John Pilger Doc - The War You Don't See

[Bruce Dazzling]

In an extraordinary alliance of TV and cinema, John Pilger's new film, 'The War You Don't See', opened in the UK mid-December. Having premiered at The Barbican on Tuesday 7 December 2010, the first Pilger film since 2007 started its UK run at Curzon Soho in London on Sunday 12 December. On Tuesday 14 December, ITV1 broadcast 'The War You Don't See' at 10.35pm. The film is available to watch on the ITV website until 14 January 2011 (UK users only).

The new film is a powerful and timely investigation into the media's role in war, tracing the history of 'embedded' and independent reporting from the carnage of World War One to the destruction of Hiroshima, and from the invasion of Vietnam to the current war in Afghanistan and disaster in Iraq. As weapons and propaganda become even more sophisticated, the nature of war is developing into an 'electronic battlefield' in which journalists play a key role, and civilians are the victims. But who is the real enemy?

John Pilger says in the film: "We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power."

Become a fan of 'The War You Don't See' on Facebook and get regular updates on the film, the latest information on where you can watch it and messages from John Pilger himself. You can also follow the film on Twitter.

'The War You Don't See' will launch in Australia in early 2011 and in the United States in summer 2011, dates will be confirmed on this website.

Directors: John Pilger & Alan Lowery. Editor: Joe Frost. A Dartmouth Films Production.

Linkage

[Wombaticus Rex]

Torrent: linkatronica || backup linkapalooza 1 || backup linkadelica 2

[Canadian_watcher]

Thank you for this!
Pilger is one of my heroes, my birthday passed this Dec 7th without any mention, and I feel like this was a terrific gift that I didn't know about till now.
can't watch at the moment but will be sure to return.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

.
Happy late birthday Canadian_Watcher!

Pilger is great, and this film seems to be something special. It's already prompted a spectacularly butthurt response from the BBC. Their World News Editor Jon Williams wrote a pathetic blog entry that is a masterclass in understated resentment towards a far greater journalist.

JON WILLIAMS wrote:

This weekend a new film is released around the UK. In truth, it's unlikely to trouble the big Hollywood blockbusters - but it's creating waves nevertheless.

John Pilger made his name in South East Asia covering the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia in the 70s. His is a particular type of journalism. He doesn't pretend to be impartial - he's a campaigner. In The Wars You Don't See he takes aim at the mainstream media - including the BBC. The charge is that in Iraq and Afghanistan - then and now - we beat the drums of war.

John Pilger's done bugger all since the 70s, you see, until Iraq and Afghanistan came along. He's been sitting on his arse for nearly 30 years, according to Jon Williams' subtle lie of omission.

JON WILLIAMS wrote:

There's a lot of ancient history in the film: was the media too unquestioning of the White House and Downing Street; were we willing participants in a rush to judgement about Saddam's supposed "weapons of mass destruction". The arguments have been rehearsed many times - and are valid areas for debate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2 ... t_see.html

Let's all have a valid rehearsed debate about these troublesome aspects of ancient history, which have no bearing on the world we live in now. Maybe we can discuss such stale, old, boring stuff as how the two (or is it three now? Four?) ongoing wars got started, and why so many people have died. These are valid areas for debate, but it all seems very long ago and far away to the World (News) weary Jon Williams.

Anyway, some of the comments he recieved are better than anything I can manage right now, or ever.

STEVE WROTE:

"He doesn't pretend to be impartial"

Unlike BBC journalists who do pretend to be impartial, but most certainly are not. BBC reporting is based on the flawed notion that those in authority are benevolent. It frames every argument. For example, when reporting on Afghanistan, BBC reporters talk of "winning hearts and minds" rather than propaganda. What we're doing must be "winning hearts and minds" rather than propaganda, because we are benevolent.

Certainly John Pilger gets angry when he sees the suffering caused by our military adventures. However, sometimes BBC journalists can get equally angry, just not about the results of our own military adventures. A good example of that would be Robert Parson's article "Grozny's ruined lives" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/668080.stm). He gets fist-shakingly angry.

"Grozny was once a city of half a million people. Now it is torn down, crushed and violated."

