The new gun-heavy movie 12 Strong just opened in theaters. It’s based upon the declassified story of the twelve American Special Forces troops who went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. The movie that celebrates American exceptionalism. The American left hates it . . .

As with “American Sniper,” critics writing for left-leaning publications are panning the movie and its portrayal of the enemy. ‘12 Strong’: Formulaic war movie tells the true story of American ‘horse soldiers’ of Afghanistan, The Washington Post proclaims.

Formulaic but true! Go figure. Or read this from their man Michael O’Sullivan:

Although the Americans complain that it’s hard to tell who they’re fighting against — even their allies treat them with suspicion — it’s abundantly clear to the audience who the bad guy is. The enemy is embodied by an almost cartoonish, black-clad Taliban mullah, who, when he’s not executing a weeping schoolteacher for educating girls or firing a barrage of RPGs at Mitch and his men, is peering through the red-tinted lenses of binoculars that lend him a satanic malevolence.

As TTAG’s resident war hero John Wayne Taylor will tell you, that’s nothing compared to the casual cruelty the Taliban inflicted on Afghan locals, day in, day out. The rape, torture and killing of small children. The craven murderous assaults on unsuspecting American soldiers. Acts well beyond any idea of human decency. Acts that would turn your stomach.

What turns my stomach: the way O’Sullivan can’t credit the movies heroes — and that’s what they are — for their patriotism, heroism, professionalism and honor.

Far from the rah-rah kind of war story that some may be used to, “12 Strong” is suffused with cynicism. Although refreshing in a way, that attitude flies in the face of everything else that the movie tries to tell us: That Mitch and company are fighting to right a wrong, and that it matters. More often than not, “12 Strong” feels like a sports movie, where all the stakes rest not on matters of honor and duty, but on a single field goal.

Here’s another bit of bile from the appropriately named Slant Magazine:

…masses of faceless Taliban fighters drop to the ground like flies as tiny traces of CGI blood spurts into the air before quickly vanishing. [Director] Fuglsig particularly revels in the destruction caused by bombing raids, which he often captures in sweeping aerial shots that give us a bird’s-eye view of the awesome might of the American empire.

That the men who die in these battles might not be purely “evil,” that they too might have families, friends, and lovers, is a nuance that 12 Strong doesn’t care to discern…

That the Taliban American forces killed might not be “purely evil”?  The men who execute little girls for receiving an education beyond age eight – along with those who teach them? The men who gleefully bugger little boys, who cut off a woman’s thumb for the crime of polishing her nail.

As I said, veterans could tell you tales that would make anyone with a shred of humanity blanch in horror.

Wishing the destruction of evil people is no evil — unless you lack a conception of right and wrong. if you want a list, click here to read Hollywood in Toto’s round-up of self-righteous progressives slamming 12 Strong for daring to portray American soldiers in a positive light. 

The good news: the public likes it. As of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes critics’ survey pegs it 54 percent favorable. Seventy-one percent of movie-goers  bless it with a “fresh” rating.

12 Strong beat studio projections over the opening weekend, earning $15.8 million, earning it an “A” CinemaScore. You can do your part by buying your ticket, and turning your back on Americans who reject the values upon which this country was founded.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

91 COMMENTS

  1. I love the fact that the Slant writer implies that having families, friends, and lovers precludes a person from being evil or at least balances out any evil they might have within.

  2. But it’s their culture…the Culture of Peace!

    In all seriousness though, I probably won’t see it. I’m not really into modern war movies.

    • Hit or miss. American sniper was not good. The book was even worse, a meandering rambling mess.

      If you want a good read hit up lone survivor. It hits hard.

      • War movies centered on current events aren’t my thing so much. I’m keen on WW2, American Civil War, or a good western.

  3. Yeah, if nothing else there seems to be something very rotten over at Rotten Tomatoes anymore. The partisanship there is just so obvious that’s starting to feel more like a parody of a real movie review site.

  4. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I’m not a huge fan of Chris Hemsworth in non-Thor roles. It showed the tactics involved better than most war movies.

  5. Of course they do. In their eyes America is no better than any of the third world sh!tholes that that the Clinton foundation took bribes from.

