'The Road To Guantanamo'

[Morgan Peline]

Hi,

 

I just watched the new documentary by Michael Winterbottom; 'The Road To Guantanamo' - wow - I don't think a documentary has made me feel so angry and helpless to change anything in a long while. I hope this gets screened in the US eventually.

 

Why has no one done anything about this place yet? For all our conversations about people wanting to work in L.A. etc. I have to say that I'm not sure I ever want to set foot in the US ever again. I'm really, really glad to live in Europe which at least is slightly freer than the US as far as I can tell - just slightly - though the UK is definitely a lapdog to the US.

 

How can a country constantly harp on about freedom and democracy year in year out and then lock up people without trial or representation for so many years? It's frankly hypocritical. The guards at Guantanamo could give the Nazis a run for their money - talk about fascists. No wonder more and more people dislik US foreign policy...if you can call it policy. And why can every other country be put on trial for war crimes yet not the US? Where is justice?

 

What I really can't get over is that the US can tell other countries that they are dictatorships and warn them that they are infringing upon human rights, yet they can lock people up (who are not even US citizens) outside of their borders and then quite openly and happily proclaim they are not breaking any laws because Guantanamo is outside of the US - how convenient is that?

 

Home of the free, my ass.

 

In the '50s and '60s there was Stalin, the Commies and McCarthy, then there was Khomeini, Gaddafi (he's a friend now) and eventuallly Saddam (he was a friend, now he isn't anymore), and also there was Escobar who was a different kind of terror, now it's 'the war on terror'. There's always a boogieman to be scared of so that the populace can be controlled - does no-one ever see how they are being constantly manipulated?

 

It actually doesn't matter if Osama exists or not, fear of his image can be used by the US and UK governments to do whatever they like to control the masses. We'll all be micro-chipped before the millenium is out.

 

And the worst of all...I bet this post gets signalled on some secret computer that monitors bulletin boards looking for dissent so that they can put more names on some list for more witch trials. It doesn't actually seem to matter if you are guilty or innocent as long as your name is on a list - look at the people in Camp Xray.

 

A new millenium started a few years ago, I blinked and when I opened my eyes I realised that actually it was still '1984' and that the 'war' was still raging even though I didn't even know who I was meant to be fighting. All I knew was I should trust my government who was meant to be protecting me and be led like a lamb to the slaughter. And the worst is, if the powers that be achieve their objectives, I'll probably die believing everything they brainwashed me to believe, just like the guy in the novel.

 

Big brother is well and truly alive and watching you....how depressing.

[Alessandro Machi]

George Bush Senior was able to profit tremendously from the Iran Contra affair. This lives on through George Bush Jr and Dick Cheney and the current Iraq War. The high high ups know how to profit by assisting warring nations via weapons sales. It doesn't mean that they necessarily cause the wars, but if there is going to be a war, they will get their profit from it.

 

Until President Clinton's consensual BJ is redefined as not reason enough to have been impeached over, no one knows how to define impeacheable behavior.

 

Condoleeza Rice actually planned her vacation while Hurricane Katrina was in full force, and was actually shopping for shoes in a posh New York shoe store the day after Hurricane Katrina was over. If one can paint a visual image of Ms. Rice, going through every step of her itinerary as she planned her vacation, and intercut it with what was happening at that same moment in time in New Orleans and keep the intercutting going through her shoe shopping adventure, intercut with people on roofs of their homes as other peoples belongings floated by, one would have to wonder how she wasn't publicly sanctioned for such poor decision making.

 

Would we not define that Rice's behavior as worse than Mr. Clinton's consensual BJ.

 

When Dick Cheney hunts tame birds, (and loses), is he not slapping the face of every soldier who is actually facing real bullets and a real enemy in Iraq? Does Mr. Cheney somehow feel just as much of a man our soldiers in Iraq for shooting at tamed birds that can't fire back while the soldiers he helped send to Iraq to fight and die? Or is he just an intelligent elitist ass with too much time on his hands?

 

Does President Bush show character and honor when he gleefully states "Bring it on" on the deck of an aircraft carrier prior to the last 2000 American Soldiers having died in Iraq? Was the "Bring it on" comment somehow less offensive than impeaching a President over a consensual BJ?

 

As soon as Bush Jr. took office, Calfornia had an energy crisis. California overpaid for energy by a couple of billion dollars because of it. There have been constant paybacks that total into the billions of dollars for the higher ups in our country who control the manufacture of weapons and energy. By simply tithing a very small percent of that profit back into the Republican coffers, and offering American Citizens a tax break, the system seems to stay in place.

 

I think Mr. Bush gave himself away with the proposed sales of our ports to Dubai. Mr. Bush just a day ago vowed to fight any effort to block the sale to Dubai. Even though the head of security for the port is a past buddy of Osama Bin Laden! Mr. Bush has learned to be staunchily for all the higher ups who are billionaires and it makes me wonder if the WTC was staged, because if you follow the money trail after the WTC, over a hundred billion dollars ended up in the hands of wealthy people, from airlines who needed a cash infusion to military manufacturers, the pipeline of money that has been spread out to the richest of the rich makes the Clinton BJ pale by comparison.

