The Propaganda of "Red Dawn"

The movie Red Dawn, from 1984, was on TV last night and this movie has many of the answers to why right wing conservatives exist. National Review Online has named the film #15 in its list of 'The Best Conservative Movies'

If no followup questions are allowed, "Red Dawn" gives a plausible explanation of

1. Why the survivalist movement is so important
2. Why Americans must keep their guns until they are pried from their cold, dead hands.
3. Why hunting is a fundamental skill that must be taught to all children
4. Why teenagers must have pickup trucks, and why four wheel drive could be important.
5. The importance of high school spirit, and the need for football teams.
6. What is wrong with communism
7. What is wrong with the Green Party
8. What is wrong with NATO
9. Why America is great and always will remain great
10. Why liberals are so easy to brainwash
11. Why Nicaragua needs to be destroyed

This movie was made long before the Iraq and Afghan war, so I will forgive the filmmakers for glorifying terrorism, and insurgency when the shoe is on the other foot.

One particular event in the movie got me thinking. A young American teenage girl, after an attack where she is wounded, managed to kill one of the attackers with a hand grenade. For an almost exact mirror image of this situation, check out the case of Omar Khadr, currently being tried at Guantanamo. Apparently, back in the eighties, was not illegal for a teenager to kill an invading enemy soldier with a hand grenade. Today it is.

In another scene, one of the the teenage insurgents is explaining why they have to kill the Communist troops. The answer is an emotional "Because we live here". Oooops. Isn't that the same reason why the Iraqi and Taliban are fighting the American Marines? And the Indians of the old west fought the cowboys? But you almost have to be a liberal to figure that out.

http://www.pluckyoutoo.com/2009/03/red-dawn.html

Another review from a bad speller, but still he makes a good point. "this soviet army that kicked our armies ass is somehow defeated by a small gang of poorly armed children who have no combat skill whatsoever"

The conservatives have not given up their philosophy after watching this movie twenty years later. Here is a conservative website "Dirty Harry's Place" in 2008, frustrated with the liberal attitude to Red Dawn:

"Using guerrilla tactics to wage a war against military targets versus using them to kill civilians… that’s the difference between a military unit(the Wolverines), and terrorists(Iraqi “insurgents”). And it’s a big difference, liberals."

This observation, I would say is about the best argument presented on this conservative web page. The only unfairness I can see would be that it is a comparison between a fictional unit (Wolverines) and a real world insurgency (Iraq.)

But if we compare real world to real world situation, we have to take the example of the US military in Iraq. We all know that the US has been unable to avoid killing civilians in a real insurgency, but still claims to not be targeting civilians. What does that mean?

1. The civilians may have been killed because they were in the wrong place when a nearby bomb was dropped

2. The US thought the civilians might have been insurgents, and had to kill them for fear of their own safety.

Why do the terrorists target civilians in real life situations?

1. Military targets are often too well defended (by a competent military, unlike a fictional but incompetent military)

2. They may kill civilians who are collaborating with the occupation

3. They may kill civilians of a different race than themselves, in self defence or in a pre-emptive strike

4. Sometimes what is called "deliberate targeting" is actually an accident, poor aim, or mistaken identity

5. Some of what we call "civilians" are actually mercenaries, for example, the US refers to Blackwater as "contractors"

6. Civilians thought to be feeding information to the US military for air strikes.

7. The civilian settlers, brought in to take land away from the original people.

I am not arguing for the killing of civilians. But obviously, in a fictional situation where you are trying to make one side look good, you will not deliberately show the "good guys" killing innocent people. (see "The Hurt Locker" for example). That's the difference between a propaganda war movie and real war.