Antiwar.com Blog

According to preliminary results of the runoff election, Boris Tadic of DOS – I mean, DS – is the new President of Serbia, having won 54% of the votes by 48% of the Serbian electorate.
Notes our resident Balkans observer Chris Deliso, the results were accompanied with much self-congratulatory rhetoric from the Empire and the Serbian political classes. Given that Tadic was supported by the entire political establishment, most media, and the Empire – which not so much rooted for him as demonized his opponent – the fact that his victory was hardly a landslide ought to be sobering. But the Powers That Love Democracy are too intoxicated with success to pay attention. Continue reading ““Reformer” wins Serbian election”

I think that Eric Garris, our esteemed webmaster, expected too much from this movie, and, with all the promotional controversy surrounding it, one can hardly blame him. I think we have to take Michael Moore’s movie for what it is, not for what we wanted it to be: it is not the definitive treatment of how and why we were dragged into this war, but a compendium of all the insights and prejudices of the American Left at this particular moment in history. As such, it is interesting and instructive, if occasionally off-the-wall.

The Saudi-bashing is indicative of the Left’s apparent inability to do anything but undermine its own ostensible program of peace: the Saudi-Bush family conspiracy theories are pure partisanship, however, and it seems to me that Moore is unaware of how this makes the case for a "civilizational" war against the entire Arab world. For example, it’s interesting that Moore gives a sinister intonation to the statistic that approximately 7 percent of the American economy represents Saudi investment, yet complains about the closing of factories in his Rust Belt home town.

The first 20 minutes of this movie are a near-complete disaster, but, for me, even this segment is redeemed by the shot of the vulpine Paul Wolfowitz licking his comb and then running it through his greasy locks. As for the rest of the film, why don’t you just check out my Monday column on the subject, (read it early) here.

A guest blog entry responding to my brief review of Fahrenheit 9/11:

Eric, I understand your reaction. I think If I had gone alone, I would be of the same mind.

I, however, accompanied two people with whom I had tried to interest in the questions surrounding 9-11 and the subsequent geopolitical mess for over two years, but to no avail.

This movie woke them up. They turned repeatedly to me during the movie and asked if the news accounts Moore featured were true.

The military record issue was surprising to them because it meant the mainstream news orgs didn’t do their job. They were surprised that news anchors dont tell the truth.

They hated Wolfowitz and reacted viscerally to the moniker Prince Bandar Bush.

They cried buckets at Lila’s story.

They loved the music…after all, they were raised to expect their news to be entertaining.

They were furious that an Israeli national working for the Harris Corporation could guarantee oil to American businessmen with government support even before the Iraqi War began; in fact, because of it.

I walked behind them out of the theatre muttering over their heads, "Well, this saves me ten hours describing the cast of characters."

You’re surprised at the acclaim because you are steeped in facts all day, and want to see more of them. You need to understand how – truly, really, unbelievably – ill-informed most people are to begin with.

When you go to school at the Sorbonne in Paris, every freshman is taught the story of how the intellectuals acted with lightning speed after the French Revolution to prevent the French priestcraft from capturing the minds and imagination of the great unwashed, the enormous uneducated French populace. They threw a theatre up on almost every corner in record time, and employed the likes of Moliere and La Comedie Francaise, etc, to get their emerging and developing points-of-view into the common man’s head before the priests or Jesuits. The intellectuals prevented a religious lock-down on the country as a result.

The French bishops who came over to French Canada and the Northeastern section of the US remembered the intellectuals’ subterfuge and warned their compatriots here of the danger; hence, the ubiquitous steeple in every neighborhood of the original 13 colonies, not to mention the total religious lock-down in French Canada that continued through the 1960s as a result.

I suspect Moore might be more aware of this than you think. Read David Brooks’s June 26, 2004 Op-Ed.

Hmmph. As I finished writing this, one of the two who attended Fahrenheit 9-11 with me just called to ask if I wanted to see it again today…Sunday, June 27. Because she doesn’t get her news from the web, she is genuinely concerned that MSNBC and FOX and the alphabet-majors are interfering with the range of information she needs to make an informed vote.

~ Janie Angus

A Review of Lee Blessings’ A Walk in the Woods

The California Theatre Center of Sunnyvale, California, has chosen for its summer season to revive contemporary playwright Lee Blessing’s 1988 play A Walk in the Woods, a microcosm of the entire Cold War, presented in an intimate two-character, two-hour, one-setting play. Sound implausible?

Well, okay — the play is really focuses more directly on the relationship and personalities of two arms negotiators, one Soviet and one American, who meet four times during one year for walks through “a pleasant woods on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland” to try to agree on some sort of partial disarmament treaty between their homelands. But just as each man represents his country in the literal sense, each man also represents the feelings and personality of both the populous and the governing forces of his respective country, along with his personal feelings about what his purpose is in these negotiations. Herein the audience is confronted with of all of the fears, hopes, distrust and power issues of decades of mounting imminent destruction, brooding competition and incredibly fragile survival; encapsulated in the conversation of two people, who we alternately love and hate, but finally identify with mightily.

The Russian negotiator is Andrey Botvinnik (played with pitch-perfect accent, attitude and timing by the entirely believable Charlie Shoemaker), an aging version of the stock theatrical character of the “wise fool.” While he appears to be all jocular smiles and casual wit, and continually plays the loveable, almost childish clown (at one point he weaves a crown of leaves to wear), in reality he is an experienced, confident man with a shrewd knowledge of people, who knows exactly what his government expects of him, and how to get what he wants. He is a total contrast to the American diplomat, John Honeyman (played with committed intensity by equity actor William Church, who looks very much like movie actor Luke Wilson). Honeyman is a laughably serious stiff who attempts to cover up his stereotypical American competitive drive (when left alone onstage after he gets Botvinnik to agree to work for a small change with his government, he looks like John McEnroe celebrating a match point) with hard edged formality, going by the book and using the politically correct terminology.

