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charlatan exhibits a crucial divide between two camps: those that have real-life consequences imposed upon them by world events, and those for whom principles are purely an academic exercise. the latter only possible by hard-nosed sacrifices by the former.
when I see my fellow US servicemen being portrayed as sadistic thugs (by my own countrymen) in a country bordering one in which they are engaged in a life-or-death struggle, i face the very real possibility that an unemployed youth in a Turkish slum somewhere may see this film and cross the iraqi border to drive a bomb-truck into my humvee.
the predictable rebuttal is always a permutation of the "we do it too" notion. as if a democratic west were no different than nazi germany, ruthless islamists, militaristic japan, or the soviet union. by drawing the moral equivalency line where they have, they effectively are saying that there is no right and wrong or that neither side can claim to have a larger share of it. indeed, if there is no moral difference between north korea and the US (or the UK, canada, italy etc.) then such thinking would be right on the mark.
but those who deal in such ridiculous platitudes would never choose to live in Pyongyang even though they feel entitled to equate it w/their home institutions.
that's why you saw so many roaring lions after the Sept 11th attacks, the prospect of the failed ideologies in the mid-east having actual consequences to the hustle-and-bustle of daily life charged the populace. five years later, i think there are fewer people willing to risk death on a frostbitten Afghan mountainside.
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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
~ Winston Churchill
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