Summary: Lawrence Talbot must return to his childhood home, Blackmoor, following the mysterious death of his brother. After meeting his brother’s fiance, Gwen, Lawrence vows to uncover the mystery of his brother’s death but soon suffers an unfortunate and deadly injury.
Impressions: Benecio del Toro’s Wolfman is a fast, tight, action film with tons of fighting, heavy CGI, and all of the classic monster scares you’re used to. It rids itself of overdrawn narratives and explanations in exchange for character development, plot twists and clever, freaky dream sequences. The editing is top-notch with these sequences in a way that will keep you jumping, wondering where dreams end and reality begins again.
My one problem with this film is that I could hear del Toro holding back his accent. I’m not saying that it’s proper for a Spanish guy to be the son of an English nobleman when you’re going for realism, but I kept expecting to hear his voice from Sin City or Snatch, and was sorely disappointed.
Wolfman is a good horror film with a running time of only 100 minutes, that will keep you jumping and squirming until the very end.
Maulana Jalaluddin Roomi’s prediction indeed has come true: “The Giants come forward from Afghanistan and influence the world.”
A “massive build-up” is afoot for the battle of Marjeh, which is the strong-hold of Taliban in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. About fifteen thousand ground troops, reinforced by twenty thousand Afghan Army and police force will launch the offensive, supported by the entire US-NATO air power in Afghanistan. The objective is “to inflict a crushing defeat” on the Taliban, at Marjeh, which is considered “a bastion of Taliban power,” and set the momentum for their defeat in other areas, thus restoring government control over the territories of Afghanistan. Indeed, it is a very ambitious plan against the Taliban, who control thirty provinces, out of thirty four and rule the country-side. The surge of 30,000 American troops to be completed by August this year is expected to accomplish the task of restoring government control over Afghanistan.
The Google picture of Marjeh and the surrounding areas, gives a better explanation of the impending battle: Marjeh which lies about 15 KM west of Lashkargah – the provincial capital of Helmand is a plain sandy area with scattered mud huts, and a green belt to the south and the west, fed by the Helmand River. The green belt is sparsely populated with about 6-7000 people. The area is open, not at all suited for positional defence, nor for hit and run operations of the Taliban. In the vast open areas, the coalition air power and the mobile armoured troops would be able to drastically limit Taliban movement and their operational effectiveness. What kind of resistance, therefore the coalition forces are expecting for which the “massive build-up”, is taking place?
Taliban are well-versed in this game of fighting in the desert regions of South and the rugged mountains, for the last thirty years. They are the die-hard freedom fighters, motivated, self-assured and confident of victory against the occupation forces. Time is on their side. Their strategy for the battle of Marjeh therefore can be easily envisaged: They would rather hold Marjeh lightly, with a maximum of 2-3000 die-hard fighters, who would fight to the last man, killing as many of coalition forces, as possible. The use of strong and dispersed defenses, reinforced by IEDs ‘Omar Bombs’ and booby traps, would cause attrition on the attacking troops. Under-ground defensive net-work, on the pattern of Hezbollah’s defenses against Israelis in the 2006 war, would add to the strength of the resistance.
The bulk of the Taliban fighting force in Helmand area is estimated at 10-12000, which is likely to operate around the combat zone of Marjeh, to carryout interdiction of supply lines, logistics, support bases and may engage the coalition forces from several directions. While the battle of Marjeh rages, which will be long and bloody, the Taliban operating in other provinces, under their control will intensify their activities against the occupation forces, causing dispersion and greater attrition. The story of total defeat of the British Army of 1898, will not be repeated because, the air power of the coalition forces will save the day. A stalemate will occur. The result of this battle as well as the war in Afghanistan is the real contest between two opposing will. The coalition forces are demoralized and defeated, fighting a war which has no ideal and no moral justification. Whereas the Taliban are fighting for the freedom of their homeland, with faith in themselves and belief in the Divine Intervention, which has helped them defeat the mightiest of the mighty, during the last thirty years. In fact, the Asymmetric Warfare, waged by the Shadow Army of Taliban has determined the contours of the emerging global order, by putting limits to the expanding menace of global hegemony, primacy and pre-eminence. Maulana Jalaluddin Roomi’s prediction indeed has come true: “The Giants come forward from Afghanistan and influence the world.”
