Saw Jarhead this afternoon. Good movie, not as brilliant as Full Metal Jacket, my fave American war movie, but seeing as I actually have memory of the first Bush Saddam smackdown, it hits the pressure spots in my brain in a different way, apart from just aesthetically.
Good enough to get as a DVD perhaps. And from what I remember of the time, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unpleasantness in Romania, and having Gorbachev preaching perestroika in the Kremlin, the media of the day was basically saying it was the end of history, and that we in the West had won. Bush saying 'new world order' and all that crap.
Saddam's takeover of Kuwait set all that on its head, and the first full scale war that I can remember. There was the 'minor' operation to get rid of Noriega in Panama, but I clearly remember the whole thing of the Iraqi million man army being battle hardened against the Iranians over the previous eight years, and the whole trepidation of how many casualties there would be.
The dulcet tones of Peter Jennings announcing the war had started, on early afternoon television in New Zealand, and the television going to a live feed from CNN of the bombing of Baghdad. And that continuing for four weeks - apart from the TV live feed of course.
It's kind of depressing how easy it is to forget aspects of that war - the one that I keep forgetting is the whole burning oil fields trick the retreating Iraqis did. And any further comment I will make on this issue will messily dovetail into the current occupation, so I think I better shut up now LOL.
Good soundtrack on the movie as well :)
Pauly
Good enough to get as a DVD perhaps. And from what I remember of the time, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unpleasantness in Romania, and having Gorbachev preaching perestroika in the Kremlin, the media of the day was basically saying it was the end of history, and that we in the West had won. Bush saying 'new world order' and all that crap.
Saddam's takeover of Kuwait set all that on its head, and the first full scale war that I can remember. There was the 'minor' operation to get rid of Noriega in Panama, but I clearly remember the whole thing of the Iraqi million man army being battle hardened against the Iranians over the previous eight years, and the whole trepidation of how many casualties there would be.
The dulcet tones of Peter Jennings announcing the war had started, on early afternoon television in New Zealand, and the television going to a live feed from CNN of the bombing of Baghdad. And that continuing for four weeks - apart from the TV live feed of course.
It's kind of depressing how easy it is to forget aspects of that war - the one that I keep forgetting is the whole burning oil fields trick the retreating Iraqis did. And any further comment I will make on this issue will messily dovetail into the current occupation, so I think I better shut up now LOL.
Good soundtrack on the movie as well :)
Pauly
No comments:
Post a Comment