Timewaster's Guide Archive
Departments => Movies and TV => Topic started by: Fellfrosch on February 03, 2006, 12:37:05 PM
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http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060202/SCANNERS/60202001
A Turkish movie about evil American soldiers, which begins with a real incident and escalates into paranoid fantasy (American soldiers murdering children and harvesting organs, for example).
The article is very balanced and interesting, I thought, sidestepping the question of the movie's "rightness" and talking instead about its roots in, and possible effect on, international tension. The most intriguing line is when he hypothesizes that America is set to become the world's next media villain, the way the Soviet Union was generically evil in decades of movies.
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I think that observation is a bit late. US is quickly becoming the primary media villain in outlets other than American sources. Good or bad, that's been my observation. There's a lot of international disgruntlement with the US.
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I think a lot of the disgruntlement was likely to happen anyway. Europe is anti-american in part because it is viewed as a haven of mass-produced tat. McDonalds being the ultimate example - we hate it, but it still does well.
Tangent time! During the cold war everyone kept close to America - outside aggressors prompting unity and solidarity. But now there is no outside threat (other than terrorism, which doesn't really cut the mustard for this purpose, since it's so hard to solve). So countries are losing reason to stay close to America, don't feel the need to maintain good relations because there is no Soviet Russia looming on the horizon.
Britain was widely despised in Europe for the longest time. We were the outsiders (still are), the distant northerners who kept pushing people over and throwing our weight around. Contemplate the following quote:
That ambitious and greedy nation [Britain] has once more proclaimed to the world that she recognizes no law but that of aggrandizement of her own trade, achieved by her global despotism on the high seas; our patience is spent, our forbearance is exhausted; we must now turn our gaze to the dignity of our throne ... we must declare war on the King of England and on the English Nation.
That's taken straight from my copy of 'The Trafalgar Companion'. It's the Spanish declaration of war on the UK, from the Napoleonic wars, and one of my favourite, though hugely lengthy, quotes of all time. It's just so grandious and, for a Brit, amusing. Admittedly we British had a habit of attacking and capturing every spanish merchant ship we saw on the off chance it was a treasure galleon*, but still. However, when the German Republic started arming up, and the Central Powers formed their alliance, Britain and France started working together like old pals. They are showing an exhibition of the dresses worn by the then-Queen when she went with the Royal Family to Paris to help concrete the alliance.
I'm sure that if aliens from Zog were to invade and take over Africa, America's foreign relations would improve overnight... but for the moment nobody sees a 'need' for an American superpower, and thus isn't much interested in keeping good relations. I guess. :P
* Royal Navy officers were a greedy lot.
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That is a very insightful point, and I think it's dead on. Sure, America's dones some very stupid stuff, but that's not new--people hate us now because there's no other bad guy.
It reminds me of a quote in Volume 1 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: "They called me an enemy of the state, but they failed to realize that sometimes it's very good for the state to have an enemy."
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thank you for you exceptionally biased drive-by review contribution... please do us all a favor and read the FAQ http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1080380396
a few facts wouldnt hurt either.
as for your number 3
No, he shouldnt. Billy Zane owes no one an apology or an explanation. He is an actor, not a member of the military or government and free to make the choices he wants. You seem to want to compell him to an apology, which is patently ridiculous. Im disgusted with forced apologies, the lack of sincerity is more damaging than the actual incident in the first place. If you want to vilify him and start a boycott go right ahead, but if you accomplish your goal, your just going to get an insincere statement approved by his publicist thats read to the world in a pointless monotone. You know what would just be better, excercising your judgement and just not seeing his movies. That would be better than some sort of "how dare he" crusade. Im tired of people telling other people how to act or what choices to make in the name of America. I may disagree with his choices, but he has every right to make them. Just because he made them doesnt make him a bad human being. Due to the way films are made, its quite possible that much of the anti american sentiment was added by omission after the film was made. If the events of this week are any evidence they people over there dont really need any reason to hate us. They just do.
Im curious though where you saw the film?