In May 2003, when Afghanistan was occupied by the coalition forces, Jalaluddin Haqqani declared: “We have decided to fight, till we are free. We will never submit to the demands of the occupation forces, because our national ethos and traditions do not allow that. Freedom is our goal and our destiny. Win we will, Insha Allah.” A common friend, who has just returned from Afghanistan, told me: “I found them, so much at ease with themselves. So cool, calm, perceptive and committed to their cause and total surrender to the will of Allah – They say the time is on their side, whereas, it is running-out for the oppressors in Afghanistan.”
It is obvious that the outcome of the battle of Marjeh would be a stalemate and the heavy casualties, the coalition forces are likely to suffer. In no way it would help the peace process in Afghanistan. Sagacity demands that the USA and their coalition partners show greater sincerity of purpose for peace and give up the idea of use of force for gains, at this belated stage, when the Taliban enjoy clear ascendancy over the occupation forces, and with each passing day, more and more tribals are joining them. Attempts are being made to separate the Al-Qaeda from the Taliban who would not abandon them. If they could, they would have handed-over Osama to the Americans nine years back and saved themselves from the ravages of war. There are no good and bad Taliban either. They are all the same, and follow Mullah Omar. No amount of money can buy-them-of either, because they are not a saleable commodity. Let us therefore accept the reality and initiate the peace process in real unrest.
Special modalities, therefore, are needed for bringing peace in Afghanistan and to ensure an honourable way out, for USA and its allies, and a smooth transition to the civil order, “without triggering bigger chaotic conditions.” There are “terrifying prospects of defeat in Afghanistan” hence the need for “a comprehensive strategy and an exit strategy,” which is the only viable option, to be supported by an aggressive political and diplomatic policy for peace in Afghanistan. The steps, therefore, that needs to be taken are:
The occupation forces must give “a time-frame for withdrawal and declare a cease-fire.” Start dialogue with the Taliban and Northern Alliance, to form the Loe Jirga, to decide the main issues, such as the formation of the Interim government, for a period of three years, which will be responsible for holding the Census to determine who is who, for the impending elections; framing of a new Constitution; rebuilding of Institutions; massive reconstruction of the infrastructure and re-creating ethnic balance, which remains disturbed since the Bonn Conference of 2001 and holding of general elections in the year 2013 and finally transfer power to the elected government.
The centres of power – Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban – must be taken into cognizance, as the main arbiters of peace and the immediate neighbours – Iran and China must also be on board. ~ Gen Mirza Aslam Beg
The American press is, to a fearful extent, in the hands of a cowardly, mercenary and unprincipled class of men, who have no regard for truth in dealing with what is unpopular; who cater to the lowest passions of the multitude, and caricature every movement aiming at the overthrow of established wrong; who are as destitute of all fairness in controversy as they are lacking in self-respect; and whose columns are closed against any reply that may be proffered to their libellous accusations. It is true, these men represent the prevailing public sentiment, either in the locality in which they reside, or in the country at large; but, fearfully demoralized as that sentiment is, in many particulars, they aim to make it still more corrupt, rather than to change it for the better. They not only publish all the lies they can pick up, in opposition to the struggling cause of humanity, but they busy themselves in coining lies, which they audaciously present to their credulous readers as reliable truths. There is no end to their deception and tergiversation. Such men are far more dangerous to society than terrorists, insurgents and suicide bombers. Occupying a position of solemn trust, and almost awful responsibility,—exerting a potent influence over a large class of ignorant and unreflecting minds, who look up to them as teachers and guides, however deficient in brains or vicious in morals,—they have it alike in their power and in their disposition to deceive, mislead, circumvent, and demoralize, to a ruinous extent. Each of them is a local authority; and of their many readers and viewers, comparatively few think of questioning the authenticity of what is laid before them, from day to day, or from week to week.
