2014-05-07 Gde Su Tela?

The argument goes something like this...a 2000 square mile floating island is going to kill some people if it lands on other land. That's a pretty logical argument. 2000 square miles is a lot...it's huge! But there is this really interesting new documentary from a Serbian guerrilla documentary team that headlined some of the worst offenses of the Yugoslovian civil war and the war for Kosovo...and they have been asking, "Where are the Bodies?"

The film starts out simply enough, with the narrator telling his story and his personal experience during the Genoshan occupation. We see incredible footage of the floating island in the distance and then landing, crushing the land underneath it. This is seen from many angles, bridges are destroyed, pipelines burst, trees crushed etc. But then the narrator explains how things got better so quickly.

There are lots of explanations. There are some who say it was because the services of Damage Control Incorporated were retained on the largest scale in the last 10 years. Others believe it was because the real reason for the 25% unemployment was the corruption of the regime, hiding large amounts of government funds in London and other banks, and that thanks to the efforts of the Serbian Inspector General's office, 97% of these funds have been recovered and used to help with the rebuilding effort. Still others mention the sheer dumb luck that the economy has had for the last few months, with entrepreneurial start ups blooming all over as well as many international companies falling all over themselves to make deals with the reinstated civilian government.

But the narrator thinks that it might just be because Magneto and Genosha worked so hard to have a soft foot print. They start by pointing out the basic tech of the Genoshan soldier is better, man for man, than almost any nation on earth and that their munitions are much smarter than the NATO bombardment during the Kosovo War. They point to the causalities side by side: Official numbers for NATO were between 90 and 500. In terms of confirmed civilian causalities, that number is around 20 and 75 for soldiers. But also bear in mind that this was a land occupation, unlike the bombing, with the actual occupation of territory.

The thinking by the documenters is that if the island had killed a lot of people, there would be funerals. So they followed the money trail. Nothing. Not ONE funeral for anyone who lived in the area. It was particularly sparse, but how could such a thing have happened? They didn't believe it.

So they did some investigation and discovered that Magneto had used a 'deadly' triple combination of advanced life sensors, telepaths, and flying mutants to rapidly move people out of the way. They spoke to several of the mutants who did this, since the documentary crew was provided astonishingly open access to Genoshan military personnel, currently engaged in the Ukraine/Russia conflict. There was even one incidence of a fatal heart attack from a 90 year old woman, and yet the Genoshan soldiers saved her by using CPR.

The conclusion of the documentary states that, for a dictator who supposedly only cares about mutants and finds humans worthless, why is it that he's taking even greater caution with human casualties than the most powerful and advanced governments on Earth? Maybe it's because secretly he does care. Or maybe it is because he realizes that tactically, even if he hates humans, showing that he values them enough to save their lives while he fights for mutants is a good idea.

The final shot shows the documentary film makers wearing the controversial, "Magneto was right" T-shirts, with concern about the war in Russia and where it will lead. Russia has ICBM's and this could be the destruction of all life on earth. Has he gone too far? Perhaps...

But the US and Russia have killed a lot of people. The credits show the numbers killed by US wars in civilians and soldiers, and then shows several deaths cause by US industries such as the US Tobacco industry and likely projected deaths by other controversial policies. Then it showed the size of the Serbian casualties in comparison.

As a columnist, I'm supposed to stay neutral, but I am forced to admit...when a hero is standing on the side of someone who is an elected tyrant but oppressing people just because of the way they were born, vs the tyrant who is trying to free his people from oppression...it's kind of hard to justify siding with Putin.

My own T-shirt is on order.