Every serious conclusion gets a grave Hans Zimmer-style thud or some mournful notes out of a Save the Children commercial. Their names and titles are spelled out letter-by-letter with a clickety-clack teletype sound effect. Interviewees are introduced in faux surveillance photos that seem to have been passed through a Tony Scott Instagram filter. Director Rick Rowley has chosen a super-slick, ready-for-Vimeo storytelling style that's somewhere between KONY 2012 and reality TV promos. War on Terror has become what Borat once called our 'War of Terror.' The basic idea is that our elected officials are now committed to a high-tech version of terrorism, using drone strikes, home invasions, abductions and torture worldwide, ostensibly to keep America safe, but resulting in a surge of new, passionate terrorists with each civilian death.įor those American patriots who resist the idea that we might be living in a leading terror state, this film's early stretches will probably do little to move them away from notions of American Exceptionalism or the war as a necessary evil. Thoughtful, passionate, and insightful, Scahill, twice winner of the George Polk award, as well as several awards from Project Censored, does more than report on what’s happening now, in film, book, and our interview, he lays out what the future implications are, and why we should all be concerned about events taking place thousands of miles away, and, until now, out of public scrutiny.'Dirty Wars' tells many of us what we already know, that the U.S. It’s a harrowing and heartbreaking story of the undeclared wars waged in our name, and of the casualties that, far from eliminating terrorism from the world, will likely increase it. I spoke with the investigative journalist for “ The Nation” about the documentary based on his books, both entitled DIRTY WARS. It also shows Scahill as a guy who is capable of lightening up even in Mogadishu.

I won’t ruin the surprise of what form that comedy takes except to say it has a cult following, and that discovering this side of Scahill was both startling and, for me at least, validating. I never expected that his answer would be comedy.

So, naturally, when I spoke with Jeremy Scahill on May 9, 2013, that was a question I asked. One thing that has always fascinated me is how people who spend their time investigating the dark side of human nature can keep their spirits up.

Dirty wars scahill