Avatar–Piece Of Crap

Ok, obviously this has been done to death already, so let me share two links that hit upon the majority of my criticisms about the movie.

First, in terms of originality, Jersey based superstars at Hero Kids give a great synopsis on how Cameron came up with this piece of crap. I highly encourage you to enjoy that piece of genius review blogging.

Secondly, TMQ at ESPN, hands down the best DC area based sports writer today, spends a good digression talking about some of my biggest issues, namely there was nothing that could be called a “plot” and that US soldiers are murderous morons. Now ten times a day you can color me and my political views as subversively left and I’d be more than proud to take that label. That being said, Cameron portrays the US military in very unpatriotic ways, and Hollywood eats it up. Wonder why Democrats always seem weak on defense? It’s because they have that same knee jerk grin and agree that Hollywood megastars have when these kinds of depictions come up. It’s nearly as bad as when they talk about saving poor animals. Nice thought but they are intellectually incapable of understanding the argument that they are pushing. But this is getting ahead of myself.

Ahem, let’s begin again:

Avatar sucks.

Yes, I know it has some pretty effects. If that’s all you look for in movies, just stop going to them and buy video games instead. Hands down its the video game industry that really pioneers special effects, and they do it for about 10 million in production costs. Avatar probably cribbed most of its advanced effects from video games. Most people thought it was a video game. So if you are ok with crappy plots, dangerous political, social, and moral suggestions, and lots and lots of the good old ultra violence, just get an XBOX and let Cameron produce his crap there. If you like movies, please take a second and be outraged here.

Avatar is basically the latest iteration of a troubling liberal imperialist mind set that keeps us involved in stupid wars like Afghanistan. In a nut shell, it goes like this: “we must help the defenseless natives save themselves from ourselves.” If that makes no sense to you, then Obama’s Afghan policy should be similarly troubling.

Let’s get on with the plot summary first here: crippled marine takes over for his twin brother in a super secret project to peaceably remove indigenous blue aliens from valuable commodity. He is then struck by the injustice of the grand plan he is supporting, defects to the other side and in the end gives up his humanness to throw his lot in with hippy blue giants to help save the enviro-nature god of Pandora.

Immediately, there are a few problems here. Number one is the idea that the Pandorans cannot fight or advocate for themselves. For whatever reason, even though they have a traditional hierarchy, the intelligence to learn English, and familiar understanding of terrain, and perhaps commercial interests in negotiating with whatever company, government, or quasi-collaboration this evil entity that wants to mine Pandora is, they are cannot mount a defense. Instead, the conceit of this movie is that a crippled marine and some scientists gone native are the keys to the Na’vi’s survival–to the point that the greatest warrior among the Na’vi defers military leadership of his people to a wheel chair bound human who controls an “avatar” from a science trailer in an undisclosed location.

Yes, this stretches believability. What’s worse is this is the same kind of thinking behind George Bush’s democracy evangelism–the Iraqis don’t know how to overthrow a dictatorship and run a democracy, so let’s show them. Of course Cameron would never endorse this thinking, so he strips Bush’s actions of their moral justification and substitutes a mineral called “unobtanium” in their stead (Iraq is an “oil” war, any one?) while imagining that the enlightened humans would then go over to the Na’vi and help defend them against such a cynical attack on their culture and homeland.

Let’s dial this back for a minute. We’re clearly supposed to find Sully sympathetic, and be outraged for the Na’vi that humans would dare take their resources and upset the balance of Pandora’s ecology. By extension, I guess this means that if the Taleban joined Green Peace, we should fight for their control of Afghanistan? Because it seems to me that the Na’vi have a whole host of practices that most people in the US wouldn’t buy into–arranged marriage, hereditary leadership, and biotelepathic interfacing with dragons to name a few. Yet this, in a way, is not the worst part. I’m a Wilsonian–if the Na’vi want to live in a big tree house, or the Afghan tribes want to live in their traditional way, as far as I’m concerned they’re entitled to it without our interference. That doesn’t mean going native like Jake Sully or John Walker Lindh.