[Michael Collier]

Please dont judge americans by our goverment. to quote John Stuart on the daily show 'I think 90% of all americans, if they were locked in a room together they would be reasonable. and the other 10% run the country."

 

 

We have flawed idealistic, opourtunist foriegn policy (fueld by a retarded pupet president backed by insidious folk with hidden aggendas and special intrests.)

 

I was worried for our contry for a while as things seemed to slip downward after 9/11. But if Bushes low numbers on virtually every issue is any indication, Americans are not in line with the government. I can only assume things will turn a corner in 06 and be completely revamped by 08 and hopefully within 4 years a lot of the damage can be undone, and the world comunity see we are still good people. In the end we need a new party. 2 options makes our democracy bland and really more for show. 3 or more parties would force discussion on many options, and partisan attacks would at least take on a new dynamic twist.

 

I also hope that Bush can get impeached for the NSA taps. It shows an administration willing to do anything it wants without regard to apperances. His disregard and disdain for the American public in general is quite frightening.

 

Anyway I got sidetracked. Our goverment has taken down a bad path and have caused huge damage to our image recently. I hope (and vote) for a change to bring our actions closer to our ideals (and our ideals closer to reasonable) But please dont base the american experience on what our goverment does.

 

We're good people......really.....except pat robertson, I cant vouch for him.

[Alessandro Machi]

I've thought it would be progressive to have each state nominate one person for president. Then throughout some type of election process, the field gets reduced to three people for the final race. What would make the idea work well is that from fifty down to three, all would be allocated the same amount of money to run their campaign as long as they are in the race.

 

The final three would probably select their VP from the other 47. As long as each candidate spends the same money, lobbyists become irrelevant to the Presidential candidate. I also think it might be interesting if these 50 candidates didn't announce their political affiliation during the election process.

 

Although each candidate would have leanings one way or the other, they would be free to rethink their affiliation after becoming President, or better yet, chose to not be affiliated with either party.

 

As long as our presidents "belong" to one party or the other, not only are their actions predictable and based on party protocol, but the other party will always be combative for fear that the other party's president will get all the credit if things go well.

 

Our Presidents need to be free of either party.

[James Steven Beverly]

 

"How can a country constantly harp on about freedom and democracy year in year out and then lock up people without trial or representation for so many years? It's frankly hypocritical. The guards at Guantanamo could give the Nazis a run for their money - talk about fascists. No wonder more and more people dislik US foreign policy...if you can call it policy. And why can every other country be put on trial for war crimes yet not the US? Where is justice?

 

What I really can't get over is that the US can tell other countries that they are dictatorships and warn them that they are infringing upon human rights, yet they can lock people up (who are not even US citizens) outside of their borders and then quite openly and happily proclaim they are not breaking any laws because Guantanamo is outside of the US - how convenient is that?

 

Home of the free, my ass."

 

BITE ME!! The Bush administation lied to us and use our tragedy to further the right wing agenda But I have very little sympathy for animals who run innocent people's airliners into buildings filled with other innocent people or blow up bombs that kill innocent people because they done happen to beleive everyone should were a beard and cover their women from head to toe in a burka. WE'RE THE MONSTERS?!! Let me ask you a question How do you feel about the IRA? The way Guantonimo was handed was a disgrace to this nation's proud history of fighting for freedom and I place the blame squarely on Bush's shoulders, but he is paying for it. His appoval ratings are the lowest in history and he will probably leave office in the disgrace he created, but how dare you compare us to the Nazis, in case you've frogotten we were the guys that defeated the Nazis. Don't forget the only reason the world EVEN KNOWS about the abuses at Guantanimo was because American soldiers who believe in justice leaked those pictures to the press, who also defended freedom be telling the American people. So yes amego, this is the home of the free.

 

It actually doesn't matter if Osama exists or not, fear of his image can be used by the US and UK governments to do whatever they like to control the masses.

 

Have someone run airliners into Downtown London and see how you react.

Edited March 10, 2006 by Capt.Video

[Morgan Peline]

Look - I'm not condoning violence or terrorism, terrorists are evil and should be stopped. But does that mean you have to become as brutal as them to achieve it? Most of the guards at Guantanamo are brutal and it most likely really pleases them that they are inflicting so much misery - they probably feel like they are avenging themselves or something.

 

How can you condone how they treat the prisoners?

How can you condone what they did at Abu Ghraib?

That's freedom and democracy?

 

Ah yes, they are terrorists, you say, who killed many people in NY. If that is really the case, why are they not on trial? Why have they not been charged? That looks and sounds pretty fascist in my book. Isn't that what the Gestapo used to do? Lock people up without trial and then torture them until they admitted to a crime regardless of whether they were guilty or not? People have died there because of brutality. Some of them were innocent. And if they were guilty, they should have been tried in court.

 

So yes amego, that is the home of the free.

 

When the inquisitors are finished with them, why don't they just put them up against a wall and shoot them - it will save America a lot of money on transport. It won't even break any US laws because they are not even in America. We'll probaly never know how many died there - but then hey who cares, they're only 'ragheads'.