  6. Don’t you just want to tell one of these goofballs to spend a year in country to get the local flavor. I like to tell liberals that I have conversations with from time to time to live in a ghetto area like I did when I was young….which is the reason why I vote Republican. Most of these guys are not deep critical thinkers…which is the reason that as an engineer, I don’t see a lot of liberal democrats in my professional circles.

  7. Looks like it’s worth seeing even if I’m not a fan of our endless Asian adventures…

  8. Great article. Mirrors my own feelings when I started reading those reviews the other day. I just don’t understand where people’s ideals come from. I would think it’s very simple to understand their evil.

  10. … Holy shiiiiiit dafuq happened here? Are these (I use this term loosely) people actually trying to humanize and defend the Taliban? They do realize that Talis really do commit these acts in real life right, I mean they have to know that those animals actually did much much worse than that quite frequently. It never was just an execution of a teacher usually she would be gang raped and then murdered in some horrid fashion. (Robert, I really hope you appreciate this I’m trying really really hard not to cuss every other word in a manner taught by generations of combat arms soldiers and drill sergeants but my control is slipping and my eye is twitching.) These monsters were well known to bugger anything and everything other than a woman and stone any woman who dared get an education, show an ankle, or any myriad of other offenses against their interpretation of a religion. They would literally kill children that resisted, women that didn’t, and goats that they were tired of using to achieve “release”. Happily, they would bomb local markets and schools they killed thousands of innocent civilians to kill hundreds of our soldiers and these “journalists” have the audacity to try and make the guys killing them seem like the bad guys? I’m gonna stop now before I start saying things that would make Gunny Hartmann blush with shame.

  11. Just imagine the Slant Magazine review of a movie that might be called Operation Cobra, about the Allied Breakout from Normandy…

    “…masses of faceless Waffen SS troopers drop to the ground like flies as tiny traces of CGI blood spurts into the air before quickly vanishing. [Director] Fuglsig particularly revels in the destruction caused by relentless allied tactical airstrikes, which he often captures in sweeping aerial shots that give us a bird’s-eye view of the awesome might of the British Commonwealth and US empires.

    That the men who die in these battles might not be purely “evil,” that they too might have families, friends, and lovers, who are being terror bombed by the US 8th Air Force and RAF Bomber Command, is a nuance that Operation Cobra doesn’t care to discern…”

    To today’s “Progressives” who, in the words of Senator Patty Murry’s chief of staff, aren’t concerned by Antisemitism, such a review is not far fetched.

    • To a lot of these people the ultimate evil is “neo-colonialism” which they imagine the US engages in on a daily basis. They imagine, and I emphasize IMAGINE, that we’re basically like 1880’s Germany mowing down hordes of innocent indigenous tribes with Maxim guns and basically enslaving the survivors or marching them to concentration camps to die (which did happen in the German colonies in the 1880’s btw)

      As the War on Terror moves into full swing in Sub-Saharan Africa (because that’s where a lot of terrorists are now setting up shop) look for the Leftist “We’re exploiting these poor countries and tearing them apart for the profit of corporations” meme to kick into an even higher gear.

      Effectively these people hate the United States and anything we do is evil because we’re an empire that was built and continues to build itself on the exploitation of everyone else. As such, most of what happens “to us” including 9/11 is a just and well deserved backlash against us by those we’ve spent 150 years oppressing.

      • In my estimation, the Imperial United States military is one of the most evil machines the planet has ever seen. The Nazi war machine was more intensely evil, but it’s existence was just a few years. If you take the incredible evil of the civil war, the massacre of the phillipines, useless involvement in ww1, vietnam, and now the middle east, the evil of the US government is pretty impressive.

        The war on “terr” as the Chimp put it, is the perfect solution for the warfare state and the “defense” contractors. An endless supply of bugaboos! Hoo-rah!

        • A lot of AlexJones in that post.

          You could make that argument about literally any country, and any war, ever. Each war has two sides to the story. Just because your anti American liberal professor told you one side doesn’t make it right. With enough time, I could convince a group of people that Germany had every right to invade and conquer France, and was justified in their behavior in the occupation of France. Just because you can preform the mental gymnastics required to make sense of a point, doesn’t make that point true. Using the same logic, it can be argued the US entered every single war it fought with 100% justification. Yep, even Vietnam and Iraq. Gasp.

