I know I'm late to the party but I just watched this and thought it was amazing

Bitterlake is way better tbh

it was shit tbh. I liked Adam Curtis, but this documentary made me rethink my praise o f him. Totally glossed over US support to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

As with most of Curtis' work it focuses on the dangers of technocratic ideals and in particular captures exceedingly well the mode of government now dominant in the west (especially Britain) which is simply a managed decline and where politicians are just the maintenance technicians managing the end of history.

He can't just add a whole other dimension into his documentary, it was already around 3 hours long and documenting the support for Al Qaeda would add a few more hours to it

Too long.

Because the US didn't support al Qaeda and isis

this is what delusional Yankees believe

Poigant boildown of the root of the problem.

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this. you can only expect so much from one doc.

nibba…

the thing is that instead he implied hezbollah, iran, and syria were responsible for the rise of al qaeda and isis. so not only was he glossing over reality, but he was actively spreading lies.

I don't recall him saying that.

It was good but I think it should have been divided in to two parts as it was a little rushed at the end.

He already covered that in Bitter Lake and The Power of Nightmares.

You need to go back

Nope, he only talks about the Taliban in those.

Can anyone imagine any solution to the echo chamber problem?

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that's Bin Laden in the fist and third btw.

definitely top ten films of the decade so far, documentary or otherwise

Pretty sure the "Moral equivalent" quote was referring to the contras.

But yes, US did prop up the Mujahideen during the Afghan-Soviet war.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

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they're all mujaheddin and/or wahhabists

but he didn't say mujahedin or wahhabi
he said al qaeda and isis
words mean things

This is actually a pretty relevant distinction, since nobody really has direct links to ISIS (aside from some "usual suspect" gulf states like the Saudis, of course).

The supposed "backing" the US gave "to" ISIS was in fact to moderate factions of the FSA opposed to ISIS. But of course radical factions were difficult to distinguish, and (varying, depending on the accounts believed) quantities of this aid ended up in ISIS' hands due to secret alliances, open defections, or military defeats of its recipients by ISIS. This can of course be legitimately speculated at as a clandestine funneling mechanism intended by the CIA, such notions are just that, speculation, not even rumor of any provenance, let alone fact.

Another more oblique facet of the "CIA did ISIS" speculation is that merely by undermining Assad's regime, the CIA was intentionally creating the conditions for something like ISIS to come about. In some versions, to the extent of dismissing the entire Arab Spring as a CIA plot. This is also, though reasonable speculation, also unsupported and unprovable.

Needless to say, both angles on this are far more tendentious than the open and very solid connections between the CIA and the Mujahideen, through them to the (largely CIA-exaggerated imaginary beginnings of) Al-Qaeda.

jfc

The CIA has been directly funding and arming al-Nusra in Syria, a branch of al-Qaeda.

I've only watched an hour so far. Do they ever talk about Saudi Arabia or do they just blame everything on Syria?

Very much enjoyed it (and Curtis' work more generally) although I only watched it once because a confluence of factors meant it sent me on a depressive spiral that lasted 3/4 a year. (Or more accurately, "marked" the arrival.) For all I enjoy his filmmaking, I'm not risking that again.
I think he probably overstretched himself, although there's little risk in doing so confusing the narrative given the focus on the confusion narrative itself.

Still very much like the part with the disillusioned Russian woman who doesn't have dreams anymore.

1. al-Nusra aren't ISIS, and have in fact traded blows with ISIS, though defections are common, as the ideological distance between them is small.
2. al-Nusra have been designated as a terrorist organization by the US since their inception, and the CIA has not given them any support. Though other groups the CIA has supported have had defections or passed on support to them. Again, the intentionality of this is disputable, and wholly the subject of supposition.
3. al-Nusra's relationship with al-Qaeda has become somewhat rocky, and they may not be affiliated with them anymore.
4. Even other countries in the region, such as the Qataris and Saudis, have not formally given support to al-Nusra. As for illicit support, rumors here are very strong, but (most of these being US allies) any direct links to US intent in these nations' covert policies are unsubstantiated.

youtube.com/watch?v=yS_c2qqA-6Y
The comments on this are a gold mine

Bush admin def created ISIS all their commanders were all Baath party members banned from the Iraqi military.

I see Holla Forums and Holla Forums agree on some things, at least.