The Kingdom

The Kingdom is the title of the newest Peter Berg movie. My favourite movie by him is Very bad things, a superb story, with very black humour starring Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater.

Sadly, his newest movie does not satisfy the expectations I had.

It starts very well, rounding up the fact in the initial five minutes. Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil producing country with an extremely fundamental Islam is the worlds largest supporter of terrorist organisations. Osama bin Ladin is Saudi, 14 out of the 19 911 attackers were Saudi and without the financial and personal support of Saudis, most Muslim terrorist organisations would crumble.

On the other hand, the Saudi Arabia need the US to protect them even though Saudi Arabia is the biggest buyer of US arms. Probably Israel receives more, but Saudi Arabia at least pays for them.

There are no operational US military forces in SA since 2003 and the movie was produced in Abu Dhabi. The situation is very difficult. There are a lot of foreign workers in SA, the Westerners live in protected communities, separated by the SA public. The dirty work is done mostly by Philippians or workers who come from other Muslim countries. There are a lot of reports about mistreatments of foreigners, just these day a Swiss-French boy was raped by three Saudis.

The movie is about an attack of Saudi terrorists on a ‘protected community’ where US workers for oil companies live with their families. As there are a lot of casualties, the FBI sends in a group of four people to support the Saudi investigations.

As so often in these movies, we have Jamie Fox as the young leader of the group, Jennifer Garner bringing her boobies. At least, Peter Berg resists of trying to add a love scene between his two stars. Being an American movie, I had expected that. On the other hand, she could have at least dressed better not displaying her breasts in SA. Not that you see any skin, if she were a professional FBI-agent, she would have dressed more decent in SA, I think.

An other thing about Jamie Fox. I like him as an actor. But now, his teeth are just unnaturally white and his hair is always perfect. Sorry, I just can’t take him serious as an FBI-agent, when he looks too much like an actor. Hardly ever gets dirty.

The other two agents are believable. But do not play a major role in the movie.

There are some Saudi, who don’t want any US citizens on their ‘holy’ ground (besides the terrorists). The Saudi police force is shown as being incompetent, even stupid and mostly unsupporting of the ongoing investigation.

There is ‘of course’ a good Saudi police officer who helps, without spoiling too much of the movie, to take down the terrorist group.

In the end, all the bad guys are dead, their children and grandchildren swearing revenge and the good guys fly back home.

Why can’t I give this movie more than four out of ten points? There is not too much acting going on, Jennifer Garner and Ashraf Barhom stand out (a bit). The story would have a lot of potential and the topic is extremely interesting, Michael Moore should do a movie about it. But after the before mentioned five minutes, the story has done it’s duty and is replaced by action. I am not an enemy of action, but a good movie needs a good story and after the five minutes and the trailer, I had expected more information and some hints towards a solution.

Follow up to: Sex in America

Some time ago, I wrote about Genarlow Wilson, an America teenager (age 17) sent to jail for receiving oral sex from a soon to be 16 year old girl.

She even had stated, that the sex wa consensual, but because she was only 15 years old, she legally could not consent to sex. He was therefore not convicted to rape but to aggravated child molestation.

Three days ago, he was released.

Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson’s crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children and that, for the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of ten years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime.

But the release was also a bit by chance as the court ruled 4 vs 3 and that three judges thought:

the General Assembly expressly stated that in no event was the 2006 amendment to affect or abate the status as a crime of any act or omission which occurred prior to its effective date,” the dissent says. Wilson’s sentence cannot be deemed cruel and unusual “because the General Assembly made the express decision that he cannot benefit from the subsequent legislative determination to reduce the sentence for commission of that crime from felony to misdemeanor status.

Three out of seven judges believe, following the law, even if it is stupid and wrong, is the right thing to do. How can they sleep at night?

WTF is Terrorism?

Claudia Ciobanu asks on her blog the question "What the hell is terrorism?".

She

prefers to use the word violence, which allows for notions of different types of violence

in stead of terrorism, which I disagree completely because terrorism is an aim not a means. I wrote:

The biggest difference between terrorism and other forms of violence is that terrorism targets civilians. The groups using terrorism know, that they are too weak to win a fight with the enemy in the open and therefore they target civilians though trying to build enough pressure to achieve their aim or at least gain more support from their own community.

Are the Palestinians terrorists? As a whole not. But of course there are a lot of terrorist groups in Palestine. Is Hamas a terrorist organisation. Yes and no. Yes, they have used terrorist attacks but not exclusively. Life is seldom black and white.

You write, that ‘our’ politicians create fear. Which is also simplistic. Of course there are some politicians who use the threat from Islam to get more votes. But on the other hand, it can not be denied, that there are Islamic groups who are willing to attack us (the European public) and some already have.

