Reporter Jeremy Scahill is the author of the Blackwater about the covert wars from Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond. Scahill travels back to Afghanistan to investigate questionable NATO killings. He interviews Afghan witnesses of a deadly night raid in Gardez bringing it to the uncaring ears of congress. As he digs deeper, he discovers a covert unit Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that reports directly to the White House. JSOC launches up to 20 raids a night in Afghanistan, but none of it is public. Then he finds that JSOC is fighting worldwide starting even in Iraq which Scahill admits he missed the first time around.
It's definitely one sided and Scahill has a history with the war on terror. He may not be wrong. It's definitely gone mostly unreported by the mainstream press. It's not like those killings are investigated throughly by anybody. The problem is that it's hard to confirm much of this. However much of it could be true. When the subject is this murky, there is no guarantee of anything.
I do disagree with the concentration on Awlaki because of his American citizenship. Of course, he's the sexy subject. American citizen getting killed is worth a thousand others, and there is the sexy legal aspect. But it drives the movie into a corner. Nobody will ever be convince that Awlaki is a nice innocent boy who got caught up with the events. It's another thing to say that killing children and pregnant women is bad. This moves the morality goal posts. Trying to understand why somebody would turn terrorist doesn't mean anybody would sympathize with the terrorist.
There are a lot of first hand new information. It's great to see investigative reporting on such a dangerous subject still being down. Shining a light on this dark corner is very important. However there is a general premise that the blow back exceeds the advantage of the kill list. It's a murky premise that Scahill doesn't always excel in. The movie wants to shock the audience with the merciless allies in Somalia, but it doesn't exactly have any answers itself. It's a better investigative piece than a convincing argument.
It's definitely one sided and Scahill has a history with the war on terror. He may not be wrong. It's definitely gone mostly unreported by the mainstream press. It's not like those killings are investigated throughly by anybody. The problem is that it's hard to confirm much of this. However much of it could be true. When the subject is this murky, there is no guarantee of anything.
I do disagree with the concentration on Awlaki because of his American citizenship. Of course, he's the sexy subject. American citizen getting killed is worth a thousand others, and there is the sexy legal aspect. But it drives the movie into a corner. Nobody will ever be convince that Awlaki is a nice innocent boy who got caught up with the events. It's another thing to say that killing children and pregnant women is bad. This moves the morality goal posts. Trying to understand why somebody would turn terrorist doesn't mean anybody would sympathize with the terrorist.
There are a lot of first hand new information. It's great to see investigative reporting on such a dangerous subject still being down. Shining a light on this dark corner is very important. However there is a general premise that the blow back exceeds the advantage of the kill list. It's a murky premise that Scahill doesn't always excel in. The movie wants to shock the audience with the merciless allies in Somalia, but it doesn't exactly have any answers itself. It's a better investigative piece than a convincing argument.