What should the U.S. do about ISIS's advance in Iraq? Absolutely nothing.

     The hot topic of the month is how Iraq is falling to Al-Qaida, but even that headline isn't exactly correct and is problematic at best. Everyone, including several people who no one should pay attention to, (we'll get that), is giving their opinion about what the U.S. should do in Iraq. You know my answer is?
      Absolutely nothing. Here's why.
      First of all, let's get something out of the way. Do not listen to any advice given by the likes of Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Sean Hannity, etc, about what we should do in Iraq now. Given how utterly disastrous the Iraq war was, why the fuck would anyone listen to the same people who orchestrated it and supported it? It's like watching a drunk person crash a car, them get right out, and say "Okay let me teach you how to drive a car."
      Okay, so now that we're done with that tangent, let's go onto the actual reasons.

     1. There is no one that, morally, we can back in this fight. Both sides are awful, disgusting, terrible, bloodthirsty, and power hungry organizations that do not care about how many people they have to oppress or kill to get what they want. Both ISIS, (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), and the Maliki government have committed acts of terrorism, oppression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. ISIS has killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, oppressed the people they rule with a harsh and brutal mockery of Sharia law, oh, and they share the same ideology as Al-Qaida, as if you didn't need more reason to hate these people.
     Contrary to what the media implies by its sheer silence on this, the Maliki government is not any better than ISIS. That's right: the government we put into power and have wasted billions of dollars on is just as bad as Al-Qaida. Now you wonder why people hate us, and don't want us to "help" anywhere else in the world with our money and guns? I mean, imagine if another country kept on overthrowing distant and weak governments to put in Al-Qaida puppet governments.
       See what some human rights organizations have to say about this wonderful Maliki government we've imposed on the Iraqi people in the name of "freedom and democracy":
      "30,000 Iraqis are held without trial or charge. Some are denied access to doctors and medications, and many are tortured. The Iraqi government has yet to investigate allegations of torture, especially in the cases forced confessions which led to death sentences." http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iraq
     "Methods included suspension by the limbs for long periods, beatings with cables and hosepipes, the infliction of electric shocks, breaking of limbs, partial asphyxiation with plastic bags, and sexual abuse including threats of rape. Torture was used to extract information from detainees and “confessions” that could be used as evidence against them at trial." http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-iraq-2013?page=2
    "Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of Iraqi women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse. Iraq’s weak judiciary, plagued by corruption, frequently bases convictions on coerced confessions, and trial proceedings fall far short of international standards. Many women were detained for months or even years without charge before seeing a judge." http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/06/iraq-security-forces-abusing-women-detention
      Does this seem like the type of government you want your tax money to be going to? Too bad, we already give them millions of dollars every year.

     Critics will say "Well, the Iraqi government and ISIS may be bad, but the Iraqi government doesn't have evil world domination on it's agenda, so it's less of a threat than ISIS, so it's okay to support them." That doesn't mean anything. To the Iraqi citizen being brutalized by either side, it doesn't make a difference to his/her suffering whether their tormentor has world domination on their mind or not. North Korea and Syria don't want world domination, but they are still evil, sadistic tyrannical regimes that we cannot morally support. 

     2. Anything we try to do would just increase suffering. No matter whatever noble intentions the U.S. may or may not have, whatever they have done to Iraq in the past has just screwed up the country even more. Take a look at the country's history of interactions with Iraq:

•      1980-1988: Iran-Iraq war, in which the U.S. government gave and sold millions of dollars worth in military hardware and weapons to Iraq. Iraq used all of this not only to fight Iran, but to oppress and kill its own citizens. This is a prime example of the U.S. financing the suffering and oppression of foreign civilians. 
• 1990-1991: Gulf War. We bombed the shit out of them. 
• 2003-2011? Iraq War: Do I even need to say anything about this? This war fucked over Iraqis for decades to come. Over what? Over a bunch of lies that evil rich men made up so they could get more power and money.  

