The Americans (when I say Americans, I want to mean the USA) waged several wars. As the self-appointed Governor of the World and the Custodian of human rights and freedom, they tried to bully several other countries into submission. Whenever the latter did not oblige, they embarked on search and destroy missions of those sovereign nations, throwing all norms of human rights out of the window. They killed and maimed millions of innocent civilians in other parts of the world during their wars, caused havoc and unprecedented suffering on children, women and men. However, with the world`s most sophisticated army with access to all the modern cutting-edge military technology, where have they actually won?

Only in the movies.

The USA lost big time in Vietnam and made a complete and utter mess of themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then, Hey Presto! Enter Rambo. He won the war for them. Whenever the Americans lost a war in the real world theatre, their celluloid heroes brought back home the lost glory of victory, at least within the confines of a movie theatre. The American public emerged jubilantly from the movie theatres, spellbound with Rambo`s victory over the enemy, but stepped into the bright lights of reality, squinting and losing at the same time the real sense of what really has happened to them out in the real world. Welcome to Rambo-less reality!

Rambo may have won the wars for America and cruised home unscathed but the general American public have now come to know that their kith and kin are still dying by the dozen in the distant corners of the world fighting useless, losing wars all the time with victory being elusive than ever. The American public have been led to believe that they are invincible in wars, not because the White House was actually winning any of what they have started outside their territory, but because a myth of superiority was woven around them, thanks to their modern weaponry and actors like Stallone and Schwarzenegger.

The modern weapons may make a big difference. It really does. However, It is completely two different things for a soldier to fight for a just cause to save one`s motherland and to fight wars that do not feel like their own. The conviction of the soldier behind the weapon makes a greater contribution. That is where the Americans went wrong and the Sri Lankans sailed home. The Sri Lankan soldier only needed the right kind of leadership as extraneous input, both militarily and politically, and the sheer need and dedication to see the end of the enemy came from within and was his very own. He was clear of his target, was clear who he was fighting with and he knew for a fact that, without winning, none of his countrymen would have a future. That, in a nutshell, drove those brave men and women to achieve what they achieved, sometimes even the most unthinkable, as professed by some military pundits during the humanitarian operations in the East and the North.

Sri Lanka had been battered for decades by Velupillai Prabakaran and his international allies, and when the right leadership came at the right time, our people did not want any other stimulus to gather courage and stand united until we saw that dead face of the devil at the banks of the Nanthikadaal lagoon. Our soldiers fought a real war that we all felt we needed to fight and, as a natural result, we emerged jubilant from the theatre of war in to a freed motherland. When our American brothers and sisters came out of the movie theatres admiring the stunts of Rambo and chased after Stallone for his autograph, we shed a tear and cherished the memories of our soldier heroes who selflessly risked their very lives, from the beginning of the war to its end, to free us from the grips of an era of barbarism. Now the Sri Lankans are free but the Americans are not, Rambo remaining a distant memory.

Now that Sri Lanka have won the real thing, we also can think of making movies about fighting enemies and winning wars. Why not!

Our people will be able to admire the many stunts performed by the local actors (perhaps the stunts might be of lower grade than what the Americans can do because we do not have superior movie making technology as they do). However, the difference is that, unlike our American movie-goers, we will actually feel and would know that even the lowest quality stunts replayed on the silver screen would be indeed million times diluted imitations of the actual stuff, the full throttle bravery, showcased by our own war heroes out in the real world battlefront. Our war movie stunts may be less convincing on the screen than their counterparts in America, but still we will be totally convinced that we were not being had by a completely imaginative, fairytale type war story telling! We may suck at performing the stunts on the set but we are sure we did not feign victory to cover up a loss.

That is why we think that the Americans should keep making war movies, not keep making any more losing wars. Thus, the Americans should indeed be happy about the Sri Lankan war victories, not envy us. After all, nobody can be perfect at doing everything. Moreover, they can benefit from the Sri Lankan experience.

Here`s a plan. Perhaps, the Americans could use their cutting-edge movie making technology to make war movies based on the heroics of the Sri Lankan Soldiers in the battlefront. That way, both the quality of the movies and the credibility of what is shown on their silver screen will be at an all time high compared to their imaginary Rambo-style victories on the screen. May be Robert O. Blake can bring this suggestion to the attention of his Masters at the White House. It will save them a lot of embarrassment, trouble and money trying to find credible war victory stories from among their miserable situations in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to make more Rambo-type movies.

So, Mr. Blake, I hear that you were much desperate to interview our war hero, General Sarath Fonseka, to extract details about the successful war he conducted. Perhaps it is best for you all to give up your evil plans of trying to sneak out information against our war heroes to fix them in any way you can and, instead, concentrate on extracting valuable insight and tips from them with a view to writing a blockbuster movie script about the war against Prabakaran.

Here is a suggestion for you, Mr. Blake. Why don`t you leave the US immigration officials out of it and come down to Colombo with someone like Messrs. George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and Michael Moore and interview the Great General sometime in the future. You could ask the General about the brilliant war tactics he innovated and used to destroy the LTTE for good. Give all the assistance to Mr. Lucas and Mr. Spielberg to devise hair-raising stunt scenes accordingly. You, Mr. Blake, can provide more inside stories for Mr. Moore by revealing the dirty tactics that some international players (both of US origin and other) employed to save Prabakaran, however, ultimately in the most futile way. Mr. Moore could then come up with a juicy script for the movie, which, I suggest, would carry the title of Colombo as opposed to Rambo . In addition, Mr. Blake, you can act in the film too, as yourself if you like (it might, however, confuse the movie-goer as to who the real villain of the movie is, unless you chose to play the part of Prabakaran)! That way the movie would become filled with suspense and more thrilling to watch and the blockbuster will undoubtedly make the USA ever ingrained in the minds of the movie-goers as the greatest movie maker in the world. Well, it is so much better than being remembered as lousy war losers in the real world, is it not?

Therefore, why don`t you keep things simple and stick to the movies! What say you, eh?