"It is thought as many as 40,000 people may have still been in the city at the height of the inferno. How many of them were incinerated, crushed by falling masonry or shredded by shrapnel nobody yet knows."

"Moscow excused itself the trouble of worrying about such details by equating those who stayed on with terrorists."

The Russians told people to leave so they could target the remaining fighters. Parsons had this to say.

"Why should they go? By what right was the Russian army forcing them from their homes? So Russia could destroy what it itself dismissed as a handful of terrorists?"

Does any of this sound familiar in a more recent context? Here's a clue. Fallujah. Yet did we get any similar angry reports when the US army ordered people to leave, or when the city was wrecked? Or when white phosphorus rained down? No. Instead we had an article titled "Fixing the problem of Falluja" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 989639.stm). I'm sure the reporter who wrote that article was under the illusion that it was impartial rather than completely framed within the assumption of our own benevolence.

Can you imagine for a moment a BBC journalist writing this, and actually having it published on the BBC website?

"Why should they go? By what right was the US Army forcing them from their homes? So the US could destroy what it itself dismissed as a handful of terrorists?"

It's laughable of course, and that should immediately set alarm bells ringing.


Pilger does not make this assumption of benevolence. Instead he realizes that governments seldom intervene unless there is some strategic or economic interest. From this stems his complete distrust of the official statements of governments, especially when it comes to warfare. This is a distrust that all journalists should have. Everything should be questioned. Government statements should not be accepted as fact or just reprinted in a stenographic manner without question.

"He claims that "embedding" reporters alongside the Armed Forces at best, distorts the story and worse, makes the media a mouthpiece for the military."

And he's right. There are so many problems with embedding, it's almost difficult to know where to begin. It goes far beyond the simple problem of the army driving you around to the stories they want you to cover (and away from the ones they don't). Journalists will naturally form a bond with the troops they travel with and this can also influence the articles. When a tank fires its round, the embedded reporter sees the smoke come from some building in the distance, but not the crushed collection of bodies inside, which possibly include civilians. It's more like making a Hollywood war film than journalism.

One question a journalist should immediately ask is why have the military been so keen to have embedded reporters in recent conflicts? Fortunately this question was put to Lt. Col. Rick Long, the former head of media relations for the U.S. Marine Corps who ran a media boot camp for journalists going off to Iraq.

"Frankly, our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment." - Lt. Col. Rick Long

Of course, even embedded reporters need to be slapped down occasionally. Journalist Jerome Starkey (of The Times) experienced this when he filmed a British soldier firing his machine gun without wearing any body armour in Afghanistan. He was told he could not show the footage even though it had nothing to do with operational security. He argued his case but ultimately he backed down. He had this to say.

"To my eternal shame, I backed down. Embeds were my livelihood. I swapped the clip for something a combat camera team provided. But I was blacklisted for more than a year all the same -- for arguing."

I wonder how many embedded journalists have experienced something similar, but unlike Starkey, have kept quiet.

The bigger problem though is not that journalists are embedded with the military but that the media is itself "embedded with power", a phrase coined by journalist Pepe Escobar.

Good stuff. As for Jon Williams - answer came there none.

I wonder what it's like writing a piece for the BBC's TheEditors Blog. What would it be like swaggering in with an attitude of smug dismissal toward the concerns of your audience, only to get conclusively and articulately owned a few hundred times in a row by the great unwashed. Then you'd have to come back a month later with the same attitude, and with your worldview entirely unchanged, only to get kicked all over the page again.

It can't be healthy. I mean, it can't be healthy people that do it, time and time again. What's wrong with them?

[Bruce Dazzling]

Wow, that comment is awesome, Ahab!

I'm going to read the rest of them tonight. Thanks so much for posting, as it has made my day!

[Wombaticus Rex]

I wonder what it's like writing a piece for the BBC's TheEditors Blog. What would it be like swaggering in with an attitude of smug dismissal toward the concerns of your audience, only to get conclusively and articulately owned a few hundred times in a row by the great unwashed. Then you'd have to come back a month later with the same attitude, and with your worldview entirely unchanged, only to get kicked all over the page again.

It can't be healthy. I mean, it can't be healthy people that do it, time and time again. What's wrong with them?

