"Red Dawn" and Slate

The Instapundit pointed out an article at Slate that compares the movie Red Dawn to America in Iraq, with the reviewer taking the opinion that America looks a lot like the Soviets do in that movie, and the roles are reversed.

The insurgents are at first merely scared, angry kids, but they're hardened by
the viciousness of the Soviets. Seeing nothing to lose, they become suicidal
terrorists who assassinate, bomb civilian targets, gleefully murder wounded and
captive Russians, and eventually martyr themselves in theatrical, insane ways.

Fair enough, that definitely happens in the movie. But rather than keep playing that same tired old "Us versus Them" card, if you look closer the movie is actually pretty instructive on how insurgencies work. It's not about fascism, despite the reviewer's claims. What's actually being represented in the ruthlessness of the Wolverines is desperation.

In my memory, Red Dawn celebrated America and its virtues. But its guiding
ideology is actually fascism. The only politician in Red Dawn, the mayor of
Calumet, is a quisling who rats out his neighbors for execution. His son, the
student-body president, turns out to be the traitorous Wolverine, seeking
immediate capitulation to the invaders and eventually leading the Soviets right
to the band's hideout. Swayze takes command of the Wolverines by force, forbids
a vote about whether to surrender, and demands that his fellow guerillas obey
him without question.

The point that's being madein the movie is one that's visible in Iraq now, Northern Ireland under Stormont, and about a thousand other places on earth where political disenfranchisement is so extreme that oppressed minorities don't see any other way to preserve themselves and their interests but force of arms. In Red Dawn, the Wolverines are absolutely dedicated, from the very beginning, to their own preservation. Fighting the Soviets is actually a sort of afterthought after months in hiding, when they realize they're still dependent upon society for a number of things, and even if they preserve themselves, the predations will be carried out against the helpless of their own ranks. The authoritarianism is a requirement of survival.

Watching it now, I think one of the greatest points of the movie is not that America is the bad guy, or that America has become what the Soviets were. The biggest point, by far, is the display of Americans becoming insurgents not to defend their way of life, but to regain it from an oppressive aggressor. It acknowledges that human psyches work the same way in any country, and it actually provides a very useful perspective about insurgencies and how they see themselves: as standalones in a world gone completely off the deep end. Their characteristics - fanaticism, ruthlessness, asymmetrical warfare, and occasionally the appearance of insanity - serve a larger strategic purpose in holding the group together and wearing down the will of the dominant power.