A Movie Worth Seeing

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The movie "Stop Loss" (2007) outlines, in dramatic and personal ways, the cost of this obscene war in Iraq. This is not the economic cost, which is astronomical; it will take our children decades to pay it off, since the war has cost approximately three trillion (million million) dollars.

All this money was used to feed the greed of oil-executives and the politicians in their pockets. But the war went tragically wrong, and was a stupid idea in the first place. Nearly one million people have been killed in the Middle East-- all due to this war and its aftermath; and an astonishing number have been women and children. The movie, however, speaks to a higher cost of the war-- much higher. For its cost in terms of emotion are immense. And when a person has served his time in the army, and then, is expected to return to duty, the horrors are even deeper, and worse.

Lives, and entire families, are destroyed by this careless policy. And the lives of so many who survive the war are so irreversibly ruined that one might say that the "lucky" ones were those four thousand American girls and boys who so tragically and horrifyingly perished there. The movie also gives us a glimpse into the nightmare of some who survived, but might have wished that they had died.

This movie will move your heart; if you are a sensitive type, it will bring you to tears-- several times. The movie is a touching protest to a war that has killed thousands of American girls and boys and hundreds of thousands of Islamic people-- all to be laid at the door of careless American imperialism and greed for oil.

When are we finally going to drop the most expensive habit in the world-- that of relentless, incessant greed? It is far more dangerous, expensive, and harmful than any drug-habit. We would never consider electing anyone with a serious drug-habit to the White House. So, let us refuse also to elect anyone who has this more terrible habit-- that of unquenchable greed and obscene violence.
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