        • Well mr “stateisevil” your “estimation” is your opinion and I case you hadn’t heard it before, “opinions are like assholes, everybody has one”; so yours goes in the shitpile just like mine. Take it for what it’s worth, nada.

        • If we lived up to 1/100th of that, “stateisevil” would kill himself and his kids before we got the chance to do it.

          I was in Iraq ~ 9 mos., while there then, the power was turned back on to most of the country (out since Saddam’s robbing of the local infrastructure). AND the live-birth-rate inched up 1% per month due to the opening of hospitals and the creation of a healthcare system.

          DOES MIGHT MAKE RIGHT?

          WHEN THE U.S. DOES IT, YOU BET YOUR ASS ! ! !

          WEAKNESS DOESN’T GET TO SAY OR DO SH_T UNTIL MIGHT GETS OUT OF ITS WAY.

    • That’s essentially how they reacted to “Defiance” and “The Great Raid”.

      It takes a special kind of moral imbecile to see the Einsatzgruppen, the Dirlewanger Brigade, and the Kempeitai as the “victims”…

  12. Hollywood never gets it right.

    But the ‘journalists’ know what’s right and still make sure they get it wrong.

    The taliban are evil. The American leftists are just as evil.

  13. Confirms what we all (should) already know. Leftists hate America more than anything else- period. Conservative, traditional pro-American is worse to them than any criminal enterprise or tyrannical govt.

    They believe we are their greatest threat…and I feel the same. North Korea, Iran, China, Russia and misc Islamists are dangerous, but pale in comparison to the peril of US based Progressive vermin. The enemy within.

  14. Just another step for liberals in their ultimate goal of Deism. Liberalism’s absurd hypocrisies can actually be explained quite simply when you look at the political spectrum for what it is, a sphere. Going right on the sphere takes you to less and less government, like a republic, and other similar governments, with the far right of the sphere actually being anarchy, not fascism. left of the sphere brings you more and more government, socialism, communism, fascism. And the extreme left, the most government of all, where government is worshipped as God, deism. Why does this pertain to this post? Liberals are embracing radical Islam, that’s how. Fundamentalist Islam in fact. That’s how they can simultaneously scream #metoo/ inequality and then turn a blind eye to the crimes of Islam. Because Islam will be used to further cement a communist state, that shall be worshipped like a God.

  15. I don’t recall people in the US “watching in terror” on Sept 11. Anger, revulsion, horror, etc.

    Those clueless about the world as wrote by the world’s progtards were shocked

    • I remember getting wrote up in my class when I was a freshman in highschool…. I watched that on TV at school and wellllll let’s just say young ATFAgentBob said a lot of very adult ATFAgentBob things when it was revealed to be a terrorist attack as the 2nd plane hit. fast forward 6 years and I was in Iraq saying a lot of very adult ATFAgentBob things to various flavors of ragheaded a**holes (note there is a large divide between ragheaded a**holes and Iraqis. Most Iraqis just want left the hell alone to do Iraqi things without having to worry about getting caught in the cross fire or blast radius of fights between us and the ragheaded a**holes.) ahhh good times.

      • 9/11 happened my senior year in high school. We were on Mountain Time so the attacks had happened before I got up in the morning (I didn’t have class the first two periods of the day).

        My parents had the TV on when I got up, which was a first in my lifetime. I walked out, saw a plane hit the WTC and then saw the second one immediately after that since it was all recorded at that point and playing on a loop as the talking heads blathered on. Half asleep I remarked to my mother “Well, that’s no accident. We’re gonna seriously fuck some people up over this.” and went to get something to eat.

        That day in school I also got myself in a heap of trouble for speaking bluntly about what had happened. It was kind of an odd day to me. The teachers were shook-up as fuck but the students, who also knew what had happened, didn’t seem that phased by it. It wasn’t a teenage cocky or caviler attitude that the students had but more one of resignation to a harsh reality that they could do nothing to change. Contrasting that to the, and I’m not exaggerating here, near panic of the adults… well, I just laugh when I hear how “soft” the “entire millennial generation” is.

