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Old 10-01-2004, 10:32 PM   #18 (permalink)
host
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Ustwo, do you access any reporting about Iraq from none-American
sources? Have you seen the film titled "Control Room"? Here are some
reviews of the film, and a link to all Control Room reviews at imdb.com:
Quote:
leighs73
Philadelphia

Date: 25 July 2004
Summary: Moving

Two things moved me very much about this film:

The first was Lt Rushing, one of the US military media liaison officers at Centcom. His open-mindedness, fairness and plain decency are very rare to find in any spin doctor, let alone one working for an army during a war. He is a credit to himself, his family and his country, and I sincerely hope he hasn't suffered any professional repercussions for his honesty in this piece.

The second was the man who was the head of Al Jazeera. It was funny when he said he would accept a job at Fox News the second it was offered. But it turned out to be heartbreaking when he said as soon as his children are old enough, he'll send them to the US for education, in order to escape the "Arab nightmare" and live the "American dream". It's so sad that that part of the world is such a mess that even people who love it and have grown up there and are rooting for it recognise that there is little hope there for their children. If only that sentiment could be channelled into finding a solution for the problems in the Middle East.

thegreenmnm8
Shrewsbury, MA

Date: 20 July 2004
Summary: The broader picture

I went into the theater tonight expecting to see a dry, albeit informative, documentary about Al Jazeera and the atrocities carried out against the Iraqi citizens. Much of the film was about this (though certainly not dry in the least), but it went beyond a mere recounting of events from a different viewpoint.

Instead, I saw a film on the broader influence of media on the perception of war. The way the film is structured, and the fact that its location is centered in a journalism hotspot that was home to the US Army, CNN, NBC, Al Jazeera, and the BBC, allows for a true comparison between the shades of truth of war.

This was not a commentary solely on Iraq-- nor was it an anecdotal exploit of recent events. Rather, it is a more general glance at media and war... a glimpse into the biases and misleading nature of all journalists. It shows humanity, the essence of all war, and examines the way that certain images can be seen entirely differently by different eyes.

jreinhart-1
Massachusetts, USA

Date: 20 July 2004
Summary: a very important film

Control Room is an exceptional documentary about Aljazeera, the independent Arab news network. It is a far more important film than Fahrenheit 9/11. In comparison, it could be said that F9/11 provides an overview while Control Room hits at some specifics. However, it is more than that. Control Room presents viewers with a glimpse of the war in Iraq from the vantage point of Aljazeera. Because Aljazeera is the most watched news source in Arab societies, the film is an opportunity for the viewer to put themselves in the shoes of the average Arab citizen.

The film is around 80 minutes of interviews. The contrast between the representatives of Aljazeera and the American journalists and soldiers was striking. While the people from Aljazeera are intelligent and thoughtful, the Americans come off as sadly misinformed to the extent that they have no concept of why the reporter from Aljazeera would ask combative questions.

At a time when it is imperative that Americans take a step back and humbly survey the world, Control Room is an important start. The film is valuable viewing for anyone from university professors of media or who study the Middle East, to 14-year-old conservative children, to journalists of every level, to stay-at-home parents. It's message goes beyond the current situation in Iraq. It is a universal message of trying to understand the other people we share this world with and the continual striving for truth.
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391024/usercomments">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391024/usercomments</a>
One positive outcome of the making of "Control Room" was the honesty of
U.S. Marine Press Liason Lt. Josh Rushing, a 14 year career Marine. Rushing
and the friendship he ended up establishing with Al Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim. <br>Imagine the positive potential of that relationship, in regard to
getting an improved image of Americans and their intentions beamed to Arabs.

Quote:
A military spokesman is silenced after candid comments in a movie on Al Jazeera and Iraq war.
by Mark Mazzetti, LA Times
August 2nd, 2004
WASHINGTON — For most of the central figures in the documentary film "Control Room," the grisly images that emerged from last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq were no cause for a change of opinion.

Over the length of the film, director Jehane Noujaim's inside look at the war through the eyes and lenses of Al Jazeera's journalists based at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, the chasm only widens between the U.S. military officials who speak about the "liberation" of Iraq and the Al Jazeera reporters skeptical of the invasion.

The exception is a young Marine lieutenant named Josh Rushing.

Rushing, a Central Command spokesman assigned to escort the documentary makers during their time in Qatar, is among the film's most sympathetic characters, portrayed as a thoughtful young man moved over time by the grim reality of war.

At no point is he shown doubting the justness of the U.S. effort in Iraq, yet the film documents a budding friendship between Rushing and Al Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim, and moments on camera when Rushing is wrestling with the film's central themes: war, bias and the Arab world's most powerful media outlet.

The Marine's role in the film turned him into a minor celebrity among the art-house-cinema crowd. But the candid comments he made in the documentary and in interviews after its release ran afoul of his superiors in the Marine Corps, which he now plans to leave.

On camera midway through the film, Rushing spoke of being disturbed that footage Al Jazeera, an Arabic-language satellite television channel, broadcast of civilian Iraqi casualties had not affected him as much as images shown the following night of dead American soldiers.

"It upset me on a profound level that I wasn't bothered as much the night before," Rushing said. "It makes me hate war. But it doesn't make me believe we can live in a world without war yet."

Rushing, now a captain assigned to the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison office in Los Angeles, has been prohibited from giving any more interviews about his part in the film.

Marine officials at the Pentagon have even asked Rushing to keep his wife, Paige, from giving interviews after she made comments critical of how the military handled her husband's situation. Because of this, several of Rushing's friends say the 31-year-old Marine plans to leave the military in October.

Rushing declined to be interviewed for this article. His situation has angered many in the military public affairs community who say Rushing has been a passionate spokesman for the U.S. armed forces and is being punished for appearing in a film that portrays Al Jazeera — a bete noire of the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks — in a positive light.

"Here's a guy who represents the very best of public affairs in the Marines," says a senior military official who worked with Rushing at Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity. "For whatever reason, it didn't play well with some of the senior brass in the Marine Corps at Pentagon. They're losing one of their finest."....................................

...................................
As for Rushing, friends and associates say the Marine has yet to figure out his plans for life after the military.

"I think it's too bad for the Marines he's moving on," Noujaim said. "He convinced a lot of skeptical people in the Arab press that there are those in the U.S. military coming from the right place."
<a href="http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=6144">http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=6144</a>
Chalk the Lt. Josh Rushing story up as one more example in a litany of
instances where the Bush administration has shown a remarkable consistancy
in it's ability, at every turn, to snatch a new defeat from the jaws of
victory. Josh Rushing could have been a great asset in the assumed priority
of winning over Iraqi and Arab "hearts and minds", because he earned the trust,<br> respect, and friendship of the very people with the most credibility
in the Arab world, coupled with their power to bring words and pictures to
the very people Bushco claim that they are trying to positively influence.

Try as I might, I have a much easier time understanding the mindset of
the "Arab in the street", than I do the mindset of Bushco supporters in my
own country. I am very discouraged that I may be living in a society where
the issues are all either black or white, but I can only process shades of
gray............
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