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-Caveat: Skar will probably disagree with me on a few things in this, but hey, he's had more than 1 post, plus he's been deployed to the middle east and east asia.
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I feel liberated all of a sudden.
Number one reason I feel liberated: I don't disagree with anything Jeff said in that post.
Number two reason: Were just about anyone I know from here to have made the points LCD ranted about, they would have been well reasoned and I would have felt compelled to respond. But LCD's list was so knee-jerk, so dogmatic, and so totally unsupportedwith anything LIKE reason, logic, or evidence that I feel absolutely no need to dignify it with a response.
I would, in fact have moved on to other threads had not Jeffe reminded me that I normally pipe up on such topics.
Sigh. :D
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/me holds his finger over the "lock" button, thanks to our flamer troll.
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blink
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*Spriggan drops his drawers to taunt SE into locking the thread
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You keep wanting to take your clothes off these days sprig,... just what is in that pipe of yours?
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it's just so sexy!
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Yet another successful Sexy Party here at TWG!!
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ick
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We're too sexy for jeffe, too sexy for jeffe, so sexy he's passé!
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Brick Tamland: Excuse me, Veronica?
Veronica Corningstone: Yes? What is it, Brick?
Brick Tamland: I would like to extend to you an invitation to the pants party.
Veronica Corningstone: Excuse me?
Brick Tamland: [struggling] The... party. With the... with the pants. Party with pants?
Veronica Corningstone: Brick, are you saying that there's a party in your pants and that I'm invited?
Brick Tamland: That's it.
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The first three posts were very dogmatic and had *no* supporting facts, LCD.
side track: i'm trying very hard not to use an alternate name I came up with based on those three letters.
So you honestly think a single movie will be the result of more people dying? ok. fine with me. But so was Uncle Tom's Cabin. And, for that matter, the Declaration of Independence. Part of living in the USA is sucking it up and accepting that people think VERY different from you. I'm allowed to be a Nazi if I want to, so long as I don't actually kill or maim anyone. That's part of the Constitution. And if we're not living that, then what the heck is the point? He's an actor. He acts. He is going to be in movies you hate. He's going to be in movies you find offensive. Tough luck.
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Yes, to Dr. Jeff, Mr. Zane has made it even harder for US troops not to come under fire. Many people already believe the US is a "shoot first, dig through the debris later". By showing that US troops as SOP shoot at civilians without care, they will be shot at more often. Which means the will shoot back more often and that will only lead to more unneeded bloodshed and caualties.
and you can prove this how?
It doesnt take a movie to do that, so I can only assume you must have missed the gist of what I said. The people who want to kill us dont need a provocation. Thats why something as ridiculous as a cartoon inspires the populations there to commit murder and anarchy. If you think the cartoon is the cause of that violence I suggest you think again. The cartoon is an excuse, and an easily found one. To try and censor oneself because it might prevent a violent reaction is asking for worse. There are plenty of other offences and provocations we do every day in the west that can be siezed on to kill us with.
1. Women driving and going around uncovered is an affront to god... lets kill the infidels.
2. Saying something against the leader of my country is an affront to god ... lets kill the infidels.
3. Allowing Jews to exist, or providing aid to Israel is an affront to god... lets kill the infidels
I can go on and on.
That kind of thinking isnt echoed by the educated segments of those societies (in general) but it is used as a method of social control.
Equating the most liberal islamic democracy with our enemies is short sited and I believe ultimately racist.
You asked for facts about why the Turks were in that part of Iraq...
well heres a slew of them
from and article entiled "The PKK Factor
Another critical enemy front in the war on terror"
by Michael Rubin
National Review Online
August 5, 2004
The PKK's terror in northern Iraq stretches more than a decade. In 1994, PKK terrorists rained mortars down on the rooftops of the mountaintop settlement of Amadya. Touring the ancient town in March 2001, residents showed me the damage to their homes.
