Reviews
The War You Don’t See review
December 12 2010
Makes you question mainstream media to the extent that your worldview is shaken.
The War You Don’t See is a compelling, hard-hitting documentary which explicitly poses and sets about answering the controversial question – has mainstream media become a part of rapacious war-making?
The disturbing answer would appear to be yes, as the damning evidence is stacked up during the course of this startling exposé from John Pilger – focusing on the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and how each has been portrayed by the UK and US television medias.
Pilger also examines the history of the relationship between the media and government in times of conflict going as far back as World War I and explores the impact of this on the information provided for public consumption. He shows us how mainstream media rather than investigating the truth often opts to echo and promote the government’s war propaganda.
This point is poignantly made with WWI footage of soldiers crying for their mothers as they lay dying on the battlefields – footage that was almost never shown to the public.
Similarly he argues that today’s public receives a very filtered and fragmented picture of the reality of war from the media, with the full toll of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan being concealed from Western audiences, as well as the abuse of civilians by British and American troops.
The film reveals a repeated and widespread failure on the part of mainstream television media to objectively scrutinise or distance itself from governments’ official line or indeed propaganda. A glaring example of this is highlighted by the reporting of government claims that Iraq possessed WMDs prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In probing interviews Pilger holds Fran Unsworth, the BBC Head of Newsgathering, and David Mannion, Editor-in-Chief of ITV News, to account. Pilger raises a pertinent question with Unsworth. He inquires how it is decided which ‘voices’ will gain air time and if so how much, how often and at what times of the day.
Pilger uncovers the fact that one US journalist had personally verified that there were no weapons of mass destruction at any of the sites the US government claimed there were, but despite this his story was ignored by the mainstream media.
CBS news anchor Dan Rather makes the astonishing admission to Pilger that if journalists had been doing their job and tried to establish the truth, rather than merely relying on official briefings, the Iraq war might never have happened.
The War You Don’t See is ambitious in its scope. It also assesses the role embedded journalists have and to what extent their perspective is compromised by the military. It looks at the part played by independent journalists and the obstacles they face that too often prevent them getting the truth to the public.
Latterly the film explores the function of whistleblowers such as Julian Assange of WikiLeaks and former senior British Foreign Office official Carne Ross and the media reporting of the hostilities between the Palestinians and Israelis.
But it concludes on a burning question: Why has the media been so complicit in keeping the public in the dark and what pressures have been brought to bear on it?
Anticipation:
Enjoyment:
In Retrospect:
The War You Don’t See (text) by Menaha Thiru is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Can't wait until it makes our shores here in the U.S.A. Wonder what century that will be? I hope that Netflix has the guts to offer this in 2011, but I am skeptical.
Written by abirdwoman on December 14th, 2010 at 18:33
Sad how many innocent people (million Iraqis) in Iraq lost their lives over a oil lie and support of Israel. Obama a man of vision was one of the few US senators who voted against this war and many countries including Canada, France, Germany', India, China etc refused to participate. Who knows how many extremists this made. Hussein was a tyrant but he wasnt a fanatic and kept Iraq together. Hopefully they wont go after Iran after this fiasco and failure love to see the movie.
Written by Kiddaa on December 14th, 2010 at 20:12
A must see, hard hitting program, a much needed view of what is happening all over the world. Three words TRUTH, ACCOUNTABILITY, TRANSPARENCY of what our governments do in our name!
Written by Bill on December 15th, 2010 at 00:50
"The War You Dont See" exposed 99.9% of journalists working for the mainstream broadcasting and publishing outfits… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HOLfwY17ns .
Written by spsyed on December 15th, 2010 at 04:28
Let us all wake up
Written by John on December 15th, 2010 at 11:30
…..my niece had two stints at Iraq an we were horrified at what she had to tell us. British squaddies taking pot-shots at civilians who posed no threat. And routine torture of captured civilians was common. And bodies returned in coffins headless or just half of it, we only get to hear about and see the photos of smiling faces of soldiers and how they were killed by a bomb-blast, and not the body-pieces which had to be gathered and brought to base in plastic bags.
Written by matt-stone on December 15th, 2010 at 15:08
Watch this exemplary evaluation by one of the English-speaking world's pre-eminent free thinkers, heed the political implications of what is being said and then reflect on how you too can help to transform the embedded paternalistic psychopathology of control into a culturally dynamic force for emergent ethical diversity, creative freedom, "bio-philic" innovation and educated stewardship…
Written by David Ll Foster on December 15th, 2010 at 22:32
One could be forgiven for thinking that things are too far gone, when a million innocent civilians are tortured and murdered while the the media endlessly report on shallow celebrities dressing up and having fun. I hope not.
Written by p killelea on December 16th, 2010 at 09:46
Fantastic programme – watched it on ITV iPlayer this week – brilliant – so grateful there are journalists like John Pilger doing their job properly!! This should be compulsory viewing for all!!
Written by l.a. on December 17th, 2010 at 14:28
The YouTube link is blocked. Can someone please purchase the rights and post it for others.
Written by Joe on December 18th, 2010 at 04:58
The DVD info and other related tips on my site
just google TFS THE FORTNIGHT SHOWCASE
http://www.howardsimonmarks.com
Written by Howard on January 16th, 2011 at 03:19
You can support this type of film-making by purchasing the film here:
http://www.dynamoplayer.com/watch/P241fb4df164f47…
Written by Matt on June 29th, 2011 at 15:48