Was United 93 an inspirational movie?

[LoneWolf16]

Well, of course it's more demoralizing. It'd be like bombing a children's hospital. You get attention that way. Sure as hell doesn't make it "right" though, regardless of how effective it is.

Edited May 7, 2006 by LoneWolf16

[Llyranor]

Is there such a thing as 'right' in war?

[LoneWolf16]

No. But I'd like to think that certain things are in the category of "right" and "wrong". Like bombing civilians is "wrong". Tactically, it could be the best option, and the most likely to yield results...but it's not "right".

 

Note the frequent use of quotes.

[metadigital]

1. It ended the war sooner.

2. I don't understand why you think three days in insufficient for Hirohito and his laughing boys to realise "O crap, we can't win!".

[213374U]

So what's the problem with making money from this? It's not like the 9/11 attacks were carried out so somebody could make movies based off them.

 

Those people are dead anyway, and they can't much care about it. Their families don't like it? Sorry, that's the problem with freedom of speech. If people didn't want something like this, the movie would be a financial failure.

 

Also, Capitalism Is Good For You!

[Calax]

So what's the problem with making money from this? It's not like the 9/11 attacks were carried out so somebody could make movies based off them.

 

Those people are dead anyway, and they can't much care about it. Their families don't like it? Sorry, that's the problem with freedom of speech. If people didn't want something like this, the movie would be a financial failure.

 

Also, Capitalism Is Good For You!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Begin state of emergancy Protocol!

[julianw]

So what's the problem with making money from this? It's not like the 9/11 attacks were carried out so somebody could make movies based off them.

 

Those people are dead anyway, and they can't much care about it. Their families don't like it? Sorry, that's the problem with freedom of speech. If people didn't want something like this, the movie would be a financial failure.

 

Also, Capitalism Is Good For You!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually the victims' family members are working with the film crew, so they should be making some money off this film themselves.

[Calax]

So what's the problem with making money from this? It's not like the 9/11 attacks were carried out so somebody could make movies based off them.

 

Those people are dead anyway, and they can't much care about it. Their families don't like it? Sorry, that's the problem with freedom of speech. If people didn't want something like this, the movie would be a financial failure.

 

Also, Capitalism Is Good For You!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually the victims' family members are working with the film crew, so they should be making some money off this film themselves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm pretty sure theres at least one widow out there who's going "Woo HOOO! I'm gonna be rich and all it took was that **** of a husband getting his ass shot down!"

[LoneWolf16]

Such positivity about people, lol.

[julianw]

Such positivity about people, lol.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

With Calax's attitude, you won't get disappointed with people as often.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

No. But I'd like to think that certain things are in the category of "right" and "wrong". Like bombing civilians is "wrong". Tactically, it could be the best option, and the most likely to yield results...but it's not "right".

 

Note the frequent use of quotes.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The quicker you end it the better.

 

Hardly your fault if someone places so little value on the lives of their citizens that they try to drag things out.

[julianw]

Stop being an apologist for the militaristic Japanese fascists.

 

Iwo Jima

 

You seem to be very keen to give value to the civilians of Japan ... what about the Allied conscripts who were trying to end the war, that was started by the Axis, as quickly as possible for both sides? Their lives are forfeit because they have a gun?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I also agee that the Japanese government should shoulder much more blame for the deaths at Nagasaki than the American government.

 

Though I'd like to add that I must have been quite disappointed when I learned (from my history teacher, so anyone is welcome to refute me) that part of the reasons President Truman decided to use their atomic weapons on Japanese civilians was revenge for Pearl Harbor, which reminds me that one of the chief driving forces behind W.W.II was Hitler's desire for vengeance for the first Great War. Even today, millions of Chinese students still hold a serious grudge against the entire nation of Japan. I am just an idealist and I am no 'decider'(in president Bush's words), so I am not trying to point any fingers, but all these casualties and harm done by nations to each other that might have been avoided just sadden and worry me. I guess mercy just doesn't sound as cool as vendetta.