PKK members also sabotaged bridges, cutting off villagers from their fields and disrupting the local economy. No matter how poor were Masud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan at their nadir, neither cultivated nor smuggled drugs. The same is not true of the PKK, which facilitates drug smuggling from Iran through Iraq and Turkey and into Europe.
In November 2000, fighting erupted on Qandil mountain between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] and PKK after the PKK sought to take over the nearby town of Rania. More than 400 died in subsequent battles. Fighting was so severe that PUK television every evening broadcast the names of its murdered peshmurga. Municipal governments in towns like Darbandikan and Kuysanjaq erected to better accommodate mourners.
The PKK's most bloody legacy is in Turkey. In the mid-1980s, the PKK initiated a violent campaign responsible for over 30,000 deaths in Turkey. The PKK raided villages and executed civilians. More Kurdish civilians died at the hands of the PKK than at the hands of the Turkish army...
Clientitis is greater among U.S. military officers. The problem is exacerbated by the geographic divisions between commands. Whereas U.S. military relations with Turkey fall under the European Command (EUCOM), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) oversees Iraq and the Arab world. Many CENTCOM officials interact only with Arab elites. They listen to their complaints about U.S. policy and the inapplicability of democracy to their region. They fail to realize that it is neither U.S. policy nor democracy that is the problem, but rather Arab elites themselves. "We never had a problem with EUCOM," a senior Turkish military official told me last week. "But CENTCOM was different. They looked at Turkey as a banana republic. They thought they could dictate to our leaders the way they dictate to Arab dictators. They forgot we were a democracy."
The personal relationship between CENTCOM officers and the Turkish general staff has gone from bad to worse. On July 4, 2003, U.S. forces in Sulaymaniyah detained a Turkish commando force operating illegally in Iraq. Turkish authorities leaked the incident to the press. U.S. officials say that the Turkish commandoes had in their possession documents indicating that they sought to assassinate a Kirkuk political figure; Turkish authorities deny this. One CENTCOM official told me they had warned Ankara after previous incidents. During March 2003 negotiations in Ankara, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad made clear that the U.S. would not tolerate Turkish incursions not coordinated with CENTCOM. While some elements of the Turkish military appear at fault, the failure of CENTCOM liaison officers to establish the close working relations with Turkish general staff that EUCOM personnel enjoyed exacerbated the situation.
Regardless of the fault or blame, the July 4 incident has had a deeper lasting impact in Turkey than did the dispute over passage of U.S. troops. Many U.S. officials serving in Baghdad trace Coalition Provisional Authority administrator L. Paul Bremer's hardening attitude — if not antipathy — toward Turkey to the Sulaymaniyah incident.
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cut due to length...
The difficulty with fighting the PKK
As war in Iraq approached, Turkish diplomats and generals both raised concern about the presence of the PKK. They have continued to do so since. American officials respond that Washington takes seriously Turkey's concerns. But, a gap remains between U.S. rhetoric and actions, severely straining Washington's credibility. "You guys simply don't understand how seriously we take this," a long-time Turkish diplomatic acquaintance told me at an Ankara teahouse last month.
According to both Turkish and U.S. sources, CENTCOM has promised to share with Turkey plans which address the PKK, but consistently fails to deliver. There may be legitimate reasons for planning delays, but CENTCOM leaves the impression that it is filibustering. "I can understand their concerns," said a Turkish general, acknowledging that rooting PKK out of inhospitable terrain is difficult, "But I can't understand why they won't be honest with us."
CENTCOM also suffers a credibility gap at home. Even as I was stopped by PKK fighters, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Joint Staff continued to claim ignorance of the PKK's exact location. This was dishonest or disingenuous. As we continued on from the de facto PKK checkpoint, we could see from the roadside a well-tended PKK graveyard and also a permanent PKK compound under camouflage, mesh netting. Twice rounding bends beneath high bluffs, we saw automatic weapon-toting PKK fighters over looking the road.
The Joint Staff's claims are more troubling given rumors that, last autumn, apparently without interagency authorization, some members of the 101st Airborne met with PKK representatives in Mosul, thereby legitimizing the terrorist group in direct contravention to the policy of the commander-in-chief.
