The War You Don't See (2010) User Reviews

Compulsory watching

[Imdbidia · 8/10 · 14 April 2011]

The War you Don't see is a British documentary produced and directed by Australian journalist John Pilger that focus on the dangers of embedded journalism in war times. If journalists do not do their job, we are misinformed and more easily manipulated, we don't see the suffering of innocent civilians and, therefore, we don't oppose the involvement of our governments and Army in those conflicts. The documentary presents many cases in History to proof the point, specially focusing on the Iraq War but showing examples that go from the support of Cigarettes in the media in the 1920s, to the Vietnam War to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, to Wikileaks. It is not as much a critic to those who start and carry out unjust wars, but a warning call to the Journalists, who should be doing their job properly, asking the right questions, investigating things when needed, so we know the truth and act upon it. I loved the documentary. I thought that the Libyan war is showing more of the same, another oil war masqueraded as a free the people war. Pilger makes the right questions, upfront, and does not allow his interviewees to bullshit the public. Pilger is not complacent with his colleagues, not even with the heavy weights of journalism. He does what he asks them to do, and that makes the documentary honest, thrilling, entertaining and informative. However, to be honest, we knew already much of what it is said in it. In fact, there were thousands of people demonstrating against the Iraq War in Australia (and the USA, UK, and the rest of the Western World) calling the arms of mass destruction "arms of mass distraction" despite those embedded journalists believing USA-UK's lies and contributing to their spread. People are sometimes wiser that one could think. The problem is that, once the war starts, and civilians are slaughtered every day, we need to know what we are fighting for. Pilger shows us the nitty-gritty of it, the details, the Monica Lewinski's sort of proof. On the other hand, we do not want to see deceased chopped bodies in our news bulletins in certain countries (I'm just remembering the airbrushing of one of the iconic images of the Madrid Bombings showing severed limbs in most Australian media). I thought that not only the media is guilty of that, but we are guilty too, for not wanting to know the real human drama behind any war, especially if the deceased are not ours.

Too many people swallow the news (TV or newspapers) as if they were God's Gospel, without thinking that perhaps the channel they are watching is owned by a filthy rich disgusting guy who is not interested in the truth, but in controlling its spread, so his corporation or businesses do better. Lies make them richer. We have to be honest with ourselves. Lies in the news are easily spread because the level of education of the population is not high enough (in fact, money is more valued than education nowadays), and because independent thinking is not promoted in school, University, or anywhere. Quite the contrary. Everybody wants to be in tune with the social network in vogue. Everybody wants to belong to a flock. So, the problem is not just the sort of journalism we have nowadays, or that the news lie to us regularly, but also the sort of viewers we have nowadays - Viewers who don't question what they hear or see on the news when war is on, or when there isn't even a war. I missed a hint of this point in the documentary, which I consider very important. That would have been moving a step forward from the usual blaming of the Empire, as if our society wasn't to blame for letting others think for us, or swallow crap without any sort of resistance.

Said this, the documentary was great, as it proves that we are certainly being lied every day, intentionally or by default, in war times or not. We are told that we are fighting for the freedom of the people, but that is never the case.

A wish. I would like Pilger to focus on the crap of ours, the Australian one, and examine closely which sort of news are shown in our TV stations every day, or which sort of crappy newspapers we have in Australia regarding local issues. Why is so? Who are the responsible? What are the lies? Who are the liars?

Compulsory watching!

9/10

[cosmin742000 · 9/10 · 28 February 2023]

An amazingly brave documentary about the place of mass- media propaganda in war. If in communism mass media don't have anything to criticise because everything go well , in capitalism the first duty of mass media is to criticise the governements..There are very few journalist who does that. The dezinformation , the brain washing is the real flag of the mas media. The movie was made in 2010 and it refers at the wars in Iraq ,the war from Vietnam , from Afghanistan where american and british are the propagandists of lieying , and the war between Israel and Palestine. You realise if that movie were made in 2023 only from the intervention of Russia in Nazicraine when the manipulation and desinformation of western media.peaked the highest point. And now only Oliver Stone from the west show the truth.

A really good and much too under-seen documentary

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 8/10 · 22 July 2020]

Embarrassed to have never heard of John Pilger before today, but I thought this was great, and am gladly going to seek out all his other documentaries that I can get my hands on.