To which two replies I wrote:

apostolisfotiadi writes, that “it is not useful or easy to define terrorism”. Still this was the question of Claudia Ciobano and even the title of her article.
I do believe, it is not only useful, it is necessary to distinguish between terrorism and other acts of violence. It might not be very easy in every case, but in law, facts are often disputed (sorry, here my not being native English speaking hampers me).
For some acts of violence, it can disputed, if the label terror is correct or not, but others and I believe most, can be labelled easily.
According to wikipedia the key criterias are violence, fear, political goal, targeting of non-combatants and therefore illegitimacy.
I agree, that terror and terrorism has been used a lot; sometimes just simplifying sometimes like anti-Semitism it is used as a label to quiet opposition.
apostolisfotiadi simplifies a lot. He writes that according to Clausewitz civilians are the centre of warfare as if Clausewitz suggested mass slaughter to win a war.
He also suggested, the Food for Oil program was a tool of the UN to kill as many Iraqis as possible. The idea behind the Food for Oil program was to allow Iraq to sell Oil and with the revenue buy food and medicine. Not weapons as Saddam Hussein probably would have. That it failed does not mean, that the intentions were bad or that the aim was unrealistic. It was just bad government on the UN and Iraqi side.
I am not saying, that I agree with GWB nor think the situation in Iraq has changed for the better. But a lot of critics of the US seem to forget, that Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and has used WMD against his own people. And that Osama Bin Laden has attacked the West more than once and will continue to do so till he dies. And that there are Muslim terrorists attacking civilians in New York, Madrid, London and in many other places.
I can understand, that there are a lot of people, who say, the US never should have invaded Iraq. Or who say, they have invaded Iraq, but should leave a.s.a.p. But what I don’t understand is when these same people who protest when Iraqi civilians die, rejoice in terrorist attacks in Europe or US.
In Iraq, a civil war is happening or at least is at the very verge of happening. If the US leave, there will be further attacks between Shiites, Sunni and Kurds. The Shiites as the largest group will win with the support of Iran whilst Saudi Arabia will try to support the Sunnis and Turkey will try to take control of the north of Iraq.
Any talk of all problems going away, just because the US go, is nonsense.
apostolisfotiadi misses further points. On the one hand, we know that there are also non Muslim terrorist organisations such as IRA, RAF and ETA in Europe, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka. At least the first four are no real threat anymore. So the only real danger comes from Muslim terrorist groups.
Once again, terrorism is not just a word for Muslim freedom fighters. Only a minority of the acts of violence from Iraqi/Muslim fighters in Iraq is directed against the US invasion force and its allies. And the situation before the US led invasion was not as in paradise. Nor were the differences between Shiites and Sunnis caused by the US invasion.
Democracy and freedom of Speech as well as other Human rights are worth fighting for. Even killing for.

I'll sure get punished for using the last sentence.

Having fun with hand grenades

One of my favourite blogs is fun with hand grenades also here at blogspot.

If you really are interested in a grunts view of Iraq, you have to read his blog. I am not sure, if he still writes, I’ve just reading what he has wrote from the beginning till December 2006.
Here he writes under the topic “Issues” and “Decisions, decisions” a lot which I agree completely. I will write more in the future but for the moment, I will just cite some of his thoughts. I hope, he won’t sue me.

While home I was constantly asked what we should do about Iraq. Do we send more troops, bring some home, or totally withdrawal? I used to think I knew what to do about Iraq but in the end it doesn’t matter; when the bullets start flying politics really do go out the window; people are trying to kill me and foreign policy doesn’t mean shit in that situation. On the flip side you’d assume I’d be a better position than the actual policy makers because unlike our think tanks I’ve actually been in the shit with my boots on the ground. I eventually realized that I simply don’t know what to do about Iraq anymore.

Which is the same with me. And he continues:

Iraq has no concept of national unity or patriotism. … Islam is divided up into two major sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites. The Kurds live in the Northern part of Iraq and generally have kept to themselves. Back in the day, Saddam, a Sunni, oppressed the Shiites along with persecuting and massacring the Kurds. Fast forward to 2006: the Sunnis are pissed because they don’t have their Saddam-era power base or wealth, the Shiites want retribution, and the Kurds still want to be left alone but wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to get a vengeful piece of that Sunni ass. What fuels the whole “Iraqi Civil War” scenario is just that, three distinctly different sects who generally don’t get along well. Because of the oppression/demand for vengeance there isn’t much national unity and the country is split along those lines.

If the US just left, Iraq would destroy itself in a matter of weeks. The Shiites would exact vengeance on the Sunnis then naturally and understandably the Sunnis would react. As much as I love the Kurds I wouldn’t be surprised if they also tried to pull some crazy shit.

The point is not anymore if it was right to topple Saddam Hussein, but how to get out of the situation.

It’s a good possibility that if Iraq was thrown into chaos its neighbouring countries (Turkey, Iran, Syria, etc.) would carve up a chunk for themselves. This would be totally unacceptable and particularly dangerous in the cases of Iran and Syria.