Of course Cameron and crew don’t trouble themselves with this kind of moral implication, because they probably never even considered it. Nope, instead they figured that an out of the box cliched nature loving tribe of blue giants are naturally too goody-goody to draw comparisons to the Taleban. That’s ignorant but not callous. What’s callous is the idea that Jake Sully and friends would (must, even!) turn upon their former friend, colleagues, and comrades to defend the Na’vi’s way of life. Not one person shows any remorse at killing humans. Excuse me, but weren’t these people you’re friends? Are you really choosing a bunch of blue giants you hardly know over the race you’ve known your entire life? Without any regret? I guess those helicopter pilots are not parents, siblings, spouses, or children to any one, just more toy soldiers to blow away in some cheap liberal wet dream. Color me speciest (or whatever) but if it were me, I’d throw my lot in with humanity, you know, the race that I owe my existence to.

But the “plot” aside, what’s really troubling about all that is the implication that humans are some how too crippled or evil to be a part of, and rather what we should aspire to is some kind of noble savage that doesn’t even exist. Make no mistake, humans have a long history of doing shitty things to each other and the planet, but we’re all we got. What this movie says is that only our complete extermination or expulsion can let the planet survive. I don’t buy that. As a people, we’ve been self critical enough to deal with some of the worst atrocities committed by the US (slavery, our genocide against the Native Americans, imperialism, racism, sexism, the oppression of workers, etc.). We’ve got a long way to go, but at least we have the capacity to be self-critical. In less than a decade, the populace of this country has come to see Iraq and Afghanistan as imperial misadventures. Unfortunately, Avatar does not seem to find that valuable.

Finally, despite the fact that 1) future humans are an evil Xe-Haliburton hybrid with an insatiable and heavy handed desire for a mineral they can’t have and 2) they must be destroyed, the only man who can do this is Jake Sully. This is the same effete white man guilt that Conrad had. Read Things Fall Apart–it’s not a great book, but at least Okonkwo can think, fight, and defend (or fail to defend) his way of life without the help of some well educated progressive to hold his hand. The only difference between the concept of a noble savage and a brutal savage is an element of self-hating superiority. The pretension of imperial all-power and all-knowledge runs through both, and that kind of paternalism is worse for native peoples of all stripes, because it robs them of self agency through deception. So as nice as this liberal white man’s burden sounds, the Mau Mau and Viet Cong did quite well for themselves without it, and movie goers can do so as well.

Post script: I’ve ranted enough, but this movie is also guilty of sexism. The folks over at Over Thinking It do a better write up on the difference between a strong character and a “strong” female character than I could hope to, so I will give a bite size analysis. Neytiri is an accomplished hunter, mystic, and heir apparent to ruling the tribe. She finds out that Jake Sully has used her to bring about the destruction of her home, expulsion of her clan, death of her father, and threat to her very way of life. Understandably, she is upset. Jake Sully tames a big dragon. By this very act of manliness (for what is more testosterone charged and virile than breaking the baddest animal to your will?) he not only earns her forgiveness but an APOLOGY for acting like a crazy woman when he ruined everything. What? As soon as Jake is accepted as a warrior in the Na’vi, Neytiri gets a strong dose of stupid disease and does nothing of note until the end of the movie when she kills Colonel Quaritch, which really shouldn’t count because she was a damsel in distress that had to be rescued by both an alien bobcat and Jake Sully before she could free herself enough to kill him. I don’t know what’s worse, the sexist implication that a woman can’t think for or defend herself, or the semi-racist/imperialist point of view that noble savages can’t save themselves from us, but this character gets the worst of both.

Updated for a variety of spelling, syntax, and content errors.

2009–An Early Review

I suppose the list of top things in 2009 has got me to thinking that I should have an evaluation of the year and a prediction for the next–well I won’t!  Not until next month at least, when I’ve had a chance to come up with a theme that can describe the year.  In the meantime, here are a few unordered thoughts:

In the US, we’ve seen:

-A failure to commit to democracy, either in Latin America or South Asia.  The Coming Anarchy (a normally fantastic collection of international political analysis, most recently of the Dubai default threats) posits that this is good politicking, “thinking pagan while acting Victorian” to paraphrase.  I am inclined to disagree–what we have here is a supreme failure of our international morals and just as the tales of Salvador Allende and Hugo Chavez’s 2002 coup were getting old, we handing our neighbors the tragedy of Mel Zelaya.  So far the acrimony with the rest of the planet caused by our support of two undemocractically elected leaders (neither election was free or fair, feel free to dispute Honduras, but when the US ambassador laments the drastic deterioration of human rights and opposition media is mercilessly shut down, you don’t have much to stand on) has remained low, but we are steadily chipping away at the foundation of our image.  Perhaps we could never live up to it.  But so far what is only a public diplomacy nightmare will spread into real diplomacy.

