The War on Democracy

The bottom line for John Pilger's WAR ON DEMOCRACY documentary = Go See It! Then you can talk about it.

I am addressing these remarks in the first place to law-abiding people, as most sharply distinguished from war criminals. The definition of a crisis = a period in which, in order to abide by that law which serves justice only, one must be prepared to enforce it. This extraordinary duty occurs because the official agencies with their names in the upper case --DoJ, DoD & CIA, for example-- have been captured by a bloody tyranny which utterly perverts such basic political concepts as those of justice, defense and intelligence. (Spook HQ is now officially named the George Bush Center for Intelligence, which is located two doors down from the Wilt Chamberlain Home for Short People.) These general reflections very much pertain to the subject of Mr.Pilger's masterpiece.

I speak Spanish and briefly represented the U.S. State Department in Chile in 1964 & '65. In its hour & a half, WOD covers Latin America from El Salvador to Chile with a focus on Venezuela led by Hugo Chavez and a stop in Bolivia. For those new to this continent, WOD's an absolutely essential introduction. For those who already know it (among the group whom I'm addressing, please remember), they will be overjoyed to see an intelligent and artistically coherent story of their homelands on the Big Screen. We're talking about a place more than twice the area of the USA with more than half a billion people, hundreds of millions of whom are dirt poor and many of whom have had relatives murdered by thugs trained by the US Army at the "School of the Americas", which has recently changed its name out of embarrassment.

When Pilger says that the CIA puppet regime in Guatemala slew "thousands", he is grossly understating the case, since the best estimate's ~250,000. Naturally he spent more time in countries where it's safer to film. Once we understand that we should all bring everybody we know to see this movie, then we can acknowledge that it's an opening of the door to a vast realm. Many more such features need to be made even to begin to do justice to the material.

A criticism: In discussion with a Chilean physician who was a torture victim, Pilger uses a phrase about being "ensnared in fascism". IMHO he should simply forget the F word. As a matter of historical fact, Benito Mussolini, who created the concept of Fascism and led that Party in national power for a quarter of a century, had a lot more going for him than did the traitor Generals Rios Montt of Guatemala or Augusto Pinochet of Chile, to name only two of the dozens of US puppets in the region. The CIA's Guatemalan Genociderals in particular in their atrocities by far exceeded any acts of repression which Il Duce ever carried out in Italy. In other words, from Ronald Reagan until now the U.S. Government gives Fascism a bad name.

Anyone who wants to have a head's up 'tude toward such a big part of our human race will definitely want to check out John Pilger's well-informed portrait of the irresistibly rising forces of the Western Hemisphere. Alert supporters of Barack Obama, Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney will want to give thought to tying in WOD to their candidates' campaigns.

OTOH white supremacists & jingoes who think that slaughtering the families of foreigners is still cool, especially if they themselves can get a piece of the financial action, well, such "Chicago boys" as SonnaBush calls them in WOD, they will pan Pilger's product as skillfully as they can manage.

John Pilger has won high accolades for journalism (Journalist of the Year, twice) and award-winning television documentaries. But some people will still ignore him because he is too 'New Statesman'. He utters unpopular views. He backs them up with evidence. But that can leave you feeling uncomfortable. His new film does that in spades. Over South America.

This new documentary is his first major film for the cinema.

When I personally have travelled in South America, I marvelled at how basic facts about Western foreign policy's role in destabilising 'unfriendly' governments is normal knowledge. From shop workers to academics. Far more than in Britain. Here, most people are now probably aware that the CIA toppled the democratically elected President Allende of Chile. That they were responsible for the succession of the tyrant Pinochet. Those with slightly longer memories probably recall the scandal over Nicaragua when the USA backed the wrong side. Again, against a democratically elected government. To live with ourselves (and our governments) we tend to think these were just mistakes of the past. The reality is that the truth, in those cases, couldn't be suppressed easily. The reality is that similar events are continuing. As policy.

