Dirty Wars (2013)

Jeremy Scahill: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jeremy Scahill : What happens to us when we finally see what is hidden in plain sight?

• Jeremy Scahill : How does a war like this ever end?

• Jeremy Scahill : This is a story about the seen and the unseen, and about things hidden in plain sight.

• [last lines] 

  Jeremy Scahill : Somehow, in front of our eyes, undeclared wars have been launched in countries across the globe. Foreigners and citizens alike assassinated by presidential decree. The 'War on Terror' transformed into a self-fulfilling prophesy. - How does a war like this ever end? - And what happens to us, when we finally see what's hidden in plain sight?

• [first lines] 

  Jeremy Scahill : Kabul, Afghanistan, four in the morning. As an American jounalist I was used to finding stories in the middle of the night. But there is always something eerie, driving through the deserted streets. A city of three million, barely a streetlight on. There was a familiar routine, waiting for the crew to light up the next set so that you could see something in the background. But what could we really see?

• Jeremy Scahill : No one at NATO would give us anything more than a list of night-time raids. No one even seemed to know who was doing the raids. And I wasn't going to find out if I kept staying in Kabul.

• Jeremy Scahill : Was Mr. Daoud killed immediately, or did he live a while after he was shot?

  Mohammed Sabir - Interviewee : [speaks Pashto, translation reads]  Daoud and my sister-in-law were alive until 7:00 am. They didn't let us take them to the hospital. The Americans used knives to dig the bullets out of their bodies.

  Jeremy Scahill : *You saw* the US forces take the bullets out of the body?

  Mohammed Sabir - Interviewee : [translation]  Yes.

• Jeremy Scahill : There was little official record. But JSOC was formed in 1980, after the failed hostage-rescue mission in Iran. It was designed as the most covert unit in the military, and the only one that reports directly to the White House.

• Jeremy Scahill : The Joint Specials Operations Command had never numbered more than a few thousand. But under William McRaven Afghanistan had become JSOC's war. How had such a small covert unit taken over the largest conventional war on the planet?

• Jeremy Scahill : I discovered that over the past decade a series of secret presidential orders had given JSOC unprecedented authority. The battlefield was expanded, and JSOC could now hit at will in countries beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

• Jeremy Scahill : The one local reporter investigating the bombing had disappeared. Abduleah Haider Shaye had travelled to al-Majalah immediately after the strike, and his reporting sparked national outrage. Soon after, his house was raided by Yemen's US-trained 'counter-terrorism' forces. Abduleah was thrown into prison.

• Jeremy Scahill : Explain what JSOC is.

  unnamed ex-JSOC operative : [voice distorted]  The Joint Special Operations Command handles all the sensitive covert missions as the US government directs, and over time that was perverted into doing things that are far beyond its mandate.

• Jeremy Scahill : What has JSOC been doing in Yemen?

  unnamed ex-JSOC operative : [voice distorted]  Airstrikes. Targeted killings.

  Jeremy Scahill : Targeted killings inside the borders of Yemen?

  unnamed ex-JSOC operative : [voice distorted]  Correct.

• unnamed ex-JSOC operative : [voice distorted]  The president has made the political and military calculation to let the Joint Special Operations Command run wild.

  Jeremy Scahill : Do you think JSOC is able to hit harder under President Obama than they were under President Bush?

  unnamed ex-JSOC operative : [voice distorted]  Harder, faster, quicker, and with the full support of the White House.

• Jeremy Scahill : A bill was introduced in Congress to ban the extrajudicial assassination of Americans. But only six Congressmen signed on.