Zero Dark Thirty 2: Return of the Navy Seals

I visited the theatre thrice in the last month- twice to watch ABCD (Anybody Can Dance) and once to watch Zero Dark Thirty. ABCD deserves a sequel, and I hear ZDTs sequel is in progress. It’s bigger, badder, better and comes with the subtitle “Return of the (Unemployed) Navy Seals” and Bigelow’s navigating even more controversial waters this time, if the comments section on newspaper articles are anything to go by (there’s a special segment on the internet called hell reserved for those who dare venture into the comments section). Similar to the unemployment Vishnu (played by the legendary dancer and not so legendary actor Prabhu Deva) faces in ABCD after being laid off after years of dedicated service to the dance industry, the dude who shot Osama Bin Laden has retired after 16 years in the Navy Seals and has nowhere to go, no job to take and no medical insurance to enjoy. The man who spent years serving his country and taking out the terrorist with a $25 million bounties on him has no money to pay for his bills. Go figure.

 ZDT Part Two follows the life of this particular Navy Seal. The opening scene is of a confused, angry man at the tender age of 19 banging on the (metaphorical) door of the Navy, being determined to make it because the love of his life had broken his heart. In typical Bigelow (although I’ve seen only one of her movies) style, he is seen doing this several times for long periods of time with no apparent point, till finally he is taken in. Don’t get me wrong, ZDT was great, but the terrorist in the cupboard muttering the days of the week had little relevance to anything at all, yet I spent a good 20 minutes watching him on screen. In an article eloquently titled “The Man Who Killed Osama binLaden... Is Screwed” , former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Phil Bronstein interviewed the Navy Seal (name undisclosed for security reasons) that shot Osama in the Abbottabad Raid in 2011 in a pretty much tell-it-all session. The fact that has been making headlines is that he retired after 16 years of serving the country, 4 years before the required period of time after which Navy personnel enjoy medical insurance and other benefits, and thus doesn’t have definite medical care for his wife and children and cant get a job. This isn’t a problem exclusive to Osama’s badass killer- every year veterans and other ex-military men find it incredibly difficult to transition from the military life to the civilian one because of both PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and the inability to translate their skills from the horrors of the battlefield to the horrors of the desk job.

Fun fact that they should have shown in ZDT: Osama had thousands of tapes stored in his compound (which they did show) but what they didn’t show was that many of these weren’t terror plans for the future but rollicking home videos of chickens, cows, rabbits and dogs! Osama bin Laden more like Osama bin Filming. Speaking of funny (or not so funny, in my case) nicknames, the Navy Seal who killed Osama forbade his kids from saying Osama’s name for security reasons so they now refer to him as “poopyface”. It had been reported that when Osama had gone into depression, he wanted to rename Al Qaeda. It’s not the only thing he’d want to rename methinks.

 Going a little off-track there. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s a special place on the internet called HELL, more affectionately called the comments section. I was scrolling through a few of these because I’m rather self-destructive, and I came across some I really want to highlight.

 JOHN· 4 days ago

This navy seal is a liar and this did not happen the way he said it did. He was set up as a stooge for the crime bosses in Washington…This was all show for Obama"s so he would win another term in office with the help of the Jews in Hollywood. The last thing you people want to do is watch main street television. They are all liars. CNN,FOX,MSNBC,ABC,NBC,CBS all owned by the Jews who have Obama in their back pocket. Believe me Bin Laden was not at that house that night... Don;t buy all these lies

“JOHN” seems quite legitimate, and the CAPS LOCKING of his name really enforces this legitimacy! Obviously, like everything else, Abbottabad was a Jewish conspiracy- how could it not have been I mean come on!

 boomslang· 4 days ago

Ossama bin Laden died many years ago of kidney failure. He had Marfan's disease, Lincoln had that too. It kills. If they shot somebody that day, it was somebody that bore a faint resemblance to the real guy. These people try to treat the rest of us like mushrooms, i. e. Keep us in the dark,and feed us bullshit.

“boomslang” has a point that I think my friend who is vehemently allergic to mushrooms would agree with. Obviously by citing Lincoln he has made his point that much more reliable.