You do have to get past the presentation, because while it's feature length (and content-wise much more informative than many movie length documentaries), it's not really presented in a particularly cinematic way. I didn't mind this once I adjusted to the style, because the arguments and interviews and statistics were more than compelling enough. I only mention it as one of the only potential negatives with the overall documentary (oh and a little unfair putting The Deer Hunter and The Green Berets in the same boat. The former probably can't be viewed as propaganda exactly, but the point about it honing in on the American perspective and framing them as the victims was eye-opening and honestly a good point).

I love how straightforward Pilger is, I love his interview style, and I love the fact that he does interview people on both sides. Overall he strikes me as an incredibly intelligent guy who can nonetheless break down complex issues and explain them in ways that are straightforward and easy to digest, even if you're not particularly knowledgeable about what he's covering.

It covers conflicts from years long past, but its central message about the media's potential to manipulate the presentation of war is still relevant, and unfortunately is likely to remain so indefinitely.

Outstanding

[Victor_Fallon · 10/10 · 23 April 2011]

This is, I agree, compulsory viewing. This is the first documentary about the corruption of war by propaganda which serves to progress the argument beyond the usual hysteria. Pilger has, with this film, moved away from the slew of similar-themed documentaries which add little to the debate but more circular arguments. Instead, Pilger goes straight for admissions of guilt. He manages to get some truly frank disclosures of global conspiracy and madness from the most relevant people he could realistically get access to, and for this he deserves the praise.

It can be argued, and it will be no doubt, that there is very little material to act as a counterweight to his position in the film. But after you finish watching it, you will hopefully realise what a stupid criticism it is to make in the first place, considering what this documentary is designed to rally against.

I won't get into the moral position it presents, as that's up to you in the end, but I'd be hard pushed to find anybody not moved, repulsed or outraged by this film, or all of those things simultaneously. Just watch it. Do it now.

The warS we don't see: Dumbocracy in action...

[poe426 · 10/10 · 17 January 2013]

Although the U.$. is currently bogged down in half a dozen wars across the globe, Der Homelanders are being spared the bloody details: news coverage since 9/11 has amounted to nothing less than a self-imposed blackout. If not for people like Pilger and Palast and Amy Goodman (of DEMOCRACY NOW!), we'd STILL be in the dark. Just a week or so after the suicide of Aaron Swartz, we learn that Truthteller Julian Assange is having health problems- related, perhaps, to his confinement (were he to be extradited to the U.$., he would be **** out of luck, indeed: he now has what's euphemistically called "a pre-existing condition" and would no doubt be denied medical treatment here). Swartz was facing a possible 35 years in prison for treason, and opted out. His case bears examination because, even as I write this, legislation is being introduced to make any journalist who makes public any information that a terrorist might read guilty of Espionage. Assange, whose Wikileaks made public the COLLATERAL MURDER video, is THE prime example of a journalist being hounded by an irate government. While few news outlets mention the record number of suicides of veterans or the record number of rapes of female soldiers in the field, journalists who expose such information to the world are being hunted. And television has become a tool of SUPPRESSION. "TV," as Harlan Ellison points out in THE GLASS TEAT, "... is a more effective riot control weapon than tanks or mace or troops." What's wrong with this picture...?

Behind the Hologram

[tieman64 · 25 May 2013]

"There has never been a just war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change. The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously – object at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, 'It is unjust and dishonourable, and there is no necessity for it.' Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers but do not dare say so. And now the whole nation - pulpit and all - will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." - Mark Twain

In much of civilisation, the title and the veneer of the "thing" are separate from the actual content of the "thing". Everything is backwards, upside down, doctors destroying health, lawyers justice, universities destroying knowledge, governments destroying freedom, the media and religions destroying information and spirituality and so forth. Human beings are delusion machines, constantly lying to themselves, even on the most basic biological level, and the truth of anything is often the opposite of what is commonly thought at best, at worst also the complete opposite.

"The War You Don't See" is a powerful documentary by the great John Piger ("War By Other Means") which explores the media's role in selling wars, specifically, the major wars of the last century (WW1, 2, Iraq, Afghanistan etc). What the film reveals is frightening, but of course of little surprise to anyone who studies history: the fourth estate is but a mouthpiece for what has become the corporate state.

"I don't think we should completely dismiss the words of the second most powerful man in the western world," one news chief says, referring to Dick Cheney, his words epitomising the media's cosy relationship with Power. Far from providing unbiased information, critical and historical analysis, Piger shows, the media hides behind sensationalism, emotion, censors thousands of stories a day, has a clear ideological agenda and couches naked ideology behind a mask of neutrality.

"We allow the viewers to make up their own minds," another chief remarks, but such neutrality begins a drift away from truth and toward a manufactured landscape of subjectivity and so static; where the media should challenge, ridicule, test with hammers, it deliberately obfuscates.