    Think about it. All of the options that the war-mongers and naive liberals are advocating for would only make the situation worse, and contribute to #1 of this list.

• Aerial bombing to support Iraqi ground troops: This is the most discussed about option, considering how well it worked in Libya. But this option is rife with negatives. We'll mostly likely hit civilians/friendly armed irregulars/Iraqi soldiers, either because ISIS is embedded in civilian areas, or our pilots can't aim worth shit. That's bad. It's going to cost a bunch of money that we don't have. Aerial bombings means we're going to have to have bases where the planes come back after a run. That's a target for ISIS. Bombing requires eyes on the ground to identify targets, that means more boots on the ground. Aerial bombing is directly attacking ISIS, which gives them the right to attack us back in legitimate self-defense. You cannot bomb the fuck outta people, and then when they hit back, cry "Oh terrorism!" They can attack us in Iraq, or they can attack us anywhere over the globe. Do we really need to piss off more violent extremists?
•  Military advisors to Iraq still puts our troops in harms way. Iraq can use the tactics and strategies we teach them in counter-insurgency against their population. They already use our money, weapons, and facilities to oppress their population without repercussion, so why wouldn't they use our knowledge?  
• Military aid. Already said why that was a bad idea in #1. 

      3. If we attack ISIS, then ISIS will attack us back. This expands on a point made in the 4th bullet point of #2.  You can't say "oh cuz they're terrorists they don't have rights, and certainly not the right to self-defense." Sorry, just because you call someone a terrorist, doesn't mean that suddenly logic doesn't apply to them and they don't have any rights. If it was that way, then a country could start any war with any country, call that country a terrorist, and then proceed to do whatever it wants to it. Oh wait, the U.S. already does that, and it makes no fucking sense.
     9/11/12 Benghazi was a direct consequence of us bombing Libya in 2011. Some Libyans who were still loyal to the Gaddafi regime saw an opportunity to get back at us for our role in overthrowing Gaddafi. So if we bomb ISIS, guess what they're going to do? Probably the same thing, only it'll be on a much bigger scale because ISIS is a lot more powerful than the remnants of Gaddafi's army.

     4. It'll be expensive. Bombing Libya cost us, on average, $2 billion a day, http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/03/28/the-real-cost-of-u-s-in-libya-two-billion-dollars-per-day/. Since we did that for 220 days, guess what, that is an estimated cost of $440 billion. Do we fucking look like we have $440 billion to support a fascist government's death grip on power? With our economy still wrecked, infrastructure crumbling, education system in shambles, border open to thousands of illegal immigrant crossings every year, I can think of 10 good places I'd rather put that $440 billion than in a bombing campaign against ISIS.     

     5. It won't hurt us if the Iraq state breaks apart, or if ISIS takes over. Contrary to the fear mongering of the warmongers, the world will not freeze over if ISIS takes control of Iraq. Nations that have hated us have existed for decades without bothering us, or, at the most, a mild annoyance, like North Korea, Vietnam doesn't particularly like us, Sudan, Pakistan, etc. If the new Iraq hates us, who the fuck cares? For the average Iraqi, their situation won't change. They'll go from being under the boot of radical fascists to being under the boot of radical religious extremists. Feels exactly the same. If ISIS wants to attack us, they'll attack us. Having a country won't change a thing. You don't need a country to launch an attack, you need one house, or one cave. And if you expect U.S. troops to be everywhere in the world to avoid terrorists from using one room to plan a terrorist attack, then you might be a fascist, (Jeff Foxworthy accent).

      6. ISIS isn't Al-Qaida. News flash: not every Muslim guy with a beard and an AK-47 is Al-Qaida. I know that breaks your fragile little way of looking at the world, but there's these pesky things called facts and reality. ISIS is only inspired by certain pieces of Al-Qaida ideology. That's it. That's the only link. But the media will never, ever say what this inspiration exactly is. My guess is that they're not saying because it's probably next to nothing. It's like saying Neo-Nazis are the Nazis that we actually fought in the 1940's. ISIS actually broke away from Al-Qaida over certain undisclosed reasons that again no one feels like telling us. 