Suppressing truth is always a sensitive issue. Many years ago, when I came out of the Singapore War Museum, there were Japanese visitors with tears in their eyes. It was the first time they had been confronted with the horrors that their government had committed during WWII. Other countries frequently feel angry that Japan does not retell more of its war crimes in standard school books. It is simply easier, in most cases, not to. Pilger's film is about crimes against democracy that it is 'easier' to ignore. The culprit being a country that almost invented the word. The United States of America.

Interviews are conducted with renegade CIA agents like Philip Agee, but also with Duane Clarridge, former head of CIA operations in South America. Clarridge openly defends America's right to do what they want anywhere in the world and to anyone, regardless of their innocence - as long as it's in America's national interest. 'Like it or lump it,' he says. A harrowing interview features an American nun, Dianna Ortiz. Ortiz reveals how she was tortured and gang raped in the late 80s by a group led by a fellow American clearly in league with a US-backed regime. Ortiz asks whether the American people are aware of the role their country plays in subverting innocent nations under the guise of a 'war on terror'. CIA man and Watergate conspirator Howard Hunt describes how he and others overthrew a previously democratically elected government. Hunt even mentions how he organised "a little harmless bombing".

More controversially, Pilger features extensive footage with Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. This is a man demonised by President Bush, but one about whom the facts are harder to determine. That he has used much of his country's vast oil wealth to benefit the poor is largely accepted, give or take some details. But that he has taken steps to concentrate power in himself arouses sterner debate. War on Democracy, uniquely, shows us the country from the inside. Many of the conditions are reminiscent of Allende's Chile. The power of the media seems unabated and is fiercely anti-government. But we see how it is owned by the rich half of the class divide. When the military try to unseat Chavez, thousands of people come out of the slums to protest until he is returned to power. These are people who had no voice before Chavez and they are devoted to him as passionately. Just as the wealthy classes are opposed to him. Given the forces he is up against, the assumption of power (and from a democratically elected base) seems more understandable. We recall how Allende, even with popular support, was brought down. Chavez looks like a tougher nut.

Pilger's attitude towards Chavez is friendly, although he does ask him about the poverty that remains, in spite of the vast oil wealth. Could his interview have been more balanced without playing into the hands of those fabricating the lies he is trying to expose? Pilger also travels to America and uses undercover filming. The 'School of Americas' in Georgia is where Pinochet's torture squads were trained, together with death squads in other Latin American countries. The wide-ranging testimony is unsettling.

Pilger's extensive travels in Latin America, in depth interviews, documentation and film archives obtained under US freedom of information, evidence corroborated by people in opposing camps, his own calm sincerity - they all paint a cohesive portrait of USA attacks on democracy.

The main fault I found with the War on Democracy was not any lack of balance. Pilger argues his case quite methodically and convincingly and gives critics ample right of reply. He is not a soundbite merchant, parading flashy quotes in Michael Moore fashion. But the difficulty - and one Moore did overcome - is that Pilger's years of experience on the small screen has not translated effectively to cinema. The timing is probably right - what with the re-examinations of 9/11 and criticisms of US policy now being acceptable topics of discussion. Horrors of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib quickly come to mind. But it still feels like a television programme, even if it is many notches above Panorama or Dispatches.

Overall, The War on Democracy is an excellent primer on US destabilisation and anti-democracy measures in Latin America. To civil rights enthusiasts and Amnesty International supporters, much of it will be nothing new. But it is told with piercing insight and no sense of personal axes-to-grind. Previous films by John Pilger have done much good. $40 million was raised unsolicited by his film on Cambodia (Cambodia Year Zero) which to help the thousands of orphaned children there. The aim of this film is simply to increase awareness.

