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Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I Want to Believe 

After much speculation on the part of fanboys everywhere, it's been announced that the new X-Files movie will be entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe. The plot will not involve the alien conspiracy that characterized the long-running sci-fi drama; the topic of Fox Mulder's faith will be a central theme within the self-contained storyline.

Many of the self-contained "monster of the week" episodes of The X-Files dealt with issues of faith. They usually revolved around the theme that some things in life are truly miraculous and beyond human scientific comprehension, serving as articles of faith. The issue of faith was primarily addressed with Agent Dana Scully, a scientist and an initial skeptic in Mulder's "Alien Conspiracy" who often turns to her dogmatic Catholic upbringing when her faith in science is shaken. For Fox Mulder, his faith is primarily placed in his desire to believe in the alien conspiracy. He believes in a Deist, non-interventionist God who 'serves as the stats keeper in the universal baseball game.'

The further exploration of Mulder's faith is an interesting avenue for a series that has seemingly exhausted the realm of fantastic ideas. I really hope that this movie makes me want to believe in The X-Files as a franchise again. After six years off television, I hope that Chris Carter's batteries are recharged to the point where he can deliver a movie worthy of a great franchise. The X-Files was one of my favorite dramas of all time, alongside Tour of Duty and House. Let's hope that Chris Carter & co. can rekindle the magic and make us all want to believe again.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Defender of Freedom 

Charlton Heston was laid to rest on Saturday, a week after his passing. He was a great American who will be often imitated, but never duplicated.

As an actor, Charlton Heston rose from humble beginnings to become a Shakespearean actor with a penchant for depicting larger-than-life characters. He gave us stoic legends like Moses, Judah Ben-Hur, Marc Antony, El Cid, and John the Baptist. Charlton Heston animated characters like Robert Neville (The Omega Man,) Captain Garth (Midway,) and Robert Thorne (Soylent Green.) He was unforgettable as the bitter and cynical George Taylor in Planet of the Apes. His career spanned six decades, with a pause for his service in the second World War.

As an activist, he could best be remembered as a man who loved America and loved freedom. As a civil rights marcher in the 60's and president of the Screen Actors Guild, he might have been pigeon-holed as a member of the political left during that era. But his involvement in the National Rifle Association, culminating with his service as president from 1998-2002, led many to dismiss him as a "right-wing wacko."

The defining trait of Charlton Heston is that he believed not only in the American nation, but he believed in the power of Americans, as individuals, to take control of their lives for the better. That belief in the power of the individual's spirit should be neither "right" nor "left." It should be a core belief of all Americans.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Bittersweet Homecoming 

Nearly four years after being captured by Iraqi insurgents, Sergeant Matt Maupin is finally coming home. Obviously it's not the news we wanted to hear. But as hope for finding Matt alive faded with time, the need to bring him home one way or another never wavered.

The final details of Matt Maupin's life may never be known, and the Army probably won't reveal what it does know out of respect for the family and to protect ongoing operations and intelligence sources. But it is testament to the tenacity and dedication of the Army personnel who worked tirelessly to give Matt Maupin the best homecoming they could manage under very challenging circumstances.

The only certainty about Matt Maupin's last moments in captivity is that he was an American soldier, he defied his captors, and he resisted until the bitter end. He will be missed by all, and our prayers should be with his son and the rest of his family.

It should be noted that two American soldiers remain missing, not mentioned in the AP story. They are Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty, abducted during a May 12, 2007 ambush by al Qaeda on their outpost. Undeterred by fear and doubt and sadness, we must continue to search for them and ensure they come home, one way or another.
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In other Iraq news, the Washington spin machine is already at work trying to manipulate the Basra situation as "proof" that the surge has failed. It must be noted that Basra has not been subjected to the Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy. It was subject to the British zone of occupation, where the British tried "soft" counterinsurgency tactics that were aimed at building goodwill. The tangible result is that Shiite militiamen grew in numbers and firepower, drove out police and other government authorities, and assumed de facto control of Basra. By summer 2005, violence against the Brits in Basra spiked, and Royal Army forces retreated to defensive positions which made it impossible to deal with the militias.

While the Shiite militias grew in military strength, they were also empowered politically through gains in the polls. They control a sizable bloc of the Iraqi parliament, hold key cabinet positions, and have the power to bring the fragile government to a crashing halt.

The genius of Moqtada al Sadr lies not in his military tactics, but his political maneuvering. He understands that America must keep the Baghdad government together, he understands that America is too religiously-sensitive to give pursuit when his militia takes refuge in religious shrines, he exploits sectarian violence to undermine the American position while building political support for his militia, and he understands the American public's reluctance for continued warfare. His militia is a poor excuse for a military unit, but all of its tactics thus far have created the desired political effects: degrading security, furthering sectarian tension, and discrediting America's efforts to build a broad-based, parliamentary government.

I truly believe that Moqtada's political power is an insurmountable obstacle to military action against his militia at this stage in the game. He can only be destroyed in the same way he has built power: politically. He needs to be depicted as a sower of sectarian violence, rather than the solution to the needs of Iraqis. During provincial elections this October, the only means for undermining him is a broad-based coalition of Sunni nationalists, Kurdish democrats, and Shiite secularists. Forging such a coalition will be extremely difficult, but the leaders of all these factions must be made to realize that the alternative is Moqtada al Sadr gaining a plurality of seats in parliament and establishing himself as Tehran's enforcer over Iraq. While I don't hold too much hope in the short term for using "soft" power to peel away elements of the Sadrist movement, it's worth trying as the only viable strategy in the run-up to elections.

Assuming that the US and its allies can pull off a miracle and unseat the Sadrists at the polls, there's always the risk that the Mahdi Army would be unleashed in full force. If that's what goes down, the gloves will have to come off, and the militia will have to be destroyed militarily.

The most foolish actor here is Nouri al Maliki, for ordering a military operation which would certainly fracture his government. While he and his army showed initiative, it was the wrong fight at the wrong time for the embattled government. The only upside is that the use of Iraqi Army and US airpower working in synergy is a model for future counterinsurgency in Iraq.

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