      In conclusion, people who will say that this opinion is "isolationist" clearly don't know what the word means. Please tell me how not picking and actively assisting a side between a terrorist group and a fascist government is "isolationist." That's like saying that not getting into a fist fight with every third person you see is being a "coward." Give me a fucking break people. It's not being an isolationist, it's called minding your own fucking God damn business and not actively killing thousands of people every fucking year.

          

Make people uncomfortable by calling out double standards, that's how you bring change

     The media and the majority of Americans' blatant, disgusting, absolutely ridiculously fucking stupid double standards concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been well documented for decades now. And with the newest story of 3 Israeli teens being kidnapped in the West Bank, the double standard is once glaringly in the open for all the world to see.
      The only way to change someone holding a double standard is to call out quickly and decisively, using logic and reason, not preconceived notions or thinking "that's how I was raised."
      Let's start this post by establishing some truths. One: kidnapping any non-combatants for any advantage in combat or for terrorist purposes, of any race or religion, should be abhorred, not tolerated in our society, punished, and called out for what is truly is: a terrorist activity. This means that:

• Any Palestinian combatant who kidnaps an Israeli non-combatant is a terrorist, as you are using force and the threat of violence against a non-combatant. 
• Any Israeli combatant who kidnaps a Palestinian non-combatant is a terrorist. 

     Simply stating this fair, logical statement will get you branded a Jew-hater, an anti-Semite, a radical Muslim terrorist, and a hater of America. You will get threats of deportation by force, violence, and death simply by stating that it's the action that is wrong; it shouldn't matter the race or religion of the perpetrator or the victim. Don't believe me? Look at my post "Some hate Muslims get on a daily basis," and you'll see what people spew out on the Internet. That shows how fucked up most Americans' views on this issue is. To preach equality and against racism is to be a hating American terrorist. Meanwhile, people who preach inequality and racism are accepted in mainstream American society and politics.
     Now that we've established this truth, let's move onto the double standard. In a nutshell, this story of the 3 kidnapped Israeli teens is gaining a lot of attention in the media and in America. So much significantly more attention than any of the documented thousands of times Israeli soldiers have kidnapped Palestinian children. One must wonder: why? Why are people so much more concerned with Jewish people getting kidnapped, but when Muslim children get kidnapped, significantly less people are concerned about it? The actions are the same; the only thing that has changed are the actors. And this how we can determine that is because of racism that this imbalance has happened. People are judging that, depending on the race of the perpetrator and/or the victims, that determines how they will react to such an action.

     And this is the double standard. It shows that they really aren't against kidnapping children, as long as it's a race and/or religion they don't like, then they're fine with it. They're only pushing this kidnapping of the 3 Israeli teens for political purposes; if they were truly against kidnapping, then they would push Israel every time Israel kidnaps or mistreats a Palestinian child. But they don't.
     But, some might say, Israel doesn't kidnap or mistreat children. What are you talking about, they would ask, you radical anti-Semite? All you have to do is a simple Google search, which takes approximately 0.2 seconds, and you will get literally hundreds and hundreds of reports and cases about Israel kidnapping and mistreating Palestinian children by Israeli, Palestinian, American, European, and international NGOs and organizations. Here are some examples:

• http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-government-tortures-children-by-keeping-them-in-cages-human-rights-group-says-9032826.html 
• http://www.redressonline.com/2014/06/remember-israels-abuse-of-palestinian-kids/. "Pointing out that Israel’s treatment of Palestinian children violates international law, the UN report cited terrifying night-time arrests, physical and verbal abuse, painful restraints, denial of access to food, water and toilet facilities, solitary confinement, coerced confessions, lack of access to lawyers and family members, shackling during court appearances and transfer to prisons outside the occupied Palestinian territories." 

