The original "Matrix" is another 1999 film that looks creepy in hindsight: alienated loner recruited via Internet to join militant liberation group and ends up shooting large numbers of police offices and setting off a bomb in a government building.

Whereas the sequels just collapse into incoherence.

Fight club (a movie I love) captures the sense of nihilism and emptiness that I suspect underlies many of the more-affluent, privileged jihadis (including OBL) move to terrorism.

The fight club movie skirts the issues of suicide and murdering innocent people (the buildings detonated are empty, the hero is redeemed in a boy-meets girl love story as everything blows up) - but the film depicts a emotionally disintegrating man turning to violence in a world he can't understand - precisely the lure of salafi fascism to many vulnerable moslem kids.

That's precisely the aspect of this conflict you can't fight with bombs - and which many of the policies of the US only make worse.

...a few Bollywood flicks.

There are some excellent films from Indian Cinema that do a remarkable job of capturing the 'terrorist' mentality.

In fact just this past weekend I finally watched a movie titled 'Dil Se,' which portrays the story of a group of Maoist terrorists and suicide bombers.

Actually in some respects Indian Cinema is far more dovish and sympathetic to resistance movements against its own government than Hollywood.

Ofcourse you'd have to have a spare 6 hours for most of these movies and the ability to forward through roughly 4 or 5 songs. Bollywood hasn't yet strayed far from the movie-musical genre.

Another movie that I've heard a lot of praise about came out (I believe) in 2007, titled 'Khuda ke liye' or 'For God's Sake.' This one is from Pakistan but is less about the making of a terrorist than about the process of radicalization, the treatment of women, and also the impacts of the War on Terror.

I'm pretty sure both of these are available with subtitles online.

I can't yet draw a bead on whether this flick makes a good training tool for a leader of Marines to use, because to me, in a contest between two opponents, there is a winner and a loser and an implied acknowledgement that something is given and that something is taken away - life and death.

Adversity is common place in combat (lin life as well) and a highly valued core trait is the ability to survive adversity and not whine about it. I believe one character finds this out in the movie.

I wonder? I'll have to watch it again, viewing it with a differant slant.

Happy New Year everyone! :)

The American South produced more terrorists than any ME country. US State and local government employees sponsered and conducted terrorism and tortured American citizens for decades. Is there any other country in the world that is in more denial than the US when it comes to its own terrorist acts? Strom Thurmond and people like him were no different than criminals like Bin Laden. Mississippi Burning depicts the horror of the criminal and terrorist culture of the US Southern states. A story of a truly degenerate and depraved culture of pure hate and religious fanatics. Many of these terrorists are still at large today. AQ-Dixie.

A good training film for all Marines.

All Marines should see this film. The film will show them how their own government sponseres terrorism in Latin America. Operation Condor is an example of US Government funding, support, and participation in terrorist acts against the Latin American people. Marines need to understand that America is not a holy crusader against terrorism. They need to understand that they are not in a war against terrorism, but are fighting in an imperial colonial war of conquest. They need to understand that their government regularly engages in the use of terrorism as a matter of policy, and that their senior military officers support its use as a tactic.

Marines also need to understand that the US Army trains Latin Americans at the School of the Americas aka Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, GA. A terrorist training school that is the envy of terrorist's all over the world.

"Backyard terrorism

The US has been training terrorists at a camp in Georgia for years -
and it's still at it

George Monbiot
October 30, 2001
The Guardian

"If any government sponsors the outlaws and killers of innocents,"
George Bush announced on the day he began bombing Afghanistan, "they
have become outlaws and murderers themselves. And they will take that
lonely path at their own peril." I'm glad he said "any government",
as there's one which, though it has yet to be identified as a sponsor
of terrorism, requires his urgent attention.

For the past 55 years it has been running a terrorist training camp,
whose victims massively outnumber the people killed by the attack on
New York, the embassy bombings and the other atrocities laid, rightly
or wrongly, at al-Qaida's door. The camp is called the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or Whisc. It is based
in Fort Benning, Georgia, and it is funded by Mr Bush's government.

Until January this year, Whisc was called the "School of the
Americas", or SOA. Since 1946, SOA has trained more than 60,000 Latin
American soldiers and policemen. Among its graduates are many of the
continent's most notorious torturers, mass murderers, dictators and
state terrorists. As hundreds of pages of documentation compiled by
the pressure group SOA Watch show, Latin America has been ripped
apart by its alumni."

"The FBI defines terrorism as "violent acts... intended to intimidate
or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a
government, or affect the conduct of a government", which is a
precise description of the activities of SOA's graduates. But how can
we be sure that their alma mater has had any part in this? Well, in
1996, the US government was forced to release seven of the school's
training manuals. Among other top tips for terrorists, they
recommended blackmail, torture, execution and the arrest of
witnesses' relatives."

http://www.islandnet.com/plethora/wtc/monbiot5.html

ok here is an obscure one but it is available on dvd& well worth your time. 'Wrong is right' with Sean Connery& Robert Conrad.
directed by Richard Brooks.
'if it doesnt happen on TV, it means nothing!'
really, it's kind of jaw dropping.