–We will deal at any cost.  This is the mantra of the Obama administration and while so far he’ll get some plaudits for it from the moderates in the media–we have a healthcare bill, we will have a global warming deal, we have a strategy for Afghanistan, etc.–the reality is that the White House is every day looking like a pawn shop that is getting outplayed by its sellers.  They have quickly accepted the lowest common denominator on pretty much every dispute that has crossed their path.  I think the actual value of this has yet to be seen.  They might be making all the right deals and generations from now we might be studying the brilliancy of the Obama administration.  So I don’t want to be too gloom and doom on this point.  But sometimes there’s a value to playing hardball.  Cheney and Bush proved that.

–The NFL is entering a period of shaming and disgrace.  Didn’t expect that one, did you?  But personally, I think this concussion thing will hit them hard, not as hard as doping in MLB, but perhaps the implications are worse.  Major League Baseball players put their bodies at risk illegally for gain.  The league turned a blind eye to such behavior, but while it may have been tacitly encouraged, I don’t think any one thought for a moment it was above board, honest behavior.  The NFL has basically left some of its most talented players out to dry and refused to face a health risk that people have known about for a long time.  What’s worse is that this negligence has trickled down to every level of the sport.  I don’t think it will chip away at the dominance of the sport (thankfully) but I consider 2009 the year that Goodell got an asterisk next to his tenure.

–2010 will probably be a year of backlash.  I am expecting a ton of inappropriate blame to be placed on reality TV for all sorts of moral ills.  No more Kardashians will be able to get shows, VH1 will probably not deal with millionaires any more, and the White House and airports will reach the top levels of competition for security theater.  The result will be overall positive, but when it comes to larger issues about the American culture, this cure will probably have the same effect as self-flagellation did against the bubonic plague.  More finger pointing will abound in the media, and our sense of self-respect, common decency, and high culture will continue to suffer.

–Simplicity will become the new zeitgeist.  Ostentatious shows of wealth will be considered in poor taste, and anti-wealth populism will replace the new age Gospel of Wealth.  This will be a slow trend but it has already begun.  Barring anything short of a miraculous economic recovery, the Great Recession (stupid name) will dictate our new cultural modes.

There’s probably more I could say, but I’m getting ahead of myself, especially with these predictions.  In any event, more to come and Happy New Year.

Grading Obama, The United States, By Sun Tzu

For the perspective of someone less amateur than I, please take a look at what William Lind has written on Global Guerrillas.  Lind has been taking on the issue of strategy versus tactics for awhile and has been much closer to the halls of government than I, so he has a worthy perspective, though he is not without critics both military and political.

The reason I reference Lind is that the linked discussion gets briefly into a discussion of strategy versus tactics, two things which are important and often confused.  For the purposes of this post, I will do my best to make a distinction between the two as follows.  Tactics are a device employed in the moment to win a battle, such as a bayonet charge. Strategy is a plan by which you conduct a military campaign, such as seize all the ports and cut off supplies to the interior.  In my view, tactics are the manner in which you achieve your strategy.

It is my belief that the brand of counter insurgency (COIN) that we saw in the McChrystal report is closer to tactics than strategy.  Lind also touches on this over at DNI.  In terms of strategy, I don’t think we really have a plan of what we want in Afghanistan.  My guess is it’s a “good” democracy.  I don’t think anyone in this city (DC), or in Bagram, or in Kabul knows what that looks like, but a lot of people seem to think they’ll know it when the see it.  I doubt it.  Ask Venezuelans, and the majority will tell you they’re living it.  Listen to the US congress talk about Venezuela, and you’ll get a different picture.  Before we get lost in this tangent, let me end the discussion by saying the closest thing we have to strategy is vague aspirations of nation building, and that I believe 30,000 plus (hopefully 10k from NATO) troops is by no means a new strategy, but a new set of tactics to augment our “strategy.”

