Posted on 01/06/2005 12:59:23 AM PST by kattracks
The war on terror has not been the subject of a single American feature film nor, so far as I know, is there one in the works. But television is proving a bit braver and things should get interesting on Sunday, Jan. 9, when Fox begins a new season of its action show, called 24.
Why the absence of movies on the current war? Jack Valenti, then-head of the Motion Picture Association of America, once replied with questions of his own:
Who would you have as the enemy if you made a picture about terrorism? Youd probably have Muslims, would you not? If you did, I think there would be backlash from the decent, hard-working, law-abiding Muslim community in this country.
Thats what some call a pre-emptive cringe. Others call it dhimmitude.
In any case, the most recent big-budget movie to deal with terrorism was 2002s Sum of All Fears (27,000 Nuclear Weapons. One Is Missing), based on a Tom Clancy novel of the same name. The novel had Arab terrorists setting off a nuclear device at footballs Super Bowl but the movie, under pressure from Islamist organizations, features neo-Nazi terrorists. (I hope you will be reassured, Director Phil Alden Robinson wrote in early 2001 to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination.)
In an review
of recent movies, Jonathan V. Last finds that, If anything, the PC pressure has been upped since the war on terror began. The first break in the silence came in mid-2004, when The Grid, a TNT mini-series, took on radical Islam. Last termed it the bravest, most-daring piece of entertainment in years, precisely because Tracey Alexander and Brian Eastman, its executive producers, did not whitewash all forms of Islam.
An excerpt from The Grids second episode, concerning a Lebanese national named Fuqara, arrested as he tries to flee the United States after trying to murder an FBI agent, gives its flavor. Fuqara is interrogated by Agent Canary while his attorney tries to stop the proceedings:
Agent Canary: Mr. Fuqara, who ordered you to commit the assassination?
Fuqara: (Mutters in Arabic.)
Fuqaras Attorney (to Agent Canary): Can we have a moment outside? (The two exit the room.) Dont you dare threaten him with a rend writ.
Agent Canary: He has information about planned attacks here that could threaten thousands of American lives.
Fuqaras Attorney: And that gives you the right to summarily dismiss Mr. Fuqaras rights? Hey, why stop there? Deport all the Muslims in America to win your war!
Agent Canary: I might suggest some rights stop at mass murder.
Fuqaras Attorney: They dont. And until there is an amendment to the constitution to that effect, I will protect Mr. Fuqaras rights.
A second break will come in a few days, when the Fox Channels 24 shows four episodes depicting an Muslim family as coming to the United States solely to implement attacks against Americans. To do so, they masquerade as just folk. Here is how Jim Finkle of Broadcasting & Cable describes them: One of the villains is a Walkman-toting, bubble-gum-chewing teenager who fights with his conservative Dad about dating an American girl and talking on the phone.
But this is a disguise.
The young man also helps his parents mastermind a plot to kill large numbers of Americans that begins with an attack on a train. Over the breakfast table, the father tells his son: What we will accomplish today will change the world. We are fortunate that that our family has been chosen to do this. Yes, father, his son replies.
The terrorists manage to take the secretary of defense as a hostage; and the movie climaxes with the secretary shown on a gruesome Internet video like those coming out of Iraq, then tried for war crimes against humanity.
Predictably, 24 has the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the countrys lead Islamist outfit, in a tizzy. CAIR spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed complains that They are taking everyday American Muslim families and making them suspects. Theyre making it seem like families are co-conspirators in this terrorist plot.
Melanie McFarland, the Seattle Post-Intelligencers television critic, has no patience for such whining: this is 24, OK? Anyone who watches it knows the show borrows aspects of real nightmares to drive its plots, paying little attention to political correctness.
But there is another reason to stick with the plot as it is. Nearly every terrorist suspect in the West is said to be a regular guy or a wonderful gal, as I have previously shown. The adjectives applied to Sajid Mohammed Badat, a Briton, are typical: a walking angel, the bright star of our mosque, a friendly, warm, fun-loving character, a friendly, sociable, normal young lad, who had lots of friends and did not hold extreme views in any way. Despite those raves, he has been indicted for helping shoe-bomber Richard C Reid to blow up an airliner and will face trial on conspiracy charges (he was found with parts for more shoe bombs like those Reid used).
Just last week, the Seattle Times reported on a Saudi now being deported from the United States:
To his co-workers at the University of Washington School of Nursing, Majid al-Massari was a happy guy who bounced down the halls and seemed like a "big teddy bear." What his friends didn't know about the burly, bearded 34-year-old computer-security specialist was that he had helped set up a Web site for a group linked to al-Qaida, quoted Osama bin Laden in his own Internet postings, lashed out against American policies on his father's London-based radio show and had landed in the sights of U.S. terrorism investigators.
This sort of surprise happens with such consistency that I am tempted to generalize: On arrest, every single Islamist in the West is initially hailed as a delightful person, and never as a hate-filled brooding loner.
So, hooray for Fox for portraying reality; and may it not cave to the Islamists.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).font>
Keeping the enemy as radical Muslims would have been timely, considering the 9/11 attacks.
I wish someone would make a movie from Rainbow Six, leaving everything just as it is in the book. That would get the radical environmentalists' knickers in a twist!
