A Great "Wake-Up America and Smell the Brimstone" movie

Rating: 10/10 (29 March 2008)

Every man, woman, and child in America should see this film. It will, in time, I believe, go down as one of the all-time great American urban warfare movies.
To be sure, there was no scarcity of fodder to feed anti-war political rhetoric throughout most of the 113 minutes of the film.
The two most memorable scenes, for me were: 1. When Sgt. Brandon King, sought to reverse his "Stop Loss Upon Orders of the President of the United States of America" by appealing to the fairness of his Commanding Officer, he was sternly reminded that the President's Order superseded his own. King's response of "F**k the President of the United States, respectfully, Sir!", brought loud cheers, whistles, and applause from many, not all, in the theater audience.
2. Sgt. Brandon King entered a building in which the enemy combatants had fled. He heard gunfire, then the cries from his advance man, two floors above, that he had been shot. Though wounded, he was warning King, apprising him of the location and number of enemy in the building. Sgt. King fought his way, taking out the enemy, room by room, until he reached his soldier's position. When he found his wounded comrade, he saw, standing before him, an Iraqi appearing to be frightened, holding a boy of 5 or 6 years in his arms. The "Haji" extended his arm from behind the boy, held him like a shield, then dropped a grenade in a suicidal attempt to kill himself, the boy, King and his wounded comrade. Thanks to quick reflexes, King was able to save himself and his soldier; the Iraqi man and boy perished in the blast.
This, for me, was the defining moment. I knew then, without reservation, that The War Against Terror is a war we must win. Forget about all the reasons why we are in this war or why we shouldn't be in it. It's too late for polemics; we're in it and there's no turning back the clock. It's kill or be killed.
As of this moment, what we had thought was a winding down of hostilities, a successful "Surge," was merely a regrouping strategy by the enemy. Fighting has resumed "Big Time," and in areas we had come to believe were calm. Complacency is, indeed, the vacation land of fools.
Americans, with the exception of family and friends of soldiers, have become disconnected from the war. They have become like the spiritually exhausted women of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock," those who only "come and go Talking of Michelangelo." We are fighting a many-headed Hydra with one intention and many names: "Army of the Mahdi," "Militia," "Insurgents," "Al Qaeda," "Shia," "Sunni," "Sufi," etc. One or another of them pretends to temporarily ally with us, but are, in truth, a "Judas" in our midst, a thumb opposing four fingers, but they are one hand.
We are in mortal combat with Evil; make no mistake about it. Islam is not a peaceful religion, its entire motivation is Jihad. It always has been a terrorist religion since before June 8, 632 A.D.
Islam and Terrorism are synonymous.
Islam has always been about murderous conquest. In 732 A.D. the Mediterranean Sea was, for all intents and purposes, a Muslim Lake.
If not for Charles "The Hammer" Martel winning the Battle of Tours in 732 A.D., which has traditionally been characterized as the decisive world historical event, since it preserved western Europe from Muslim conquest and Islamization, you might very well be reading this in Arabic at this moment.
The time has come to take the gloves off and purge the world of this monstrous Evil of Islamofascism forevermore, not in a war of attrition, but one of annihilation.
If we do not prosecute this war with every means available to us now, there will be no one to fight for us in the future. The two, three, four, and five tour volunteers are exhausted, bravely fighting on, though wounded in mind and body.
Soon, over 70,000 American soldiers will begin to suffer the Vietnam Era Agent Orange Syndrome as a result of exposure to Depleted Uranium. What will be your fate when this "Thin Red Line" of courage is no longer able to withstand the Forces of Evil? George Santayana's admonition,"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.", is more true today than ever.