MovieChat Forums > Lakposhtha parvaz mikonand (2005) Discussion > USA MINES

USA MINES

posted 19 years ago by jackehammond
19 replies | jump to latest

Folks,

One thing about the movie: If you are not depressed, going to see that movie will sure make you that way. And if you are depressed it will make you sucidal!

But on the subject of the title: USA MINES. To wit, with the exception of the Vietnam War and in Korea today, the US has hardly any mine exports or even given. Most of the AP mines in the world today are from Italy, Russia, China, Yugoslavia and Pakistan. Most nations also have/or had their own AP mine manufacturing ability. For example Turkey, Iran and Iraq all three do.

Almost all the mines shown in the movie were from the Italain firm Valesela, Spa. The small plastic mine that was shown a lot was the VS-50 which is made totally of plastic and is nexts to impossible to detect by mechanical means and some are equipped with an anti-lifting electronic unit. Argentina layed a bunch of them in the Falklands War 1982 and the British gave up trying to remove them after having a lot of its combat engineers loose limbs. At one time two thirds of Valesela's manufacturing output was rumored to be to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War (ie Iran bought its mines off of China and Pakistan in great numbers). Iraq like them because they could be spread from the air like you dust crops. Iraq also acquired the rights to make the VS-50 and the even more dangerous SB-33 (ie it it designed to be scattered and look like a small pebble on the ground).

But now the question: How come the producers of TURTLES CAN FLY keep using the phrase "USA MINES" when -- ie if any -- there were hardly any US mines in that region or wars?

Jack E. Hammond

PS> To my shock I saw news video of whole unguarded buildings of VS-50 AP mines during and shortly after the Spring 2003 invasion of Iraq! I mean thousands of them just stacked in layer after layer. All abandoned and unguarded. JEEZ!

[–] vjpb 19 years ago

Maybe the people who live there believe them to be USA mines and so he was speaking from the viewpoint of what the people who live there had been told and believe to be true.

I don't know this to be the case, but I am thinking it is a possibility. People in the middle east probably are told a lot of things about the West which are not true.

[–] HndsmCelt 19 years ago

The US Planted well over 100,000 land mine in northern Iraq at the end of the 1992 Persian Gulf War. Since then roughly 30 people per month have been killed by them usualy children. The Film while fictional is based on the daily reality of Iraqi/Kurds and obviously there was no shortage of maimed children to cast in the film.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:Une3ZXeNFDkJ:www.mercycorps.org/pdfs/1082069643.pdf+landmine+manufacture+by+nation&hl=en

[–] wolfcariusm 19 years ago

To reply to your suggestion to the previous poster who tried to reduce the blame the USA should carry for laying mines:

Whilst it is obvious that many people in many places do not have acces to reliable information and are thus dependant on what they are told and can be mistaken, we live in places with almost unlimited access to reliable and unreliable information and chose not to use it. Whilst the US boasts of being the most democratic country with the most freedom of speech etc... it is frightening to see how little people there know about their own country and how reluctant they are to do some deeper research to find out. The majority of the information published for Americans is biased, censored, watered down and twisted to suit those in power and to spare the American mind for having to ask itself too many questions. It is certainly not the only western democracy to do this but the scale is so enormous and the methods are so obvious and powerful that no average American realises there is more than one side to a story anymore. I suggest every July 4th each American should spend 5 minutes just thinking about what the word independance really means in this world.

The only things in which the US has become superior since the cold war is marketing and shouting.

I'm sorry for sounding so negative about the country that was once a role model (let's say up to 100 years ago) but it seems the more we learn the less we know how to deal with it.

[–] javillol 19 years ago

BECAUSE IT WAS THE US ARMY WHO PLANTED THOSE MINES!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Ths US people were ready to impeach Clinton for having sex, but praise Bush for murdering thousands of civilians"

[–] remi_de_large 17 years ago

"Ths US people were ready to impeach Clinton for having sex, but praise Bush for murdering thousands of civilians"

hahahaha, thanks, this quote made my day, stupid americans, they even reelected that donkey

[–] saturnkan 19 years ago

I think they were called "USA Mines" to show their value when the kids traded them for weapons and such... even if they weren't planted by the US.

[–] c3045051 19 years ago

Thats not quite right. As much as I hate all this political mongering going on in a movie review website I think I'll have my say. Yes it IS a bitter reality that thousands get hurt by US mines in northern Iraq every year; but its even more sad to see that the citizens of a nation who helped win The Great War, (and by far were the strongest ally in WWII) still fail to see what they have done wrong. A great nation is not purely built on success... its also recognising the failures and trying to set them right.

The film hasn't come to our town yet, so hoping that I get to see it soon. Keep cool everyone. After all, we're all here to talk about the film and how great it is :)

[–] bogwart-1 19 years ago

"its also recognising the failures and trying to set them right."