     Critics will say that "oh, these Palestinian children were throwing stones at Israelis, so their treatment is justified." I'm sorry, since when that is a rule? Ever heard of innocent until proven guilty? Guess not, its an old American value that most Americans don't believe in anymore. Even if the Israeli military courts convicted these children of throwing stones, as I said above, many confessions were coerced through torture and threats. That means the conviction is no good, because the confession came through a illegitimate way. Give me a hammer and a few nails, and I can coerce anyone in confessing that they hijacked a Martian spaceship and landed in Washington D.C.
      Don't think that these Israeli "arrests" are kidnapping? What else would you call a bunch of masked men breaking down a door to a family's house in the dead of night, grabbing a child from his/her bed, whisking them off away to an undisclosed location, holding them without charges, and not allowing his/her parents, lawyers, etc, from seeing him/her?          

      The media has a blatant double standard about reporting Israeli children deaths and Palestinian children deaths. The evidence is just completely overwhelming: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html
     "In the first year of the current uprising, ABC, CBS, and NBC reported Israeli children’s deaths at 13.8, 6.4, and 12.4 times the rate of Palestinian children’s deaths. In 2004 these large differentials were also present, although they decreased in two cases, with deaths of Israeli children covered at rates 9.0, 12.8, and 9.9 times greater than the deaths of Palestinian children by ABC, CBS, and NBC, respectively. Given that in 2004 22 times more Palestinian children were killed than Israeli children, this category holds particular importance. We could find no basis on which to justify this inequality in coverage." 

    Not only that, but the major media outlets repeated coverage of the same Israeli children deaths, to make it look like there were more causalities than were actually were, while, at the same time, omitted reports on Palestinian children's deaths, to make it look like there were less casualties than were actually were. How fucking fucked up is this?! People are using children's deaths for political purposes. Fucking sick!!

    The same thing is happening in the media right now concerning the three kidnapped Israeli teens. All major news outlets have multiple articles about this one kidnapping incident, it's all over the Internet, pundits can't stop talking about it, how it shows that all Palestinians are terrorists and that Israel is the victim, etc, etc. Yet when hundreds of Palestinian children get kidnapped by Israeli terrorists every year? Nothing, maybe a short little blurb here and there, but basically nothing. Not a word of speaking out. Which means they're perfectly fine with it. As long as it's Arab children getting kidnapped, the sick disgusting media outlets are fine with it. 

     One vital piece of information that the media outlets conveniently leaves out when talking about the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds the Palestinian government responsible for the kidnapping: the kidnapping took place in a section of the West Bank that Israeli forces have complete control over and Palestinian forces cannot govern at all. It occurred in Area C of the West Bank, in which Israeli law clearly states that Israeli forces are the security forces of this area, and Palestinian forces, under no circumstances, are allowed to do anything in Area C. How fucked up is that? Stealing someone's territory, and then blaming them for not preventing a kidnapping on that stolen territory that you won't allow their policemen to go onto?  

     In conclusion, this double standard will continue to happen until people like you and me counter it. If you see it in the newspaper, write a letter to the editor calling out this disgusting double standard. If you see it on an online article, write a comment, (if it has a forum), calling it out. If your stupid greedy rich fuck of a senator says something about it in Congress, write a letter to them. If one of your so called friends, (wait, you have friends that support double standards based on religion and race?!), writes about it on any social media forum, counter it, call it out. That is the only way we can bring around change, by showing people, through logic and reason, that they are fundamentally wrong. If you're against kidnapping, then you're against kidnapping no matter the race or religion of the victim and perpetrator. If you make exceptions to your so called morale, then its not a real morale. You can't be against rape, but then think rape is okay against a certain race because you hate them.    

      

  

 

Why Do People Hate Live Action Disney Movies?

     I felt I should write about this because I am re-reading the John Carter series and feeling near euphoria while reading it because those books are such kick ass and reminiscing about how the Disney movie, (based on the first book A Princess of Mars), was so good and got me into the series in the first place.
     But we'll get to John Carter in a little bit. Let's take a step back. I've found that nearly every live action Disney movie after Pirates of the Caribbean has gotten negative reviews from critics, and my friends and other people I talk to generally dislike them. For the most part, I have no idea why. Most of their complaints don't make sense to me. The three Disney movies I'm going to be talking about are Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, The Lone Ranger, and John Carter. The first one was okay, the second one was pretty good, and the last one was amazing.
     So let's get the first one outta the way:

 

     I would have to give this movie a 5/10. 