John Pilger is a unique journalist with credentials to boot. I find this documentary very helpful in shining a light on otherwise ill reported topics. The only problem is that this title is unavailable in the United States just now. It is funny that all his documentaries aren't shown there. Some aren't shown here in the U.K. The idea that he is Anti-west as is touted by some very narrow minded people is absurd. I recommend watching this Documentary and many others of his like it. You will find he is not anti west, just anti corporate globalisation. That is a very important issue that is never covered by the mainstream media. This is the only reason that the other review here is condemning him. Watch with an open mind. With regards here is a quote of Jeanette winterson about history and information in a media frenzied world. "If you want to keep your own teeth, make your own sandwiches." The world needs more information like this. We are tomorrows people and the fact that the U.s, U.K (my own country) and many other huge corporate meccas ignore the rest of the world, creating this muddled up terror riddled nightmare, can only be settled, even a little, by people opening their minds and hearts to more than just their own comfy lifestyle. I not a conspiracy theorist, they should all be condemned. Freedom of information is essential for great journalism, journalism should publicise human beings (like us) being screwed in our name. This documentary is great. watch more like it. Well done again Mr Pilger. :)

Students of Uncle Sam's doings in Latin America from the overthrow of Allende or earlier will find little new in Pilger's first big screen documentary. But its message needs to repeated again and again and as widely as possible: that "freedom" and "democracy" loving US regimes have stolen or overridden the rights of the poor in every part of the world, perhaps most of all in the "back yard". I saw the movie in a white liberal middle class district of London where the normally reticent audience gave it a round of applause. Preaching to the converted maybe. It needs to be shown as widely as possible. Viva Pilger!

Democracy is one of the old-fashioned goods the U.S. have exported to developing countries. To quote President Bush: "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others to find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way." Can it be so? Absolutely not. The reality has usually been the other way round. Democracy made in the U.S. is like Pandora box for tiny countries.

The War On Democracy filmed by John Pilger shows well the falsity of the U.S. through the revelation of the hidden, suppressed history in Latin America.

Don't be embarrassed at the fact that The U.S has tried to turn over democratic governments under the guise of democracy. Especially, many countries in Latin America have been attacked with the loss of countless lives, and their leaders became the victims of an injustice; Jacobo Arbenz, a democratically elected Guatemalan president in 1950, was forced into exile being stripped naked and photographed; In 1973 Salvador Allende of Chile took his life against the bombing led by General Pinochet, an America's man.

By what right, has the U.S. played the leading role in destroying the democratic governments and the dreams of the people? Who gives the U.S. the right? Let's listen to the pretext of Duane Clarridge, head of the CIA's Latin American division in the early 1980s in Chile. "We'll intervene whenever we decide it's in our national security interests to intervene, and if you don't like it, lump it. Get used to it, world -we're not gonna put up with nonsense. If our interests are threatened, we're gonna do it." Philip Agee, C.I.A. agent 1967-68, also back up the Clarridge's excuse. "In the CIA, we didn't give a hoot about democracy. I mean, it was fine if a government was elected and would cooperate with us, but, if it didn't, then democracy didn't mean a thing to us, and I don't think it means a thing today." Like pilger's saying, it's evident no country has a right to go its own way, unless that way coincides with the interests of the United States.

However, the U.S. tasted the bitterness of defeat on April, 2002 in Venezuela. The joint work of Washington and the wealthy of Caracas to get rid of President Chavez ended up failing due to people power demanding the return of their president. In spite of the planned coup, Chavez was put in the bosom of the people in 48 hours after being abducted.

The people power was also brilliant in Bolivia. In 2000, to take backs the valuable resources like water, Bolivian people fought against a foreign consortium dominated by the American corporation Bechtel, and accomplished their hope. Furthermore, in 2005, the indigenous person, Evo Morales, was elected president for the first time ever.

Of course, there sure is another plot of empire still going in Latin America, Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa. However, the rising up against empire will never stop as long as the people power exists. As Hugo Chavez says, the world should be governed by the rule of law, equality, justice and fraternity, not by empire's greed.