Really? Give me one example. All the US does is dig itself deeper and deeper into the *beep* And let's get the flag-waving about WWII into perspective. The strongest 'side' then, and the people who did the majority of the really hard fighting, and who lost way more than any other country, was the USSR. Without the Soviets Hitler would have rolled over the whole of Europe and the UK. Compare American losses of a quarter of a million with the Soviets' 20 million ...

[–] tmfak 19 years ago

There were clear refrences in the dialog to the mines being from Italy. (The scene at the arms dealer, and when the children are scouting mines on the hillside.) Satalite merely refers to them as "USA Mines" because they are of high quality, and he associates the USA with anything good.

[–] kathy-116 19 years ago

In the Iran-Iraq war the common beleif among people were that US and some European countries are getting rid of their old weapons by giving them the weapons and mines to use in the war against each other ... many of the weapons were indeed American ... about mines I am not sure but that was the common beleif

[–] valirus1 19 years ago

During the 1970s, the United States had a vested interest in suppressing the Ayatollahs' regime in Iran. As such, the American government supported and covertly supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons and technology. It's certainly possible that Saddam used American mines against the Kurds, though this was not their intended purpose.

All told, I truly wonder what the Kurdish people now believe about the American effort in Iraq. Turtles Can Fly seems to paint the American soldiers as, well, liberators from the criminal Iraqi regime. But the last line, "Didn't you want to see the Americans?" as Satellite turns away seems to suggest otherwise. What is the ultimate message about America in this movie? It appeared to me that the Kurds unanimously supported the war, but that last line is haunting me. Perhaps it represents Satellite's disenchantment with war altogether?

[–] GoodOldFashionedLoverboy 19 years ago

This movie is obviously a reflexion about war and repression... While the Kurds were under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, they were hopelessly waiting for their liberators: the USA army.So, we could think that the Kurdish people had a favorable opinion of the Americans.

However, in the movie, we can see that the Kurds in the camp do not have (before a long time) access to information (I mean real information and not mesinformation and propaganda wich they only had access to...)

So, I don't know if their point of view would be different, in the movie, if they had the same information then in the social democrats countries, where the medias are not corrupted and have a social responsibility... and where the Bush government seems to be a fatal error... (Sorry for the conservative and traditionalist americans)

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that some of you in the United States, have seen the movie! You have a great broadmindedness!!:)

(By the way, I also thought the movie was incredibly sad!)

[–] 19 years ago

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[–] ian-king 17 years ago

Im think we're missing the point here..... The film is not pointing fingers specifically, just showing the toll that war and mistreatment has had on this area and how the people, especially the children, have suffered. Agrin's story, if read in metaphor, shows how the Kurds have gone from a tortured past through a seemingly unendurable present to an uncertain future. If we want to point fingers, there are way more than enough places to point, The colonial powers, including the UK and the USA, Turkey, Saddam Hussein, Iran and many others.

Its no good trying to point the finger at any religion either as no matter whether you are a Sunni, Shi'ite, Christian, Jew, Aetheist or Bhuddist, the plight of these children and people is an affront to your God.

I'm a married 46 year old British Ex-Pat living in the USA and I am seriously questioning my whole life and lifestyle thanks to this movie. I can't get the plight of these children out of my head!

I also have to say that Avaz latif has to be the most sadly beautiful child I have ever seen. I hope the look of deep sadness on her face in the movie does not reflect on a tragedy from her own real past.

It sounds trite, but I'll ask the old question from the seventies....Why the hell can't we all just GET ALONG!!! - I know, it is trite, but then.....

Ian

[–] Kinematico 16 years ago

Now you know where ends and what does the weapons that produces USA (The main producer and exporter of war items).
God bless Lockheed, Colt, Smith & Wesson, Fedral Cartridge, Springfield Armory, Textron, etc, etc.

They do their job quite well while gaining "small" in the process. The people? who cares for some Kurds, Iraqis, Nicaraguans, Salvadoreans?? Please concentrate in the important thing "The Profits". That's what really matters.

BTW Just in case: *I'm being sarcastic*

[–] victimofthecrime 16 years ago

The US laying mines which mutilates children like these isn't very surprising to see, I wouldn't even be surprised if the ones raping Agrin where american soldier and if not actual marines but a metaphor of the West raping the middle East. yup

[–] tdano 16 years ago

republican guards are metaphor for the west? thats funny!

[–] PsychoDingo 11 years ago

considering that the US was in that region in the early 1990s, it's not hard to imagine they might have planted mines

and considering that the US sells weapons all over the world, it's not hard to imagine American mines might have been planted by non-Americans

I'm proud to say my poetry is only understood by that minority which is aware.

[–] 11 years ago

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