Thoughts on "Cold Mountain" and Iraq

[Sherry Darling]

So I saw Cold Mountain last night, which was wonderful. I loved a couple of quotes and thought they were relevant to today, so here they are.

"I won't be preaching war from the pulpit, Inman. I imagine God is weary of being called down on each side of every battle."

"It's all men's bullshit. They call this war a dark cloud, but they made the weather. Then they stand in the rain and cry, 'SHIT, it's raining!' "

I think these really speak to where we are today. Agree? Disagree? And could Jude Law possibly be more beautiful?

SD

 

[STING2]

Rubbish. Saddam and Saddam alone is responsible for what has happened in Iraq. He invaded Iran in 1980 destabilizing the region and nearly losing Iraq to the new fundamentalist government in Iran. When the war was over, he then turned south and invaded and attacked Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. He annexed Kuwait, refused to leave and did not obey any of the UN resolutions passed against him under Chapter VII rules.

His military was then forcibly removed by Coalition forces from Kuwait and Saddam signed a ceacefire to stop the war. Hostilities were ended and would not resume provided that Saddam agreed to all the conditions of the ceacefire and did not break them.

Saddam then carefully played a game of cheat and retreat which resulted in the disarmament process still ongoing in 1998 when Saddam then forced the inspectors to leave and would not let them come back.

Then in 2002, newly elected George Bush decided to resolve Saddam's gross violation of 17 UN resolutions and the ceacefire that conditionally suspended hostilities back in 1991.

Siting the UN Ceacefire Agreement of 1991, Resolution 678 and the recently passed resolution 1441, George Bush assembled a coalition that used all means necessary to bring about compliance with the UN resolutions that Saddam had failed to comply with.

Saddam was given one more chance to verifiably disarm. Saddam gave the dog ate my homework excuse. The Coalition then removed Saddam.

Today Iraq has the oportunity to grow into a prosperous democracy just as Germany did 60 years ago when another dictator had been romoved from power. The Middle East and there for, the rest of the planet are much safer now that one the worlds worst dictators and aggressors in recent history has been removed from power.

 

[U2andPolitix]

this has nothing to do with war but it has to do with cold mountain...can people in hollywood do ANY research?!?!?! there are SO many errors in that movie! the accents SUCK (i've been born and raised in the south, especially around north carolinians). the cotton is CHEST HIGH?!?! WHAT THE CRAP? try knee high! they go by the NC coast where there are palm trees....there are NO palm trees in NC beaches!!! i could go on about more hideous mistakes but that really got me ticked.

 

[verte76]

this has nothing to do with war but it has to do with cold mountain...can people in hollywood do ANY research?!?!?! there are SO many errors in that movie! the accents SUCK (i've been born and raised in the south, especially around north carolinians). the cotton is CHEST HIGH?!?! WHAT THE CRAP? try knee high! they go by the NC coast where there are palm trees....there are NO palm trees in NC beaches!!! i could go on about more hideous mistakes but that really got me ticked.

Drama is often not based on historical accuracy. Look at "Braveheart", for goodness' sakes. They put a princess in that movie (Isabella of France) who didn't live in England until the 1320's, and William Wallace was executed in 1305. This custom goes back to Shakespeare, at least, who gave Bohemia (the western part of the landlocked Czech Republic) a coastline in one of his plays--can't remember which play, but, obviously, an academic oops. It's called "artistic license", and it drives historians up walls. But they don't write "historical accuracy" or "geographical accuracy" into movie contracts. Now, they did go for pretty strict historical accuracy in "Name of the Rose", the movie based on Umberto Eco's book. They hired a French medievalist as a consultant, who even made sure they reproduced the skin diseased-toothless at the age of 30-looks common in the late Middle Ages. Ugh, some of the characters look like half-monsters by modern standards! It depends on how graphic you want your movie to be. If you don't want it to be terribly graphic you're not going to go for strict historical accuracy. That's tricky stuff, and something Director X might not want in his/her movie.

 

[Sherry Darling]

Sting, I'm not sure I see a connection between the quotes I posted and your reply. Seems like you heard me as saying, "It's the US's fault that Saddam was a murderous sociopath." That's not what I was saying, nor how I read the quotes. For one, the war on terror in general is being couched in religous terms on both sides. I honestly don't think I can think of a war that wasn't. So I enjoyed the first quote. Second, I loved the second line because we (we=humankind) CREATE this madness and can't figure how how we get into the situation once we're there. We for example create it by buying into idealogies of nationalism, one of Hussein's most powerful weaspons, save fear.

Maybe this clarifies....

SD

 

[verte76]

Sherry, I haven't seen the movie, but I like those quotes too. The whole "holy war" idea is insanity. Nationalism is insanity. These are universal and are certainly neither limited to the U.S. or Iraq/the Islamic world. Yes, Saddam really tried to play the nationalist card, and the religious one, too, as a Sunni Muslim, and it just blew up in his face. The Wahhabists didn't want him, and unfortunately for his nationalism purposes they are Arabs also. Some in the U.S. seem to think we are fighting Muslims rather than terrorists. I hate this. Sorry I sort of hijacked your thread.

 

[brettig]

When you have to choose between the facts and the legend, print the legend...

 

[melon]

The Coalition then removed Saddam.

Haha..."the Coalition." More like the U.S. military, with a UK guest appearance.

Melon

 

[STING2]

Melon,

For your information thousands of Australian soldiers also served and I would never refer to the British 1st Armored Division as "Guest".

Thousands of Italians, Polish, Spanish, and Ukranian forces are serving In Iraq right now. 17 Italians were killed in a terrorist attack in Iraq in November. These are brave men from multiple nations doing a courages job under difficult conditions for the benefit of Iraq, the Middle East and the rest of the planet.

 

[melon]

And I'm sure that all of those "thousands" combined still don't exceed the U.S. military presence.

Melonn

 

[STING2]

Melon,

The British 1st Armored Division has over 10,000 personal. The Italian, Spanish, and Polish contingents each number around 2-3,000.

They do not exceed the US military presence nor are they capable of doing so. The number of troops other NATO countries have that are sufficiently trained and deployable to other regions beyond Europe is currently a fraction of their listed or strenth on paper numbers.

 

[melon]

They do not exceed the US military presence nor are they capable of doing so.

My point exactly.

Melon

 

[Bono Kitty]

I see you think in analogies like I do Those quotes could go for most any war in some ways.

Yes it bugs me too the inaccuracies in movies. I am suck a sucker for geography, chronological order, historical facts, regional facts, and stuff like that it bugs me. I live in cotton field country, and if it reaches my knees, (I'm 5'7") it's a good size. It would have to be radioactive to be chest high! Also, cotton does not grow in the mountains, the growing season isn't long enough, at least not in VA and NC. My ancestors are all from the mountains of NC, and one of them did desert the Confederate army and hide in the mountains! No, NC beaches have no palm trees. It's almost as bad as one scene in The Stand (which I love) where Trashcan Man blows up some fuel tanks after the screen labeled them as being in Indiana, when there were huge snow capped rocky mountains in the background!! or ?

Speaking of this, Sherry, have you ever seen a show called Line of Fire on Tuesday nights this year? It's supposed to take place in Richmond, but the people talk and act nothing like it. They seem like New Jersey people. I mean nobody calls Chippenham Parkway 'the 150!' You should watch it sometime just to pick out the un-VA things. Other than that, it's kind of a bore!

(BTW this is me, Michelle, using my cat's sn! )

 

[wolfwill23]

Cold Mountain sucked.

 

[WinnieThePoo]

war sucks ,

and coldplay sux 2