        • I think there’s actually a generational divide people are missing, one between genX and mellenials, or scrap the mellenials and include them with GenY or something. The “mellenials” are considered to be born from 80′ or 85′ till 2000. I honestly don’t see anyone born from 80 to roughly 90′ that has ANY of the traits normally protrayed by mellenials. People born from 80 to 90 came of age in 9/11, and fought two subsequent wars, while also dealing with a near Great Depression level recession. They have way more in common with the greatest generation in that regard. But then you get the people who came just after those things, and much like the boomers, are entitled little Shit wads with no sense of duty, honor, or country.

        • I agree with you 100% that the “millennial” generation is either ill defined or has a split in it. That said, I’m going to take something you said here and give you a touch of perspective on it.

          “But then you get the people who came just after those things, and much like the boomers, are entitled little Shit wads with no sense of duty, honor, or country.”

          I would argue that this is the fault of three things over which those kids had no control. 1) A perpetually shittier school system. 2) Perpetually shittier parents and 3) The nosediving of both fostering an atmosphere where feelz matter more than facts and where both physical and mental “protection” are considered absolutely necessary on all levels.

          Example: My senior year in college I took a class simply for the last four credits I needed. The class was History of the Vietnam War. It was a 100 level history class and therefore really geared towards incoming freshman. The beginning of the class was so, so fucking weird in a lot of ways. So I asked what the deal was.

          The professor explained to me I didn’t understand because I was significantly older than most of the students in the class. She explained that I didn’t understand was that most of these kids were in grade or middle school when 9/11 happened and that the event had never been discussed with them while they were in high school because it was considered by most high schools to be too traumatizing to discuss. Needless to say my jaw nearly hit the fucking floor.

          So, in order to compare and contrast Vietnam and Afghanistan the class had to give the students the background on what started the war in Afghanistan including a whole week on 9/11 and how that changed certain things in the United States because these students had never covered the topic of 9/11 in their entire lives. In fact, many of them were basically ignorant of the whole event! They knew that something happened but they didn’t know what because no one ever told them.

          How crazy is that?

        • Oh my God. I had no idea it was that bad. But suddenly, it’s all starting to make sense. A lack of information has lead to pure ignorance of the issues at hand.

        • I know how you feel. I was born in 87, I was 4 when Dad deployed to Saudi for Desert Storm in 91, and I watched Somalia play out on TV. What I felt on 9/11 wasn’t resignation but more like a feeling of “welp time to go kick somebody’s ass.” The post 9/11 kids and the ones shielded from every damn thing by roving squadrons of hovering helicopter moms are unbelievably soft. They’d rather follow a Chamberlain approach and appease their enemies to death.

          Just 3 days ago my future sister in law took her wild 2 year old to see a psychiatrist to see how to improve her behavior. This shrink proceeded to give this inexperienced 20 something mom the same exact guidelines I use at work dealing with dementia patients. Now, it works great with them but 2 year olds need the occasional spanking to understand that something is forbidden.

        • E-f’en-gads! I was born in ’67, and a my young self watched the CBS evening news with Walter Cronkite giving us the body counts from ‘Nam, every night. Not to mention countless other acts of “trauma”. I should be in a corner demanding a “safe space” or something, right?

          Ugh. Death is everyone’s 100%-guar-on-effenteed fate. How we get there is an interesting addendum, nothing more.

          Now wonder most people under 40 are a complete mess. (Obviously, not all. Just most.)

          “I know that being a pedestrian crossing the street kills people everyday. But I don’t want to scare you, so we’ll ignore it.”

          We’re doomed…\

        • @Hank:

          Yeah, pretty amazing huh?

          @ATF:

          Reality and facts were shown the door in favor of making sure no one was ever uncomfortable. Fucking sad if you ask me. We didn’t have counselors asking us how we felt on/after 9/11. We had people asking if we needed to make phone calls to family back East.

          16V:

          I don’t much care for conspiracy but personally I think the “softness” of a lot of people is by design. That design is something that somehow slipped by the older generations. While it may not seem related I note the same thing with English. Older folks on a website like Breitbart get ticked about English usage critique and say “What does it matter if I don’t use a comma or a semi-colon correctly?”. Yeah, well that’s where it starts. Standards on commas or semi-colons slip and pretty soon Billy and Susie come out of high school unable to spell their own fucking name. Then the same people who didn’t care about English complain about Billy and Susie. The slipping of standards always starts small and then snowballs.

