Body of Lies

Ridley Scott made an action film last year called Body of Lies. Leonardo di Caprio and Russell Crowe fight terrorism in the Middle East and justify some beautifully shot scenes of American helicopters blowing up speeding jeeps in the desert. Sort of like Spy Game, but with one big difference. Leo and Russell don’t accomplish anything. Feel free to read this again: Leo and Russell don’t accomplish anything.

I don’t know if this was Mr Scott’s whole point with the movie – to show how fruitless U.S. involvement abroad is – but that is what has stuck in my mind. Leo risks his own life over and over again, gets his best friend killed, is forced to kill a would-be ally when the man falls into enemy hands, blows the location of the safehouse he’s staking out in Amman, sets up an innocent architect in a plot that gets the bewildered man tortured and killed, gets himself tortured and almost killed, and on and on. And in the end, the cool thugs of Jordanian intelligence pick up the prime suspect.

Leo and the U.S. end up with nothing but death and destruction. All at an outrageous cost to U.S. taxpayers who foot the bill for satellites, surveillance drones and military hardware.

Piles of money, lots of arm-waving but nothing to show for it – so just like the office, then.