We are a nation of fear. A nation of conspiracies. We see conspiracies everywhere, believing that absolutely everyone is out to get us: the terrorists, the government, the corporations, our neighbors, nature. Everything gives us cancer and George Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. There are secret societies everywhere and shady people lurking behind every corner. It is not really conducive to a happy society, if you think about it. Of course, there are questionable things going on, and each confirmation seems to exacerbate everything else. But it is a scary world we live in, sometimes. There has been plenty of confirmation of horrifying practices by food producers, by companies whose loyalties lie with their profits rather than the well-being of their clients, twistings of truths and sweeping-under of secrets. (Check out the following documentaries: Food Inc., which will change your mind about the meat you buy, Hot Coffee, which exposes the injustice of tort reform, and The Invisible War, about the military cover-up of the high ratio of rape amongst their ranks.)
It is a fact that the government and the military carry on covert operations. Much as we yearn for complete transparency, sometimes it really is a matter of security – not everything can be open knowledge. Unfortunately, the trade-off is that when terrible things occur, no one can be held up to scrutiny. The ethics of the practice are immensely debatable. So we are here to discuss the new documentary Dirty Wars, which did quite well at Sundance. The film follows journalist Jeremy Scahill as he travels to Afghanistan, where he investigates a secret night raid by the Joint Special Operations Command and the assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki. His investigations take us deeper than we were ever intended to see.
Village 8 Theaters presents Dirty Wars as the newest installment in its Louisville Exclusives series. It is scheduled to run until next Thursday, August 1. Village 8 is located at 4014 Dutchmans Lane. Further theater information and showtimes can be found at the Village 8 website.
Image: Internet Movie Database