 

> I have very little sympathy for animals who run innocent people's airliners into buildings filled with other innocent people or blow up bombs that kill innocent people because they done happen to beleive everyone should were a beard and cover their women from head to toe in a burka. WE'RE THE MONSTERS?!!

 

Hey, I agree, but don't for a minute play the 'We're Americans, we always do the right thing' card.

 

>Have someone run airliners into Downtown London and see how you react.

 

America's committed as many atrocities as everybody else. Like napalming the hell out of Vietnam, when obviously Vietnam was such a super power they were going to help the world become Communist and help destroy the land of freedom.

 

Please note the deep sarcasm in my tone.

 

And bombing the hell out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they could have won the war without resorting to that, as Japan was already so weak by that time in the war. What's the difference? Oh yeah it was a war...right? So that makes it OK.

 

No, they didn't just want to test their new toy to see what it did.

 

I do have to admit howevger that if America hadn't stepped in we would probably all be either German or Japanese. So great, thank you. But at what price? Are we really better off. The western countries kill as many innocent people indirectly through their activities as were killed during the war. Look at how many civil wars were funded by the west.

 

Most of the people held at Guantanamo WERE NOT RESPONSIBLE for 9/11 - they were just ill-educated, ignorant Muslim soldiers captured fighting on the wrong side IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY not the U.S. They may be guilty of ignorance and being Taliban but the only places they blew up were in Afghanistan not anywhere else. Maybe one or two out of the five hundred people MIGHT be. We don't know however because they haven't been charged with anything. Yeap that's FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY isn't it? Why are they not entitled to a trial where they can be informed of formal charges and be represented by a lawyer?

 

Where do many terrorists come from? Saudi. Who has the most dealings there? The US. Who first funded Osama? The US. Who makes the most money out of all this in the end? The US. Which country seems to regularly declare war on others. The US. War makes money. See a pattern?

 

Like I say '1984'.

 

>Don't forget the only reason the world EVEN KNOWS about the abuses at Guantanimo was because American soldiers who believe in justice leaked those pictures to the press, who also defended freedom be telling the American people. So yes amego, this is the home of the free.

 

Ok - good point. There are many, many countries much worse than the US like China but I just get very angry by all the rhetoric about freedom and democacy when there are so obviously two different sets of rules.

 

Anyway, this is one of those discussions that is just going to go around in circles and become personal so there is probably no point in continuing.

 

You believe what you want to believe and I will believe what I want to believe. That's freedom, isn't it?

[Morgan Peline]

And whilst I'm on the subject.

 

Just to get it out my system and then I'll shut up.

 

Bush won his first term in office practically by 'coup d'etat', and the Supreme Court court supported him.

 

If they had counted all those votes like they were legally meant to do, there's a good chance Gore would have won. That's not true you say. Well... we'll never know because the re-count was stopped before the true results could be known. That's democracy?

 

How can a country like the US preach on and on about democracy this, democracy that, bah, blah, blah and then run their own election like a Mickey Mouse third world dictatorship? So what's the difference between the US and a country like Zimbabwe? Not that much you could say. Both of them have had compromised elections. And both of them have masses of hungry, impoverished people that no one cares about.

[Tom Bays]

Looks like DP's are out of touch too.

[James Steven Beverly]

Look - I'm not condoning violence or terrorism, terrorists are evil and should be stopped. But does that mean you have to become as brutal as them to achieve it? Most of the guards at Guantanamo are brutal and it most likely really pleases them that they are inflicting so much misery - they probably feel like they are avenging themselves or something.

 

How can you condone how they treat the prisoners?

How can you condone what they did at Abu Ghraib?

That's freedom and democracy?

 

Ah yes, they are terrorists, you say, who killed many people in NY. If that is really the case, why are they not on trial? Why have they not been charged? That looks and sounds pretty fascist in my book. Isn't that what the Gestapo used to do? Lock people up without trial and then torture them until they admitted to a crime regardless of whether they were guilty or not? People have died there because of brutality. Some of them were innocent. And if they were guilty, they should have been tried in court.

 

So yes amego, that is the home of the free.

 

When the inquisitors are finished with them, why don't they just put them up against a wall and shoot them - it will save America a lot of money on transport. It won't even break any US laws because they are not even in America. We'll probaly never know how many died there - but then hey who cares, they're only 'ragheads'.

 

> I have very little sympathy for animals who run innocent people's airliners into buildings filled with other innocent people or blow up bombs that kill innocent people because they done happen to beleive everyone should were a beard and cover their women from head to toe in a burka. WE'RE THE MONSTERS?!!

 

Hey, I agree, but don't for a minute play the 'We're Americans, we always do the right thing' card.

 

>Have someone run airliners into Downtown London and see how you react.

 

America's committed as many atrocities as everybody else. Like napalming the hell out of Vietnam, when obviously Vietnam was such a super power they were going to help the world become Communist and help destroy the land of freedom.

 

Please note the deep sarcasm in my tone.

