Red Dawn imitated art

[Newsjock]

Edit to add link, change title to conform
http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/2003-12-17-red-dawn_x.htm

By CESAR G. SORIANO
USA TODAY

When U.S. troops set out to capture Saddam Hussein on Saturday, they first had to choose a name for their mission. It had to be relevant. It had to be inspiring. Most of all, it had to be cool.

Operation Red Dawn was born.

... "Operation Red Dawn was so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie," says Army Capt. Geoffrey McMurray, who picked the name.

... "I think all of us in the military have seen 'Red Dawn,'" said McMurray, 29. The Glendora, Calif., resident first saw the film when he was 10 years old.

... "How cool is that?" says (film star Lea) Thompson, when told about the movie's connection to Saddam. "Especially in mid-America, that's, like, everybody's favorite movie. I had the best time ever making that movie. I got to be a boy, shooting guns and riding horses," she says.

more to come

[izzie]

1. Oh I do not believe that.

You know there is a group at DOD that spends all their time just thinking up all those silly names.

[MrSoundAndVision]

17. Oh I absolutely believe that

I was raised on an Air Force base, and I'll tell you that was my favorite movie, you should watch it. It's not good or anything, but it does instill this sense of cool angry patriotism in a kid, it really does. The stars of that movie are portraying kids in high school when America is attacked (Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, the girl from Dirty Dancing, and others I can't remember). I'll never forget how the RPG's in that movie sound (thhhhwaaarreeewwwww)

[saigon68]

27. RED DAWN A MOVIE FOR THE RESISTENCE

If you love Booby Traps and the occupier getting their ass kicked and the shit blown out of them---- you'll love RED DAWN.

It is in my top 5 films of all time. They should show it to the troops in IRAQ. But they won't, because it shows the occupiers as BEASTS, WAR CRIMINALS and THUGS and the Resistence as HEROES.

The Jennifer Grey character is my favorite even though she gets killed.

No quarter is expected by the resistence and none is given. It is really Viet-Nam told from the side of the Cong. Milius wrote it, I doubt seriously he would, let it be shown to the troops.

I don't think even he, could imagine the Depths to which our fine country has descended, because of the thuggish, criminal hooligan, leadership we now have.

Bad for moraale and all that. Because the occupier is VERY VERY EVIL !!!!

[cryofan]

2. This kind of "news" is great for distracting us from the fact that....

...we have the poorest welfare state in The West.

[thebigidea]

3. what?

"Especially in mid-America, that's, like, everybody's favorite movie."

talk about freakin' delusional.

[MrPrax]

4. Here's the Link...

{b}Hail Jim Hickey, "Irish Hero" of the
Colonial Occupation of Iraq

By HARRY BROWNE

"Check out, for example, Captain Christopher Cirino of the 82nd Airborne, who told an English journalist in Fallujah a few weeks ago: "The men we are being attacked by are Syrian-trained terrorists and local freedom fighters."

That's right. He said "freedom fighters".

Now check out the codenames employed in the weekend swoop for Saddam Hussein near Tikrit. 'Red Dawn', they called it, with suspected Iraqi-resistance locations tagged 'Wolverine 1' and 'Wolverine 2'.

Press comments have noted that 'Red Dawn', a 1984 John Milius flick that chronicles a Soviet invasion of the US, is a favourite movie of American right-wingers. What hasn't often been pointed out is that the heroes of 'Red Dawn' are a brave band of ragged small-town resisters to the invasion, and they call themselves 'Wolverines'.

More...at
http://www.counterpunch.org/browne12182003.html

I guess USA Today needs more time to re-write Browne's observations

[rapier]

5. Godzilla attacks

Red Dawn's premise was so silly that it made Godzilla look plausable in comparison.

The US taken over by a few UN and Cuban troops. What a scream. Forget the military. For 75 million American men this would be a wet dream come true.

Grab your guns boys, were going out there to fight.

I never get upset about or take seriously the politics of movies. I leave that for the right. I only note that Red Dawn's little fairy tale is based upon an ignorance of America and military logistics that is so profound as to defy comprehension. As I said, an attack by Godzilla is more believable.

[GregW]

6. OF COURSE they chose "Red Dawn"

The parallel is obvious ...

Both stories feature patriotic freedom fighters resisting the oppression of an evil, occupying nation!

[frylock]

7. the irony here is unfreakinbelievable..

do you think that Army Capt. Geoffrey McMurray is able to see the similarities between that movie and the current occupation?!

[karlschneider]

8. We need a new English word...for "the jupiterian failure to detect irony",

maybe "oxyironic"?

No, that's too cumbersome...I guess I'll have to stick with "too fucking stupid to describe"...
:eyes:

[MSchreader]

20. How about

Omnironic? :shrug:

Martin

[LiberalFighter]

9. I had to read the posts to be sure...

I wonder what the hell those "troops" were smoking or getting wasted on. Either now or back when they watched the movie.

What the hell is the connection between that movie and the Saddam capture? The freedom fighters weren't even out of high school. And they were fighting against the occupiers not being the occupiers.