In what part of the country—in what town or village—can an animal rights protest be held, of an uncompromising character, even after a struggle of thousands of years, without being basely misrepresented by the press, or treated with silent contempt? Yes, for thousands of years, abolitionism—the denial of the right to make animals the property of man—has been lampooned, anathematized, vilified, unceasingly and universally, by the journals of the day, both religious and secular—its advocates have been held up as crazy fanatics and wild disorganizers—and its meetings represented as unworthy of countenance by sane and decent men! Every other unpopular movement, however noble and good, has been treated in the same manner—and “the end is not yet.”
We feel competant thus to arraign the American press generally—first, because we have been familiar with its course for the last forty years—and second, because we have the consciousness of publishing a free, independent, impartial journal, in the columns of which all sides have ever been allowed a fair hearing, and which seeks to make known “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” at whatever cost or hazard. How such a paper—advocating the noblest cause that can engage the attention of man, and giving auxiliary support to other great reformatory movements—is appreciated and sustained, is seen in its petty subscription list, in its limited hits, in the covert and open effort every where made for its suppression; and how other papers, which espouse the side of the oppressor, make falsehood and speciesism their stock in trade, and resist every attempt to reform society by removing all abuses, are encouraged and upheld, may be seen in the wide circulation and richly remunerative income of Fox News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many others of a similar stamp. What does all this indicate as to the state of the country?
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A scene from the film 'Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'
Three war games have recently reviewed the US and Israeli options and outcomes in the face of Iran’s nuclear program. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has very briefly analyzed these games and has presented its own conclusions.
I am here going to respond to Jeffrey White’s analysis of these games. I am most interested in his choice of language, and unfortunately only have the time to comment on two out of the three games.
White provides highlights of the Harvard war game, which had as its goal an investigation of the general evolution of events and international actions surrounding Iran’s nuclear program. Here:
1) the US could not organize “meaningful support for sanctions.”
2) Russia and China engaged in their own “secret negotiations with Iran.”
3) Iran ‘won’ the game by increasing its supply of uranium and “was proceeding to weaponization.”
My response:
1) The game is conducted by an American institution and focuses on the central role of the US as the catalyst or primary actor, seemingly subordinating other state actors as responders to US policy on the issue. The US could not coordinate sanctions may well be rewritten as any number of other states having varying levels of ’success’ in rolling out their own plans. I don’t here mean to say that the agency of other states is not recognized by individual players who represent state actors, but rather that we should be aware that the game assumes the central motive of investigating US interests in degrees related to a binary dimension, success/failure. This game assumes then that the dominant articulation of US interest in regards to Iran, the Middle East, and Asia, is an inviolate constant. It does not investigate international interest, simply US interest, I would argue not simply from the point of view of war games conducted by the interested nation’s institution but also assumes the given that US power is hegemonic, if not implying that US hegemony is good then at least ignoring the question entirely. I argue that ignoring the question of articulating power can lead to a quest to maximize power for power’s sake and forgetting why an exertion of national will is necessary in the first place. The danger inherent in accepting dominant paradigms of transregional power is that actors may forget that it may well be desirable to seek political action for something other than the accumulation of power but may be the means to a multitude of goals.
2) The it would be stated that Russia and China would seek “secret” negotiations with Iran relates to my first point. It suggests that any negotiation with Iran outside the schema presented by US arbitration or national interest is a breach of some unvoiced law. What is here meant by secret? That the US or those of its alliance in full compliance with its national interest were not invited to bilateral talks between Russia or China and Iran? Just as the US and European nations have the right, as an independent state actors, to enter intro private negotiations with a second party, I would think that China or Russia would also enter into dialogue with those they see fit without necessarily seeking outside approval. If the full transcript of bilateral talks are not made available in the case of the US and some second party, this might be for the reason of its national interest, such as the mutable outcome of sensitive negotiations not yet concluding in formal agreement. That the bilateral talks of non-US actors working independently of this forcibly centralized player are articulated as “secret” suggests a displeasure with independent action that may be counter to US interest, but disguises this self-interest as a form of breach that requires secrecy.