 

And bombing the hell out of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they could have won the war without resorting to that, as Japan was already so weak by that time in the war. What's the difference? Oh yeah it was a war...right? So that makes it OK.

 

No, they didn't just want to test their new toy to see what it did.

 

I do have to admit howevger that if America hadn't stepped in we would probably all be either German or Japanese. So great, thank you. But at what price? Are we really better off. The western countries kill as many innocent people indirectly through their activities as were killed during the war. Look at how many civil wars were funded by the west.

 

Most of the people held at Guantanamo WERE NOT RESPONSIBLE for 9/11 - they were just ill-educated, ignorant Muslim soldiers captured fighting on the wrong side IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY not the U.S. They may be guilty of ignorance and being Taliban but the only places they blew up were in Afghanistan not anywhere else. Maybe one or two out of the five hundred people MIGHT be. We don't know however because they haven't been charged with anything. Yeap that's FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY isn't it? Why are they not entitled to a trial where they can be informed of formal charges and be represented by a lawyer?

 

Where do many terrorists come from? Saudi. Who has the most dealings there? The US. Who first funded Osama? The US. Who makes the most money out of all this in the end? The US. Which country seems to regularly declare war on others. The US. War makes money. See a pattern?

 

Like I say '1984'.

 

>Don't forget the only reason the world EVEN KNOWS about the abuses at Guantanimo was because American soldiers who believe in justice leaked those pictures to the press, who also defended freedom be telling the American people. So yes amego, this is the home of the free.

 

Ok - good point. There are many, many countries much worse than the US like China but I just get very angry by all the rhetoric about freedom and democacy when there are so obviously two different sets of rules.

 

Anyway, this is one of those discussions that is just going to go around in circles and become personal so there is probably no point in continuing.

 

You believe what you want to believe and I will believe what I want to believe. That's freedom, isn't it?

 

No your bashing America like a lot of people are bashing America and I'm SICK of it! No one condones what happened at Abu Ghraib or Guantanimo, but we were scard and pissed off and let some idiots get away with things we shouldn't have and NO America doesn't always live up to it's ideals but we try and when we do go off course we remember who we are and we come back to them. It happened with MacCathyism, Vietnam and it will happen in Iraq.

 

This war is unlike any war ever fought before. It took us by surprise and there was a lot of overreaction. We're just now learning how to fight it. I as with most other Americans don't believe in the policies this administation has implemented, but I understand them, after all, what they had done was so beyond the idea of what we though a sane man was capible of, it litterally stunned us in it's brutality and cruelty and we had no idea who the indvduals that could have planned something this heniuos were.

 

These people don't walk around with a sign on their forehead saying "Hi, I'm a terrorist" so those in power, in secret mind you, felt they had to find out what suspected terrorists knew and rounded up everyone who was a potenial threat to our poeple, That's why they were thrown in there and why they were tortured.

 

Stupid idea that goes against everything we believe in as a nation. The same sort of thing happened to our own people, Japanese Americans during WW2. It was wrong then, it's wrong now and it will always be wrong. But because we're a nation of laws who hold human rights and freedom above all else, there's a whole lot of people overoutraged about it and they're trying to change the laws that allowed these morons to get away with that sort of thing.

 

The torture has stopped, military policy has changed those who did the torturung are being prosecuted and there are investigations in progress to find the higher ups responible. In the country they came from there would be no trial if they attacked or were thought to have attacked their government they'd all just be dead.

 

We know how many people died in US custody. It was splashed all over every paper and news program in the nation. That's part of the freedom we guard so furvantly, and our people were outraged abotu that as well, which is one of the reasons Bush is at a 34% appoval rating right now. In another country like China or North Korea how many have died in custody? You will never know because there press can't tell you or i will be shut down and the people associated with the story imprisioned, tortured and killed witout reprocussions.

 

We're not perfect. We make mistakes but we are still and will always be the best and brightest hope for freedom throughout the world and you and everyone else knoes it.

 

Now, let me give you a little history lesson. Vietnam wasn't a war between the US and Vietnem, it was a war between the US and th Soivet Union/ Communist China or have you forgotten Korea, Chezslavakia, Hungary, East Germany and the Berlin wall. and the other dozens of nations forced to submit to communist rule during the cold war? The Vietnam war was, as was this one, badly planned and although I hated that damn war, I believe the reasons behind it were valid. Communism has to be stopped or have you forgotten Teinemen Square? The Musulim extremists also have to be stopped. This just isn't the way to do it.

 

As for dropping nukes on Japan, first of all, like the Taliban and Al Quiada, they started the war, and they started it because we wouldn't sell them oil to fuel the war machine of their empire. An invaision of the Japanese mainland to end a war that was already, without question even to the Japanese military, lost, would have cost between 100,000 and 1,000,000 American lives and untold japanese civilian and military caualties.

 

At Si Pan, Oakinwa and Guadal Canal, the Japanese had shown death was preferrable to the dishonor of surrender. They waisted their lives trying to kill Americans or by committing suicide by the thousands and thousands of Amereicans died that shouldn't have because of their stupid fanatisism.