With that in mind, I have cherry picked a few quotes from Sun Tzu’s art of war to grade both the Afghan insurgency and the US.  This is by no means scientific, I have merely picked a few points I found salient, and will offer some thoughts in regards to how they apply to today’s wars.

On strategy review:

“Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.”

“…[T]hough we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been associated with long delays.”

Where did Obama’s strategy review fall in between these two poles?  Obviously, time will tell, but considering that he seems to have bargained the original 44,000 floated right after the McChrystal report to 30,000 plus 5,000 to 10,000 from NATO allies, I am tending towards the negative.  The Obama administration clearly is not sure what it wants to do, or what can be done in Afghanistan, and I think this surge number has more to do with political calculus than COIN.  As Lind notes, a real COIN effort would take closer to 300,000 troops–this 30,000 is not meant to win the war, but to buy time until July 2011.  That’s pretty cynical of me, but to be honest leadership, especially of this country, is hard and a final decision here–fight till we “win” or “go home”–is going to make a lot of people mad, no matter what the decision is.  Right now Obama has given McChrystal troops to do things his way for a few years, and if it is a dismal failure he can hopefully pull the plug right in time for reelection.

Public opinion:

“The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger”

“Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people’s fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be at peace or in peril.”

How do we, the public feel about the war?  The short answer is not good.  The long answer is confused.  According to this ABC-Washington Post poll, a lot of people are not convinced when it comes to this war, and while they maintain some measure of confidence in Obama’s ability to wage war (at least along partisan lines), expect this to deteriorate if things go poorly.  Since belief that this is a war we should be fighting is “underwater” in terms of public opinion already, I would the increase is in violation of the Moral Law.

Economics:

“Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.”

This seems true.  We’ve spent more than a trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan, and if the billion dollars per thousand troops per year is to be believed, that’s another $30 billion on top of the $68 billion authorized for next year.  That is, of course, $10 to $15 billion more than it would cost to fund health care reform, which apparently will save the economy money.  Obviously we’re spending a lot of money to give the Afghans a new nation which could be spend on a variety of different things.  I have yet to see a convincing cost benefit analysis that proves to me that we need to spend that money in South Asia.

Allies:

“We cannot enter into alliances until we are acquainted with the designs of our neighbors.”

That seems like a good idea, however, we have some problems.  Do France and Germany really want to continue to fight this war?  Do we know whether the ISI will stop backing the Taliban, or if Pakistan can exert control over its intelligence service? To what extent can we count on the influence of Iran to be positive or negative, as well as India, China, Russia, etc.  And will NATO members fork over the troops?  To me, these questions  are all up in the air, but I think there’s actually been some good news.  For one, Gordon Brown has signaled that the UK is committed to the war by sending 500 more troops.  It’s a small contribution but that came before Obama made his troop announcement, so maybe he’ll send more.  In any event, we have another voice pushing for escalation which will help when we ask for contributions.  Further, as we begin to make our ask Turkey to put their troops in combat roles, having the support of EU members may be the compelling factor to get their men out of Kabul and into the south.  That being said, there are a lot of moving parts and whatever line of analysis you buy, the Pakistanis are still sending mixed signals and hedging against a US defeat or withdrawal.  Iran has some interest in a stable Afghanistan, after all, they want neither the immigration nor the terrorist haven, but keeping the region in turmoil may serve them better than a US backed regime in Kabul.

Strategy:

“In war, then, let your great objective be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

“In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them; conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.”

“At first, then, exhibit the coyness of a maiden, until the enemy gives you an opening: afterwards emulate the rapidity of a running hare, and it will be too late for the enemy to oppose you.”