Edited May 8, 2006 by julianw

[Llyranor]

America's habit of revenge

 

By James Carroll, 8/5/2003 

 

(Boston Globe) ''ALTHOUGH THE WAR did not make any immediate demands on me physically, while it lasted it put a complete stop to my artistic activity because it forced me into an agonizing reappraisal of my fundamental assumptions.'' These words were spoken by Thomas Mann in his Nobel laureate speech in 1929, a reflection of the broad psychological rupture inflicted on the European mind by World War I. But just as war can lead to the ''reappraisal of fundamental assumptions,'' it can do the opposite, reinforcing assumptions to the point of shutting down debate. That seems a more American story.

 

Tomorrow marks the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Oceans of ink have been spilled on the questions of whether Harry Truman's decision to use the bomb was justified; whether the Japanese would have surrendered without it; whether the bomb, therefore, was truly an alternative to a bloody invasion; whether the bomb was actually aimed at intimidating the Russians; whether, in fact, given the momentum of war, Truman's decision was really a decision? Such questions never go fully away because each has some claim on the truth, even if only partial. But the ''fundamental assumption'' underlying the bomb's use is rarely addressed.

''Having found the bomb, we have used it.'' These are words spoken by President Truman in a radio address to the American people on the evening of Aug. 9, the day a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. ''We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.''

 

President Truman, and others who justified the bomb, would rarely speak this way again - a direct articulation of revenge as a main motivation for the overwhelming destruction of the Japanese cities. In his radio remarks, Truman went on to add the other justifications: ''We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us.'' But even the surrender, when it came, would prompt after-the-fact controversy, since, clinging to the emperor, it wasn't unconditional. If we accepted Japan's hedged surrender after the atomic bomb, why wouldn't we accept it before?

 

Every justification offered for the use of the atomic bomb would be clouded by ambiguity except one - revenge. It was the first justification Truman offered, speaking the primal truth, and it was the only justification the American people needed by then. But soon enough, revenge would disappear from all official explanations, and even Truman's critics would rarely address it except obliquely. Much better to debate the necessity of that invasion.

 

Americans do not like to acknowledge that a visceral lust for vengeance can be the main force behind national purpose, and that is why the Aug. 6 anniversary always arrives beclouded. In 1995, when the Smithsonian attempted to mount a retrospective exhibit observing the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a mainstream consensus slapped down any effort to ''reappraise the fundamental assumptions'' of the bomb's use. President Clinton declined to second-guess Truman, and the Smithsonian exhibit was canceled. What terrifies Americans is the possibility that stated reasons are distant from, or even unrelated to, the real reasons for the nation's behavior. But Truman had it right the first time: to understand Aug. 6, 1945, you must return to Dec. 7, 1941, the score that had to be settled.

 

Pearl Harbor resurfaced in the American memory on Sept. 11, 2001. Again and again, the Day of Infamy was invoked as the relevant precedent - the only other time the United States had suffered such a grievous blow. And just as before, there was never any doubt that the blow would be avenged. Moving quickly away from the unsatisfyingly abstract ''war on terrorism'' and then from the frustration of Osama bin Laden's escape in Afghanistan, President Bush took America to war against Iraq to satisfy that primordial need. And it worked. The United States of America clenched its fist the day the twin towers came down. Against Iraq, the United States finally threw a punch that landed. That is all that matters.

 

The controversy over the Bush administration's misleading ''justifications'' for the war in Iraq is a reprise of the endless debate over ''justifications'' offered for the atomic bomb. Neither set of questions grips the American conscience. There is no ''agonizing reappraisal of fundamental assumptions'' in this country. When we want our revenge, we take it. And, even as the flimsy rationales with which we cloak it are stripped away, we fervently deny that vengeance, not justice, defines our purpose.

 

  James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

This story ran on page A13 of the Boston Globe on 8/5/2003.

 

Well, that's inspiring. I guess.

[julianw]

^ Good read. Everybody loves a good revenge story, except that vengeance among nations never dies. Maybe that's why we need genocide.