Sunday, January 1, 2006

Best Conservative Films of 2005

Don Feder at FrontPage Mag lists his top ten conservative movies of the year 2005. What's as interesting as his picks is his definition of a conservative movie:

What is a conservative film? Let's start with what it isn't. It's not about men with bulging biceps and even bigger guns. It's not cartoonish action heroes. It isn't revenge tales masquerading as heroism.

Conservative cinema does more than entertain; movies that do no more are visual candy. It instructs and inspires.

Conservative films celebrate virtue. They tell timeless tales of individuals overcoming all manner of adversity to achieve true greatness. They're about honesty, loyalty, courage and patriotism. They're concerned with conservatism's cardinal values - faith, family and freedom.

He goes on to mention what he regards as the best conservative films of the last ten years:

[T]hey would include: "Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King (2003)" "Open Range" (2003), "LA Confidential" (1997), Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" (2000), and "Spiderman," I and II (2002 and 2004). But also some quieter films, like last year's "In Good Company" and "The Family Man" (2000) would make my list.

Go here for his ten best of the year.

Planning to Attack Iran

The Jerusalem Post reports that planning for a strike on Iran is well along. The twist, though, is that the Post thinks that the attack will be carried out by American forces rather than by Israelis:

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike.

According to the report, CIA Director Porter Goss, in his last visit to Turkey on December 12, requested Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide military bases to the United States in 2006 from where they would be able to launch an assault.

The German news agency DDP also noted that countries neighboring Iran, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman, and Pakistan were also updated regarding the supposed plan. American sources sent to those countries apparently mentioned an aerial attack as a possibility, but did not provide a time frame for the operation.

Although Der Spiegel could not say that these plans were concrete, they did note that according to a January 2005 New Yorker report American forces had entered Iran in 2005 in order to mark possible targets for an aerial assault.

Let's hope, and pray, that Iran reconsiders its nuclear ambitions and makes such an attack unnecessary.