          Whenever people complain about an “English/Grammar Nazi” I just say “You misspelled ‘English Teacher'”.

  16. “…Rotten Tomatoes critics’ survey pegs it 54 percent favorable.”

    Then Rotten Tomatoes critics gave putrid THE LAST JEDI a 91% favorable rating. Things that make you go hmmm…..

    • The main problem with The Last Jedi was not sjw crap, but the fact that it was a poorly slapped-together live-action cartoon.

  17. What would you expect from sociopaths who hated “Defiance” and “The Great Raid” because they didn’t portray the “nuance” of the Holocaust and Japanese genocide and mass sexual slavery?

    Many years ago, there was a woman who called local Cleveland, Ohio radio talkshows. She was penpals with a bunch of serial killers and rapists. The special target of her ire was the Curley family, who at the time were suing NAMBLA for the rape and murder of their son. Perhaps she missed her calling as a movie critic…

  19. Now I’m undefined…just when I thought I could finally post.. If this shit keeps up I’m freakin’ leaving TTAG. Love the sight but some of the bs just to post is BS.

  20. Seriously racist posters here, yes folks, it is racist when you spam the internet with more anti-Islamic crap, based on your THOROUGH research of a religion of 1.7Bn people. Including 2A gun enthusiasts like myself that are as American as you, and happen to be Muslim.

    Please stop with internet anonymity hate speech that has made reading comments so repetitive

    • That’s right. When in doubt, scream RASIS!!!

      When that doesn’t work, scream OMFG RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA COLLUSION COLLUSION COLLUSION 😭😭😭

      • Btw: I also knew in advance that trying to argue with internet racists is pointless. But if you don’t think that some of the posts in this thread are bigoted, then I can’t help you. (I understand that “race” is the wrong term for a religion)

        • Well here’s another thing you can thank liberals for: you can’t legitimately call anything racist anymore. They’ve screamed racism to high heaven on so many damn issues where it was such a non factor that the word “racist” has lost all meaning. If anything, the liberals are the racist ones because they openly choose to see literally everything that happens through a lens of race. That’s pretty much the definition of racism.

        • Dearest muhammad, please be explicit in your informed and elightened izlamic logic, and explain to the rest of us INFIDELS, just how the real Muhammad, justifies the taliban’s use of an ambulance as a large Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised explosive device (SVBIED and is a war crime) in Kabul today that killed over 100 civilians, which is the capital of the Government of the ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTAN (GIRoA)?

          You CANNOT JUSTIFY this BARBARIC ACT, CAN YOU?..So just STFU.

          Or you can get off your izlamic ass and go to Afghanistan, and convince the Taliban and the islamic state in the korshan (is-k) to stop their barbaric 7th century acts and philosophy and make PEACE…. but I know you won’t, because you are gutless in the face of Islamic TRUE BELIEVERS..so, go ahead explain today in Kabul to us and the rest of the world…BTW..we (INFIDELS) are helping far more Muslims than you can conceive, to live peaceful and terror-free lives.

          Ok start explaining …. stay on topica and justify the war crime by the Taliban (students of Islam) today in Kabul, Afghanistan.

        • Muhammad, Thanks for being a warrior in the “religion of violence, rape, and murder”. just like ‘the prophet’, pig feces, death, and eternal damnation (if one believes in such nonsense) be upon him.

        • If you *actually* know better, why the hell did you conflate race and religion? REALLY makes you look stupid! Try this; I believe *ALL* religions are stupid and corrupt. Does that make me a racist? Really stupid.

    • There’s a difference between muslims and raghead a**holes. Primarily you aren’t screaming aloha snackbar while stoning christians and throwing gays off of towers.

    • Muhammed,
      Who said anything racist? To what statement specifically are you referring to? People stating what actual muslims did/are currently doing is not racism.

      The problem is not with the TTAG comment section but with YOUR “”prophet”” and his teachings in the sira and the hadith (aka the life of Muhammed) where he proclaims jihad and martyrdom against the Kafirs (non believers) is the only surefire way to get to heaven.