 

There was never a question about dropping the first bomb. It would end the war and would save lives, but the Jananese military was so fanatical that even after the first single bomb destroyed an entire city, they still refused to surrender. Their stubbornness to admit the obvious make it nessesary to drop a second bomb. Only after 2 cities had been enialated did the stubborn foolish Japanese generals finally admit defeat, and even then there was a failed coup by junior officers that still refused to surrender. Those bombs saved millions of lives, not only American, British, Canadian and Astrailian but Japanese as well.

 

Dropping those bombs saved Japan form total annialation. It also prevented a shooting war between the US and Russia that would have killed millions more. So villify America for using Nuclear weapons if you like but it had to be done and you should be thankful that we were the ones who used them instead of some other, less compassionate nation.

 

We give more aid and have brokered more piece agreements and brought more industy to poor nations than anyone else on earth. So you want to villify someone, villify China or North Korea or Iran, but don't you dare talk about us like we're the cause of all the world woes.

 

Oh and just to get it out of my system, We had the most intensive recount in this nation's history. Bush Won like it or not and I don't, but he did. Gore won the popular vote but here the electorial collage which was set p to give people in less densely populated areas a fair shake in presidential elections, voted for Bush. There is nothing Mickey Mouse about it.

 

You want to see Micky Mouse watch a session of Parlement some time. They sound more like school kids arguing on a playground than your nation's leaders and I will lay you money there are a hell of a lot more poor people in Britain that there are here. We just talk about them more because we DO care.

 

But your right. You have the freedom, because during WW2 with the Lend Lease program and later with troops and planes, we kept the Nazis from occuping your country and taking over Europe, to believe anything you want to, even if it's a mind numbing garble of half truths, inuendo, and lies taken at face value.

 

So let agee to disagree shall we mate.

[Morgan Peline]

Look I still don't agree with a lot of what you say especially about Vietnam and Communism.

 

However, I do absolutely agree with you that there are many worse countries especially China as once you disappear there, you disappear for good.

 

However, I can't continue this discussion as you have brought up many points I have to check up on as they are not my own understanding of history.

 

So like you say we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

Regards,

[Stuart Brereton]

Last time I checked this was a Cinematography Forum, not a place for people to offer potted (and incorrrect) histories of international conflict...

[Alessandro Machi]

And whilst I'm on the subject.

 

Just to get it out my system and then I'll shut up.

 

Bush won his first term in office practically by 'coup d'etat', and the Supreme Court court supported him.

 

If they had counted all those votes like they were legally meant to do, there's a good chance Gore would have won. That's not true you say. Well... we'll never know because the re-count was stopped before the true results could be known. That's democracy?

 

How can a country like the US preach on and on about democracy this, democracy that, bah, blah, blah and then run their own election like a Mickey Mouse third world dictatorship? So what's the difference between the US and a country like Zimbabwe? Not that much you could say. Both of them have had compromised elections. And both of them have masses of hungry, impoverished people that no one cares about.

 

 

Mr. Gore eloquently gave the reason and logic as to why all the votes should be recounted in the state of Florida, but the spin that was put on his incredibly coherent and SHORT speech was if he repeated his position to recount all the votes in Floriday too many times it would make him look bullheaded, grabbing for the last straw, ungracious, aka unpresidential, so Gore was damned if he brought up his point too many time, and damned if he didn't.

 

I think the reason given by the republican officials (led by James Baker, one of the truly evil people on the planet for the no recount philosophy he espoused) for not recounting the votes was outrageous, "it would seriously impede their presidents time-line to hire all of his people"...? Say What? If the vote total is being legitimately being called into question in Florida, then there is NO president elect, yet. Somehow that little fact got ignored by everybody. Stating that there isn't enough time to recount all the votes in Florida completely invalidates the electoral process.

 

I think Clinton didn't want to step in because that would have looked bad. Notice how prophetic it was that the party that couldn't waste time seeing who really won the election by having an actual recount in Florida is now the party of the "shoe buying, quail shooting, bring it on" rhetoric that speaks to an entirely different motivation, one of self-centered gratification.

[Morgan Peline]

Last time I checked this was a Cinematography Forum, not a place for people to offer potted (and incorrrect) histories of international conflict...

 

Maybe but doesn't a discussion about a broadcast documentary about current world events directed by a respected director come under 'cinematography' if it is posted in the 'general' discussion part of the forum? Unfortunately, some of my personal feelings about the 'war' came through, which they shouldn't have - it was the wrong forum to air them.

 

However, though maybe my facts are wrong, is there ever an absolute truth in history? It all depends on who writes that history, doesn't it? As with many things in life, it depends on your point of view.

 

Sometimes it's important to question world events and decide how you feel about them. We are storytellers as well as technicians. It's all well and good knowing your t-stops, film stocks and lighting etc. but ultimately they are only tools used to tell stories and present our points of view on the different stories that we tell. Films are not just about pretty pictures they are also about communication.

 

I found the documentary so involving I felt it was worth telling people about it. It touched me more deeply than countless feature films I've seen in the last few months and I watch a lot of films. If that's not also 'cinematography', I don't know what is.

 

Anyway, enough said.