The PKK is a "kurdish freedom fighter/terrorist group" that was trying to create a nationalist kurdish state. Of course it didnt matter who they killed in order to do it, but since the Kurds are are allies, they cant be bad. <insert sarcasm here> Turkey has suffered at the hands of bombs and targeted assasination campaigns perpetrated by the Kurds and they were afraid that they would use the war as an opportunity to attack Turkey. Hence the Special forces. Frankly we would have done the same thing.
I can see the US being angry if while protecting what we belived to be our interests our troops were captured and held like criminals or suspected terrorists. In fact we have been angry... in places like Lebanon.
Apparently you missed my post. You know the one with facts.
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Ok, OCD, here's the thing.
On this particular subject, Jeffe and I are fairly liberal, while Skar certainly is not. However, you find that all three of us, regardless of our support for the war, think you've said some ridiculous things.
Your last post doesn't help. It's full of some very scant circumstantial evidence. I believe one paragraph essentially states that because Cheny was for briging down Saddam before that means he and Bush pre-planned a war to take over Iraq... Sorry, but regardless of my feelings for Cheney, this sort of conclusion doesn't follow. So he had motivation. So did about 90% of America in the 90s. There still is no concrete evidence of what you're endevoring to prove.
I feel that people who bring this sort of emotional argument without a rational structure to the table end up making the disagreement worse, rather than better.
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/me inserts snarky liberal comment
"plus I think there is a certain amount of evidence that shows that the war wasnt planned at all."
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I do believe that they were instrumental in starting a war for their own reasons.
You can believe what you want, of course. There were plenty of good reasons to go to war with Iraq. Even if the people you name had reasons of their own to go to war with Iraq that does not negate the good reasons. Now, if there had been no good reasons to go to war with Iraq and the ONLY reasons were personal ones for the folks in power we'd have a problem. That's simply not the case though.
The third has been found to be true. Only Cheney has connected Al Quada to Iraq.
Again, patently false. Thousands of documents have been found that detail connections Saddam's regime had with Osama bin Laden and others. This includes Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists whose families he paid in support of suicide attacks on Israeli civilians. If you think Hamas is not connected with Al Quaeda I don't know what to say to you. The reason you don't hear those documents touted from the roof tops are manifold, political agendas in the newsroom being one and the fact that documents are just plain boring compared to IEDs and car bombs being another.
Even if "high ranking Iraqi and Al Quada" links were true, that means nothing. Right now we, the US, have "high level links" to North Korea. Does that mean we're in with them?
Comparing apples to oranges do not make them into oranges. 1. North Korea is a state. Al Quaeda is not. 2. We provide food aid to North Korea. Osama and other terrorist leaders wined and dined by Saddam were not asking for food.
Still, going to war over false pretenses is plain wrong, as was the case for Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Yes, going to war over false pretenses is plain wrong. It was not the case with the Iraq war.
Ever hear of the "Carpenter Commission"? That was a think tank of NeoCons who advocated overthrowing Saddam. Here's a short list of the major players:
Cheney
Rumsfeld
Wolfowitz(sp?)
So, the war in Iraq was pre-planned by those who had direct access to the president. That and by ensuring other intelligence sources, like those that disputed what they wanted to hear, were muzzled set the stage. Uses 9/11 in such a blatant way as to whip up public support via lies makes it even more reprehensible.
Listing major players and saying that people had plans to overthrow Saddam before we went to war in Iraq does not a case make. I guarantee you the Pentagon had several plans for overthrowing Saddam. They also have plans for going to war with every first world country on the planet. So what?
The war in Iraq, technically, never ended. The 11 years between DesertStorm and Iraqi Freedom were just a ceasefire, called to let Saddam convince the U.N. that he had dismantled his WMD. He never did that. The U.N. itself had resolved to go to war with Iraq years before we finally did if he didn't prove his WMDs were gone. The only reason they didn't is the same reason the U.N. is totally ineffective everywhere else. It's corrupt and functionally impotent.
