Syriana

Syriana is a lonnngg, slow, liberal movie.

I'm sure most of you heard liberal, and tuned out immediately. Just hear me out as I have a masters in middle eastern history and current political affairs... and speak a bit of Arabic.

That being said the points that the movie makes are real ones, and points that bear upon our modern day, in terms of terrorism, and why many in the middle east hate America. Also this an extremely political movie, so if you don't want to be confronted with real truths by myself or the movie stop reading right now....

It follows two main characters. One George Clooney, who plays an on the ropes CIA agent, who keeps pushing boundaries of the administration’s message, and Matt Damon, who works as an energy consultant in Switzerland, who eventually gets roped into helping an Arab Sheikh, who is genuinely trying to better his people.

Right off the bat a stinger missile is sold to an unauthorized and unsavory source...

* It should be noted that with polarization of politics in America “staying on message” is more important than providing actual intel.. in both the Bush and Obama administrations.

As the movie progresses we see the difficulties that foreign workers in the middle east, namely those in the oil industry, face on a daily basis. They are frequently treated as subhuman by Arabs and Whites in the area. Most foreign workers in the middle east are pakistani, sri lankan, bangladeshi, sub-saharan Africans.

* Terrorists are recruited from the poor and disenfranchised, or the rich arabs that see pieces of their pie being taken from them by westerners, Osama Bin Laden is a prime example of this... religion is simply a tool they use to ensnare the less educated lower classes, much like the “honor” of the American civil war south, they are both fighting one the side of on rich man or another... some rich men may have altruistic motives to help the populace, but most do not.

* This is why the middle east is such a hot bed. The rich lie to the poor about who, sometimes truthfully, sometimes untruthfully, keep them in their state, so they are prime targets for jihad missions, all the while using religion as a scapegoat... as it is used around the world.

* Islamic schools have very good funding and therefore can provide all the niceties of life that most terrorist recruits cannot hope to attain on their own... hence the draw.

* “Clear it with Hezbollah” is probably one of the best lines in the movie, because even though we can bring force to bare anywhere on the earth pretty much at a moments notice, we can't always protect spies, and have to defer to the true ground power in a region.

* This movie is very anti big OIL, and rightfully so. (Did you know that after 20 years late Exxon owes the US government 100 million for the Exxon-Valdez disaster... its not much but with windfall profits, if we held corporations to it we could pay a bit of our 14 trillion debt)

Another character is an oil company lawyer, who is trying to find out fs a merger which would make the acquiring oil company the 5th largest economic entity in the world, is actually legal or not.

While that is going on Matt Damon’s character is steadily trying to help the sheikh, who is trying to help his people, who is all the while being denigrated and later hunted by US government agencies for his good doings on behalf of BIG OIL. (If you think this doesn't really happen... you are full on retard... all though gas is still cheaper, even under Obama, than it would be... you just have to make peace with it in your own mind and with your God).

* It should be pointed out the George Clooney’s “Arabic” and “Farsi” is TOTAL BS, he’s just saying guttural syllables, and has no idea what he thinks he is saying.

* The movie does a good job of depicting the anger and feelings of loneliness that can be felt, even in a Virginia or Maryland subdivision, when someone you think is a colleague of yours, tells you “Sorry Bob, You should leave”. When you know that individual knows what's going on.

I like the bullet points because I can just focus on important ideas that many will not know, but should probably be aware of.

I won't give away spoilers, so I give this movie 2.4 makings of would be terrorists out of 5.

Although I frequently use this movie to fall asleep too, it is worth watching at least once, as long as your focus on the fact that most people that fight as jihadists really don't want to... if all all terrorist were drawn to terrorism out a sadistic lack of humanity within themselves, then every single political and religious group would be blowing up things. The issue is the lack of work, or something to do, 95% of the time. Sure there are true zealots, and sure there are literal crazies, but the majority see injustices in their own countries, that they perceive, either rightly or wrongly as keeping them from providing for their families. 

PS: If you have trouble following whats what, please check out this graphic, but try to watch the movie first, then refer to it.