None of these quotes have been picked to paint this war in a good light.  But for me, they express three immutable problems of this war–one, that we have been here too long to just “start” fighting this war, and I seriously doubt we’re at any kind of critical juncture that dictates whether we win or lose the war.  Every moment we have troops on the ground is that kind of moment, where we can win or lose.  I think these ideas started floating around Washington to forestall talk about continuing Bush’s mistakes, and I think that was to no avail.  The truth is, if we haven’t gotten it done in 8 years, I don’t see how another 3 will make a different one way or the other.  Nor is McCain’s hundred years war anything but the ravings of a man who let political rhetoric cloud his better senses.  Long wars are bad.  If you believe that World War 2 saved us from the Great Depression, consider that it was only 3 years long.  Vietnam, on the other hand, was followed by stagflation.  What camp do you think we’re in now?

Secondly, I am quite curious about the effect of having a public debate on our military policy.  Obviously, we have not gotten the full picture.  But we have enough to know in the broadest strokes what we want to do.  The US is, in fact, quite an open book and if the Taliban has not already started forming counter strategies to our proposed COIN operations, they will have a handle on them soon.  Population centric COIN is going to put our troops out there, making it easy to hit them with snipers, IEDs, and ambushes.  Our population has already started to waver in its support–is it that hard for the Taliban to see the Achilles heel here?

The last quote, to me, seems to sum up the insurgent strategy.  I doubt the ouster of the Taliban could be characterized in any way a strategic temporary ceding of power yesterday to strengthen their hand today.  But they certainly played dead long enough to regroup, taking advantage of our distraction in Iraq to build quite a formidable insurgency–has the hare already gotten away from us?

Thoughts, reservations, and caveats:

“Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.”

“To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”

“All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

Basically here we have two thoughts–try as hard as you can but nothing is guaranteed and just because you think you know does not mean you know.  Part of the McChrystal report was censored for a reason, and it might be the parts that really send the escalation message home.  But with what we have seen, the picture looks grim.  The best justifications out there deal with US obligation to the region, which I’m not sure I buy.  But who am I?  Certainly not anyone in a war room, plotting this out.  At some point we must trust that the planners are privy to more information than we are, and while I definitely weigh in as skeptical, I have to acknowledge my limits here.

Final grades:

So how would Sun Tzu grade Obama?  As I said, these were cherry picked quotes, not at all intended to be representative of anything but my thoughts.  My guess would be a mixed grade.  I think the US is on desperate ground here, or hostile ground at the least.  Sun Tzu’s words of recommendation for those scenarios are “fight” or “put your men in such danger that they must fight.”  Let’s not entertain any illusions that he was an anti-Imperialist peacenik.  I think whatever criticisms he would offer would have been based on what happened 8 years ago.  Considering Obama and McChrystal had this mess passed on to them, it’s reasonable to think they are doing the best they can with political realities.

But while Sun Tzu is an important theorist, he’s not without limits.  Technology has not made him obsolete, in fact he’s had kind of a renaissance, with his philosophies expanding into the political and business worlds over the past few decades.  That being said, the days of pitched battles where chariots and foot soldiers lined up before charging into battle is gone.  Instead we have an enemy that by day is indistinguishable from the people we are trying to save, and plundering the enemy or unilateral moves by the sovereign are no longer a politically viable ways to conduct war.  In fact, they seem completely out of step with the political dynamics of a democratic republic.

And finally perhaps the best litmus test of Obama and McChrystal don’t come from a possibly apocryphal military strategist but contemporary citizens and voters.  And perhaps the standard to hold Obama and McChrystal to is not doing the best with what they have on the ground, but to an ideal that we have come to expect of our leadership–principled decision making that is in the best interests of the general population and the health of the nation, not high flying international power politics and nation building.  That, however, is best left to another (and hopefully shorter) post.

A Beginning

First off, I might as well admit that I hold little hope of keeping this up to date and relevant–in general I am a better critic than commentator, but I will consider this an exercise in change.

Welcome?

I could do better than that:

Welcome!  And so it begins, a place where I analyze the world about me and offer whatever meager commentary I can deliver.  So it is only fitting that I begin with a very big picture and open ended idea.

