Lions for lambs

AOG, MadridRobert Redford's new movie seems to draw a slight parallel with Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel. Both films share a triangular storyline which is drawn to a centrifuge by a common thread.

It is certainly beautifully filmed, the SX are good enough, and the plot, or plots, are nihilistic which is a welcome change in American cinema. Well, not all plots, this is an American film after all, and, although we are not served a happy ending on a platter, we are instead given a slice of hope, which is very much in line with the movie's feel.

A political story, it seems to reflect current thinking in the US regarding America's War on Terror campaign. If the film is to be seen as a catalyst for America's pulse, then we can assume that the end of the NeoCons is near, and that enough people have begun to question the status quo vis a vis the country's complacency with the post 9-11 world and recent propaganda.

Tom Cruise plays a character who is close to his last bad-guy character in Collateral. He is well in his way to becoming the next Mel Gibson or Kevin Costner. Strong, single minded, and with projection and aspirations, he fits the job description rather well.

Meryl Streep is surprisingly good as a journalist who has a sudden turn of heart. I say surprising, because the character is a feeble yet intelligent woman who finds herself enmeshed in a moral dilemma. Although the character is not beyond Streep's acting capabilities, she does an amazing turn with it and comes up trumps. Once again she proves what an amazing acting range she has and we are grateful for it.

Robert Redford, who also directs the film, is very middle ground in this film. A combination of Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society and Sean Connery in Finding Forrester, he comes across as slightly lost in the character. It lives in his head, but he does not fully bring it out.

We are never fully aware of his motives, only of the fact that he feels he has failed somewhere along the line, though neither he, nor us, get to find out why. Special mention must go to his eyebrows which for some odd reason are dyed a darker shade than the rest of his hair.

All in all, the movie will probably be nominated and win an Oscar or two, and it will be well deserved. You will not be bored and, surprise surprise, it may even make you think.

If nothing else, it will help many to think about the current political situation in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the US.

War Debts

AOG, London

According to an article on The Times, the UK paid off the last of its Wolrld War II debt to the US on the 31st of December, 2006. According to the article, the Treasury paid cheques totalling £43.5m — equivalent to 94p for every adult — in final settlement of a £1 billion loan taken out in 1945 and worth more than £50 billion today.

Another article on the BBC mentions that the UK still has outstanding debts going back to before the Napoleonic wars. These are called Consol bonds and they appear to hark as far back as 1751. It also mentions that the UK's WWI debt is still largely unpaid. It appears that the UK owed £886 million which in today's money means £40,000 million pounds.

Though to be fair, loans owed to the UK from that war are still outstanding- something close to £2,300 million pounds at the end of the war. Of course the UK is not the only country which still has war debts.

Apparently, these debts, both owed and outstanding, have not been revised nor payed nor written off since 1934.

According to the Iraq Analysis Group, the UK is currently spending £3 billion per year on its iraqui war effort.

This money could have also been spent thus:

" £3.2 billion spent on education, for example, would be sufficient to fund the recruitment and retention of over 10,300 new teachers for ten years. In health, it would allow the building of around 44 new hospitals. The £6.44 billion Special Reserve represents the entire annual budget of the Department of International Development and would allow a five-fold increase in bilateral aid to Africa. According to UNICEF estimates, £5 billion would fund two years of full immunization for every child in the developing world "

Long term, I cant help but wonder if the UK government really believes that the UK will benefit more from its operations in Iraq than it would from 44 new hospitals or from the work and dedication of over ten thousand teachers.

As for the American war debt, this website is a real eye opener: www.costofwar.com

I wonder in what century will the UK (never mind the US) stop paying for Iraq and Afghanistan. And I don't just mean financially.