Finally! A Movie EXPOSES The Neocons!!

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> W

> Sat, 14 Aug 2004 03:10:26 EDT

> Finally! A Movie EXPOSES The Neocons!!

>

>

> Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of

> American Empire

>

> by Karen Kwiatkowski

>

> Better than anyone to date, the Canadian Media

> Education Foundation has

> quietly and accurately documented the most important

> history of 21st century thus

> far in their recent video and DVD release, Hijacking

> Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear,

> and the Selling of American Empire.

>

> Hijacking Catastrophe is powerful, understated,

> straightforward and

> educational. In a single meticulously organized hour

> of evidence and analysis, viewers

> are treated to a thoughtful explanation of modern

> American empire,

> neo-conservatism as a driving force for the current

> Bush administration, and something I

> have not seen before, a real economic analysis of

> what is driving some of our

> current " global war on terror. "

>

> The film examines the Bush Administration's

> investment in neo-conservatism,

> and the early, and already horrific, results. While

> past performance is no

> guarantee of future earnings, Hijacking Catastrophe

> shows exactly why America's

> " new conservatism " is a pyramid scheme of inhumane

> proportions.

>

> The film examines eight aspects of the current

> situation of American foreign

> policy. The film provides an explanation for the

> obvious continuity between

> Cold War policies and those of the present. It

> examines long-term

> neoconservative thinking and how this peculiar

> version of Jacobin utopianism ascended from

> its rather inauspicious political roots. The film

> explores the dangerous

> territory of how the post 9-11 national shock was

> carefully cultivated by

> neoconservatives in Washington to support their own

> long-held objectives in the Middle East.

>

> Hijacking Catastrophe then documents the Pentagon

> and White House process of

> disinformation, exaggeration, and media-supported

> propaganda between 9-11 and

> America's March 2003 invasion of Iraq. It

> describes the neoconservative vision

> of military dominance over a supine, energy-rich

> Middle East, not only for

> its own sake, but as a warning to other potential

> international rivals.

>

> Hijacking Catastrophe describes the cost of empire

> in a way so comprehensive

> that it becomes clear that neo-conservatism, as a

> foreign policy guide, comes

> with a very real moral, political and financial

> garnishment of every American,

> and of American children yet unborn. The cost is

> shown not only as a current

> financial outlay or in lives unlived on the part of

> soldiers and marines, but

> in terms of an alarming debt burden, loss of

> domestic freedom, the growing and

> invasive state, a permanent tattering of the

> Constitution and Bill of Rights.

>

> There are some critical darts thrown in the film,

> but the few that can be

> discerned relate to the facts. For example, the

> general lack of military

> experience among neo-conservatives is discussed in

> the context of their most

> interesting fascination with the use of military

> force, and their unbelievable

> disregard for the horrific cost of war both

> physically and psychologically, on our

> soldiers, on the purported battlefield enemy, and

> upon the countries in which

> they reside.

>

> Unlike the Michael Moore treatment in Fahrenheit

> 9-11, where images of the

> Deputy Secretary of Defense combing his hair with

> fresh spittle cheapen our

> horror while turning our stomachs, Hijacking

> Catastrophe is a working man's

> treatment of 21st century American foreign policy

> “ what it is, where it comes from,

> what it wants, what it costs, and how Americans

> might deal with it. In this

> regard, the final segments of the film focus on the

> need to fight fear

> domestically by engaging in a public debate on the

> war in Iraq, post 9-11 policies in

> general, and engendering a real national discussion

> about what America stands

> for and how she might more wisely relate to the

> world, and solve problems

> instead of creating them.

>

> Hijacking Catastrophe, in my view, has only one

> weakness, and that is the

> possibility that those who follow commentary may

> incorrectly conclude, because

> Noam Chomsky and Immanuel Wallerstein are among

> those interviewed, that this

> expose of the war in Iraq and neo-conservatism is

> from the political left.

>

> In a day and age when ex-Trotskyite democratic

> socialists, big

> government-huggers and naked empire-worshipers find

> a safe and happy home in the Republican

> Party“ a party once popularized as advocating

> small decentralized government

> at home and non-interference and trade abroad “

> one might wonder if left,

> right and center are not passe. But for old-timers,

> the libertarian right, the

> American center, the military backbone, academia and

> economists are all

> represented, with interviews of Scott Ritter, Dan

> Ellsberg, Chalmers Johnson, Stan

> Goff, Ben Barber, Shadia Drury, Norm Mailer and Stan

> Goff and many others. I am

> there as well.

>

> When the video team came out to the farmhouse to ask

> me some questions, I didn't expect the net result of

their work would be so

> informative, fair-minded,

> and at times, poignant. Parts of the film show my

> former military colleagues

> in Iraq questioning the unsound military strategy

> and absurd neoconservative

> political vision, yet dutifully following their

> orders, killing and dying, and

> holding ground until the rest of the country wakes

> up. The White House

> insists that the occupation is about American values

> and patriotism and the public

> good. Hijacking Catastrophe shows straightforwardly

> how those Washington-elite

> fantasies scuttle on the ground around the feet of

> our soldiers and marines

> like so much garbage.

>

> When Hijacking Catastrophe was completed, 600

> Americans and probably 20,000

> or more Iraqi civilians had been killed. Today we

> approach an American death

> count of 1,000, and each day it seems more Iraqis

> give their lives and sacrifice

> their freedom for " American democracy. " Instead of

> learning from political

> mistakes of 2003, we recently invaded and destroyed

> much of the Shia holy city

> of Najaf, alienating much of the remaining Iraqi

> population that still clung to

> the idea that we were there to help. We have

> emplaced the second-rate thug

> Allawi as Prime Minister, following in the real

> American tradition in the Middle

> East and proving our critics abroad to be absolutely

> correct about our true

> intentions. America's decline as a respected and

> influential world power

> continues, while at home Americans increasingly seem

> to feel oppressed and

> apprehensive. Incidentally, the ingredients are all

> in place for an American version of

> National Socialism.

>

> Thankfully, fear, panic and stupidity are for sheep

> and lemmings, not people.

> Hijacking Catastrophe does a great service in gently

> reminding us of this

> liberating fact. Yet, the film does far more than

> remind. Like the Rosetta stone,

> it contains a necessary and crucial key for

> translating Washington’s mystical

> and symbolic description of the invasion and

> occupation of Iraq, and it will

> guide future generations as well as our own.

>

> August 14, 2004