Are They Stealing From the Mars Attacks! Playbook?

So I'm sitting in my Middle Eastern Studies class, and as many of you know, one of the downsides of taking notes digitally is that it is incredibly easy to get side-tracked. I was reading one of Mark Steyn's older columns about the differences in standards the coalition is held to compared to that of the Islamofascists. For some reason it made me think of the movie Mars Attacks!

Steyn was arguing about how the terrorists benefit from our high standards of human dignity, which I hope everyone would agree with and I thought of the multiple instances in the movie where the Martians would feign diplomacy and eventually massacre all the humans they were pretending to be friendly with. Later in the movie the Martians basically say to hell with the charade and just cut straight to the killing.

Now the movie itself can be interpreted as an allegory of the relationship between European colonists in America and the native peoples, although I can't identify the character who corresponds to Chief Opchanacanough, and I'm still trying to figure out how the hell Tom Jones fits in. But no allegorical interpretation of a work not explicitly an allegory is flawless, and my interpretation has holes too, besides the blatant asynchrony (The movie was made in 1996, when Islamofascism, though present in the Middle East, was more of a political afterthought).

Now to preempt the obvious objection that in the movie, the antagonist Martians are the invading force, whereas the coalition fulfill that role in the real world, I just want to say that's not an integral part of my comparison. I'm looking more towards the tactics employed by the parties involved and not a who's on who's turf type of argument. However, as an aside, I find it highly repugnant to attempt to justify systematic savage and inhumane acts of terror with the rationale that somehow torture and murder are justified when done to an invading force on one's homeland.

Now that I've lost nearly every potential reader by spending a paragraph essentially making a strawman argument, I'll get to my point (just to avoid confusion this doesn't mean I'm going to be brief).

Back to Steyn's column. His key argument is that the different standards of diplomacy (like the Geneva convention, my example, not his) make for one hell of a tough war to fight. On one hand, the coalition is taking nearly every precaution to avoid collateral damage, whereas the insurgents take no precautions. He's not saying the west should lower their standards to match the barbaric enemy we are fighting (although if this were the case the war would already be over), but rather that it's a fairly difficult obstacle to overcome. As bad as the Vietcong were, they at least recognized the value of American POWs as bargaining chips.

Anyone who's seen Mars Attacks! will instantly recognize the parallel which lead to the humans' early defeats in the movie. If Ann Landers ever were to try and help concerned individuals with the etiquette of war, she would have her hands full with the terrorists.

Dear Ann Landers,

One of my jihadist friends, "Akhmed" told me this neat idea he had on how to "take care" of infidel warriors, if you know what I mean. He said you can pretend to surrender, and when the American infidel pigs approach, shoot as many of them as you can. Secretly, I'm jealous I didn't think of it myself! Is it polite to use this tactic without telling "Akhmed" or should I let him know I am borrowing one of his ideas?

---Mixed Up Militant in Mosul, Iraq

Classless? Probably. Click the embedded link though. The openly deceptive tactic takes full advantage of the coalition soldiers' embrace of unwritten codes of war. Same was so in Mars Attacks!. The Martian "diplomats" kill the American and French presidents under the guise of diplomacy taking advantage of the general policy of leaders of sovereign nations to meet civilly, even when their priorities are at odds.

Then of course, every time the Martians take advantage of the Earthlings' naive trust and higher standards, they break out into a contagious cackle, which can only be the assumed reaction of the terrorists every time they kill a soldier, because of varying standards of combat. The game ain't fair, but that's just the way it is.

Keeping true to the allegory, the main military character is a stereotypical "God damn it we gotta nuke the sons o' bitches" general, who actually eventually succeeds in convincing the president to nuke the Martians. Unfortunately, the Martians have a device which sucks the missile up and it explodes inside and somehow turns into helium gas, inhaled by the Martians, which if you haven't seen a Martian high on helium, I highly recommend this gem. Now nobody rational would ever think it wise to use nuclear weapons on the Middle East, because, frankly, that could end the world, but there is a certain segment of American society who employs ignorant rhetoric along these lines, fitting my allegorical interpretation.

Of course, pointing to the decapitation of a reporter, who in the film is played by Sarah Jessica Parker, and has her head transplanted on her dog's body, is a bit obvious, but in the real struggle, that reporter was Daniel Pearl.

I'm sort of running out of ideas now, because it's been a while since I've seen the movie. So, I guess that makes this a pretty shitty allegory then, but hey, it was a pretty shitty movie, so I guess we'll call it square.