(2007) "We won't get fooled again," sang The Who. The six-year war on terror has taken over 3500 lives in Iraq as ANX reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) meets with Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), at his invitation, in his office in Washington, DC. Simultaneously at a university in California, Professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) has a heart-to-heart discussion with Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield), a student in whom he sees much promise and potential being wasted. In Afghanistan US Special Forces in Chinook helicopters are on their way to implement a new strategy of taking the high ground from the Taliban.

Director Robert Redford's well-intentioned film is more didactic than dramatic; the title, which Redford's character speaks, comes from a World War I German general, commenting on the slaughter of British soldiers: "Nowhere else have I seen such lions led by such lambs."

In what Senator Irving, a graduate of West Point and Harvard, refers to as his honest effort to keep the media better informed, he has granted Ms Roth an exclusive one-on-one interview for an hour to announce the initiation of a fresh approach, representing "new-school military thinking" - small teams surgically ferreting out the Taliban - to winning the war and the hearts-and-minds in Afghanistan. "How about a strategy to bring the troops home?" she asks. Skeptical of earlier fear mongering from the administration, she requests an examination of how America got into this mess in the first place. Ducking a rearview glance at the past, though willing to admit - "We made mistakes. Colossal mistakes" - the senator reveals, off the record, that Iran is allowing Wahhabi insurgents with combat experience to cross over into Iraq. This sounds incredulous to the 57-year-old journalist that Shi'ites would cooperate with Sunnis.

Meanwhile, Dr Malley offers Todd, with his poor attendance but excellent work on what he has completed, a "blue-collar B" if he will accept it with no further requirement to attend class, turn in assignments, or take tests. But he wants to know why Todd doesn't seem to care any more. The cynical student replies that poli sci is merely the pseudo-science of winning elective office, not governing or doing the people's will; it's become a sordid story of sex scandals and money mongering. All good points, says Malley, except that it's just talk, lacking real-life experience.

Over the snowcapped peaks of Afghanistan a Chinook gets hit by unexpected anti-aircraft fire before it can reach its destination of a "forward operating point," resulting in one man falling out and another jumping after him.

Persisting with questions about the costs of the war - Why are there 150,000 troops in Iraq but only one tenth that number in Afghanistan? - Roth provokes Irving into responding, "How many times are you going to ask the same questions?" because without a win in the war on terrorism, it will be the end of American credibility and righteousness. The United States made a choice and has a moral obligation in the Middle East to do "Whatever it takes" to succeed.

On the ground in the snow, Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña) lies with a compound fracture of a leg and the use of one hand from his fall; his fellow soldier Arian Finch (Derek Luke) landed nearby, having leaped after him.

The professor, a Vietnam vet who also protested in Chicago, describes to Todd a junior-year project two of his students, one Hispanic and the other African American, presented last year, contrasting the tremendous expenditures of blood and treasure in the engagement abroad with the lack of engagement domestically: for example, if the Great Depression was so terrible with 25% unemployment, what are we to call today's crisis with 50% of high-school students being nonfunctioning? You could get loaded into the breach, as were Arian and Ernest, or sit on the bench. "We can change things," insists Todd. The powers-that-be "bank on you're your apathy … ignorance," replies Malley. If everything is so bad, the prof asks his student, "How can you enjoy the good life?" A deficit of intelligent, responsible decisions has produced moral bankruptcy.

Back in the nation's capital, Roth dismisses the senator's "vague admissions of past mistakes." Irving gets more specific, attributing the current situation to bad intel, leadership without military experience, and terrible PR (e.g., Abu Ghraib); but the media was just as complicit in selling the war at the outset to the public. Upon reflection, Roth, whose glowing reportage of Irving's first run for Congress contributed to his getting elected, accepts some blame for the fourth estate's tendency to give more attention to ads and revenues than reporting hard news. "We all need a win in Afghanistan," against ragtag ragheads with their medieval beliefs, says Irving before thrusting the question: "Do you wanna win the war on terror?"

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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