[Tom Bays]

Watch The Last Just Man if you haven't already.

[Stuart Brereton]

Maybe but doesn't a discussion about a broadcast documentary about current world events directed by a respected director come under 'cinematography' if it is posted in the 'general' discussion part of the forum? Unfortunately, some of my personal feelings about the 'war' came through, which they shouldn't have - it was the wrong forum to air them.

 

However, though maybe my facts are wrong, is there ever an absolute truth in history? It all depends on who writes that history, doesn't it? As with many things in life, it depends on your point of view.

 

Sometimes it's important to question world events and decide how you feel about them. We are storytellers as well as technicians. It's all well and good knowing your t-stops, film stocks and lighting etc. but ultimately they are only tools used to tell stories and present our points of view on the different stories that we tell. Films are not just about pretty pictures they are also about communication.

 

I found the documentary so involving I felt it was worth telling people about it. It touched me more deeply than countless feature films I've seen in the last few months and I watch a lot of films. If that's not also 'cinematography', I don't know what is.

 

Anyway, enough said.

 

I don't think the documentary itself was discussed at all, by anyone. I'm not denying the importance of the revelations regarding the treatment of the POW's, I'm just saying that this is not the place to discuss it, unless in the 'OFF TOPIC' forum.

 

If you had talked about the 'sensitive approach to the subject' or the 'gripping, gritty camerawork' then, yes, it should have been discussed here, but neither you or anyone else in the thread made the slightest reference to the documentary after your initial post.

 

This isn't my site, and I have no more rights here than anyone else, but I don't want to be in the middle of yet another political argument which has nothing to do with the fundamental reason why this site is here - to talk about Cinematography.

[Alessandro Machi]

I don't think the documentary itself was discussed at all, by anyone. I'm not denying the importance of the revelations regarding the treatment of the POW's, I'm just saying that this is not the place to discuss it, unless in the 'OFF TOPIC' forum.

 

If you had talked about the 'sensitive approach to the subject' or the 'gripping, gritty camerawork' then, yes, it should have been discussed here, but neither you or anyone else in the thread made the slightest reference to the documentary after your initial post.

 

This isn't my site, and I have no more rights here than anyone else, but I don't want to be in the middle of yet another political argument which has nothing to do with the fundamental reason why this site is here - to talk about Cinematography.

 

ha, I didn't know there was an off topic forum! The description of this forum is "Use this forum only if your topic doesn't fit in any of the other forums." Not knowing there was an off topic forum, I thought it made sense that the author posted it here.

 

But as for anyone actually discussing cinematic aspects of the documentary, that will probably be hard if no one has yet seen it. The buzz probably is beneficial for the video and the cinematographers involved.

[George Stratford]

Can`t wait to see the documentory! But some of you guys have some very seriously conditioned views that should be thought about twice before stating opinions as facts!

[James Steven Beverly]

Last time I checked this was a Cinematography Forum, not a place for people to offer potted (and incorrrect) histories of international conflict...

 

There is nothing incorrect in anything I've said. Check your facts. There were Russian and Chinese "advisors" assisting North Vietman, the NVA and the Viet Cong thoughout the war. The purpose of the war was to contain the communist threat purpatrated by the Soviet Union and The Chinese comunists, just as had been done in Korea !0 years earlier. In that conflict Americans fought the Chinese Red Army as well as the North Koreans. They got their asses kick and weren't willing to formally commit ground troops to Vietnam, but they were there.

 

The figures I gave for expected casualties in an invasion of the Japanese mainland, the behavour of Japanese civilians and soldiers on Si Pan Guam and Guadalcanal, the attempted coup by junior officers of the Japanese Impirial High command and the abosolute nesessity to drop atomic weapons on Japan are all well documented facts. So don't make blanket statements you can't defend.

 

The forum is for general discussion. What gives you the right to decide what we should discuss? The discussion is concerns the way a member feels about America after seeing some documentary. I felt the need to set him right about our poeple and our nation, something this documentary obviously didn't do. So anyway you look at it, this is a discussion about cinema, in this case how cinema has been apparently used a anit-American porpoganda.

Edited March 12, 2006 by Capt.Video

[George Stratford]

we are still and will always be the best and brightest hope for freedom throughout the world and you and everyone else knoes it.

 

 

Wow, how very American. (what about Canada)

 

 

 

There was never a question about dropping the first bomb. It would end the war and would save lives, but the Jananese military was so fanatical that even after the first single bomb destroyed an entire city

 

 

 

If you had ever been to the hiroshima memorial or read any non american propaganda history, you would know the A- bomb was being built years before the japanese were desperatly suicidal. They planned on bombing Japan before the war had begun. Just to clarify!

[Andy_Alderslade]

But as for anyone actually discussing cinematic aspects of the documentary, that will probably be hard if no one has yet seen it. The buzz probably is beneficial for the video and the cinematographers involved.

 

Well in my humble view of the Road to Guantanamo (as much a drama as it was documentry) I thought it was very good but perhaps not as great as the team's previous work.