I saw that movie and enjoyed it too but whoever connected that movie with the Saddam mission must be right wing nut repugs.

[arcane1]

10. this must be the "color" that McLellan was talking about

in other words, the horseshit they add to their PR events to give them human interest, and little juicy details for the water coolers...

[IndianaGreen]

11. Actually, the film "Red Dawn" is an inspirational anti-occupation movie

Collaborators are summarily executed, and no quarter is given to the occupying forces.

Red Dawn should be shown to all peoples living under foreign occupation today.

They saw a movie which they did not understand!

[Minstrel Boy]

12. "Avenge me, boys! Avenge me!"

Harry Dean Stanton, calling out to his sons, resistance fighters, from behind razor wire.

Iraqis are just wild about Harry.

[Don_G]

13. Yeah, Right....

In the absences of "imagination", politics followed "Art" for a change.

Where for are "Art" though?

[Lisa]

14. most 10-year-olds could tell between occupied and occupiers!

I guess these guys weren't paying attention, as various other people have pointed out here!

"Red Dawn", "Amerika", and even "Star Wars" -- I wonder if US troops will cheer quite as loudly when they watch the scenes of the occupying power being blown up, on DVD?

[kalian]

16. Especially, when they see the convoys being attacked....

and the troops being slaughtered by the resistance...

Hmmm... :eyes:

[kalian]

15. What a bunch of friggin MORONS....

:eyes:
"...so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie."
Umm...yeah, but the US was the country invaded and OCCUPIED. Hello
McFly! Hello!
If you project it upon Iraq...Iraq and its people are invaded and
OCCUPIED by the US...

Oh man...oh man...oh man.... How stupid can these people be...?
:shrug:

[Military Brat]

18. I have absolutely no idea what that movie was about

Never saw it. But I guarantee you, when I heard the words "Operation Red Dawn," I almost gagged on the Hollywood-like association. Now I know why.

How about "Operation Big-Time Distraction"? Just once, bushies, please call something what it is.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

19. Wolverines!!

John Milius is a right-wing nut. But i loved that movie! Some people don't know that John Milius wrote pieces of Apocalypse Now, and actually wrote an ending that had Col. Kurtz and Martin Sheen's character joining forces and killing VC together at the end. AHAHHAHA. He's a chicken-hawk director who always does pro-right pieces.

Me and friends in the 80's loved Red Dawn. I remember on many occasions being frightened that the Russians were coming after seeing that movie. I believe what John Milius was getting at with Red Dawn, aside from the whole anti-Soviet bullshit, was a juxtapositioning of the Vietnam experience INTO the U.S. The result is quite frightening.

[MercutioATC]

21. I agree completely, but it's kinda funny yelling "Wolverines!" now...

Enjoyed the movie...hated the war...


Ever think of how the two girls (Leah Thompson and whomever), were hiden in a "spider hole" originally...

[daleo]

22. Hard to believe this is a mistake or irony

More likely reframing the public, black is white, purposeful Orwellian doublethink, that sort of thing.

[nyrnyr1994]

23. While they're stuck on using 80s movies for missions...

Let's hope the next operation isn't called "The Last Crusade" :shrug:

[Dogmudgeon]

24. My proposals for military ops names

Operation Falcon and Snowman
Operation War of the Roses
Operation Fernwood Tonight
Operation Battlefield Earth
Operation Repo Man
Operation Where the Boys Are
Operation Lord Love a Duck
Operation When Harry Met Sally
Operation Waterworld
Operation Apocalypse Now
Operation Hudsucker
Operation Death of Belushi
Operation Bewitched
Operation Effective Gamma Rays On Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds
Operation Lost In Space
Operation Jeopardy
Operation Peyton Place
Operation Wackiest Ship in the Army
Operation Triumph the Insult Comic President
Operation Sixteen Candles
Operation Breakfast At Tiffany's
Operation Colored Girls Who've Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf
Operation Hey Dude Where's Osama
Operation Maltese Bippy
Operation Tiger Makes Out
Operation Last Virgin In (America/Iraq/Afghanistan/North Korea)
Operation Animal House
Operation Dottie's Spanking
Operation Slums of Beverly Hills
Operation American Psycho
Operation Krippendorf
Operation No Crying In Baseball
Operation One Ring To Bomb Them All
Operation 2001: An Electoral Oddity
Operation Great Train Robbery
Operation It's A Gift
Operation Wonderful Life
Operation Dernier Combat
Operation How I Won The War
Operation Gripweed
Operation Gone With the Wind

... and that's just off the top of my pointed little head.

--bkl
No need to ask, he's a smooth operator ...

[Fovea]

25. oooohhhh

I like Operation Repo Man.

We even have the radiation sickness theme.

[bushisanidiot]

28. Operation When Harry Met Sally! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!

omigod! that was hilarious!

diet coke through the nose buuuuurrrrnnss!!

[et in Arcadia ego...]

26. Should have been called operation: "LIGHT-CRUDE DAWN"!

But with all the blood being spilled, I guess "RED" Dawn is appropriate.