DIRTY WARS and FRUITVALE STATION

DIRTY WARS, a documentary film, written by Jeremy Scahill and directed by Rick Rowley. 

 The documentary film “Dirty Wars” should sicken, anger, and depress you.   Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill , who wrote the film, has done his job.  Seems that the United States presidential administration has allowed  the CIA to work jointly with a once  secret US paramilitary team  known as JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) to do its dirty work outside the law.  Since 9-11-2001, and the beefing up of the Patriot Act, JSOC  has been authorized to kill anyone carte blanche that the US government believes is  intent on doing harm to the United States-politically, militarily, or socially.  These suspects are not arrested, given no jail time, no trial, just death carried out in secret by this team of uniformed, armed dudes (some dudettes in the future, perhaps) who answer to no one but whomever happens to be in the White House  at the time.   Recently, their operations went wide in that they are authorized to kill even  US citizens believed to be connected to terrorists in any way, be it through family, a charitable organization, friend, or acquaintance.

Immediately after the US bombed Afghanistan in October 2001, invaded and shelled Iraq in 2003, Scahill went to these countries on his own with his notebook, a tape recorder, a translator, and a cameraman.  He trucked into dangerous provinces in Afghanistan to investigate night raids, and after winning the villagers’ trust,  interviewed them.   They spoke openly about the atrocities that the US military and its coalition forces wreaked upon them.   There is a scene where they show Scahill cell phone videos where families are dancing and singing at a wedding party; suddenly it turns to chaos when, without  warning, the building is bombed and shelled, and the wedding partiers-men, women, and children are blown to bits and maimed.  They show him photos of the aftermath: fathers carrying limp bodies of their children; women wailing, the bloodied dead, dying, and wounded.  They are disturbing and difficult to look at.  This type of raid is carried out by US forces who allegedly have proof that the place was harboring the Taliban or Al Qaeda.  With scenes like these- and there are several- Scahill raises the documentary from a dry, factual account featuring pundits’, military  officials’, and/or world leaders’ talking heads to the heart-wrenching personal stories of innocent people’s suffering and those responsible. 
 

Scahill (3rd frm left) with Afghan villagers

The film concludes with the assassination by a US drone strike of outspoken, radical Muslim Anwar Al Awlaki , an American citizen, in Yemen.  Scahill included photos and videos of Awlaki’s 16 year old, American-born son growing up, and as a young college student, playing sports with his friends in the United States.   He had gone to Yemen to look for his father.  He too was killed in the same manner.  Why?  Both were on the US administration’s not-so-secret “kill list,”- so, fair game.  Awlaki was killed not for any terrorist acts, but for his words.  He had been charged with inspiring Muslims in America and in the Arab world to kill Americans; his son, guilt by association.  Father and son were never charged with any crime, nor were they arrested or brought to trial which is an American citizen’s right.  These killings are unprecedented.   As one reviewer stated, Scahill uncovered a “world of covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress.  In military jargon, JSOC teams ‘find, fix, and finish’ their targets.”

“Dirty Wars” is an important film detailing a “war” that goes underreported.  In fact, the film played in only one theatre in San Francisco for one week.  The day I went to see it, the power had gone out; then, the theatre closed for renovation; the film was not picked up by another movie house, which is usually the case.    I had to travel to Berkeley to catch it at the one theatre that carried it in all of the Bay Area counties.  This is a shame.  Still, we are fortunate that Scahill and other truth-seekers and tellers like him have not been silenced.  Can we be certain, given the fate of Snowden, Assange, and Manning, that they will not be? Try to get it when it comes out on DVD, Netflix, Hulu, or wherever.

This review has been published also on  www.socialistaction.org

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FRUITVALE STATION.  Directed by Ryan Coogler, starring Michael B. Jordan, Olivia Spencer, and Melonie Diaz

Michael B. Jordan as Oscar Grant III

Fruitvale Station is filmmaker and director Ryan Coogler’s first work and is as polished and professional as any seasoned Hollywood filmmaker’s.  He opens his film with the authentic, jumpy, low resolution of the cell phone videos taken of the tragic killing of Oscar Grant III that early New Year’s morning by a BART cop.  Towards the end, Coogler recreated the scene fictionally, capturing the verisimilitude of the original.

Coincidently, the film hit the theatres about the same time George Zimmerman, the self-styled neighborhood security cop, was awarded a not guilty verdict for shooting and killing unarmed, 17-year old, black youth Trayvon Martin in a Miami suburb.

Fruitvale Station is an independent docu-drama, a fictional account of Grant’s murder by BART cop Johannes Mehserle (whose identity is neither revealed in the film, nor in the film’s database).  The film shows him shooting Grant in the back as he lay prone and handcuffed on the platform of Oakland’s Fruitvale BART station.   Grant is played by Michael B. Jordan who has Denzel Washington’s charm and winning smile.  He, his girlfriend, Sophina (Melonie Diaz) and mother of his four year old daughter, Tatiana (a delightful, natural Ariana Neal), and their friends were on their way home on a BART train from the New Year’s Eve fireworks in San Francisco.  An altercation broke out and the train was stopped at Fruitvale Station.  BART police arrived, ordered Grant and his friends off the train.  Grant insisted that they weren’t doing anything. 

Oscar Grant & Friends  with BART cops at Fruitvale Station

    What followed was a brutal attack along with undue harassment and beating by the cops on innocent people, which ended with Grant’s death.    The audience in the theatre, including me, involuntarily gasped and cried out in disbelief when the shot was heard that killed Grant, even though we knew the outcome.  The camera stayed on Grant’s face as it registered his confusion.  You felt him thinking, “This can’t be happening.”  

   Though we saw the scene captured by cell phone at the beginning of the film, Coogler’s recreation of it towards the end had more impact in that he allowed us to get to know Grant during the 24 hours before he was killed.   Heartbreaking.   We see him with Sophina, playing with Tatiana, taking her to preschool; and in a fictional scene he’s caring for a dog that had been hit by a car.  Also, there’s a joyous celebration for his mother’s birthday with grandparents, siblings, and kids.  Coogler makes it feel as though we’re there. 
 

Grant was not blemish-free.  During the hours before his death, we learn that he had lost his job but pretended he was still working and threatened his ex-boss when he tried to get it back; lied to his girlfriend about seeing other women; and sold marijuana to make money.   In a scene by the bay, as Grant waits for his contact, he reflects on his time in San Quentin (shown in flashback) and how it affected his mother, Wanda, beautifully played by Olivia Spencer (Oscar recepient for The Help); his girlfriend and their daughter.  In that scene, Jordan lets you witness Oscar Grant’s epiphany; he’s that good an actor.  He made his New Year’s resolution, but Mehserle kept him from realizing it.

Jordan and Ariana as Grant and Tatiana

 

As of this writing, an appeals court granted the Oscar Grant family the right to sue the BART police officer for killing their son.

Oscar Grant III and Trayvon Martin are symbols for mostly young black males in America who are subjected to ongoing, documented killings and beatings by law enforcement officials, though many go unreported.  It is said that the race of the cop is not a factor, it’s the group psychology of the general law enforcement population, the “blue” cop.  This has to change.

This review has been adapted for publication in the alternative, national newspaper, Socialist Action, and posted on its website.  Subscribe on line at www.socialistaction.org.

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