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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><FONT size=4>Organizations that would like to help
promote this film and organize around it in U.S. cities should </FONT><A href=""
target=_blank><FONT size=4>contact me</FONT></A><FONT size=4>.
</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Date: Thu, May 30, 2013 at 8:35 AM<BR>Subject: An
Anti-War Blockbuster<BR>To: <A href="">shelly@veteransforpeace.org</A><BR>Cc: <A
href="">media@lists.mayfirst.org</A><BR><BR><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr>
<H1>An Anti-War Blockbuster</H1><FONT size=4>By David Swanson<BR></FONT><A
href="" target=_blank><FONT
size=4>http://warisacrime.org/content/anti-war-blockbuster</FONT></A><BR>
<DIV><FONT size=4><IMG alt="" src="">There's no end to the<I> pro-war</I> movies
we're subjected to: countless celebrations of bombs, guns, and torture.
They come in the form of cartoons, science-fiction, historical fiction, dramas,
and reenactments pre-censored </FONT><A href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4>by
the CIA</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. Movies show us the excitement without the
suffering. War in our theaters resembles almost anything else more than it
resembles war.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Journalists appear in our movies too, usually as comic
figures, talking-head air-heads, numskulls, and sycophants. In this case,
the depiction is much more accurate, at least of much of what passes for
journalism.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>But, starting in June, a remarkable anti-war / pro-journalism
film will be showing -- even more remarkably -- in big mainstream movie
theaters. <I>Dirty Wars</I> (I've read </FONT><A href=""
target=_blank><FONT size=4>the book </FONT></A><FONT size=4>and seen </FONT><A
href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4>the movie</FONT></A><FONT size=4> and highly
recommend both) may be one of the best educational outreach opportunities the
peace movement has had in a long time. The film, starring Jeremy Scahill,
is about secretive aspects of U.S. wars: imprisonment, torture, night raids,
drone kills.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><I>Dirty Wars</I> won the Cinematography Award for U.S.
Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival 2013 and, recently, the Grand Jury
Prize at the Boston Independent Film Festival. <I>Variety </I>calls
it "jaw-dropping ... [with] the power to pry open government lockboxes."
The Sundance jury said it is "one of the most stunning looking
documentaries [we've] ever seen." I agree.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Typically, information that does not support our government's
war agenda appears only on the printed page, or perhaps in a power-point
presented to the usual heroic crowd of aging white activists gathered outside
the range of corporate radar. But stroll through an airport and you'll see
hardcopies of <I>Dirty Wars</I> displayed at the front of the bookstores.
Check out the </FONT><A href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4>movie
listings</FONT></A><FONT size=4> in June and July, and you're likely to see
<I>Dirty Wars</I> listed right alongside the latest super-hero, murderfest,
sequel of a sequel of some predictable Hollywood hackery.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>I wrote a </FONT><A href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4>review
of the book</FONT></A><FONT size=4> some time back, after which I picked up a
job helping to promote the film. But I'm promoting the film because it's a
great film, which is different from calling it a great film because I'm paid to
promote it. And my interest remains less in selling the film tickets than
in recruiting those who see the film into an active movement to change the
reality on which the film reports.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>This is not <I>Zero Dark Thirty.</I> You can't walk into
<I>Dirty Wars</I> supporting drone strikes, night raids, and cluster bombs and
walk out with your beliefs reinforced. Most viewers of <I>Dirty Wars</I>
will leave the theater believing that U.S. wars make the United States less
safe. In that moment, when people who are usually otherwise engaged have
come to realize that the Department of So-Called Defense endangers us (on top of
impoverishing us) is when we should sign those people up to take part in
activities the following week and month and year.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>The film opens by contrasting embedded war journalism -- the
regurgitation of spoon-fed propaganda -- with what the viewer is about to
see. And what we see is investigative journalism. The film begins by
providing us with an understanding of night raids, including from the point of
view of family members who have survived them. We see the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff tell Scahill that night raids that kills civilians should
not be investigated. And then we see Scahill investigate them, his search
leading him to secretive branches of the U.S. military involved in a variety of
dirty tactics in various countries.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>The film does have a failing. It doesn't tell people
anything they can do about the horrors they're exposed to. But, of course,
activism is possible and far more effective than any journalism -- good or bad
-- will tell you. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>One of the stories told in the film and the book of <I>Dirty
Wars</I> is the story of the destruction of al Majala. On December 17,
2009, U.S. Tomahawk missiles and incendiary cluster bombs rained down on the
tiny Yemeni village of al Majala, killing 21 children, 14 women, and 6 men, and
burning all the homes and their contents. The government of Yemen falsely
claimed responsibility. Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye disproved
that claim.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Shaye reported on the carnage, including photographing missile
parts labeled "Made in the United States." He reported on subsequent U.S.
strikes in Yemen, working with the <I>Washington Post, </I>ABC News, Al Jazeera,
and other outlets.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Shaye is in prison in Yemen for the crime of journalism, at
the insistence of President Obama. A coalition has launched </FONT><A
href="" target=_blank><FONT size=4>a petition today urging Obama and Yemen to
set Shaye free</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. Fans of <I>Dirty Wars </I>who want
to begin to do something to end the crimes committed in their names can be sent
to RootsAction.org.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>While the United States was searching for its citizen Anwar
Awlaki to kill him, Shaye repeatedly tracked him down and interviewed him.
These were tough and serious interviews, with Shaye asking Awlaki how he could
possibly support acts of violence. Awlaki's image was not helped.
But the U.S. government began warning media outlets not to work with Shaye,
falsely accusing him of supporting al Qaeda. The Yemeni government
kidnapped Shaye, threatened and released him, then snatched him again and gave
him a one-sided "trial," universally denounced as a sham by human rights
organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty
International.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>On February 2, 2011, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh,
under public pressure, had drawn up, printed out, and was prepared to sign a
pardon of Shaye. But Saleh received a phone call from President Barack
Obama, who opposed release of the journalist. Saleh ripped up the
pardon.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>The White House is feeling a little pressure over recent
revelations of government spying on and seeking the prosecution of U.S.
journalists. It took the targeting of a U.S. journalist for prosecution to
start people like Chuck Todd and Dana Milbank </FONT><A href=""
target=_blank><FONT size=4>chattering</FONT></A><FONT size=4> about Obama
treating journalism as a crime. But have you heard U.S. media outlets
raising concerns over the imprisonment of a Yemeni journalist at the instruction
of the U.S. president? </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>There is much else that we are not regularly told to be found
in <I>Dirty Wars.</I> Organizations that would like to help promote this
film and organize around it in U.S. cities should </FONT><A href=""
target=_blank><FONT size=4>contact me</FONT></A><FONT size=4>. With any
luck, together we'll change the conversation to one aware of and unaccepting of
acts of murder anywhere on earth.</FONT></DIV><SPAN class=HOEnZb><FONT
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