      You probably haven’t read your own holy texts fully because islam discourages its followers from free thought or critical thinking but I encourage you to study your own religion completely before you accuse others of bigotry or racism.

      And if your calling the article “racist” for casting the Taliban in a negative light, then there is no hope for you and you should move to Tehran or Kabul where you can be a much better muslim.

    • Muhammed, you are probably a great person as an individual.

      But if you are intellectually honest, you have to admit there is a huge doctrinal problem with islam. which is why islamic republics are invariably repressive and usually oppress or extirpate religious minorities. you can say your particular social group doesn’t act that way, which might be true. but many do because many islamic leaders exhort that behavior.

      there is no “new testament” in islam that “fulfills” the old laws about killing idolators, etc. as there is in christianity. furthermore, there is no “reformation” as there is in christianity, which founded protestantism and also forced the catholic church to reform over time.

      there is no major church, no mainstream christian denomination which promotes killing non-christians and/or terrorism in the modern world. all that stuff is left in the dustbin of history for christianity. but it is alive and well in islam today.

      • You do understand that the people fighting against the taliban right now are Muslims, it’s funny how people mention ISIS and Taliban atrocities and fail to understand that other Muslims are their primary targets, and 95% of their victims. Muslims are also doing almost all the fighting against them now.

        • No sh**, captain obvious. Muslim vs muslim is the most popular combat sport in the world.

          The question is WHY do muslims like to oppress, rape, behead, burn, take slave, and throw off rooftops EVERYONE, including infidels and muslims.

          the only way to get muslims to stop killing each other (temporarily) is to distract them with, “look, an Israeli!” or, “look, a woman driving!”

    • I can tell you what I’m for…

      I’m for a place where a man who shares your name can come to work in Bethlehem, PA, make a life, raise a family, and surrounded by people who don’t share his particular faith, follow his.

      I’m for a place where a couple of Muslim brothers can come from Burma, establish an Aikido dojo, and live their lives here, one becoming a doctor. Where when the brothers teach, there is no bowing in the Aikido protocols, just a moment’s pause with respect. With other teachers there, there’s the bowing.

      I’m for a place people come to, to make lives for themselves, leaving others the space to do the same. Like my Bulgarian friends who came only a few years ago, after college, now doing better than I am. It makes me smile. Like the people I come from, going back only a few generations. The longest-here in my ancestry are Pennsylvania-dutch, maybe 4-5 generations. The shortest, well, I have a chair that came over on the boat. I’m for a place where the children and church of the people who founded that Bethlehem in PA can accept my friend Muhammad and even me among them.

      The “exceptionalism” I think of, for the US, is really a compact, a covenant, to realize the post-enlightenment, liberal, humanist ideal. Here you can make the life for yourself you would, leaving that same space for others. But also, “best” each of us in our own terms. Because, who is a man, to know what is right more than another?

      We frown on coercing your ideas on others, for your own gain, or out of true belief. If the way you want to live your life includes imposing that way on other people, well, that’s not our club. Our particular covenant is to band together to do a few things in common, mostly to keep people off us so we can each do what we prefer individually.

      Killing people to make a point, or impose a way of life is particularly at odds with the compact that is the US, as it aspires to be. But, if we have to, we’ll band together to keep people from blowing up our buildings or worse to impose their way, or cow us into submitting. I’m OK with that.

    • Muhammad, your comments didn’t entirely fall on deaf ears. I do not share your religious beliefs and I most certainly oppose many aspects of the culture surrounding even mainstream practitioners of Islam. But I don’t believe that you should be judged for the actions of people who engage in the worst acts done in the name of Islam any more than Christians should all be judged according to the conduct of the KKK (they’re supposedly doing it all for Jesus, after all).

      Also, Jim (the guy who posted above me), well said.

      • Thank you Jim and Cory, you guys sound like real Americans, I’m not familiar with people insulting and degrading other people’s religions, and seeming to have fun with it.

        I am sitting here on this forum, sharing the same interests as you (firearms), like many of you I’m also a veteran, and a proud Dad if a son that just got a nomination to a service academy, and I could have a conversation all day with you and just be a regular guy like you.

