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December 23, 2005

This and That - Countdown to Christmas

Blogging is gonna be a bit light over the next few days as I spend most of my time with family and friends during Christmas.

Remember all the hoohaw when Korea suddenly surged to the forefront of embryonic stem cell research? All the brickbats tossed at anyone that not just questioned the research itself, but only questioned the federal funding of it? Oh, well, it seems that the scientist faked it.

I won't be seeing Munich. After Schindler's List, if what I'm reading about Munich is true, then I think we can hold Steven Spielberg as an example that moral clarity is something that can be easily lost. And would someone please tell me how Spielberg makes a movie about Israelis when he refused to have anything to do with Israelis?

"I was not invited to a preview screening," says Zvi Zamir, who was head of the Mossad at the time of the Munich killings and who, according to foreign reports, supervised the subsequent liquidations from European headquarters. "I am ready to buy tickets so that Spielberg will get compensation from me, too," Zamir says sarcastically. He thinks that if the director was interested in historical credibility, he should have spoken with him and his colleagues. "I imagine that Spielberg is interested mainly in how the film can make money and not in the historical truth."

If Spielberg had taken the trouble to approach the Prime Minister's Office, he would have received red-carpet treatment. A directive would have been issued to the Mossad chief to instruct the agents who were involved in or familiar with the affair to cooperate with Spielberg: to share experiences, volunteer anecdotes and give advice, within certain constraints.

Zamir would have spoken to Spielberg. Maybe even publicity-hating Mike Harari - who headed the Mossad's operations branch at the time and coordinated the reprisals - would have agreed to meet with him. But Spielberg and Kushner decided to shy away from any connection with Israel. From its reservoir of experts in the intelligence community and outside it, they chose to rely on Yuval Aviv, who was the source for the book by Canadian journalist George Jonas, "Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team," on which the film is based. The trouble is that Aviv, now 58, never served in the Mossad.

I would caution anyone that sees this film to judge it only as a work of fiction and art. Obviously, it has little connection to historical fact or courageous moral judgment. Read this for background and analysis.

I found this Google doodle ...

... just a tad strange. Part of a series that I suppose we are to await with breathless anticipation.

Here's a miscarriage of justice

A Dutch court convicted a Dutch chemicals merchant of war crimes, sentencing him to 15 years in prison for selling Saddam Hussein's regime the materials used in lethal gas attacks on Kurdish villages in the 1980s.
That can't be, because we all know that Saddam never had WMD's. Ever. All kites and puppies.

Exclusive, Jeff has the photo op and party chat of the season. Heh.

Posted by Darleen at December 23, 2005 08:27 AM

Comments

And kittens---don't forget all the cute, fuzzy little kittens with pink noses Saddam had!

Merry Christmas, Darleen! And Happy, happy new Year!

P.S. Thanks for the warning about Spielberg---but I wasn't going to see "Munich" anway. Spielberg's a hack. I shoulda swore off him after "Gremlins"---and I did swear off him after the mess he made of "Empire of the Sun" (an excellent book, which his brainless movie made a total mess of).

Posted by: TalkinKamel at December 23, 2005 10:36 AM

I don't know of anyone claiming Saddam never had WMD's he just hadn't had them in over a decade, since the UN sanctions began. The fact that he was keeping his nose clean for now doesn't seem to matter to the mouth breathing sycophants of the bush regime anyways. I'm personaly not sorry to see the (expletive deleted) gone but I am sorry we squandered so much to do it.

Posted by: DuWayne at December 24, 2005 05:26 PM

Forget the Crusades, the mongol invasion---Saddam, and that righteous cleric, the Ayatollah Khomeni, were the bigget mass murderers of Moslems of all time!

I'm honestly glad Saddam's out of power (pity he's still alive to put on a little dog-and-pony show for his joke of a trial.)

Posted by: TalkinKamel at December 26, 2005 07:22 AM