We shouldn’t leave. Iraq isn’t ready for us to leave. If we do the results could be disastrous. From my past writing you’d think I don’t give two shits about Iraq and I’m just concerned about getting home in one piece.

There isn’t an easy way to put this; we create more enemies everyday in this country. … it’s virtually impossible to actually fight.

We need to make sure Iraq becomes something that the Iraqi people deserve. Iraq will never be a world power but it can be a lot more than it is now. Twenty thousand plus American wounded and almost three thousand dead will have suffered and died for nothing if we fail. How we get to that point is something I don’t think I’ll ever figure out.

Sex in America

Yeah, sex sells, so lets have more of it. But what I want to talk about now, is not something to make fun of.

We in Europe always like to make fun of the Americans, but we have also a similar case in Turkey which I will talk more about in the near future.

Genarlow Wilson is imprisoned. He is black, which is no help in the US judicial system. But he had no contact with the police till his arrest.

His internet site describes him as „good son, good athlete and a high school student“. His life changed for the worse, when in the morning of New Year 2004 Michelle woke up with a hangover, wearing nothing but socks in a hotel room. Surrounding her were used condoms and empty Cognac-bottles.

She called her mom and told her that she had been raped.

The police interrogated 14 black teens aging from 15 to 17 years and found a videotape documenting the orgy with marihuana and alcohol. Michelle is being seen to have sex with several boys and Tracy, being only 15, gives blow jobs to some other boys. Not under threats or because being violated, but consensual.

That the sex was consensual was not denied by those two involved girls nor by a third girl who was also present during the party. The last one even transcripted, that the first two girls thrust themselves upon the boys.

Because Tracy was only 15 years old, the police concentrated on her case. Five teens, all 17 years old, were arrested on charges of aggravated child molestation (because Tracy was two years younger than they were).

They did this, because under Georgia law, the penalty for engaging in oral sex with a minor is more severe than raping a person of the same age.

Almost two years before this case, a 18-year-old black man was accused of raping a white classmate who was fifteen, but only three months from her sixteenth birthday. Even the author of the statute argued, that the aim of the law was to protect children from grownups, not to meddle in teenage sex.

Some of the teens accepted pleas to lesser charges in exchange for lighter terms. They would not have to serve the 10 year prison term but they would stay registered sex offenders forever. And would you give a job to a sexual offender? Didn’t think so.

Genarlow, the one kid without no prior problems with the law and a second guy decided to go to court instead of a bargain. They hoped, the jurors would understand their position and even though they knew, that what they had done, was not good, at least would not have been put to jail for at least ten years. They were teenager, and as teenager trying to find their way into adulthood with no ill will, no malice and no intent to commit a crime.

As the trial begun, the second guy caved in and made a bargain. The judge and the jurors did not seem to understand the situation nor did they understand what the law intended for and sentenced Genarlow guilty of rape and aggravated child molestation and sent him to jail for 10 years.

McDade, the district attorney says that the law did not allow him to plea for any other conviction and throws the ball back to the legislator. Which is also the excuse Eichmann had in WWII. “We don’t believe that a 10-year sentence is an appropriate punishment [in this case], but he made that decision to put himself in that predicament,” explains McDade, of Genarlow’s refusal to cop a plea.

And he also says, that race was no topic. Hear, hear. “Calling me a racist denigrates the people who are victims in this case.”

But there are also other cases of white adults prosecuted by same Judges for sex crimes involving minors and received far lighter sentences than any of the teens in this case.

You can find more here.

The DA involved was also accused by two female employees of sexual harrassment some years ago and even though those charges were dismissed, where there is smoke, there might be fire.

The Campaign for Juvenile Justice say that African-American and Latino are far more likely to be trialled as adults even if they were juveniles at the time of the crime and that less of their cases were transferred back to juvenile court comparing to White teens.

But for me, the question of race is not that important. I rather fear the conservative backlash on sexual liberation. A lot of people, even those calling them Liberals or thinking of themselves as progressive have a very hostile view of sexuality and even though I believe in honouring women and even though I would not have sex with a drunk woman, I do not believe it is right, to send a young man to jail for ten years, just because he got a blowjob from a girl two years younger than himself.

Interstate 35W bridge collapsed Mississippi

Yesterday swr3, my favourite radio broadcaster, talked about the collapsed bridge in the USA.

They said “Still the reason for the accident eludes us”.

WTF. Do they really think, that they will find the reason that fast?

Of course they also talked with ‘the man from the street’ who of course said “Oh, I am very afraid to cross a bridge” and they got an expert who talked about the risk of collapsing bridges in Germany.

My point? Same thing happened in Basel when a experimental aircraft hit a building. Is this really the news we want and need to hear?

I think it is so cheap. Something happens, talk to some bystanders, call some experts move to the next story.

What I miss, is an investigative approach. Not just tell us what has happened, but try to find out what will happen in the future by following leads and get the information beforehand.

Of course this would need more manpower but would also be more helpful.