Movies and Books

[Bundu Ric]

So what are your favourite war movies / books?

Mine:
Movies:
Tears of the Sun
Blackhawk Down

Will be wathcing Hurt Locker and Greenzone this weekend, and if i have time Guns for hire Afghanistan

Books:
Lone Survivor
Any SEALs related books
SA Military books

[Gerhardus]

Movies:

Saving Private Ryan
Blackhawk Down
Some Yugoslav / Serbian Film set in a Trench during the conflict (can't remember the title)

-Btw Hurt Locker looks really good, want to watch it soon

Series:
Band of Brothers
GENERATION KILL was AWESOME

Books:
Just finished '19 with a bullet'
"Dit was Oorlog - Van af*** tot bosbe***"
'Executive Outcomes' by Eeben Barlow

[Gerhardus]

'Dit Was Oorlog' is printed in an English version as well.
Very entertaining book - alot of experiences from many different branches of military in the Border War. Alot of funny qoutes and antics by the average servicemen.

[KeepAndBearArms]

Last October I wound up on a reading spree and I knocked out a few books... As a side note, mine are all either original first editions or second runs of the first edition.




Grant, Madison. The Conquest of a Continent. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933.

Reed, Douglas. The Battle for Rhodesia. Cape Town: HAUM, 1966.

Reed, Douglas. The Siege of Southern Africa. Johannesburg: MacMillian South Africa Publishers, 1974.

Stoddard, Lothrop. The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920.

Teixeira, Bernardo. The Fabric of Terror: Three Days in Angola. New York: Devin-Adair, 1965.

Viljoen, Ben. Under the Vierkleur: A Romance of a Lost Cause. Boston: Small, Maynard, and Company, 1904.

Youssoupoff, Prince Felix. Rasputin: His Malignant Influence and His Assassination. London: Jonathan Cape, 1934



Stoddard was the first one to really predict what was going to happen across Africa. He also basically laid out how the British were going to be expelled from India. He said that the Indians would just say to the British, "we don't want to deal with you anymore, we won't buy from you, we won't sell to you, you have to go home or grow your own food here, run the trains yourselves, and handle everything yourselves because we won't prop up your colonial regime" and that's exactly what happened... The British were basically told to leave India and they had to leave because they only had about a few hundred thousand Brits in a land of perhaps 300,000,000 Indians and it was unsustainable. Their position was untenable.

Stoddard also addressed the problems facing the Western world across Southern Africa, with his outlook being rather bleak at the time. He was more concerned with the threat of an industrialized/rising Asia, either under Japanese or Chinese leadership, he predicted that Japan would seek to become the leader of a unified Asia, marrying her technology, industry, and military prowess, to Chinese manpower. This may yet occur, we'll have to wait and see...

He didn't particularly make any value judgements or condemn any of those who were rising against their colonial masters. I get the idea he didn't think the British had any business being in India (and I'd agree with him if that was his view, which I believe it was- the British often have a way of putting themselves into countries where they're not welcome and where they don't belong). He was mostly concerned with the threat of massive third world immigration into the Western nations, or the prospect of military conquest of certain Western nations (such as Australia and South Africa) by hostile foreign powers that he believed were ready and willing to conduct such campaigns (mainly Japan). He basically said that the otherwise peaceful settlements strung across southern Africa would be more or less okay, without any serious internal stability problems, as long as neither Islam nor communism took hold amongst the tribals.

I'd say history has pretty much shown he was either a very smart man who knew his history or he was some kind of prophet!

[Gerhardus]

Sounds like a very insightful man.

A minority trying to rule over a majority and enforce their values etc. on them, can only really end one way, can't it?

[Gerhardus]

'The Thin Red line' is also a brilliant movie

[Gerhardus]

If you haven't seen Hot Shots or Hot Shots 2 - Part Deux - I'd recommend watching them both - they basically just make fun of military movies, but it's very funny.

[KeepAndBearArms]

Sounds like a very insightful man.

A minority trying to rule over a majority and enforce their values etc. on them, can only really end one way, can't it?

Not to spark a political debate or anything like that, but along the lines of what the Indians did to the British (telling them to grow their own food or ship their own food into India, and feed themselves) which, combined with other things, drove them from India... What would happen in the Boer told the ANC to grow their own food? Does Zuma know there is more to growing food than tossing seeds into the dirt?

[Gerhardus]

Hahaha - if that happened Garlic would probably replace anti-retrovirals for the poor gullable people with aids.

The majority wants to rule and make their own decisions on what to call places etc. - but the we, the minority, usually are more valued citizens due to expertise in farming for example.

[Gerhardus]

I'm too young to debate with you, sir.
Maybe in a few years when I have gained much more knowledge, and experience.
Just reading, and posting how I see things.