The Falcon, under interrogation, expresses his revulsion that the US govt is using power on the world stage. He knows about predatory behaviour, he says, and the scene cuts to his falcon swooping down to kill its prey, a nice symbolic image. The Falcon delights in nature red in tooth and claw, and he himself casually breaks the neck of a pigeon to feed his bird, while assuring us it's painless. So why is he so revolted at discovering something in geo-politics akin to what attracts him so much to raptors that he keeps one as a pet ? Especially since to call interfering in an election predation is really a bit much, isn't it ? Such cognitive dissonance in the Falcon is perfectly understandable, it's not unusual, but the artistic failure is that the movie simply takes the Falcon's perspective, and spins events to make an emotional appeal for it, rather than examining it with a cold eye.
Now, one could use realpolitik to justify dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population centre, an act that horrifies the Falcon, and rightly so. Likewise, one could use idealism to justify murdering millions of Kulaks and sending millions of other people to Gulag, but communist crimes don't figure in the Falcon's moral calculus. Why is that ? College boy !
But let's avoid these appeals to extremes and consider just the normal reality that states employ power to advance their interests. Does that revolt the Falcon only because the US is doing it ? He eventually realizes the Soviets are simply up to the same tricks, but what did he imagine initially ?
Whatever one's qualms about how one's govt actually uses its power, and I for one am plenty qualmy, why should ideology trump one's solidarity with one's own people ? Is that not absolutely contrary to the nature in which the Falcon delights ? Like a falcon taking sides with the pigeons and attacking other falcons in the name of inter-speciel avian rights ? For, although the Falcon comes to regret his decisions, I don't see that he repudiates the principle.
Then again, as a matter of fact, US interference from Iran, Australia (?), South Africa, Kosovo, Iraq, Ukraine and the other colour revolutions, to Libya, along with the worldwide promotion of the human-rights agenda, has advanced the American interest less than it has the International Revolution the Falcon might be suspected of silently approving.
Mix me a margarita, Gene !
Now, one could use realpolitik to justify dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian population centre, an act that horrifies the Falcon, and rightly so. Likewise, one could use idealism to justify murdering millions of Kulaks and sending millions of other people to Gulag, but communist crimes don't figure in the Falcon's moral calculus. Why is that ? College boy !
But let's avoid these appeals to extremes and consider just the normal reality that states employ power to advance their interests. Does that revolt the Falcon only because the US is doing it ? He eventually realizes the Soviets are simply up to the same tricks, but what did he imagine initially ?
Whatever one's qualms about how one's govt actually uses its power, and I for one am plenty qualmy, why should ideology trump one's solidarity with one's own people ? Is that not absolutely contrary to the nature in which the Falcon delights ? Like a falcon taking sides with the pigeons and attacking other falcons in the name of inter-speciel avian rights ? For, although the Falcon comes to regret his decisions, I don't see that he repudiates the principle.
Then again, as a matter of fact, US interference from Iran, Australia (?), South Africa, Kosovo, Iraq, Ukraine and the other colour revolutions, to Libya, along with the worldwide promotion of the human-rights agenda, has advanced the American interest less than it has the International Revolution the Falcon might be suspected of silently approving.
Mix me a margarita, Gene !