behind the subscription firewall at the WSJ. Cardinalpark, however, has a key excerpt up over at Tigerhawk:

This film further reminds us of the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting. We call this conflict the "War on Terror." This film is a wake-up call. And although we abhor terrorism as a tactic, we are at war with a real enemy and it is personal.

There are those who would hope to escape the pain of war. Can't we just live and let live and pretend every thing is OK? Let's discuss, negotiate, reason together. The film accurately shows an enemy who will stop at nothing in a quest for control. This enemy does not seek our resources, our land or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life.

I encourage my fellow Americans and free people everywhere to see "United 93."

Be reminded of our very real enemy. Be inspired by a true story of heroic actions taken by ordinary people with victorious consequences. Be thankful for each precious day of life with a loved one and make the most of it. Resolve to take the right action in the situations of life, whatever they may be. Resolve to give thanks and support to those men, women, leaders and commanders who to this day (1,687 days since Sept. 11, 2001) continue the counterattacks on our enemy and in so doing keep us safe and our freedoms intact.

May the taste of freedom for people of the Middle East hasten victory. The enemy we face does not have the word "surrender" in their dictionary. We must not have the word "retreat" in ours. We surely want our troops home as soon as possible. That said, they cannot come home in retreat. They must come home victoriously. Pray for them.

Right. The definition of "those who would hope to escape the pain of war" includes much of the American left (Sheehan/Moore, etc.) and much of the European elite. But there is a subtler division among the remainder.

We all do see the enemy for who he is and we read his own words and take them at their face value. Some of us recognize this as a Long War for Civilization, and think the obvious disparity in firepower and national economies masks a vulnerability in the West. The people we are fighting say certain things very clearly: we are infidels who have offended their religion, they are at war with us, and they want us to die. They may not have an air force, but they have other weapons, more intangible, perhaps more powerful. And we have weak spots. We could be brought down hard by a combination of lack of will and a few hard, well-timed terrorist strikes with the right volume.

To some of us, on the other hand, the Islamists are simply not a long-term threat worth the name of "enemy" or worth a serious reordering of American rights and priorities. They talk nasty and hurt when they can, but they should be taken no more seriously than a 5-year-old in a temper tantrum. 9/11 was something of a one-off, a combination of a few extraordinary individuals and good luck based on our lack of vigilance. A little more vigilance on our part will be sufficient to prevent a repeat performance. To involve American resources and lives in a major Middle Eastern "war" against this, with the inevitable bungles and unforeseen consequences, is doing more harm than good.

I am not trying to parody that view, but I perhaps don't capture it very well. I'm leaving out the figure of Bush, on both sides, because ultimately he doesn't matter. People who put him at the center of everything lose sight of the long-term picture.

The main difference among Americans today is that some of us believe the United States is at war, a dangerous war against a desperate enemy. And other people don't believe that's true at all. To the non-believers, the people who are waging war look insanely violent, paranoid, and unstable, and to the people at war it takes great mental effort to look at those who don't believe it and not see appeasers and useful idiots, if not outright traitors.