Andrey wants the two men to make friends before they start formal negotiations, whereas John thinks friendship can only come after they accomplish an initial settlement between their countries. The idea of the importance of basic human friendship and the common bond of humanity echoes significantly throughout the play. Andrey purports that there are no differences between people and the way they think; only differences in their traditions and ideologies, influenced by their geographical histories. He argues that America, surrounded by oceans and thereby unchallenged, believes in “conquest without competition,” with a doctrine of freedom and destiny. Russia, in contrast, has always been beset by the threat of invasion on all its borders, and therefore engaged in “conquest because of competition,” with a doctrine of security and control. If the Russians had come to North America, they would have become the same nation the United States did, and vice-versa—people are the same everywhere. Likewise, after enough prodding from John to “be serious,” he explains their governments are basically the same: both want to look as if they are the benevolent peace seeker. But according to Andrey (whose views are supported by the events of the play) neither government is willing to sacrifice any power, and neither is willing agree to any peace agreement put forth by the other, because both want to look like they are the stronger and smarter, and neither trusts the other!

If you are getting the idea that the issues in this play are complicated, you are correct. This makes sense; the issues of international diplomacy are infinitely complicated. The moral Andrey puts forth in the second act, however, is simple. To achieve a solid and lasting peace, he says, the governments and their people must find a way to develop trust and friendship faster than they are developing weapons technology. But he does not believe it will ever happen, or that either of their nations really want it to, because each nation is pouring millions of dollars, hours and men into their war preparation efforts, and only two little men conversing into their peace efforts. This view is perhaps overly simplistic, but seems a pretty good distillation of all the ancient history, embittered feelings and communication barriers that made up the cold war, along with most global conflicts.

The play wisely steers clear of specifics concerning time, people and what exactly the conditions being discussed are, instead concentrating on the universal and timeless themes of human vs. nation, people vs. politics and the psychology of international relations. The result is that sixteen years after its debut, it feels just distant enough to be viewed objectively, yet still terribly resonant in its frustrations over the seemingly hopeless situation of distrust that existed between the two superpowers for so many years, and still exists between so many countries today. A Walk in the Woods tells us that all people, wherever they live, are basically the same: we all want to survive, to be left alone and to leave others alone. Yet we mistakenly believe that safety and security can only come through possession of more power over others, and more ability to destroy. It’s easy to blame the steady escalation of international hostility on governmental forces, but as Andrey’s ruminations and John’s behavior suggest in the play, until the “man in the street” is truly willing to give up ultimate power, his government will keep trying to achieve it.

While the play ends pessimistically, it does offer its audience a chance to learn from observing all that these two men go through, and all that these two countries went through. A Walk in the Woods illustrates the similarities between the games played by the USSR and the USA during the cold war, and their common traits of arrogance, deceit and distrust. Today one of these two nations is collapsed, but one might suggest that the other continues to practice the same boorish behavior towards its international neighbors: a policy of aggression abroad inspired by fear at home. The play strongly invites a reconsideration of America’s foreign policy, then and especially now, reminding us that trust and friendship are perhaps better forms of security than the power of arms can ever be.

IF YOU’RE IN THE SF BAY AREA: A Walk in the Woods runs through July 24th as part of California Theatre Center’s “Summer Rep.” For more information or to order tickets, check out their website or call the box office: (408) 720-0873.

Please note that this is a blog entry. It is the opinion of the author and doesn’t represent the views of everyone at Antiwar.com. So all you angry letter-writers can address me personally, not all of Antiwar.com.

I really wanted to like Fahrenheit 9/11.

I was excited about seeing it and happy to see that it was beating expectations to top this weekend’s movies, even White Chicks.

I got to the theater early to beat the crowds (not so much for the matinee), full of anticipation. A little over two hours later, I was very disappointed.

The movie opens with Moore’s version of the "stealing" of the 2000 election by the Bush family. Regardless of one’s opinion of this event, it should be clear that this was the weakest opening he could have gone for in terms of actually convincing those not predisposed to hate GW Bush.

He then spends about 20 minutes on the "Saudi connection," which actually struck me as quite racist. I won’t critique this section in detail – I am sure Justin Raimondo will cover this in his Monday column.

The rest of the movie was quite tedious. A combination of boring and overkill, combined with the fact that Moore himself narrates the entire 116 minutes. Literally everything is telegraphed, with no surprises. Moore repeatedly hits you over the head. His focus on victims is limited to only a few individuals, and he makes you sick of them by the time he is done.

Moore blames so much on GW Bush that I actually found myself silently defending him, a feeling that did not sit well with me at all.

I am quite surprised at the near-universal acclaim (see these typical reviews by Roger Ebert and Rex Reed). It reminds me of the reviews for the simply-dreadful movie Bullworth, which was hyped by liberals for its socialist message.

I can only recall a half-dozen brief scenes that made me laugh, in spite of many obvious attempts at humor. And good antiwar movies make me cry. This one didn’t.

I cannot imagine any person changing his or her mind about Bush or the War in Iraq based upon seeing Fahrenheit 9/11. It is a shame.

“Taliban Say They Killed Women Poll Workers” – the Taliban still show themselves to be heartless scum, proudly vaunting the fact they killed women poll workers and children. Let us remember the immense courage RAWA displayed showed for many, many years in the face of these truly deficient human beings. Even now, however, the Taliban is still acting against women and this shouldn’t be forgotten. The Taliban treatment of women bears a macabre resemblance to an anti-Darwinian approach to life, and my fervent hopes go out to the Afghani women that their right to vote and make themselves a part of the political process succeeds.