Well, I produce good copy I don't believe in for money -- several times a week, actually. Thankfully I don't have to build a public persona around that or put my face on a TV and speaking for it. That's a whole other magnitude of horseshit, but also a much higher tax bracket, too, no?

I was disappointed with the Adam Curtis blog, also on the BBC site...he doesn't deign to reply to anyone either. Which is a pity because his readers seem to mostly do more accurate research than he does, and they all seem to write at least as well as Curtis does...his work would benefit a lot from processing criticism. (Or even a good editor, really, but shit, who is that not true for?)

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Wow, that comment is awesome, Ahab!

I'm going to read the rest of them tonight. Thanks so much for posting, as it has made my day!

Glad to be of assistance, Bruce. There are a few examples of the Trolling Right on there as well, but it's mostly very well-argued support for Pilger, and deserved derision toward Williams and the Beeb. I'm on there myself towards the end of the comments, having a go at Kevin Bakhurst, but under a different name.

Well, I produce good copy I don't believe in for money -- several times a week, actually. Thankfully I don't have to build a public persona around that or put my face on a TV and speak for it. That's a whole other magnitude of horseshit, but also a much higher tax bracket, too, no?

Oh yeah, I understand the money side of it - the motivation of cash and prestige and being part of a powerful organisation. All that must be great, and I'd probably enjoy it too. But if Williams knows that's what he's doing (simply playing along with the company line for benefits) he can't turn round at the end of it and say he's a better journalist - more impartial, less campaign-y - than John Pilger. 'Cos he's not, and he knows he's not. But he seems to really believe that he is. He seems to really believe that the BBC, as a state broadcaster, doesn't have a vested interest in purveying the views of the state.

What's more, he looks like a cross between Vlad Putin and MI6's man-in-a-bag Gareth Williams, and that's simply unacceptable, in my view.

You don't actually write harmful stuff that targets or marginalizes vulnerable people, though, do you? You don't "beat the drums of war" for cash. I'm almost certain you wouldn't do that, even though I don't know you. I used to work in a call center for a large energy company, where I spent a good part of the day knowingly decieving people into paying more than they had to for things that were essential to their wellbeing - more than many of them could afford. I lasted three weeks. I have a feeling (maybe I'm wrong) that if you really believed your writing-for-money was doing genuine, measurable harm to people, you'd soon stop doing it.

Is it adverts? Adverts are alright, so long as it's not for the army, weapons, increased arsenic content in children's sweets, Harry Potter books, etc.

I was disappointed with the Adam Curtis blog, also on the BBC site...he doesn't deign to reply to anyone either. Which is a pity because his readers seem to mostly do more accurate research than he does, and they all seem to write at least as well as Curtis does...his work would benefit a lot from processing criticism. (Or even a good editor, really, but shit, who is that not true for?)

I've noticed that with quite a few highly-praised journalists, over at least the last decade. I'm not really sure what it means exactly - are the general populace now more informed than their informers, or are our appointed informers just getting dumber all the time? Is their increasing dumbness real, or is it a deliberate blind? It's all a bit of all of that, I think.

As someone once said of the BBC: "It's not staffed by farmers from Cumbria, is it?" They draw their people (even their in-house "rebels" like Curtis and Ronson) from a very particular social stratum, and people from that social stratum have a vested interest in being blind to vast swathes of reality.

Do you have access to Radio 4, though? 'Cos it's often good.

[Stephen Morgan]

I was disappointed with the Adam Curtis blog, also on the BBC site...he doesn't deign to reply to anyone either. Which is a pity because his readers seem to mostly do more accurate research than he does, and they all seem to write at least as well as Curtis does...his work would benefit a lot from processing criticism. (Or even a good editor, really, but shit, who is that not true for?)

I saw three good posts on the Curtis blog:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... terro.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2 ... e_and.html

and one about a British train raided by the army, can't find it now, the sort of thing we hear about a lot now with armed men storming American schools to simulate terrorist atrocities for the police and so on, but not expected in the era before colour TV. The first of the above will be a bit primitive for those of us here, who know about Gladio and so forth, but the latter is good. Reminds me of this:

"They worked for Ibn Saud to help him unite Arabia, they worked for British intelligence, they worked for French intelligence, they work for U.S. intelligence, a mercenary band 'hiding behind Islam' which is why most of them are cokeheads and alcoholics who simply agitate to attract any psycho or disaffected they can to their ranks. The big question has been, for whom are they working? And the answer seems to be the transnational Reich movement."