        I wasnt expecting this kind of attack on my religion based on some leftist writer review of a movie. Not sure how Invot dragged into this, but very disappointed about what people really think. Maybe it’s just that extremists of every stripe always have the loudest megaphones

  21. Just because the libs hate it means it’s worth going to see. I was well retired form active duty and 48 in 2001. They wouldn’t let me back on active duty but, one of my sons was serving so… off he went in ’03, kicking in doors and shooting bad guys in the face that were trying to kill him. Later in ’06 they damn near punched his ticket with an IED. Thank God my grandson still has his Hero and I have mine. The Taliban are worth a bullet in the face and that’s it(maybe two).

  22. Meh. Who GAF what some lefty phagtard from WAPO writes about a movie, or anything else. Everyone knows WAPO is nothing but pravda on the potomac. the only people who take WAPO seriously are lefty phagtards just like the staff of that propaganda rag.

    i’ve pretty much tuned out the “mainstream” media since they dissemble, misrepresent, or omit the facts quite often.

  23. Basically all of you are cunts. And I’m talking about you TTAG commenters, just to be clear.

    • Your mother was a cunt. I would have thought a good leftist like you would have not used such a hateful word to describe women. This anger and hatred you feel towards women needs to be addressed.

    • verundud certainly isn’t interested in changing hearts and minds. he/she/it is acting like a dog barking at passing cars

  24. The left hates exceptionalism, because they aren’t exceptional. Also they want absolute total egalitarianism. Equal outcomes for everyone. That means the nonexceptional get paid the same as the exceptional. Or I should rather say – the exceptional get paid the same as the nonexceptional. Exactly the same as churchills quote on socialism basically (look it up).

  25. Going to see 12 Strong 💪 tomorrow…..for the second time! Great movie! Liberals suc k hind ti tty!

  26. TTAG. Please reconsider whether you want to be just another one of those internet sites that houses crap commentary on libs vs conservatives that brings out this kind garbage commentary. This movie is hardly the battleground of libs vs conservatives, and really TTAG should stick with guns.

    These guys here will just as easily go off on Jews like Robert F, as they would on former US Marines like myself that happen to be Muslim. They have no conscious and are emboldened to spew hate from behind their anonymous keyboards

      • Seriously? That’s such a lame and thoroughly debunked internet myth on Islam. The only place that I ever read about that is on article comment sections…

        • debunked? huh. so when islamic terrorist write in their magazines that they should lie to infidels, is that whatnyou mean by “debunked”?

        • Remember that people come in units of one, not in groups where each individual is a clone of the others. Gun people should know better than to make blanket generalizations about others the way ignorant anti-gun fanatics do about us. ATFAgentBob’s distinction between raghead assholes and Iraqis should be extended to Muslims in general.

        • Sorry, but no. You didn’t happen to be muslim. You may ‘happen’ to be blond, black or gay. You made a choice to be muslim. If your name is a real one, the choice was probably strongly encouraged by your parrents, but in the end it was still your choice.

          As you mentioned, islam is not a race. (Therefore criticism of islam is not racism.) It is not a religion either, it is a socio-politic system. System that is not compatible with modern western world.

          ISIS and Taliban attack other muslims for not being muslim enough. Christians did similarly in 15th century. The pope and sent crusaders into Bohemia several times to burn and murder heretic Czechs, who in his opinion weren’t catholic enough. (Look up Hussite war.)And today, just like in medieval Europe, there is only one way to deal with such violent fundamentalists. Kill them with superior fire power!

          Not all those who call themselves muslims are bad. But most are. Yes, majority, not a small fraction. To be a good muslim you have to be a shitty human being. Your prophetic namesake demands it.

          https://youtu.be/g7TAAw3oQvg

    • Muhammed, you seem more outraged by comments to an article than you seem upset by muslims raping women because their religious ideology tells them to, car bombing other muslims because they believe them to be “shirk” and apostates, throwing gays off roofs, extirpating yazidis and christians, beheading catholic priests, blowing up artifacts of ancient cultures, etc. etc.

