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Edited on Sun Jun-04-06 01:45 PM by Generic Other
The past few days I have been participating in a film festival featuring Iraq war documentaries. On Friday, I watched "War is Sell," "Weapons of Mass Deception," and "Iraq Uncovered" all about the media's complicity in the build-up to war. Yesterday, I saw "21 Days on the Edge of Empire," "Gunner Palace," and "365 Boots," all films showing the war from the soldier's perspectives. Today I am going to watch films that show the Iraqi perspective.
After the films, I was able to participate in panel discussions on the films. On Friday, I got to listen to embedded reporters justify their paper's coverage of the war. They were as much in denial as it was possible to be when it came to acknowledging culpability in sending this nation to war. Unbelievable arrogance displayed. My local paper has embedded reporters in Iraq because of our proximity to Ft. Lewis, and their attitude was that they were doing real objective reporting as a result. Yet the film "Weapons of Mass Deception" pointed out that they were in fact suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome in that their lives were dependant upon the soldiers they were embedded with. This meant they could not objectively report the war or ever ask the hard questions that a free press should ask. Their paper dependant on the military for revenue could not be objective either. They never asked critical questions leading up to the war, they underreported and outright lied about anti-war protests in our area, and they chose to close their eyes to their responsibilities as journalists. And then they had the nerve to be offended when they were called on their behavior. I guess they thought we'd cheer and throw flowers at them. Didn't happen.
I highly recommend "Weapons of Mass Deception" if you haven't seen it. It validates all the observations we at DU have made about the so-called free press in America. From the daily talking points memo to the embedded, non-objective reporting, the splashy war graphics and lack of real news--it's all brutally laid out for us.
The film "Gunner Palace" was also an amazing film. We had the opportunity to talk to the father of one of the soldiers who was killed in the course of making the film. I was struck by this man's courage in speaking out against the war. He mentioned something I found interesting about the responses of the soldiers to the war. After his son died, the father spoke of the division that occurred within his own family. His daughter-in-law received emails and letters from her husband reassuring her constantly that he was fine and that he was proud to be in Iraq doing his duty etc. But his father got another kind of letter from his son admitting that everything was going wrong, that the mission was flawed, that the US didn't belong there, that he wanted out, etc. All the Iraqi vets at the discussion said the same thing. They sent home comforting letters filled with happy talk for family, but that if you placed them side by side with journals or letters written to those they trusted with their true thoughts, a very different picture emerged.
Members of "Military Families Speak Out" shared with us their heartbreak over sons and daughters placed in harm's way, of children who didn't always agree with their parent's antiwar positions, of others in the military who tried to silence them. What a courageous group of people.
I just wanted to share.
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