The documentary Dirty Wars, according to Jeremy Scahill, an experienced journalist and war correspondent, is about the “seen and the unseen and the things hidden in plain sight” in the very of the war on terror. The documentary thus, is essentially about bringing up hidden things in plain sight, facts that we know to occur in the war zones where the American army operates and exposing the depth of these facts, and how ugly the truth about them is.
The film accompanies Jeremy Scahill as he investigates strange incidents linked to US military actions in nations such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Some of the operations shown in the film for instance, are shivering: a family in Gardez, Afghanistan, has the house invaded in the middle of the night by a US military unit, and a man and two pregnant women are killed. And no reason for the operation is given, as no family member was suspected of terrorism. Later, in Yemen, Scahill hears several testimonies about a whole village destroyed by a missile. There, locals use the ironic term ‘American Taliban’ to refer to American soldiers
Filmed as if it were a conspiracy thriller, Dirty Wars shows interviews filmed in dark scenarios and has a suspenseful climate that continues throughout the projection. And Scahill, with his narration and with the camera often close to his face, becomes the true ‘star’ of the film. His work is a true investigative and independent journalism class: he travels across many countries and pursues with determination the American military’s secrets.
As mentioned during the film, there has been a ‘change in the way the war is waged’ over the last few decades. And Scahill makes it clear, how the situation has worsened in the past decades. The connection between the White House and the mysterious Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) elite units is also highlighted in the film. In recent years it has even become easier to bomb a place and liquidate a group, thanks to the drones and the war instruments in the distance.
The film ties in well with the very concept of war, and McNamara’s “Fog of War”, portraying war as something ambiguous and uncertain. With such an uncertainty, like the uncertainty the United States faced after 911, nation’s, & in this case, the U.S try to reduce the fog of war with overt military intelligence. Conflicts of ideals in the sense of nationalism and ideologies, as discussed in lecture, has waged a war between the two worlds causing a clash of civilizations. The United States, hellbent on ensuring maximum national security after the horrors of 911, begins waging a war on terror. That war on terror though, has transformed into a self fulfilling prophecy, where the U.S has become the unseen terrorizer in the very nations its trying to stop, the Middle East.
“Dirty Wars” portrays this well. While the American government tries to cloak the war, putting it in the shadows and hiding its consequences, the film comes to remind us of the basic truth of the conflict. The horror of war can never be forgotten. The film humanizes war, giving face and context to people who have died in secret. To those who did not even become statisticians, because their deaths were ignored by everyone except their relatives.