     Pros: 

• Scenery and locales are beautiful and very well made.
• Action was so-so.
• Given the limitations of the script and director, Jake Gyllenhaal did very well in his acting and did his best to bring the Prince to life. The Prince and Tamina's teasing each other and double crossing each other is amusing and is probably the one thing that stayed true to the video game. 

     Cons:

• Prince of Persia The Sands of Time is my all time favorite video game. I was obsessed with this game in high school. It is utterly flawless. So my #1 complaint about this movie is that it didn't stay true to the video game in even it's basic premises. In the game, you fight sand zombies. There was not a single sand zombie in the movie. In the game, the princess, Farrah, fights along side you with a bow and arrows. In the movie, Tamina just whines with her annoying ass voice.
• Action could've been better. In the video game, there is a lot of stabbing and slashing. The Prince slices zombies completely in two halves in 2 strikes. The death toll is in the hundreds by the end of the game. But the action in the movie is mostly a mixture of chasing and chaotic just trying to stay alive type of fighting. It was a kiddie, toned down sort of fighting that was not fitting for this movie. I don't know what Disney was thinking when they churned this out.
• No memorable music at all. One of the best things about the video game is it's soundtrack. Here's my favorite track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKwbptphnVU. It was the perfect blend of Middle Eastern and hard rock music. In the movie? Nothing, just generic orchestra movie music that does nothing to excite or immerse me in anything. 

    Out of all of the three movies I'm reviewing, this one is the one that peoples' complaints make the most sense to me. I can definitely see where they're coming from. All I'm saying is that it was just a decent movie. For people who didn't play the video game, which I'm guessing are the majority of people, it would've been fine.

     Second movie:

          
      Overall grade: 7/10
      Pros:

• Good storyline, keeps you drawn in. Has character development, characters are memorable, good villains, etc.
• Action is pretty darn good. The final scene with the William Overture finale was insane and very entertaining.
• Johnny Depp plays a good Tonto. I know there were many criticisms on this role, but none of them make any freaking sense. Tonto is a weird character, hence, Johnny Depp has to be weird. Nothing he does is "racist" towards Native Americans. The film goes out of its way to point out that Tonto bizarre actions are not the results of any Native American culture, it's simply because Tonto is a weird creepy dude. Even his own tribe says that. So are people saying its racist to have a Native American role that is anything but 100% positive? What the shit logic is that?!
• The movie length of 2 1/2 hours didn't bother me at all, because I was entertained the entire time.   

     Cons:

•  Except for the William Overture finale, the rest of the movie lacked in the music department. Nothing really memorable. As in Prince of Persia, just bland stereotypical movie music. 
• Western movies just aren't my thing, which is why this movie rating isn't higher. So it's nothing against this particular movie, I guess feel that Western movies as a genre ran its last course a long time ago because of all the limitations put on a film because the genre is so narrow. 
• Rebecca Reid, (played by Ruth Wilson), is a boring love interest. I like the love interest in movies to have some flare, a bit of drama, something to keep you interested. Reid is stone faced the entire movie, never showing any emotion, even when she finds out her husband just died. It's like she's in a daze the entire movie. 

     I don't get it when people say they don't like this movie. They can never give me a straight or coherent answer. They usually say something along the lines of "it's racist," referring to Johnny Depp playing a Native American. Since when it is a rule that people have to be the same race of anyone they portray in film? That's all Depp's doing, he's portraying a Native American. He's not saying that he himself is a Native American, or that anything he's doing is of Native American culture.
     Critics have said it has a "bland script." How is an outlaw teaming up with a Native American to avenge his brother against ruthless bandits in the Wild West a bland script? How much more action and conflict can you get in a movie?

