Vantage Point, Pete Travis’ latest work, is a movie detailing the shooting of the United States president and the bombing at the global war on terror summit in Spain from the points of view of eight different witnesses. The main part of the movie takes place between 12:00 and 12:23 pm—eight different times. Though the reason for the violent act is never directly stated, it is still alluded to by some of the characters.
The quote mentioned at the beginning of this post was one of the most striking lines in the movie. Sam, one of the planners and actors in the attempted assassination of the president, said it in accusation of the characteristic of an empire that the US possesses.
One can infer that the attackers hate the American president because of the county’s involvement in many Middle Eastern and European countries’ affairs and because of the American troops’ expansive and constant presence.
So… is this movie implying something that it hopes the audience will grasp? Perhaps, perhaps not. Many people hold the view that the United States is an empire, constantly hungering for more land from which it can obtain natural resources and cheap labor (an “Empire of Capitalism” as the Marxists would say).
I, for one, do not denominate the United States as an empire. While I do agree that the US does follow the “Glory and Honor” notion that Professor Nexon described pertained to an empire, I tend to agree with Waltz in that this does not necessarily have to be deemed imperialism—it can simply be a state acting anarchically in accordance to realism. Yes, sometimes the whole spread of democracy is a bit overdone and just plain unattainable in some parts of the world, but at least someone is trying to spread it (regardless of all the oil and economic implications—we can discuss that later). No matter how much people complain about the US meddling in others’ affairs, it will never end. After all, as Agent Kent Taylor stated, “You can’t stop this. This war will never end.”
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