When the news outlets do provide focus, Piger shows, they become merely unthinking stenographers of the 'official word'; sophisticated PR machines. As Edward Bernay, who coined the term "public relations", remarks, "behind the intelligent manipulation of the masses is an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country." Elsewhere the film interviews journalist Mark Curtis, who details how western governments collude with oppressive foreign regimes and essentially sell evil with sophisticated PR campaigns. "Intended policy," he says, "is based on controlling oil resources, creating an international economy that works in the interests of corporations, and maintaining their power status." Again, hardly news to anyone familiar with history. What's new is Curtis' detailing of the ways in which the journalists who attempt to shed a light on such things are systematically banned or shut out of the mainstream media. Piger knows this well. Many of his films have been similar "banned".

Piger then touches upon the symbiotic relationship between the military industrial complex and the major news conglomerates, and lists several major defence contractors who own news channels. As Normon Soloman says, "a military-industrial-media complex now extends to much of corporate media."

This unholy alliance is highlighted by Piger with a series of TV clips which feature war junkies fawning and salivating over the "precision" and "efficiency" of modern weapons. The weapons are treated like fetish objects whilst their victims remain unmentioned. Professor Melvin Goodman, former CIA analyst, then explains that pentagon officials have elaborate contracts with news organisations. "80-90% of what you hear and read," he says, "is 'officially' inspired." Piger then interviews Julian Assange who says, "This is not a sophisticated conspiracy. This is a vast movement of self-interests by thousands and thousand of players all working together and against each other to produce an end result. Money and money-making is at the centre of modern war, and it's almost self-perpetuating."

Disturbingly, the justification for America's increasingly bloated war machine is listed as "asymmetrical threats which transcend all geographic boundaries." In other words, the US is at war with everything, everyone and anything the state wishes to redefine a target. If the documentary has one flaw, it's in its failure to predict the wars of today and tomorrow, which are fought by Western funded proxy militias at small and slow, daily rates. These continuous wars essentially happen unnoticed, but that's the intention; a handful of murders a day isn't war and so is even less newsworthy.

9/10 - Worth one viewing.

Always Challenge the Official Story

[view_and_review · 10/10 · 3 March 2022]

There is an Islamic tenet:

"It's enough for a person to be considered a liar if he narrates everything he hears."

These words were a cautionary statement to Muslims not to gossip or pass on every bit of unverified information they hear. I can see in this documentary that John Pilger is essentially saying the same thing to the various media personnel he interviewed that passed on the propaganda they'd gotten from American, Britain, and Israel.

"The War You Don't See" is about the propaganda version of war versus the the unedited, unfiltered version of war. John Pilger touches on several wars, but puts a lot of attention upon the Iraq War. Everyone now can claim that they always knew that Iraq had no WMD (weapons of mass destruction) nor were they connected to 9/11, but that certainly wasn't the prevalent belief in 2002. "The War You Don't See" shows just a tidbit of the war we didn't see in Iraq.

Again, John Pilger gets the blood boiling regarding the actions of the western powers like no one else can. I appreciate and loathe him for it. I appreciate knowing the atrocities that are being committed, but I hate being so angry and powerless. Still, I will watch whatever Pilger produces because it's always revelational and always important.

Somewhat misleading

[marc-rand-75 · 4/10 · 2 April 2022]

This isn't a bad documentary but it's pretty misleading in the sense that it almost exclusively focuses on the Iraq War and other modern wars which are in reality very minor conflicts compared to WWI, Korea and Vietnam. It's advertised as being about the media manipulation of truth in war but focuses almost exclusively on wars of the las 20 years. There is a brief mention of Wilson being told of the need to sell WWI to the people but nothing is said about the blatant lies told to Americans in order for Wilson to get his war. Korea was a colossal blunder presented as being a war to free South Korea from the communist North Korea but that happened after just 6 months yet the war went on for another 2 and a half years.

Several "journalists" admit the media didn't do their jobs but this admission seems to get them a pass without them being asked why we should trust them now. This could have been a great documentary if it had dug deep and even looked at the media covering up the fact that WWI was never about freedom and how Hitler could have been stopped much earlier if Chamberlain hadn't engaged in his campaign of appeasement. The media also presented Stalin as a villain when he initially was siding with Germany but once the Germans invaded Russia the media did a complete turnabout and always showed Stalin as a great ally.

This is extremely disappointing because it could have been a great film if it had bothered to dig deeper, it didn't lie but it told only a small portion of the truth.