Shanghai Tan

The thing that I like about The Hurt Locker is realism; the way it shows fear, hatred, racism, egoism, hope, justice and determination to accomplish a mission. It’s refreshing to see a war movie from Hollywood where there is no Superman, no James Bond, no Rambo, no super sergent that can do everything including bending between bullets’ trajectory. While the movie is trying to show that war is a drug, war is addictive (it is to some), war could give a meaning to life, and so on, what I saw is totally different…

Overreaching is a deadly sin for any empire in human history, starting with the Roman empire, the Byzantine empire, the Mongol empire, the Ottoman empire, the Spanish empire, the British empire, the Napolean empire, the Russian empire, and now the American empire with its 800 military bases around the world. In most cases the empire’s military and financial strength was not challenged by any external entity, but it ended up collapsing on its own weight.

A half-million army strong, all highly educated of various technical qualifications, healthy and energetic, disciplined and patriotic, creative and determined; sent to a far away desert to fight for the empire’s desire to dominate a region where it is admittedly unpopular and unwelcomed. Behind this half-million army there is a colossal crew of highly skilled (and well paid) support personels and private contractors of all sort, working at home and abroad, to handle the logistic of a remote war. It is estimated that for every soldier sent to the war zone there are two support personels behind him, so we’re talking of effectively one million additional head counts of highly skilled and well paid workers just for this war!

Just imagine for a moment, rather than being the most efficient killing machine of all time, if we could deploy this 1.5 million active people (roughly the size of a nordic country) to create value for America, such as building infrastructure, schools, hospitals and industries, how that would have been better? Imagine if deploying them to research on curing diseases instead of deadly explosive chemistry, research on green technology instead of blowing up the world, create high-tech gadget instead of high-tech weapon, give a hand to civilians instead of pointing guns at them? Not only America could greatly benefit from them to remain the world superpower for another century, the world could also benefit from a prosperous America!

Instead of spending over $3 trillions on the war on terror, if that could be spent on creating value to humanity, these people could stay in their country, with their families, and build a much stronger country. Wasn’t that the purpose of fighting terrorism anyway? Why is every empire so eager to “make” an enemy of its own and fighting that so relentlessly to a point of self-destruction?

Unfortunately, the empire is sticking on its own agenda………………………………………………………….

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