Off the top of my head, There was "True Lies", "The Peacemaker", and "The Siege" all had Islamic terrorists.
The book I read was NOT, not the one with Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman on the cover, the book based on the movie screnplay (btw, that version also has the USSR still existing--although it is post breakup in the movie), it was still neo-nazis in it. Unless its an oddball edit--in some books that have been reprinted have editing of charachters, etc..)
Considering that my copy is from the first printing (hardcover), and I owned it long before the movie... I can emphatically say the original book had no neo-Nazis.
I saw "SMALLPOX" on FX and the bio-terrorist was a generic white European guy!
Here is a column from a Baptist apologist on behalf of Arab terrorists.
However, as I recall all of these movies had some sort of twist where the no good Americans were wrongly accusing the poor muslims of doing bad deeds.
This writer forgot one movie. I like the scene in " To Live and Die in L.A." where the Arab bomber said, "I'm ready to die!, I blow myself on you. Death to Israel and the enemies of Islam!." He then falls over the side of a building and detonates like a big fireworks display.
Oh yeah. One more.. "The Fury" 1978 - where some arab bad guys on an amusement ride go flying off of the ride into eternity.
bump
CAIR-CANADA Sued for $1 Trillion
Complaint: "CAIR and CAIR-Canada have, since their inception, been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism."
5 January 2005-- The family of a former FBI counterterrorism official killed in the 9/11 attacks has filed suit against a Canadian Muslim lobby group, alleging it has "aided, abetted and materially sponsored" terrorism.
The Council on American Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN) was added as a defendant last week to a US$1-trillion lawsuit filed by relatives of John P. O'Neill, who died in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. "CAIR and CAIR-Canada have, since their inception, been part of the criminal conspiracy of radical Islamic terrorism," says the amended complaint filed in U.S. District Court in New York December 30th, 2004.
The complaint claims that *CAIR* and *CAIR*-CAN have "actively sought to hamper government anti-terrorism efforts" by spreading propaganda against police and intelligence agencies, and by levelling false accusations of slander against commentators and media outlets.
"Their goal is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear and name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities." The suit contains only allegations that have not been proven in court. A CAIR-CAN spokesman said yesterday the group had not yet been served with the suit and did not want to comment until the group's lawyers and board had examined it.
The Canadian branches of three other non-profit groups are also named in the suit -- Benevolence International Canada, World Muslim League and International Islamic Relief Organization. The suit accuses them of negligence and wrongful death, alleging they were part of a network of groups, companies and individuals that supported al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden prior to 9/11.
"What we've alleged is a global conspiracy to aid al-Qaeda which ultimately led to the tragedy of September 11," said Jerry Goldman, one of the lawyers representing the O'Neills. CAIR-CAN says on its Web site its mission is to "educate Canadians and empower Canadian Muslims" through media relations, anti-discrimination and political advocacy. It often complains about the treatment and depiction of Muslims in Canada, and says counter-terrorism measures unfairly target Muslims. It is one of several groups lobbying to abolish the process used by Canada to deport suspected terrorists.
The New York lawsuit is one of many filed since the Sept. 11, 2001,attacks that ask U.S. courts to find that al-Qaeda has been supported by a wide network of international groups that should be held accountable. The suit claims that CAIR and CAIR-CAN use "psychological warfare" and disinformation on behalf of Islamic extremists. "They are the intellectual 'shock troops' of Islamic terrorism. In the years and months leading up to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, these organizations were very effective in helping to ensure that North American law enforcement and intelligence officials were sufficiently deaf, dumb and blind to help pave the way for the attacks on the United States. "The role played by these entities is an absolutely essential part of the mix of forces arrayed against the United States as they help soften-up targeted countries so as to facilitate and enhance the likelihood for a successful attack."
Mr. O'Neill led the FBI's counter-terrorism division and was a bin Laden expert. After retiring, he headed security for the WTC for less than two weeks before 9/11. He directed rescue efforts from the North Tower, but returned to the South Tower after the second plane hit and was killed when the building collapsed. Source: National Post
Same producer.
They ain't gonna be the ones to blow yer butt to smithereens!!!!
It'd be the OTHER 98.4%!!!!!!!
If that were true you'd think there be a lot more acts of terror in this country wouldn't you? Could it be you're WRONG?
But.... who will they obey when the CALL goes out??
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my miscellaneous ping list.
Exactly! In "Titanic", Cameron got the details down to the paint colors on the ship, the beautiful costumes and furniture, even re-creating the first-class china, etc. Then he casts that idiot diCaprio in the lead, with his wrong era/modern-day speech. Kate Winslet was OK, but not much better than Leo... What a shame, it could've been a classic film.
BTW, my husband and I visited Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia a few years ago, about a year after "Titanic" was released (we planned to go there anyway, regardless of the movie). In this cemetery, there's a headstone for a "Jack Dawson".
I'm not kidding - there were HORDES of weeping teenage girls standing over this grave, and the grave was covered with TONS of flowers left by even more teenage girls. Unreal... they actually believed (?) that below the headstone lay the dead body of Leo diCaprio/"Jack Dawson". LOL
True Lies? that was a movie right on point. The bad guys were called "crimson jihad"
LOL! ;-D
See posts 35 and 36. People can be so stupid!
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