Former generals in Saddam's regime are now writing books detailing how, once he realized Iraqi freedom was a done deal(9 months before it happened) he put his WMD operations onto the same trucks he'd been using to move them around in order to scam the U. N. inspectors and stored them in Syria.
They were also there to set the stage that while I am not a Bush fan, I still think that this movie is plain wrong. ... very bad thing".
The people in Iraq, unlike you, have more than a movie to judge the behavior of American troops by. Iraqis see Americans fighting and dying for their freedom from tyrannical militant Islam every day. No movie is going to convince them that Americans are really baby-killing monsters when they see proof to the contrary in real life every day.
I think whoever made that movie is an idiot but I don't think it's going to deeply affect public opinion in Iraq or anywhere else. In order to do that you have to have a decades long smear campaign like the one hollywood and the media pulled on the VietNam war and American soldiers in general.
Besides, I do note that nobody has even tried to answer what the Turks were doing in Northern Iraq, Kurdish Iraq, in the first place. Would you like to try?
Jeff did a fine job of that I think.
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Reuters today
CHRONOLOGY-Recent bomb blasts in Turkey
09 Feb 2006 17:42:55 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates with group's claim of responsibility)
Feb 9 (Reuters) - A bomb blast at an Internet cafe in Istanbul wounded 17 people, including seven police officers, on Thursday, and a hardline Kurdish group claimed responsibility.
The Kurdistan Liberation Hawks, who have claimed to be behind a series of bombings in Turkey in recent years, carried out the blast, a person claiming to speak for the group said.
Following is a chronology of some of the major bombings in Turkey over the last two years:
Nov 15, 2003 - Thirty people are killed and 146 wounded when car bombs shatter two synagogues in Istanbul as worshippers celebrate the Sabbath. Authorities name two men from southeast Turkey as the suicide bombers, saying the attacks bear the hallmarks of the al Qaeda network.
Nov 20, 2003 - Thirty-two people are killed and many wounded in two explosions in Istanbul. One blast destroys part of the HSBC Bank headquarters and the other damages the British consulate.
May 17, 2004 - Four small bombs explode outside branches of British bank HSBC in Ankara and Istanbul, hours before British Prime Minister Tony Blair was set to visit Turkey.
June 24, 2004 - Four people are killed and 15 wounded in an explosion on a bus in Istanbul, shortly before U.S. President George W. Bush is due to arrive in the city.
Sept 28, 2004 - Two small bombs explode in front of branches of the British HSBC Bank in Turkey and a third blast hit a Turkish-American Association in the capital Ankara.
July 2, 2005 - Six people are killed and 15 injured after a bomb planted by Kurdish guerrillas explodes on a train between the eastern towns of Elazig and Tatvan in Bingol province.
July 6, 2005 - A bomb rips through a minibus in western Turkish holiday resort of Kusadasi, killing at least five people, including a British and an Irish woman.
Nov 9, 2005 - A bomb in a book store kills one in the town of Semdinli near the Iraqi and Iranian borders. Days later a Turkish court charged a military sergeant and a former Kurdish rebel with involvement in the bombing.
Feb 9, 2006 - A bomb explodes at an Internet cafe in the Bayrampasa district of Istanbul near the airport. At least 17 people are injured. The Kurdistan Liberation Hawks claimed responsibility
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lots of attacks by Kurdish terrorist groups on that timeline in the article...
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Nov 20, 2003 - Thirty-two people are killed and many wounded in two explosions in Istanbul. One blast destroys part of the HSBC Bank headquarters and the other damages the British consulate.
I remember reading about that. We either turned the consulate into a fortress or moved it, can't remember. Either way, it's not as nice as it was.
The turkish troops had no reason to be in Iraq. They had not cleared it with the government or the local military presence. That's a fairly solid point I think. Imagine what would happen if we brits found Republic of Ireland troops running around Belfast? Plenty of terrorists both north and south of that particular border. Usually, however, when someones troops get caught where they shouldn't be, they don't make a fuss over it.