3) Here is revealed another assumption made by the game, that Iran, without question, seeks to have nuclear weapons. The nature of Iran’s nuclear program is not questioned, it is presented as a weapons program. Within this assumption is inscribed the message that the program is an act of aggression against the US, meaning that it is contrary to US interest. Here is assumed that the US has a right, perhaps it would be worded as a responsibility in some journals, to exert its political, economic, and military power within the Asian continent, far from its shores and that local actors must not have the power to threaten US monopoly on violence. This relates very much to the symbolic reduction of US wars of aggression within the region, such as in the case of Iraq, to police action in which the police/US has the right to violence while other states may be subject as international citizens in a necessarily undefined global system in which their actions could well be regarded as criminal if it fall outside US interest. Such a schema is perhaps best articulated in a paper written for the US military, Joint Vision 2020, in which the idea of American full spectrum dominance is explained as:
The label full spectrum dominance implies that US forces are able to conduct prompt, sustained, and synchronized operations with combinations of forces tailored to specific situations and with access to and freedom to operate in all domains – space, sea, land, air, and information. Additionally, given the global nature of our interests and obligations, the United States must maintain its overseas presence forces and the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in order to achieve full spectrum dominance.
Next, White discusses the highlights of a related war game that was conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. This game investigates US-Israel relation along with potential for Israeli responses to Iran’s nuclear program. White outlines the following highlights from the Tel Aviv war game:
1) The game assumes a clear objective for Iran: “obtaining nuclear weapons.”
2) Israel and the US did not have clear strategies nor clear goals in confronting Iran.
3) Iran ‘wins’, and continues its nuclear program.
My responses:
1) This war game also assumes that Iran seeks to have nuclear weapons, generating a scenario on the very basis of an intractable conflict, that there is no deviation from weaponization of Iran’s nuclear program and therefore diplomatic negotiations could not possibly succeed. In order to have Iran not build nuclear bombs, you must force it to do so, through economic, political, or military threats or actions. Beyond the assumption that Iran must want nuclear programs is the treatment of the nuclear program in isolation from the very state actors who are here presented as the side (though a fractured side) facing a common foe in Iran. Israel and US, it is assumed, have a right to nuclear weapons. The impact of Israeli nuclear weapons on politics, and military programs within the region are entirely ignored in this particular scenario, since to explore it would mean questioning it. Anyway, Israel does not publicly acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons. To do so, or to discuss this topic might result in the question of how it developed them in the first place, which of course included European and US aid. Israel has not signed on to the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US and all nuclear capable European countries have. Under the NPT, it is not allowed that signatories help non-signatories develop a nuclear program, let alone a weaponized one. So, the NATO countries involved in this affair are in breach of what is supposed to be a binding international treaty that they helped create. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is meant to help police the accountability of signatories that may be implicated in a breach of the NPT, which permits the development of a civilian nuclear program but limits weaponization. The IAEA is thus involved in the case of Iran yet it is not involved in the case of the open secret of Israel nor of Western involvement in Israel’s nuclear development. This might bring into question the objectivity of the NPT, or rather of its application. It suggests, then, that it is OK for some countries to have nuclear programs, even nuclear weapons, but not OK for others to have them. If the application of the NPT is not universal, and in fact we witness a clear miss on its application in the case of the only nuclear weapons holder in the Middle East, then we must conclude that the NPT is at the very least flawed. Whether by flaw or purpose, it has in this case served to help maintain a power dynamic and problematic articulation of international law in which one side — Iran — is investigated because of accusation by the US, while another side — Israel — who happens to be an integrated ally of the US does not have to even worry about investigation. So, here, again, we see that the application of an international treaty is moves according to the existing dynamic of global power which favours the dominant player and its close allies.
