The Power of Nightmares (2004)

All of the talk of terrorist threats, sleeper cells and weapons of mass destruction seem to be quietly going away now that Obama is President of the United States. Very few people are really saying that the US was wrong, or that the neo-conservatives in power made everything up, it's just simply vanished. One day the terrorist threat level in the US disappeared and wasn't mentioned again. Now that Barry is in power is everything okay? So no one ever was convicted for these crimes against the public and few people even talk about them anymore. It's all been erased from the public's memory with new episodes of So You Think You Can Dance.This documentary is quite interesting. This is much more in depth than anything created by Michael Moore. Moore touches on a few of these topics in "Fahrenheit 9/11" but Moore himself is a political figure who supports the Democrats so can't be taken seriously.The origins of neo-con movement are well known in political-science circles but this movie tells them quite well. Leo Strauss was a philosopher who came up with these ideas and taught them to students such as Paul Wolfowitz who applied them later to US policy with Reagan and Bush (II).The movie also explores the fundamentalist Islamic revolution which never really swept through the middle-east and was limited to a small group of bandits who took hold in Afghanistan. Their story begins with an Egyptian man who has an epiphany about the moral corruption of western society and brings those ideas back to the middle east. They're always fringe and never widespread as the corporate media or neo-con governments would have us believe.All the myths of the post 9/11 age are explored here and quickly debunked. The one line the movie does not cross is saying that 9/11 was an inside job. With all the other information in the movie about the false sleeper cells and bogus security, it wouldn't have been a stretch to acknowledge that maybe 9/11 was an inside job.Comparing the neo-conservatives in the US with the Islamic fundamentalists in the middle-east isn't a new idea. Jihad vs. McWorld was a 1992 article written by Benjamin Barber which was later expanded into a full-length book.Another interesting concept of the movie is that the terrorist myth created by the US neo-cons actually may have led to a resurgence in real terrorists. The filmmakers speculate that several of the men in these groups may have played into the hands of the US myth by giving them false information about planned bombings of the Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty.This is a very effective documentary for anyone interested in the terrorist myth as created by America. It's hard to say if this story ends with the election of Barack Obama in 2008. The idea of terrorism is so ingrained at this point that Obama has to add thousands more soldiers simply to get out of the quagmire which is Afghanistan.

There are people who will love this documentary because it purports to simplify the arc of recent history to a happy conclusion that does not account for all the facts, and that leaves out facts so that it may become the opposite of what it intends to show that governments are ... IE. this movie wants to show us just how strong the power of rationalizations and the dream state is and how negative.It starts its history after WWII where it picks up with an Egyption character, Ktub, that visited the US and thought it decadent and wanted to make sure this decadence was not transferred to Egypt. This is a common theme in all governments or religion that seek to control people.This movie fails to mention that pre-WWII, during and after there was a group of Islamo-Nazis that worked right alongside Hitler having as its goal the murder of Jews to prevent them from moving to the Holy Land and challenging Islam. Islam for centuries has repressed its own people, but also repressed and kept down Christians and Jews in the Middle East. This is all unaccounted for, the reality of Islamic totalitarianism and brainwashing is ignored.Also not accounted for were the Madrid and London bombings. The separatist and insurgent efforts of Muslims all over the world. Their inability to blend with the cultures they decide to live in, and their inability to accept other cultures to live this Islamic dominated countries. It is against the law to practice a religion other than Islam in Saudi Arabia, and with its oil money Saudi Arabias are extending control of mosques worldwide by funding radical Wahabism.This movie sets up the choice ... either a meaningless war, or happiness. It even has the audacity to play "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" as its closing theme. Only the most ignorant in-denial person could accept this sugar-coated fantasy.While the documentary does not have points about how the west has over-reacted, it forces its own rosy explanation on that and uses it to propagandize instead of exploring and criticizing the over-reaction by government. I think it does this because any real rational discussion of the problem would interfere and ruin its simplistic and erroneous message of fairy tale happily ever after.

I've seen this documentary and believe it one of the more objective of it's kind. Others like Michael Moore and Alex Jones tend to be very aggressive, as it is, to your notion of truth. I can imagine people don't want to hear what they are saying because they feel that admitting that they are wrong proves them to be fools. Of course some people need a jolt, but most of the free thinkers out there just want real truths.Adan Curtis has done just that to my opinion. Just present traceable facts that, shown together, form a very possible picture of current events. Without making you feel silly for not knowing this, and thus giving you to freedom to choose. Of course it has a political color, but as you can see in the documentary 'outfoxed' so does the mainstream media.If you are interested in the world and why it's going the way it is. Watch this video en decide for yourself. I started looking for signs of it in my own country and I believe it's happening here as well, or at least they are trying, you'll probably find it's happening in your country too. Stay aware, stay informed, but don't believe anyone is saying at once, use your own mind, you have one, so why not.You can freely download it, check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares, there is a link at the bottom under 'Video' where you can download the video.Peace Demian

This BBC documentary together with "Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)" must be in the list of everyone trying to understand the 21st century, i.e., the days we are living. Even if you are in the "neo-conservative" camp, you should watch this documentary to realize what kind of harm their ideas have done: By making the "enemy" look larger and more important than what it is, they both make us fear of a not so organized enemy and also make the enemy more self-confident for launching suicide attacks on us.Starting from the 1950's, this documentary tries to explain the changes the western (Christian) and Islamic societies have undergone in the last 50 years. The startling thing is that so few people have influenced and manipulated us. And this is becoming easier and easier with the help of mass media today.Just a note: Recently, I watched "Joyeux Noël (2005)". Although it has nothing in common with this documentary, you can see in the end of the movie that the "politics of fear" was always an instrument for controlling and manipulating the masses and unfortunately religion is one of the helping tools.This documentary is highly recommended.