How To Train Your Iraqi

First off, to all my Iraqi readers, I'm sorry for the seemingly racist post title. In truth it was inspired by my most recent trip to the 3-dollar Theater where Molly and I saw "How To Train Your Dragon." My title is much better.

And allow me to explain why:

- I hate to shatter the dreams of all young children, but this movie was not about dragons and Vikings. It was actually about American involvement in Iraq.

- First, the main leader (voice - Gerard Butler) is shown as the strong commanding type who is leading a people to war whose life it is to do battle. The analogy here is President Bush taking America to war against "terrorists".

- The dragons seemed to come and come and come, regardless of how many they slew. The terrorists continue despite our constant efforts to shut them down. Terrorists, like dragons, are unpredictable and appear when they are least expected, and sometimes when they are most expected.

- Often the main characters would make a weakly veiled comment like, "They are only defending themselves! We attack them so they attack us!" My favorite conversation of the whole film was between the dad, a.k.a. George W. and the son, a.k.a. Obama: Dad says, "They've killed hundreds of us!" and son cries out helplessly, "But we've killed thousands of them!"

- The "love" story turns into a cheap demonstration of how incredible our latest president is. The girl is talking to the boy about how different he is and how he would not kill a dragon. Then Obama, I mean the boy, says "300 years of Vikings and I'm the only one who won't kill a dragon." Then the girl says, "But the only right one." Basically it's the 2008 election all over again. The voters are swayed by what Obama has to say because his approach is so revolutionary and is going to bring peace and stability whereas every other president has only brought war and chaos.

- The boy who seems so against fighting dragons must end up fighting the greatest dragon of all. Don't forget that Obama's original plan was to take all the troops out of the Middle East immediately upon taking office. Recently he has called for more troops to be sent out. Guess he had to fight the dragons after all.

Scratch out the last few scenes and you've got one nearly perfect analogy. Sorry to ruin an already barely tolerable movie.

If you can't tell, I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this. Maybe I'll write a letter to the editor of the New York Times and ask them to publish it. While I'm at it I should throw in something about the evils of Happy Feet. If you don't know what I mean, watch the movie or ask me to explain.