 

Stylisticly it wasn't as raw as the previous 'In This World,' (which is an amazing film) and in comparison was sort of more televisual than what i'd expect from Winterbottom or Marcel Zyskind (who posts on this forum, so if you read this - forgive me - i don't mean to criticise - I'm a fan!) + (I'm also a fan of Michael Winterbottom - the knowledge he went to my old filmschool kinda swayed my decision to go there - alas that was a mistake since he went 25 years previous.)

 

The film took a 'Touching the Void' form, with the three prisoners giving to-camera interviews intercut through the dramatizations, also futher suplimented by news footage. I found was the only problem, the news footage was visually gritier and dirtier than the actual dramatization. Maybe this is my naivitee that i always associate reality with grit and dirt.

 

However the camera work was still particularly effective especially in scenes of interigation and also touching at points - I really wish I could explain properly how this was so - but i don't think i can after only seeing it once. There was a really good point where a guard wakes up one of the prisoners to warn him about a tarantula spider in his cage and in a moment of unexpected compasion and delicacy kills it for him.

 

Its not unexpected that talking about this film would cause a political argument/debate, this is what films like this are for - its healthy to argue and have our oppinions and beliefs challenged. After all here in the UK we had a prime-minister who brought us out of decades of bombings from the IRA, then took us into Iraq, making the UK a target for 'different' terrorists - one step foward, two steps back.....

 

Anyway if anyone is in London on 24th March 'In This World' is being played in a double bill with 'A Cock and Bull Story' at The Riverside Studios, if you haven't seen it - go see it its brilliant.

[James Steven Beverly]

we are still and will always be the best and brightest hope for freedom throughout the world and you and everyone else knoes it.

Wow, how very American. (what about Canada)

There was never a question about dropping the first bomb. It would end the war and would save lives, but the Jananese military was so fanatical that even after the first single bomb destroyed an entire city

If you had ever been to the hiroshima memorial or read any non american propaganda history, you would know the A- bomb was being built years before the japanese were desperatly suicidal. They planned on bombing Japan before the war had begun. Just to clarify!

 

Of course they were working on it early in the wart. You don't just pull an A-bomb out of your ass. We knew the Germans were working on one with their heavy water experiments and we could not allow the Nazis to develope their's first. And of course we had contingency plans to deal with japan before there untimate defeat. These plans however were for an invasion. They had names for the invation points like Taxi cab and Linosine. That were I got the estimate of Military and Civilian casualties. Whe decided to drop the bomb because of our expirences ind Si pan Guadalcanal and Guam not before. We couldnot have made the decision piror to that because the first nuclear explosion at Trinity New mexico didn't happen until July 16, 1945. Up to that time it was a contengency plan because noone knew if it would even work before then and there was some concern that the explosion might set the atmosphere on fire. Here is a quote form The first nuclear bomb website:

 

On August 2, 1939, just before the beginning of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Einstein and several other scientists told Roosevelt of efforts in Nazi Germany to purify uranium-235, which could be used to build an atomic bomb. It was shortly thereafter that the United States Government began the serious undertaking known then only as "The Manhattan Project." Simply put, the Manhattan Project was committed to expediting research that would produce a viable atomic bomb.

 

The most complicated issue to be addressed in making of an atomic bomb was the production of ample amounts of "enriched" uranium to sustain a chain reaction. At the time, uranium-235 was very hard to extract. In fact, the ratio of conversion from uranium ore to uranium metal is 500:1. Compounding this, the one part of uranium that is finally refined from the ore is over 99% uranium-238, which is practically useless for an atomic bomb. To make the task even more difficult, the useful U-235 and nearly useless U-238 are isotopes, nearly identical in their chemical makeup. No ordinary chemical extraction method could separate them; only mechanical methods could work.

 

A massive enrichment laboratory/plant was constructed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Harold C. Urey and his colleagues at Columbia University devised an extraction system that worked on the principle of gaseous diffusion, and Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the Cyclotron) at the University of California in Berkeley implemented a process involving magnetic separation of the two isotopes.

 

Next, a gas centrifuge was used to further separate the lighter U-235 from the heavier, non-fissionable U-238. Once all of these procedures had been completed, all that needed to be done was to put to the test the entire concept behind atomic fission ("splitting the atom," in layman's terms).

 

Over the course of six years, from 1939 to 1945, more than $2 billion was spent during the history of the Manhattan Project. The formulas for refining uranium and putting together a working atomic bomb were created and seen to their logical ends by some of the greatest minds of our time. Chief among the people who unleashed the power of the atom was J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the project from conception to completion.

 

Finally, the day came when all at Los Alamos would find out if "The Gadget" (code-named as such during its development) was going to be the colossal dud of the century or perhaps an end to the war. It all came down to a fateful morning in midsummer, 1945. At 5:29:45 (Mountain War Time) on July 16, 1945, in a white blaze that stretched from the basin of the Jemez Mountains in northern New Mexico to the still-dark skies, "The Gadget" ushered in the Atomic Age. The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the reaction.

 

The brilliant light from the detonation pierced the early morning skies with such intensity that residents from a faraway neighboring community would swear that the sun came up twice that day. Even more astonishing is that a blind girl saw the flash 120 miles away.