      What really doesn't make this criticism any sense is that critics, in the same breath, say this movie is bland, while praising other movies that are just straight up boring as hell, like Avengers, the Book Thief, Captain Phillips, and Iron Man 3. I guess what I find entertaining and what the vast majority of Americans find as entertaining is very different. That's what I'm trying to understand, but so far, no luck.
      People called the plot confusing and impossible to follow. Well, I'm sorry if you people are so fucking stupid you can't follow a basic plot:

1. Bad guy kills good guy.
2. Good guy seeks revenge.
3. Good guy gets help from weird good guy, who was also wronged by a bad guy.
4. Good guys kill bad guy. 

   Okay, final review.

    Overall score: 10/10
    Pros:

• Great storyline. A Civil War veteran gets teleported to Mars, where he gets caught up in the conflict involving the green and red men of Mars. And he meets a Princess of Mars, Dejah Thoris, who he falls in love with. I mean, how does that not sound awesome? It keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time.
• Great action. John Carter is an unstoppable fighting machine. He's a good hero. You want him to win. Every fight is memorable. From rescuing Dejah Thoris to the fight with the white apes to John Carter and Woola taking on an army of green men by themselves to the finale battle at the wedding, the action is just superbly written.
• Scenery is amazing. Great visuals. Seeing this is in I-MAX in theaters was stunning. The huge deserts of Mars and the beautiful cities of the red men was a sight to behold. 
• Characters are unforgettable. John Carter is not a brute, he is a noble warrior with a sense of honor, something the green men of Mars find totally alien, (pun intended). He is a old school gentlemen, something that most films today lack. Dejah Thoris is the gorgeous heroine who is not your stereotypical damsel in distress. She's very smart, she's the one who is trying to figure out how to fix Mars's dying atmosphere with science....stuff, (it doesn't really go into it that much). But the point stands. Sola is a gentle carer in a culture of constant warfare and brutality, someone you can easily sympathize with. Woola is an adorable and loyal "hound."  

                                  

• Villians are good as well. From the savage green men to the Zodangan red men to the mysterious shape shifting white therns, John Carter really has his work cut out for him.

     Cons:

• I mean I guess the music could've been better, it was just alright. 
• As with all movies based off of books, it changed a few things that don't detract from the movie significantly, but could've been better if they left it the same. In the book, there are no shape shifting therns guiding the actions of the red Zodanga men. In fact, the therns aren't even shown till the second book. So why did they introduce them in the first movie? Also, John Carter is much more critical of the green mens' culture in the book than in the movie. In fact, except for the two green friends he makes, Sola and Tars Tarkas, he really hates them. Did they not want him to look racist by cutting that stuff out of the movie?  
• That's all the cons I got, there's a reason why this movie is a 10/10. 

     Conclusion
     I simply do not understand the criticism of John Carter. This was probably the best movie I've seen in theaters since Lord of the Rings The Two Towers in 2002. People, as with The Lone Ranger, say the plot was too hard to follow. I am a complete idiot and I understood the plot with no problem. I mean, a plot has to have twists, otherwise it's boring. Why can't people understand this. Dan Jolin of Empire magazine said the action was "unmemorable." Excuse me? What kind of action do you like? How is this fight "unmemorable?": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7ZeptdPPrU. Other people said it was boring. What is your peoples' definition of the word "action packed" and "boring" because apparently they're the exact opposite of my definitions.
     The sad thing about John Carter being a total flop and gutting any chances of completing the trilogy, is that the books only get better. The Gods of Mars is my favorite book out of the three. The action only gets more intense from here on out. Imagine Peter Jackson doing the Fellowship of the Ring movie and then not doing the other two. WE'RE MISSING OUT ON SO MUCH GOOD SHIT PEOPLE. 
     With complete shit movies making hundreds of millions of dollars now in days, and people raving about how good they are, and with very good movies making almost no money and having people tear into them, it appears I do not understand the human race at large.