Turkey is in a very awkward position right now. They are trying to become part of the EU, and are coming up against the suspicions of the EU states - I think France and Greece, in particular, were opposed to them. Greece hates Turkey, due to many reasons (going back to the Trojan war, all told) but recently for Cyprus. I'm really not surprised they have anti-american films - it's likely they have a veritable melting pot of opinions regarding the western world right now.
I'm not even going to lower myself to talk about Iraq. I'm done and dusted with that particular debate. Wake me up when someone says something new.
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The turkish troops had no reason to be in Iraq. They had not cleared it with the government or the local military presence. That's a fairly solid point I think.
Its solid in some ways and not in others. Right now, I dont think a lot of Americans would care about the sovereignty of a country if they knew it harbored terrorists.
It may not be legal, but I certainly understand the impulse to have troops there.
I think that the British experience in Northen Ireland gives you and countrymen a different perspective than we seem to have right now.
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I'm thinking you're not very bright. Go back and read the last page carefully. He provided an article with a string of reasons for Turkey to be there that don't involve the genocide you charge them with.
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http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp
http://www.nysun.com/article/26514
Total elapsed search time. 30 sec.
Do it yourself next time.
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The war was actually conducted because Bush was running out of chocolate, and daym those Iraqies make nice chocolate.
It was later revealed that it was Belgium that he wished to invade. This embarrassing mistake appears to have been made because nobody within the white house could quite make out what the President was saying at first, and later didn't have the heart to tell him.
All true. No lies.
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Yeah. Chocolate and BEER! "Daym fahn bur in yraak."
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So Turkey is the pot calling the kettle black? Also, if Turkey wanted to get the terrorists hiding out in N. Iraq, they'd have wanted to help out and go in.
Now thats a terribly facile argument.
Firstly you seem to be unable to differentiate between a movie (which is most assuredly a work of fiction) and the feelings of a government.
Unlike most of the middle east Turkey is a nation with both a free press and an active artistic community, able to make films without government censors hanging on every scene.
On the movie front, the Turks have some call to make a movie about percieved American anti-Arab/ Turk sentiment. One has only to look at our late nite drama (24 anyone) to see how our media thinks of the majority of Middle Easterners. Making a film in reaction to how the world see's us is legitimate in many ways, and while provacative it raises some important points that we should rationally look at before dismissing them out of hand.
Your lumping Turkey in with the region only hammers that point home. Turkey is a large stable democracy, founded on the ruins of the old Turkish empire to be sure, but very commited to the freedoms that their government offers. Sure Turkey has had its problems, during World War I they put Kurds and Armenians in concentration camps, but the Britsh invented them (Boer War) and the US has used them. All of that happened either over a century ago, or at least 50+ years ago. Yes, the Turks and Kurds have problems, but make no mistake, many Kurdish revolutionary groups are nothing more than gangs of thugs, willing to kill anyone (including other Kurds) who gets in their way.
Point 2.
Turkey was unable to help out with our war in Iraq because by and large the US invasion was not popular with the people of Turkey. As a democracy the government respected their wishes seeing no real threat (at that time anyway) from Saddam Hussein. When the Regime collapsed members of the Turkish high command saw that they needed to take steps to curtail the violence that was sure to erupt on the border now that the Kurds werent worred about the Republican Guard crossing into Northern Iraq and killing everything. With Saddam Hussein down that left only 1 target for the heavily armed Kurdish rebels. Turkey.
Also it bears mentioning that the democratic government is having a hard enough time dealing with the growth of radical islam and they felt (wisely IMHO) that throwing gasoline on a fire wasnt the best way to go. Which is the same reason Indonesia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Jorden decided to not get involved in our war. Invading another muslim country isnt exactly popular these days if your another muslim country.
Rather than invade the Turks did what we would have done. Sent in a detachment of green berets. Exactly the response every other western country that fights terrorism uses today. Ever hear of Navy Seals?
