War & Peace

Instapundit points to a great piece by Jules Crittenden about how Hollywood has gone to ground and is producing 'War' movies driven by political agendas, rather than combat events/achievements. Perhaps all these new films should have the up-front disclaimer, "Based on a true war".

He also points out Andrew Sullivan's now-eons old statement that "War focuses issues in ways peace cannot" and calls it "over-optimistic".

Unfortunately, Sullivan is spot on. War did focus the issues for a few months after 9/11. We kicked ass, Afghanistan fell, kumbaya. But since then we have really been back to a state of peace, at least in the eyes of most of the American public.

Since that time we have continued our Global War on Terror, deposed a dictator, and attempted to mid-wife a free democracy. However during all that, it seems we were only in a war, not at war.

Being 'in a war' involves combat action in some far away land that we might catch on cable between celebrity/political scandals. In other words, the war is somewhere else, not in my backyard. That can lead to intellectual laziness, and lack of real commitment.

Being 'at war' is when thousands of people die on your own shores, and one is forced to deal with stark realities that they might otherwise downplay or ridicule.

So Sullivan is precisely right (not that Instapundit is wrong), the 'peace' we are in has failed to focused many like it should, and I hate to think what it would take to re-focus them.

If another 9/11 attack is what it would take, then I can handle Hollywood's intellectual laziness and its back-riding monkey.