Media and conflict

US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows By Tom Secker and Matthew Alford Published by INSURGE INTELLIGENCE, a crowdfunded investigative journalism project for people and planet. Support INSURGE to keep digging where others fear to tread. Tom Secker and Matthew Alford report on their astonishing findings from trawling through thousands of new US military and intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents reveal for the first time the vast scale of US government control in Hollywood, including the ability to manipulate scripts or even prevent films too critical of the Pentagon from being made — not to mention influencing some of the most popular film franchises in recent years. This raises new questions not only about the way censorship works in the modern entertainment industry, but also about Hollywood’s little-known role as a propaganda machine for the US national security apparatus. • • When...

Here is what the Guardian’s critic, Peter Bradshaw, has to say about it as film, as drama.  One wonders what role such a “Destiny Pictures” production has to do with handling and solving one of the most dangerous issues facing humanity – that of a country loaded with nuclear weapons telling a military dwarf that it should not have a single of these weapons? One wonders whether Mr. Trump, who during his long press conference after the meeting seemed very proud of having shown this on his iPad to the allegedly impressed Chairman Kim, sees this as a way of bonding? Whether it comes out of a reality  show master’s way of thinking – or it was made to impress Kim, alternatively threaten him into submission by a medium that is known to fascinate him: movies. At another level, we are here facing the complete intellectual decay of US international...

  Af Jan Øberg 11. juni 2018 Artiklen publiceredes den 10. jun i 2018 og overskriften må vække opmærksomhed. DR stiller ikke spørgsmålet om det er OK at USA har dem. Nej, man forklarer hvorfor det er OK. DR’s journalist trækker ikke substantielle modargumenter frem og interviewer kun en ekspert hvis udsagn bekræfter at det er OK. Efter hvad man kan søge sig frem til har journalist Josefine Hummelmose ingen som helst specielle kvalifikationer hvad angår disse spørgsmål. Hun tog studentereksamen i 2013 og er, iflg sin Facebook side, praktikant på DR og har arbejdet på bar og restaurant. Det er jo i og for sig helt i orden, men spørgsmålet er hvilken kvalitetskontrol DR bør udøve, hvilken mere erfaren kollega eller redaktør, der har set manuskriptet igennem inden publicering? Emnet er ikke ligegyldigt. Kvaliteten på en artikel om atomvåbnene må vel være mindst lige så høj som hvad der...

  Af Jan Øberg 11. juni 2018 Udenrigsudvalget have den 6. juni indkaldt to personer til at diskutere den så kontroversielle Magnitzky-lov om sanktioner mod russiske enkeltpersoner, der menes at have tjent penge i forbindelse med forbrydelser mod menneskerettigehderne. Det har DR skrevet om blandt andet den 13. marts 2018, der indledes sådan: “For at ramme Ruslands præsident, Vladimir Putin, skal man gå efter hans venner og allierede i form af rige russiske forretningsmænd og oligarker. Sådan lyder det fra en række af Folketingets større partier. Og i forlængelse af giftangrebet på den russiske eksspion Sergej Skripal og hans datter Julia i den engelske by Salisbury, som Storbritannien beskylder Rusland for at stå bag, bør Danmark netop indføre sanktioner mod særligt udvalgte russere tæt på Putin.” Det er altså Skripal-sagen, der har sat især Venstre igang. Skripal-sagen forsvandt pludselig fra medier skønt to i princippet dødsdømte pludseligt rejste sig fra...

  We must end this Russophobic insanity   By Jack F. Matlock, Jr. June 4, 2018 That saying – often misattributed to Euripides – comes to mind most mornings when I pick up The New York Times and read the latest “Russiagate” headlines, which are frequently featured across two or three columns on the front page above the fold. This is an almost daily reminder of the hysteria that dominates our Congress and much of our media. Originally published by The Nation on June 1, 2018, here The New York Times, of course, is not the only offender. Its editorial attitude has been duplicated or exaggerated by most other media outlets in the United States, electronic and print. Unless there is a mass shooting in progress, it can be hard to find a discussion of anything else on CNN. Increasingly, both in Congress and in our media, it has been...

  The violence in Syria has occupied the world since it broke out in 2011. The underlying conflicts and various explanations are still lost in the heated debate about the violence and who is to blame – both of which are much easier than understanding this hugely complex conflict formation in a longer time and space perspective. Teachers in international politics, activists and journalists would do wise in trying to find pedagogical examples of just how differently the same problem can actually be perceived. This edition of BBC’s “Hard Talk” could be used in classrooms – for a better understanding of why we still don’t understand much of the underlying issues in the case of Syria. This – indeed hard – discussion is between two men who both have knowledge, passion and self-esteem. They are also both arguing well their viewpoints – which are about as different as can be...

