Douglas Valentine's Scathing Review of Jeremy Scahills 'Dirty Wars'

[David Guyatt]

It's simply pitiful to see dogmatic blindness presenting itself as righteous indignation.

[Douglas Valentine]

Thanks everyone for reading my articles about Scahil, Greenwald, and Brand, and for talking about them. I think it's always misleading when a messenger's persona is connected with a message. And I would caution everyone not to think they know anything about these three guys; what you know are their fashioned public personas. It's always hardest to overcome our own assumptions. Remember what Yeats said on his tombstone: Cast a cold Eye On Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by!

[Douglas Valentine]

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22017.pdf

[Lauren Johnson]

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22017.pdf

Thanks for your work. Certainly here at DPF, one of the themes has been the "CIA" as originator of multiple narratives each with their own good guys and bad guys. From the Gravity's Rainbow thread:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

[Albert Doyle]

I have often wondered if the US is ruled by a Cult of Death.

Or "Cult Of Intelligence" perhaps?



Watch 'America Declassified' on the Travel Channel for a CIA 'good guy' host.

[Douglas Valentine]

I ended up watching this at long last a few nights ago. Doug Valentine is pretty spot on actually.

All of which brings me to my review.
Dirty Wars
Dirty Wars is a post-modern film by Jeremy Scahill, about himself, starring himself in many poses.
The film owes more to Sergio Leone and Kathryn Bigelow than Constantinos Gavras. Scahill certainly is no Leslie Cockburn: there is no Tony Poe telling how the CIA facilitates heroin shipments; no Richard Secord suing him for unraveling the financial intrigues of the CIA's secret operators. The CIA is rarely mentioned.
There is no reference to the Guerra Sucia in Argentina.
Scahill is no Franz Fanon documenting the devastating psychological effects of racism on society. There are no cameos by Jean Paul Sartre advocating violent retribution on Hollywood, no mingling with the Taliban in their caves as they conspire against their Yankee oppressors at the Sundance Film Festival.
We get the first taste of his self-indulgent idiocy when he says it is "hard to tell" when the Dirty War began. He does tell us, however, that he is on the "front lines" of the war on terror.
Scahill (hereafter JS) brags that he wasn't going to find the front lines in Kabul, although he could have, if he knew where to look. Instead he just looks around furtively on his way to the scene of a war crime. We see a close-up of his face.

Yep. Very postmodern and with all that limitation and decontextualisation and irrelevance.

The film ends and I wonder what he could have produced if he hadn't melodramatized and spent so much time and film on close-ups. I wonder what he could have done if he'd read a few history books.
Ultimately, the film is so devoid of historical context, and so contrived, as to render it a work of art, rather than political commentary.

Indeed. It would have been a far better movie with an historical context in which to place the current Dirty War/s. People who don't know that history wont notice though. Nevertheless a powerful work of art and some good storytelling told. Definitely a must watch.

I'm not saying that DV didn't have some valid points - he did....but I don't think JS is on the 'other side'....and we [the progressive community] have a history or goring our own - while the neo-fascists all march pretty much in lockstep -despite their differences; the reasons, I think, are obvious, but something the left and especially the far-left need to keep in mind and under control. IMHO

Here's my first article calling out Scahill for his "misinformation" or 'disinformation", if you think there is a difference, let me know. http://original.antiwar.com/douglas-vale...ity-state/ To pooh-pooh my satirical mocking of Scahill, which he deserves, is a way of avoiding his complicity in the lies that enable the Cult of Death. Examine his mis-dis/information.

[Kara Dellacioppa]

I ended up watching this at long last a few nights ago. Doug Valentine is pretty spot on actually.

All of which brings me to my review.
Dirty Wars
Dirty Wars is a post-modern film by Jeremy Scahill, about himself, starring himself in many poses.
The film owes more to Sergio Leone and Kathryn Bigelow than Constantinos Gavras. Scahill certainly is no Leslie Cockburn: there is no Tony Poe telling how the CIA facilitates heroin shipments; no Richard Secord suing him for unraveling the financial intrigues of the CIA's secret operators. The CIA is rarely mentioned.
There is no reference to the Guerra Sucia in Argentina.
Scahill is no Franz Fanon documenting the devastating psychological effects of racism on society. There are no cameos by Jean Paul Sartre advocating violent retribution on Hollywood, no mingling with the Taliban in their caves as they conspire against their Yankee oppressors at the Sundance Film Festival.
We get the first taste of his self-indulgent idiocy when he says it is "hard to tell" when the Dirty War began. He does tell us, however, that he is on the "front lines" of the war on terror.
Scahill (hereafter JS) brags that he wasn't going to find the front lines in Kabul, although he could have, if he knew where to look. Instead he just looks around furtively on his way to the scene of a war crime. We see a close-up of his face.

Yep. Very postmodern and with all that limitation and decontextualisation and irrelevance.

The film ends and I wonder what he could have produced if he hadn't melodramatized and spent so much time and film on close-ups. I wonder what he could have done if he'd read a few history books.
Ultimately, the film is so devoid of historical context, and so contrived, as to render it a work of art, rather than political commentary.

Indeed. It would have been a far better movie with an historical context in which to place the current Dirty War/s. People who don't know that history wont notice though. Nevertheless a powerful work of art and some good storytelling told. Definitely a must watch.

I'm not saying that DV didn't have some valid points - he did....but I don't think JS is on the 'other side'....and we [the progressive community] have a history or goring our own - while the neo-fascists all march pretty much in lockstep -despite their differences; the reasons, I think, are obvious, but something the left and especially the far-left need to keep in mind and under control. IMHO

Here's my first article calling out Scahill for his "misinformation" or 'disinformation", if you think there is a difference, let me know. http://original.antiwar.com/douglas-vale...ity-state/ To pooh-pooh my satirical mocking of Scahill, which he deserves, is a way of avoiding his complicity in the lies that enable the Cult of Death. Examine his mis-dis/information.

I hadnt seen this one before. The "left" press never seems to want to go there anymore. The support for the narrative provided by journalists like Scahill helps to maintain the illusion that the CIA doesn't matter that much anymore while at the same time shifting the blame to Bush era policies.

[R.K. Locke]

Scahill is taking part in Glenn Greenwald's new multi-million dollar "alternative media" venture (funded by eBay/PayPal owner Pierre Omidyar.)

The Greenwald/Snowden leaks look for all the world like another Pentagon Papers-style limited hangout.

I wouldn't trust Scahill as far as I could throw him.

[Magda Hassan]

I hadnt seen this one before. The "left" press never seems to want to go there anymore. The support for the narrative provided by journalists like Scahill helps to maintain the illusion that the CIA doesn't matter that much anymore while at the same time shifting the blame to Bush era policies.

Yes, I've noticed this about the US. Republicans = bad Democrats = good. While in reality they are just working for the man.

Scahill is taking part in Glenn Greenwald's new multi-million dollar "alternative media" venture (funded by eBay/PayPal owner Pierre Omidyar.)

The Greenwald/Snowden leaks look for all the world like another Pentagon Papers-style limited hangout.

I wouldn't trust Scahill as far as I could throw him.

I guess Doug isn't going to get an invite for the new media venture. Which is a shame as he would be a wonderful asset to any media outlet and who knows what he could write with millions of dollars worth of funding to use for travel and research purposes. But would Doug even want to be a member of that line up?