 

Upon witnessing the explosion, its creators had mixed reactions. Isidor Rabi felt that the equilibrium in nature had been upset -- as if humankind had become a threat to the world it inhabited. J. Robert Oppenheimer, though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches."

 

After viewing the results several participants signed petitions against loosing the monster they had created, but their protests fell on deaf ears. The Jornada del Muerto of New Mexico would not be the last site on planet Earth to experience an atomic explosion.

 

Scientists Who Invented the Atomic Bomb under the Manhattan Project: Robert Oppenheimer, David Bohm, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, Otto Frisch, Rudolf Peierls, Felix Bloch, Niels Bohr, Emilio Segre, James Franck, Enrico Fermi, Klaus Fuchs and Edward Teller. View a copy of the letter Einstein wrote Roosevelt that prompted the Manhattan Project.

 

 

atomic bomb pictureAtomic Bomb Detonation at Hiroshima

 

As many know, the atomic bomb has been used only twice in warfare. The first was at Hiroshima. A uranium bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" (despite weighing in at over four and a half tons) was dropped on Hiroshima August 6, 1945. The Aioi Bridge, one of 81 bridges connecting the seven-branched delta of the Ota River, was the target; ground zero was set at 1,980 feet. At 0815 hours, the bomb was dropped from the Enola Gay. It missed by only 800 feet. At 0816 hours, in an instant, 66,000 people were killed and 69,000 injured by a 10-kiloton atomic explosion.

 

The area of total vaporization from the atomic bomb blast measured one half mile in diameter; total destruction one mile in diameter; severe blast damage as much as two miles in diameter. Within a diameter of two and a half miles, everything flammable burned. The remaining area of the blast zone was riddled with serious blazes that stretched out to the final edge at a little over three miles in diameter.

 

Nagasaki

 

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki fell to the same treatment. This time a Plutonium bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" was dropped on the city. Though "Fat Man" missed its target by over a mile and a half, it still leveled nearly half the city. In a split second, Nagasaki's population dropped from 422,000 to 383,000. Over 25,000 people were injured.

 

Japan offered to surrender on August 10, 1945.

[James Steven Beverly]

True but in all honestly, I'm fasinated with war, well history in general, and have studied it informally for years. This account seems to be the concensis on the atomic bomb. The information on the attempted Japanese coup came from Japanese military records and firsthand accounts from the particapents and eye witnesses collected after the war. The information on Russian participation in the Vietnam war came from the Vietamese, the Russians, the American military, independnent jornalists and a personal friend of mine who fought as a marine with a CAC unit deep in the bush, from 1967 to 1969. That IS what happened.

[Stuart Brereton]

The forum is for general discussion. What gives you the right to decide what we should discuss?

 

General Discussion of Cinematography, not anything that pops into your head. That's what off-topic is for.

 

As I said before, I am not taking sides as to the validity of your views regarding Americas' role in these conflicts. I was merely pointing out that the point of discussion - a Documentary, was being completely ignored in favour of angry polemic about Vietnam, Hiroshima, Cuba, the US Election, and a whole lot else.

 

You seem to forget that this a community of filmmakers, and a long and angry thread like this is like two people fighting in a bar - it's got nothing to do with most of us, but we have to listen to it all the same.

 

Was the documentary biased? Or was it fairly researched? If it did indeed paint an unfair picture of the US, why? What were the filmmakers intentions? These are valid questions, not this ridiculous dragging up of every conflict in the last 60 years.

 

And to answer your question, Nothing gives me the right to decide what you should discuss - You're supposed to have the sense to figure it out for yourself.

 

"Cinematography.com", got it?

[James Steven Beverly]

I post here constantly, I know exactly what's docussed here. You don't have to listen at all if you find it inappropieate for this heading, just don't read anything with my name on it, just skip over my posts and go on to the next posting. The comments I take exception with happen the be posted under this heading and it is not in my power to move this discussion to another heading which you feel may be more apropriate. Your the only one that seems to have a problem with our debate. The effect of this documentary IS this discussion. it has promted comments that I find insulting as an American and were completely unfounded in truth. It's not a "bar fight", It's a debate about important issues that need to be adressed and I'm sorry if it offends you but I will speak up for my country when ever and where ever it needs to be done, including on Cinematography.com, get it?

Edited March 12, 2006 by Capt.Video

[Stuart Brereton]

don't read anything with my name on it, just skip over my posts and go on to the next posting.

 

First sensible thing you've said ;-)

 

 

FWIW, I agree that Morgan was wrong to criticize America for the actions of its' government. He made sweeping assertions about American foreign policy, which although partially justified, really had nothing to do with the documentary.

 

You, like a lot of Americans, are fed up with being painted as the bad guys because of what George W. gets up to, and wanted to defend yourself and your country. All understandable.

 

However, it very quickly degenerated into a slanging match, and those of us who were hoping to learn something about the programme were left in the middle.

 

This forum is unmoderated because people are supposed to show restraint and forethought in their posts. You gave us all a history lesson in the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Japan, which might be interesting, but IS NOT relevant!