 This little exercise had no point except to drag you readers to hell with myself. I’m not going to debate why ex-military men have so much trouble finding jobs in civilian life (although I’ve introduced a few points) or if this is right or not, but I do feel that a man who has given up a significant portion of his life to fighting for his country (and this doesn’t apply just for ZDT Part 2’s lead) shouldn’t be cut off from health insurance the day he quits just because he quits at 16 years, and not 20. An average of 22 veterans commit suicide every day and this is telling of the conditions they go back to live in. When my father read about this guy he said “I thought this crap happened only in India” but truth be told I’ve watched enough Criminal Minds to figure out that the USA isn’t a great place for ex-military men either. I just think it’s ridiculous that someone gambling on their life survives numerous missions only to come back home and realize that there are even fewer options for survival there. There are bills like the G.I. Bill but they’re limited and have their own little nuances. Honestly, I have no groundbreaking method to reform the system or advice to change the society but I do think that if a country doesn’t take care of its military men, there’s a possibility that some other country will. At the risk of sounding paranoid, spies are not uncommon and mercenary organizations- contrary to popular belief- are very much legal and thriving. Obama has urged businesses to hire veterans but honestly this isn’t a political or strategic campaigning point- there are companies out there that advertise themselves as “veteran friendly” but they might as well say they have wheelchair access ramps and put up signs that say “pets allowed”. Companies don’t need to be veteran friendly, they need to give equal opportunity to everyone and that includes those who have served in treacherous lands other than the grim corporate jungle. Hopefully this man’s plight has stirred the conscience of those of us who sleep safely at night because of these men, but we need to remember that as with most other pieces of news, this situation is not exclusive to just one man. There are millions more out there.

-Lassie

P.S. Go watch ABCD!!

Shambles abound

Just a few days ago, [insert random synonym of hostile] extremist state North Korea conducted its third underground nuclear test, in yet another brazen and quite ostentatious display of its unquestionably impressive military firepower. The [insert more synonyms] regime also threatened further violence if the United States of America refused to withdraw their hostile opposition to the nation.

To illustrate just what a colossal and utterly shambolic situation this issue has revealed itself to be, some more details will need to be presented. The only international body capable of placing sanctions on Pyongyang is the United Nations Security Council, which is composed of 5 permanent members with full veto rights, one of which is the People’s Republic – North Korea’s greatest ally and largest aid donor. The Security Council cannot afford to rush into deciding to blast North Korea into the stratosphere, or to relocate Pyongyang to Mars, simply because of the phone call that would invariably arrive from Beijing. However, it is not as if China condones the actions of North Korea. In this particular situation, at least, China is like a teacher who catches his favourite student cheating on an exam. The disappointment and anger is somewhat dampened by deep-lying feelings of affection. The resulting situation, in the words of Mr. Ban-ki Moon, is deplorable.

Pyongyang has been the victim of severe verbal chastisement as a result of the nuclear test. Yet, like the plucky little kid who squares up to the bully, North Korea’s diplomats have strongly condemned the Security Council’s almost impulsive urge to place sanctions on the nation. These diplomats also denounced the West’s hostile reception to a successful rocket launch two moths ago. The biggest problem is the fact that the UN believes that North Korea cannot be allowed to grow as a nuclear power simply because it would encourage other states (cough, Iran) to follow the same path, and the developed world is not willing to risk global nuclear war.

So what we have established is

• ·      The USA doesn’t like North Korea
• ·      North Korea doesn’t like the USA
• ·      China is temperamental when it comes to North Korea
• ·      The UN Security Council doesn’t like North Korea
• ·      China needs to be happy
• ·      North Korea is engaged in a secret conspiracy along with Iran to tear down the banners of capitalism, lift the world out of poverty, spread happiness, perpetually isolate the United States and form a new international organization called the Institute of New Financially Independent Developed Excellent Leaders of Society (INFIDELS).

Therefore the obvious problem is that too many people need to be kept happy here. For the impoverished, struggling citizens of North Korea, a nuclear test represents some sort of success for them to be happy about. Conversely, stricter sanctions would only increase public unhappiness and naturally, the administration would welcome this in a manner not dissimilar to how they would welcome George Bush on a retirement holiday. For the redneck population of the rest of the developed world – a social class which has been forced to hate North Korea – nothing would be better than to see an iron curtain around the nation. For people like me, anything other than global nuclear war is fine. World War I began in 1914. I pray on behalf of this generation that World War III doesn’t begin in 2014. I have my board exams. 

-Chap