      But if you are intellectually honest, you have to admit there is a huge doctrinal problem with islam. which is why islamic republics are invariably repressive and usually oppress or extirpate religious minorities. you can say your particular social group doesn’t act that way, which might be true. but many do because many islamic leaders exhort that behavior.

      there is no “new testament” in islam that “fulfills” the old laws about killing idolators, etc. as there is in christianity. furthermore, there is no “reformation” as there is in christianity, which founded protestantism and also forced the catholic church to reform over time.

      there is no major church, no mainstream christian denomination which promotes killing non-christians and/or terrorism in the modern world. all that stuff is left in the dustbin of history for christianity. but it is alive and well in islam today.

  27. “It’s true. But your facts hurt our feeling so your facts are now banned. Reeeeeeeeeee”
    A leftist

  28. I saw this movie last Friday. It’s not American Sniper or Lone Survivor. I have all the respect in the world for the soldiers it was depicting-honoring; however the movie itself was awful.

    There couldn’t have been any military consultants on set. Everyone had magic guns that never ran out of ammo and always, always hit what they were aiming at.

    You never felt like the soldiers were in any danger because they were so powered up compared to the enemy. The movie was basically Thor and his buddies minus his hammer.

  29. “That the men who die in these battles might not be purely “evil,” that they too might have families, friends, and lovers, is a nuance that 12 Strong doesn’t care to discern…”
    They do have lovers …12 year old boys and wives who they rule with iron fists. Cavemen

  31. The Taliban have no doubt committed awful deeds. However, I’m not sure that those we are empowering are so much better. A small sampling of headlines from the project that the US and its allies have invested hundreds of billions of $$$ and thousands of lives into:

    “Routine Child Rape by Afghan Police” http://www.theamericanconservative.com/2013/07/10/routine-child-rape-by-afghan-police/
    “Marine Murdered By ‘Tea Boy’ Prostitute On U.S. Afghan Military Base” https://www.teaparty.org/marine-murdered-tea-boy-prostitute-u-s-afghan-military-base-75026/
    “US funds fed corruption in Afghanistan, eroding security fighting Taliban – report” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/14/afghanistan-corruption-us-military-taliban-security

    For those who prefer something more amusing, here is a USAF officer’s experience trying to teach Afghans how to inflate a basketball: http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20110228_art014.pdf

    The only way for Afghanistan to become a modern country is for the Afghans to choose modern values for themselves. Rather than these multi-decade “nation building” adventures, we may just have to severely punish regimes that support attacks against US without the ensuing occupation.

  32. Meh, it was fine. Better actual movie than 13 hours, but way less tacticool porn. Well worth $5.75 at the matinee, but not the $9 evening price. Its better than most Bruckheimer joints.

    • MoviePass is the ticket, as they say…$9.99 a month to go see one movie every day. Then it doesn’t matter matinee or evening or those “half-price Tuesdays”; do what’s convenient.

  33. There’s little daylight between the secular fascists of yesteryear and the Salafi jihadists (Islamofascists) of today. I’ve spent nearly two years in Afghanistan and the Taliban (and there ilk) do not deserve humanizing. They are not Jeffersonian Democrats fighting for freedom. They are a cancer. They are scum. They are a blight on humanity. How quickly we forget what they did to the country when they were (and are largely still) in charge.

    If one wants to be opposed to U.S. involvement in the Greater Middle East…please have at it. Saying that the plight of the Afghan’s isn’t out problem is a sound argument. But the Left wants to go one step further and sympathize with people who would gladly saw their heads off with a dull knife.

    I don’t get it.

    • It’s self-loathing, and I can hardly blame them.

      If I were a Chomskyite, I’d loathe myself too.

  35. An interesting side note about 12 Strong…the battle at the fortress known as Qala-i-Jangi…which occurred in the days after the SF guys had helped liberate Mazar-i-Sharif…was when CIA Agent and former Marine Johnny Michael Spann was killed.

    John Walker Lindh was captured during that battle as well.

    No wonder all the lefties and the movie critics are panning this movie.

  36. The easiest way to change people’s minds about these “sh@tholes”, is to send them there to experience it for themselves.

    Much the same way that people think Paris is a beautiful, clean city, until you’re there…and see the fecal matter running in the street.

  37. I enjoyed the show. My only issue with it was that for the thousands of rounds Hemsworth fired, I saw him change magazines once. Must not have been California compliant.

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