No, I don't think so. The journalist spent 10 years in the war zones where the American forces engaged in the war or a battle with the parties or groups or some ethnic races who were not see eye to eye with the American policy to report, watch and investigate the dirty facts behind the main stream news reports, a profession and a job hired by some news organization, or later it had become his own personal mission trying to expose the war crimes that the American military forces committed, how they killed the innocent villagers in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere without any proof, how they trashed a wedding party, a families reunion night with songs and dancings and started shooting all the people, men, women, kids, the old grandparents.....But you think the American public would care? It's a futile work, a job without any meaning, the best he could get maybe, I say just maybe, won a Pulitzer that only the limited people in the news business would have noticed. Other than that, nobody really cared about it. To most Americans, Veteran Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day.... those days meant nothing but an extra day off, B.B.Q., TV broadcast Sports, beer drinking and big Sale, or a day to kill in Vegas. Nobody in America really cares about anything now. I watched the guy took notes from what those villagers said, shot pictures of those covered up bullets holes on the walls, the happy footage of laughing, dancing, clapping before the sudden invasion and the massacres carried out by the American Special Force...those burial sites of the victims killed by the Americans....So what's the purpose of all of these much ado about nothing efforts? With all of these atrocious killings, no matter how much the American government gave to these countries, their people would never forget or forgive what the Americans did to them. No money could buy loyalty or friendship from these poor people. I do believe the journalist in this film was a REAL journalist with conscience, but what he did was just meaningless since there only a few people in America would ever got the chance to watch it, and these people, people like me, would never have any resource or power to do anything. A reviewer said "It would be hard for anyone to watch this movie with dry eyes...." Yeah, right, that's maybe the only thing we could share with during watching, after that, you have to turn your attention to your monthly payments; insurance premium, utilities bills, credit card payments, weekly groceries list, gas price today, mails in the box, diapers for the baby, property tax, income tax.....Life goes on.....

Dirty Wars (2013) was co-written by David Riker and Jeremy Scahill and narrated by Scahill. It was directed by Rick Rowley. This powerful documentary is based on work done by investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill. Scahill is an amazingly courageous war reporter who left the Green Zone in Afghanistan to report on a U.S. raid against unarmed civilians, in which five people were killed. The victims included two pregnant women.The U.S. government routinely denies these incidents, or claims that the people who were killed were terrorists, or, at best, admits they were collateral damage. However, once Scahill had met the survivors, and spoken to them at length, he didn't let the story stop there.He used all his skills as an investigative reporter: interviews, thousands of documents, and some anonymous whistle-blowers. By diligent investigation, Scahill was able to learn that what he had seen was not unique. In fact, a covert U.S. military force exists that has been given authority to kill any person, anywhere, at any time, if that person is deemed—by someone—to be a threat to the U.S.It's hard to believe that there's a military organization that's more secret and more vicious than the CIA, but there is, and Scahill has the evidence to prove it.Another IMDb reviewer has asked why this story isn't more widely known. There are several reasons. One is that the U.S. government can always claim that the information is a secret part of the "War on Terror." Also, the mainstream media tend to have very cozy relationships with the U.S. government, and they don't want to rock the boat. And, of course, the U.S. government has infinite financial and legal resources to use against anyone who comes too close to the truth.Having said all that, I think an even more basic problem is that we in the United States have become numb to killings, tortures, and any other injustices done in our name. We don't want to hear just how far we have moved from a moral, overt sense of mission to an endless series of cruel and immoral acts carried out in secret.The film is carefully made, extraordinarily detailed, and absolutely riveting. It was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary in 2013. (It's won many other awards.) If you care at all about U.S. foreign policy, truth in government, or international morality, Dirty Wars is a must-see movie. I saw it on a large screen when it was shown at a local college, SUNY Geneseo, but it will work just as well on DVD. (You don't go for the scenery; you go to hear the message.) Don't miss it!Note: Jeremy Scahill was recently awarded the prestigious William Sloane Coffin Peace Award by Peace Action New York State, the largest peace organization in the state.

I watched Dirty Wars (2013, directed by Richard Rowley and Jeremy Scahill) last night and thought, "We know its a dirty war, so what's the point of the film?" This might sound flippant in the context of errant killings carried out by our own government, but that's not the context that I'm referring to. I'm referring to the context of the film's narrative which looks at the gray lines of a global war on terror. Unfortunately these areas are no longer gray by the time the film is released. Thanks to brave journalists such as the film's director Jeremy Scahill, these issues have come to the attention of the public. The only gray area that remains is how an ambiguous global war on terror will evolve, or perhaps collapse. This is an interesting question, and perhaps one that deserves more attention in the film. Another question that deserves more attention is, "Who is Jeremy Scahill?" He traveled in the most dangerous red zones of Afghanistan to seek the truth on "dirty" night raids and drone strikes carried out by NATO and U.S. led forces. I wanted to delve deeper into Scahill's state of mind. This happens at times throughout the film, but not enough. In this one, I appreciate the work Scahill has done as an investigative journalist. The film read fine as a news story, but as a documentary film Dirty Wars lacks purpose and emotional connection.

The U.S. is doing violent things in the world - under the guise of keeping America safe, like drone attacks. Are you surprised? It was started under Bush and expanded under Obama. However, if the expansion were done under a republican president it would be all over the media. My compliments to the filmmaker for keeping his opinions sincere and non-partisan.Any kid playing Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, or if those who've read a Tom Clancy novel in the last ten years knows who JSOC is. Why is Scahill so unaware of their existence? There is no secret army - its US Special Forces. Someone in the U.S. has determined that we can no longer fund a huge Defense, and Special Forces can be used to prevent terrorism from reaching the US by killing them on foreign soil. I don't know that this will work - but's in not a secret; and who is Scahill to determine that this tactic is "Dirty" - Yes it sucks, but we didn't cause 9/11, did we? That's another question Scahill doesn't answer. If he would have had the courage to answer that question we could better understand how "Dirty" this war really is.