The War You Don't See

[Demiurgul]

Documentary-maker John Pilger has returned to a subject that can't be revived often enough: the grotesque untruth of "weapons of mass destruction": a cloudy concept, eagerly amplified and lent credibility by credulous and submissive journalists who, after 9/11, lost their nerve en masse. Pilger's contention is that on Afghanistan, on Iraq and on Israel and the Palestinian territories, the mainstream media simply take the official line. The force of his film is in its contention that the colossal scale of civilian casualties is, within the grammar of news, downgraded in importance so that it doesn't figure as news at all, but as all-but-invisible deep background to be ignored. Pilger gives due respect to WikiLeaks, although his praise for al-Jazeera's independence is ironic, given that WikiLeaks has just revealed the possibility that the Qatar government is manipulating the channel.