The real problem between Turkey and the US came from Centcom, which has made a few diplomatic blunders in the Middle East. Unwilling to work with the Turks in the way they were used to as a NATO ally they hurt the communications structure between the two nations making a situation likely to happen. Something similar happend between Italy's special forces and the US around the same time if you remember.
If this teaches any lessons it might be "dont treat your allies like dirt, and maybe they wont hate you in the morning"
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Hello all,
Let me state the following:
1: Bush is an idiot.
2: Cheney and Rumsfeld are guilty of starting a war for no good reasons.
3: The supposed links that connected Iraq to Al Queda and Iraq's supposed stock pile of WMD are utterly false.
Now, I'd like to say this.
1: With friends like Turkey, who needs enemies?
2: The use of US actors in US military uniforms in a region where the US is blamed for everything is just wrong.
3: Billy Zane should go in front of the front line troops and explain why he did what he did.
4: What were the Turks doing in northern Iraq in the first place?
a: Turkey was against the war so why again were they there?
b: Northern Iraq is full of Kurds so did th Turks have extra ammunition they just needed to shoot?
5: As the place they were captured in is Kurdish, I'm sure the Kurds identitfied them as "Saddam's troops" or other "enemy agents". It is not hard to determine why the Turks were treated like criminals. No US soldier would believe that the Turks, who had already disallowed the US from using its territory were there in Iraq.
This whole movie is utter crap. I'd like to see a story about a heroic Kurd taking on the Turkish military after a few of what I'm sure are more than a few abuses that have occured there. When a supposed friend stabs you in the back like that, it takes a long time to trust them again and not see others who oppose them in a different light.
Haha, Clearly you need to re-attach your brain.
I'm going to briefly respond to some of your absurd questions.
'What were the Turks doing in northern Iraq in the first place?'
Turks, in Iraqi Kurdistan? where is Iraqi Kurdistan? we only know Iraq. It is one nation, it has its own territory and its own ministers etc. We do not accept a region or country as Kurdistan, that is why, your question have no answer.
But if you ask us, what are they doing in Iraq, than I can say that Turkey has right to send troops to the neighbour countries for its own security. Turkey has their people living in that area and they are looking after its civilians life.
The question is totally wrong in my point of view, it should be as "What the hell is USA doing in Iraq?" If you invade a country for your security reasons, why shouldn't Turkey send 11 soldiers for its own security?
Billy Zane is also an actor with class. Playing in a movie where the truth is revealed about your own country takes a dysfunctional actor, and someone with big cojones.
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Playing in a movie where the truth is revealed about your own country takes a dysfunctional actor, and someone with big cojones.
Not really sure what you really meant by "dysfunctional" in that sentence but as for the "big cojones..." Maybe where you're from it takes cojones to play in a movie that slams your own country, but not in America. In America it would take cojones to play in a film that made America look good. That's the way the industry works here. Actors who slam America are just toeing the party line.
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I want admin powers.
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Entropy, this thread makes me covet admin powers too.
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Umm, LCD, did you follow the links Skar left for you in answer to your request? It looks like you did not.
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This board has a real limit to posing size.
Perhaps one should take this as a hint.
I see that you have nothing to say except lick Dr. Jeff's balls.
LCD obviously doesn't understand board dynamics, among other things.
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yeah, I'm not even reading his whole posts anymore. He hasn't said anything new in several pages and ignores posts by other people. I'm just scanning for language I find inappropriate now.
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Of course, you are correct that 90% of the US wanted Saddam removed. But as so is often the case, what the US population wanted and what was better for the people in the region do not always coincide.
Ok. You're making two ridiculous claims here.
Ridiculous claim #1: The people in Iraq would have been better off if the U.S. had not invaded in 2002 and/or the people of Iraq were better off because the U.S. did not invade in 1990.
Both of those claims fly in the face of the FACT that approximately ten times the number of civilians died under Saddam and his cronies from political executions, violent murderous rape, and torture each and every year than have died in identical time periods since we invaded in 2002. And that doesn't touch the fact that we're installing a democracy, government by and for the people.
