Dirty Wars

The documentary based on Jeremy Scahill’s book, Dirty Wars, is a shocking and revealing look into the War on Terror. Drone strikes, extrajudicial killings – those are by and large the domain of JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command. Scahill has spent much of the past 12 years on the ground in one war-torn spot or another and he provides a lot of detail and a lot of background into a part of our policy that might be hard for some to reconcile with American ideals. If there’s a thread connecting his individual chapters – Yemen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, Somalia, night raids in Afghan villages, more civilian casualties than military or strategic ones – it’s that this war won’t end and it’s directed from the executive branch. The other notable feature here is the breathtaking cinematography. For a documentary to look this good and throw such a haymaker is incredibly rare.