2) The lack of clarity in terms of goals and strategies does not immediately seem clear to me when reading White’s review of the Tel Aviv war game. In reading further sections of the short report, I wonder if it simply means that they did not have common goals, or that goals and strategies were not clear enough because the US did not come forward with preconditions and ultimatums then seek these out through any means possible including military aggression.
3) The Iran win fits into the binary world we are presented throughout the report, with Iran on one side and US-Israel on the other. One is bad, the other is good, implicitly. Therefore, there is no need to critically examine the impact of each state action within the context of a multitude of national and sub-national needs or interests, it is assumed here that good and bad are inherent to each party. Perhaps the confusion lies in that the dimension of national interest embedded in power politics is taken as the judge of good and bad. In this case, if a situation or action contrasts with Israeli or US national interest reduced to a game of power politics then the need to examine its effect on the many peoples of the world is diminished. Inversely, what is good for the interested parties must be good for everyone, or for the good of everyone.
In my last post on the Olympic Winter Sports and in my last post before leaving to Vancouver, I will introduce the Olympic Sport Speed Skating.
Speed skating is the form of ice skating in which skaters race against each other on different distances on skates. In the Olympics, the long distances of ice skating are simply called speed skating, whereas the short man against main events are referred to as an own sport, called short track. Ice skating has its roots in Central and Northern Europe. Records show that already in the mid 16th century, Dutch, Norwegian and Scottish people made use of bones which they put under their shoes in order to move on frozen lakes and rivers. However, the speed skating sport was probably first developed in the United States, where athletes used steel under their shoes. Today, speed skating is a very technical sport. In Vancouver, events will be held in the 500m (Sprint; both Men and Women), 1000m (Men and Women), 1500m (Men and Women), 3000m (Women) 5000m (Men and Women), 10000m (Men) and Team Pursuit (Men and Women).
Speed Skating has been featured at Winter Olympics ever since the very first Winter Olympics in Chamonix 1924. However, the women´s events were only added 1960 in Squaw Valley. More and more events were added over the years, which makes speed skating with 12 events, one of the disciplines with the most medal opportunities. The dominant nations in this sport are without a doubt the nations from which the sport originates from: Norway (25/28/26), The Netherlands (24/28/23) and the United States (28/20/15). The Soviet Union also had strong speed skating athletes but most of them are now starting for the newly developed countries. Germany has probably some of the most popular athletes with Anni-Friesinger-Potsma and Claudia Pechstein, but Pechstein will start in Vancouver because she is banned because of doping suspicions. This makes Friesinger one of the favorites in the women´s events, with her main rivals coming in particular from the Netherlands. The favorites in the men´s events are Sven Kramer (Netherlands, 5000m and 10000m) and US-star Shani Davis (1000m and 1500m).
Well the USA is hardly a beacon of democracy in this world, but this was more than I expected.
It seems after a decision in the United States Supreme Court decided that the Bill of Rights applied to corporations as well as people, Murray Hill inc. decided to run for congress. I’m still not entirely convinced that this isn’t a giant piss-take, particularly with the slogan “the best democracy money can buy”. But apparently it is not.
Depravity of the American Press
Speed skating is the form of ice skating in which skaters race against each other on different distances on skates. In the Olympics, the long distances of ice skating are simply called speed skating, whereas the short man against main events are referred to as an own sport, called short track. Ice skating has its roots in Central and Northern Europe. Records show that already in the mid 16th century, Dutch, Norwegian and Scottish people made use of bones which they put under their shoes in order to move on frozen lakes and rivers. However, the speed skating sport was probably first developed in the United States, where athletes used steel under their shoes. Today, speed skating is a very technical sport. In Vancouver, events will be held in the 500m (Sprint; both Men and Women), 1000m (Men and Women), 1500m (Men and Women), 3000m (Women) 5000m (Men and Women), 10000m (Men) and Team Pursuit (Men and Women).