[AlicetheKurious]

Reminds me of this:

"They worked for Ibn Saud to help him unite Arabia, they worked for British intelligence, they worked for French intelligence, they work for U.S. intelligence, a mercenary band 'hiding behind Islam' which is why most of them are cokeheads and alcoholics who simply agitate to attract any psycho or disaffected they can to their ranks. The big question has been, for whom are they working? And the answer seems to be the transnational Reich movement."

What a steaming pile of disinfo shit. I felt dumber just for reading it.

[Canadian_watcher]

Ahab, thanks for the belated birthday wish!

Just finished watching - had to do it in chunks as life has been full in the past two days.

Fantastic, although I am always uncomfortable when arses dangle over the hot-seat, and there was a lot of that in this film. I hope for for the death blow and I know it's part class and part movie-making trend that kept Pilger from delivering on that. I get sick of watching "them" squirm knowing they're all going to return to their big houses and get drunk on expensive scotch like they probably do every single time they come face to face with their own inner emptiness.

Still, if his film moves even one reporter to risk his cozy pay cheque in order to bring the truth (or better yet, if it moves an editor to do the same) it will be a success.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Check the dates.

The UK's jailing of Julien Assange was timed to coincide with the broadcast of Pilger's documentary film.
Because Assange is in the film presented as credible.

[Stephen Morgan]

Reminds me of this:

"They worked for Ibn Saud to help him unite Arabia, they worked for British intelligence, they worked for French intelligence, they work for U.S. intelligence, a mercenary band 'hiding behind Islam' which is why most of them are cokeheads and alcoholics who simply agitate to attract any psycho or disaffected they can to their ranks. The big question has been, for whom are they working? And the answer seems to be the transnational Reich movement."

What a steaming pile of disinfo shit. I felt dumber just for reading it.

I think, with the evidence of Kola Boof's time with Osama and Hopsicker's evidence about the conduct of the alleged 9/11 hijackers it's quite clear that the average fundamentalist operatives acts more like a psycho coke-head gangster than a religious devotee. Disbelieve if you wish.

[matrixdutch]

Just watched it...good doc!

[AlicetheKurious]

I think, with the evidence of Kola Boof's time with Osama and Hopsicker's evidence about the conduct of the alleged 9/11 hijackers it's quite clear that the average fundamentalist operatives acts more like a psycho coke-head gangster than a religious devotee. Disbelieve if you wish.

I wasn't referring to that particular quote, but to the mishmash of nonsense at the link. Really, lots of half-truths, major distortions and outright falsehoods there, especially for anybody who knows anything about the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom I am far from being a fan, but that doesn't mean I find outright defamation and lies acceptable about them or anybody else).

Furthermore, the mysterious alleged 9/11 hijackers or the spooks associated with "al-Qaeda" are far from being representative of the average fundamentalist militant, and it seems the author is deliberately and maliciously conflating the former with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not at all the same thing.

The Muslim Brotherhood is an existing active religious, social and political movement that you can agree with or not, but there's no need to make stuff up about it. They even have an English-language website that you can visit to find out about their news and point of view on local and international events:

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/

[vanlose kid]

I think, with the evidence of Kola Boof's time with Osama and Hopsicker's evidence about the conduct of the alleged 9/11 hijackers it's quite clear that the average fundamentalist operatives acts more like a psycho coke-head gangster than a religious devotee. Disbelieve if you wish.

I wasn't referring to that particular quote, but to the mishmash of nonsense at the link. Really, lots of half-truths, major distortions and outright falsehoods there, especially for anybody who knows anything about the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom I am far from being a fan, but that doesn't mean I find outright defamation and lies acceptable about them or anybody else).

Furthermore, the mysterious alleged 9/11 hijackers or the spooks associated with Osama are far from being representative of the average fundamentalist militant, and it seems the author is deliberately and maliciously conflating the former with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is not at all the same thing.

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