Dirty Wars Nominated for Best Documentary Oscar

War is a dirty thing. It always has been and it will continue to be. The fact alone that all wars are fought because of greed or hate is inherently a terrible thing. So, to talk about covert warfare as if it were a shocking and wrong is almost silly, yet here we are.

Director Richard Rowley at the
Los Angeles premiere of Dirty Wars

I am thrilled that Dirty Wars the World is a Battlefield has been nominated for an Oscar for best documentary this year. I read the book as soon as it was released and was lucky enough to attend the film's premiere in Los Angeles where Richard Rowley, the director and cinematographer, spoke about the film and had a Q&A. I've been trying to convince everyone who will listen and at all politically inclined to see this film. 

While up against some amazing films, including the Act of Killing (Indonesian death squad leaders reenacting murders they committed), I believe that Dirty Wars has a very strong chance at winning. I cannot say that I have seen all the films that are up for nomination, but I found Dirty Wars gripping in every aspect. The music and filmography was very well done and of course this story needs to be spread.

Dirty Wars is by the journalist Jeremy Scahill who also authored the best selling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army which helped to crack the lid of Blackwater, eventually leading the company to be renamed twice, now known as Academi. In a distance way, Dirty Wars can almost be looked at as a continuation of his earlier book. 

The main focus of Dirty Wars is to look at the covert wars around the world, but mainly in the Near East, that the United States has been involved with since 9/11. Just as he came into the story of Blackwater, Scahill was a journalist in the Near East when he kept coming across signs there was much more going on in the "War on Terror" than was disclosed to the public. After some digging, he discovered the backbone of the covert war in the Near East was the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. 

At the time, JSOC was basically unheard of. They were formed after a botched rescue attempt during the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 but stayed under the radar until recently. There weren't any reports about them and it took him a long time to even discover who the head of the operation was, at the time General McChrystal. 

Eventually, JSOC would become a known figure after the murder of Osama bin Laden. But, JSOC is not a wonderful organization consistently saving the day. They were also responsible for a night raid that resulted in the deaths of innocent people, including a US trained police commander named Mohammed Soaud Sharabuddin. This was just one example Scahill used to paint the bloody picture of JSOC. Night raids have become common place, resulting in countless innocent deaths and at some points have supposedly occurred nightly. 

Anwar al Awlaki - First known US born citizen
killed by a drone strike without due process of law.

JSOC was just one of the many topics covered in the film, and in the much more detailed book. Scahill also went into great detail about the radicalization of the US born Anwar al Awlaki and subsequent murder of him and his son, Abdulrahman, by drone strikes. The first Americans killed without due process of law. He covers the wars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and of course talks about drone strikes.

While I would first and foremost recommend reading the book, it is a long and in depth read which can take quite a while to read through if you take your time to absorb the details, as I did. Therefore, the film is a wonderful answer to spreading the darker side of the Near East conflict we find ourselves involved with. Whether or not Dirty Wars gets nominated, I highly recommend you see it and as of when this was written, it is available to watch on Netflix.

I want to stress that I do not believe that spreading the knowledge of what is taking place will slow or stop the dirty wars in the Near East, but without accountability innocent people are killed and brushed under the rug. Without constant pressure from the people our military is "protecting" they will take our "protection" too far and continue to give some validity to those who hate America for what we are doing to their families and friends, and will continue to commit heinous acts like Abu Gharib. While the protesters against drone strikes have not ended the drone wars, they keep enough pressure on the government to keep the program from expanding until there are enough voices to shut it down or a new program to take its place.