Troop Shortage? I Have A Solution

The MSM are reporting troop shortages in Iraq. I don't believe it.

The gist of the coverage is that some brigades will have to stay longer and some will have to deploy sooner to meet the troop levels needed for the surge. But that's been the plan since the outset -- it's not news. Faced with victories even before the surge takes hold, the media is scrambling for bad news, and has presented standard troop management as bad news.

No surprise there, so let's move on.

Even if MSM are exploiting the situation in their never-ending quest for negativity, given the situation we're in, it's pretty obvious that this world calls for more troops, not fewer.

How are we going to get more troops if every day the news is full of news of defeat, of injuries poorly treated, of discouragement and blackness and doom. Not exactly the stuff that drives guys down to the Recruiters to sign up.

Enter 300.

Speaking for the anti-war Left, Slate columnist Dana Stevens laments that it's just too gung ho -- too much brotherhood among the Spartans, too much sickness among the Persians, too much heroism and willingness to sacrifice for what's right. Too much clarity about who's right and who's wrong.

I saw the movie yesterday afternoon, and it has all of those things, and too much of none of them.

300 is a rousing, bloody, victorious celebration of men fighting for their country and famiies against an enemy that is strong, intimidating and evil. The parallels with today are profound. The Spartans fought for freedom against a society that preferred repression. They fought against "mysticism" that came with Persia, a codeword for Islam, even though Islam did not exist at the time.

The 300 Spartans also fought against anti-war sentiments at home, despite Stevens' myopic claim that there wasn't an anti-war theme in the movie. And in 300's presentation, one side in the anti-war debate is right and one side is wrong -- guess which is which.

There were a lot of young guys in the theater with me, and they dug the movie. A lot. While 300 alone might not drive recruits into the military, it certainly won't turn the spigot further off.

Now, how about a movie about our soldiers in Iraq that isn't all muddied with negative questions and misrepresentations, a movie that just shows good guys kicking bad guys butt?

Propaganda, you say? No way. Every day, good US soldiers are fighting the good fight against really bad guys in Iraq, living in real life screenplays for really amazing movies.

Surely somewhere in Hollywood there's a renegade production company with the courage to stand up to the establishment and make contemporary, pro-American war movies.