I recently came across an article by Michael Vlahos on why the West in general and the United States in particular are performing so poorly in fighting our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is quite interesting and well worth the read if you are interested in strategy, but one point that Vlahos brings up in particular struck  me.  He notes that non-state actors played a huge role twice in the world–once at the twilight of the Roman Empire and again in the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance.  The circumstances that gave rise to these mercenary actors was a breakdown in the world order–the collapse of the Classical and Feudal eras.

The obvious implication here is that the world and global political order as we know it are collapsing.

Vlahos has his own interpretation–that globalization, coupled with economic disparity and a post-modern loss of identity and national myth, has led to a series of local movements that no longer value the current world order, especially the cultural and political hegemony of the United States.  According to Vlahos, we are now fighting a battle against a new identity paradigm and in doing so working towards our own defeat.

I do not seek to take issue with this interpretation–perhaps the idea of a search for “identity” narratives obscures other, more tangible reasons for the rise ethnic and nationalist non-state actors, such as the desire for economic or political power.  Overall, however, the why is something that will trouble historians and scholars for decades and perhaps centuries to come.  More important, I believe, is where will this lead us?

By the early 1970s, the majority of colonies has won freedom from their European, Asian, and North American colonizers.  However, while some degree of advanced political autonomy was attained, this should not be confused with the same kind of organic nation building that created a United Kingdom, Argentina, or United States.  Where as the former three fought several internal and external wars to develop a cogent national mythology, many countries in Africa and Asia had no such benefit.  The sixty to hundred years or so they were under imperial domination saw their borders drawn irrespective of traditional ethnic, tribal, or religious boundaries.  Whereas this divided territory once served their colonial masters well (especially the British, who were masters of “divide and conquer”), it made a poor start of a nation state, causing several young democracies to descend into extended civil wars.

This is not a new problem, nor is this analysis anything revolutionary–many scholars have taken it up.  Robert Kaplan warned of the rise of tribalism and the erosion of the nation state back in 1994.  In his book on the bottom billion and the failure of international development, Paul Collier suggests that when the borders were drawn, especially in Africa, mistakes were made.  These mistakes are not irreversible.  The nation state in much of the world is in retreat, and in its place is the rise of groups whose defining characteristics lie less in what they believe than what they are–Kikuyu, Baloch, Assamese, Moro, Sahrawi.

Perhaps in a sense it is better in the long run, as people who naturally identify with one another seem to be more likely to form a functioning state under a set of shared beliefs.  At the same time, it is a blow of multiculturalism and more importantly, the idea that the principles of democracy can unite a people across ethnic, religious, and racial boundaries.

And for us in particular, I think this does not bode well for our foreign interventions.  As a point of exploration, let’s consider Afghanistan conflict in terms of this “identity” issue.  Yes, on one level, our problems there are a clear rejection of the United States, its foreign policy, perhaps even our very way of life.  But perhaps it is also something deeper, a rejection of values that are much older than the US and are at the heart of Western society to the point where neither the soft approach of the EU nor the hawkish one of the US matter in the scheme of things.  Perhaps what we have, instead, is billions of people expected to succeed in a few decades in an endeavor that took us centuries while trying to reclaim a history that was robbed or co-opted by colonialism. We have trouble enough trying to come to terms with the fact that we are in the middle of a thirty year civil war–how does one even begin to deal with what is perhaps the biggest social engineering experiment gone wrong–the artificial political development of scores of countries?

And, to compound those problems, we are faced now with the reality that it will never be as simple as “we give up, time to go home.”  Whether you’re talking about a neighborhood or a continent, the disruptive problems of one entity will soon become that of the entire community.  We can look away for a long time, but eventually things come home to roost.

So what does this mean going forward?  That’s the unanswerable part of the question.  Collier prescribes post-conflict aid, targeted military intervention, good trade policy, and my personal favorite, good “governance.”  To the left of him is the aid and development folks, suspicious of capitalism but confident that somehow, money for something (health, civil society, infrastructure) can build the intangible parts of a nation.  Then again, there’s also the neocon way–bomb them to democracy, or at least create a semi-stable client state.  There are flaws with all of these, and no guarantee of truths or insight.  So, should you arrive here at this silly (and quite pretentious) little page, let me pose the question to you.  If we really are at a crossroads where the known order of government and international community is about to change, what role should we play?