  Af Jesper Munk Jakobsen* 23. april 2018 Danmark har ikke tradition for at redde civile menneskers liv i Mellemøsten, når vi involverer os i konflikter ved at anvende militær. Regeringen bakker op om endnu en militæraktion i Mellemøsten, og nu står den danske befolkning igen som statister i en film, som har været spillet gentagne gange de sidste 16 år. Vesten griber til missiler og affyrer dem med besked om, at de redder endnu en befolkning i Mellemøsten. Det er dermed ikke uvant territorium for de danske medier, at Danmark bakker op om militæraktioner i Mellemøsten. Ifølge Anders Samuelsens Tweet den 12. april er det for de civile syreres skyld, at Danmark nu støtter op om et missilangreb i Syrien. Med Irak-krigen i frisk erindring vil jeg påstå, at udenrigsministerens påstand om, at man hjælper de civile i Syrien ved at affyre 105 missiler, kunne udfordres af den danske...

By Adam Johnson FAIR Originally published by FAIR on April 18, 2018 here “Only…with the departure of the Assad regime, will it be possible to ensure that Syrians do not suffer more atrocities,” the Washington Post (4/14/18) editorialized.     A survey by FAIR of the top 100 papers in the US by circulation found not a single editorial board opposed to Trump’s April 13 airstrikes on Syria. Twenty supported the strikes, while six were ambiguous as to whether or not the bombing was advisable. The remaining 74 issued no opinion about Trump’s latest escalation of the Syrian war. This is fairly consistent with editorial support for Trump’s April 2017 airstrikes against the Syrian government, which saw only one editorial out of 47 oppose the bombing (FAIR.org, 4/11/17). The single paper of dissent from last year, the Houston Chronicle, didn’t publish an editorial on last week’s bombing. Seven of the...

  , speaks with Russia Today and points out why this type of behaviour is totally unacceptable: It violates international law, undermines the UN and brings Syria, the region and the world further and further from peace. The people behind it and their media and other supporters must be perceived as either conflict- and peace illiterate or advocates of criminal activity. Both of which are tragic and making already dark times darker. We must say stop and argue: Peace first – The Secure the peace. In addition, contrary to the Western/NATO belief this is self-destructive and self-isolating. The international so-called community is, for the large majority, not behind this type of policy.

  By One American News Network April 17, 2018 This reporter, Pearson Sharp, tells you what he believes he knows and does not know. He tells you how he did his investigation and whether or not he felt free to report from this very difficult site – in Douma, Ghouta in Syria, after the alleged chemical attack on April 7, 2018 which caused the U.S., Britain and France to bomb what they believe to be chemical weapons facilities and stores in Syria on April 14, 2018. Being on the spot with that sort of quality reporting lends more credibility to this report than the far majority of reporters, editors and media that did not do their own investigations but quoted someone else – leading, as it often does, to dangerous “group think” and uniform, dependent reporting in support of an already constructed media narrative. Mainstream media in the bombing countries...

  By Jan Oberg At Sputnik Radio on April 15, 2018 Conversation after the US-French-British bombing of Syria in April 2018 The US, UK and France have drafted their own resolution on Syria after Russian-drafted initiative was rejected. The resolution proposed by the three nations condemns Syrian alleged chemical attacks and calls for creating an independent mechanism for investigation of similar incidents. Earlier, the United Nation Security Council rejected a Russia-drafted resolution condemning the missile strikes against Syria. The Russian mission to the UN reported that eight nations opposed the initiative, while four members abstained from voting. Radio Sputnik discussed the West’s actions against Syria from the international law perspective with Dr. Jan Oberg, the director of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research. Listen to the conversation here For more stories visit our website www.sputniknews.com

By Tim Hayward April 8, 2018 Allegations of a chemical attack in Douma by Syria on 7 April were met by threats from President Trump to attack Syria. These were followed by Israeli missile strikes on an airfield in Homs early on 9 April. Given the pace of events and their significance for potential escalation in tensions between the Western powers and Russia, it is helpful to have timely information about questions that are under investigation by independent researchers. This post will be updated as and when insightful contributions are published, including as work in progress. Comments are open to allow for readers’ further recommendations and observations. Originally published on Tim Hayward’s blog here Tim Hayward updates this post on his blog on an almost daily basis so do go there after you’ve read these posts In the media Major-General Jonathan David Shaw CBE is interrupted by Sky News interviewer...