Ridiculous claim #2: That somehow, when it was 90% of the U.S. population wanted Saddam removed they were wrong, but now that the polls are starting to swing the other way they are right. Looks to me like you're just saying, "When the polls agree with me they're right and when the polls disagree with me they're wrong." Ridiculous.
After all, there are places where the majority wants ID taught as science.
Totally seperate issue.
That is why there are supposed to be people who we vote into office that are supposed to look at the whole picture and not their own personal vendetta.
You seem to be forgetting that Bush was voted into office and that YOU, like the rest of us, are part of the uninformed masses who he is supposed to look at the whole picture FOR. So, again, "When Bush's take on the whole picture disagrees with mine, he's wrong...and a moron." Would he still be a moron if he agreed with you? Come up with something better man.
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again, I just scanned, because I'm not participating in this argument anymore
You don't even know why I edited your post, do you? It's not because you're vehement, it's because you used foul language and imagery.
My job is to moderate. (one of, anyway.)
I saw some pretty foul imagery, so I took care of it. You could have edited it out, you didn't.
I'm not, and no one has, told you to spend all of your time here. But if you want ot post on a forum, you have to be familiar with how it works. It won't take your whole day to read the FAQ, so either do it, or shut up. That's it.
You also get no sympathy for people coming at you from multiple angles. You want to support a position, you have to risk that. It happens. If you can't hack it, well, then maybe you should rethink your argument, because it's not as strong as you think. It's just part of communication. If you quote someone, QUOTE THE PERSON WHO SAID IT, don't assume you know who said it. That just shows ignorance.
Basically, all I've seen of your arguments is a refusal to accept any evidence that points elsewhere. YOu don't think facts Jeffe brings up are facts, but we should accept things you bring up as gospel. You won't accept popular opinion -- unless it's in your favor. This is not a well-reasoned position.
Give it up.
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As for the first, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp Saddam's terrorist training camps for Islamic fundementalists, that is way too far fetched. Saddam, for all of his lip service, was a secular dictator. He is no more Muslim than Mubarak or Assad. His "re-conversion" to Islam was a ploy.
So, because Saddam was not a devout muslim the eyewitness accounts of his regime training and supporting terrorists must be wrong? How do those two things relate? This is another case of "That article doesn't agree with me so it's wrong." How tiring.
These are the same guys who lied to themselves and Saddam when US tanks were in Baghdad proper right...but even with the article, it is just hearsay.
Sorry, a primary source, as in someone who knows because he was there and saw what he is describing with his own eyes, is not hearsay.
But hey, he doesn't agree with you so he must be lying. Right?
I think I'll let you continue this discussion by yourself.
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Wow here I am having missed all the fun and personal insults. Why am I not surprised this all happened in the Movies board?
Even though LCD is gone lets just let this discussion die and if she comes back and is unwilling to play nice we might want to place this thread under a 24 "chill out" lock.
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I watched it recently and its really for dummies. Full of arabic klicks like good islamic sheyh, bad jewish dr, evil americans etc.. Maybe some idiots wants to provoke some dummies against US with movies in Turkey. But they forget a lot of things. We Turks don't shoot our allies like arabs shooted their ottoman allies in WW1.
BTW there is no movie industry that can spend 10m $ for a movie in Turkey, So I really wonder who sponsored that movie.
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If you think that these are only disgusting lies....
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/me 's finger hovers over the "lock" button.
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/me prays to the cinematic gods that SE's finger will stop hovering and put this thread in sweet, sweet lockdown.
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well.. I haven't seen movie yet. but in my opinion, some one fear to attack Turkey and they induce kurds to turks. tihs explains pkk, eh :) kurds have same rights with turks. my kurdish friend said that they can speak kurdish. its not forbiden. ::) And one of chinesee proverb says: "don't make Turk angry".
thx
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Dude, coherence is a requirement on this forum.
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Hi Blaxx, please introduce yourself:
http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1051196804;start=120
and read the FAQ:
http://www.timewastersguide.com/boards/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=news;action=display;num=1080380396