h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry for starting a new thread, can;t find the original (probably just me being useless, but there ya go).

Anyways, if you remember the Power of Nightmares trilogy of programmes on BBC last year(?) and repeated later, then the following may be of interest to you.
Unsurprisingly the US TV networks don;t want to know.
But Al Jazeera does. And is showing it in full tonight apparently.
And he's been asked to cut 30mins out of it to make a film for Cannes.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/cannes2005/story/0,15927,1481970,00.html

I heard someone (I think it was the BBC journalist captured by Iraqi insurgents some time ago) on BBC radio a few weeks ago discussing the Middle East situation and Al-Quaida. He was an expert on Islam and the Middle East. What he said contradicted most of TPoN's claims. Namely:

Al-Quaida *was* an organised terrorist organisation and it has trained an enormous number of terrorists and potential terrorists. The reason that this organisational structure no longer exists is because the US and her allies destroyed the Taliban government that was sheltering it and all of it's training camps in Afghanistan. He also claimed that Al-Quaida is re-organising in the 'lawless areas of North Pakistan'. This goes against TPoN's claim that Al-Quaida as proper terrorist organisation somehow does not and did not exist.

There *are* Al-Quaida trained terrorists resident in the UK.

As for TPoN. I watched the first five minutes of the first programme and turned it off after hearing several nonsenses or distorted facts namely:

*The 'neoconservatives' supported the war in Afghanistan. They did this because they saw it as a larger project to spread democracy.

- this is nonsense. Firstly, the support of the Afghan mujahedin was a Reaganite, not neoconservative policy. Secondly, no neoconservative (or anyone else) thought the Afghan war was 'spreading democracy', since the Mujahedin (many of whom were Islamist) were not democratic. It was a policy of 'my enemies enemy is my friend'.

*The 'neoconservatives' were behind the attempt to impeach President Clinton

- again, rubbish. The ENTIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY were trying to impeach President Clinton because HE WAS A DEMOCRAT. So, yes, neconservaives were involved but they were not the instigators any more than liberal Republicans were.

*The 'war against terror' is between the Islamists and American neoconservaives.

- this appeared to be the series main lynchpin and argument. This is, again, nonsense. There are many, many political movements opposed to Islamism including liberal and moderate Muslims. To tar oppostion to Islamism as 'neoconservative' is stupid scaremongering.

I know this site well enough to know that most people here are opposed to the war on terror and think it's an American plot and so this series is simply giving you what you want on a plate. However, consider this:

Do you think this series is neutral?

Do you think this series is telling you the full story?

Do you think this series does not have an agenda?

Given what happened in New York in 2001, Indonesia in 2002 and Madrid in 2004 do you *really* think Al-Quaida is not any real threat?

Given the amount of talk about (for example) Fox News giving it's rightwing audience what it wants and distorting facts to present things in a certain light can anyone here *really* sneer at Fox News viewers if they are prepared to take similar 'fact' at face value in a documentary series tailored to fit their own prejudiced?

And, finally, does anyone else think it's ironic that a show that claims to 'expose' how the media plays on people's fears seems to play on *it's* audience's deep-rooted fears of the United States and it's political heirarchy?

This isn't a rant. It's an appeal to remember that being well-informed and looking at things from all angles and all viewpoints.

you got all that from 5 mins of the first episode?
Not being funny, just I haven't yet found any transcripts and the above seems to imply you have some other source of info on the contents of the program and I was wondering if you would share?

"you got all that from 5 mins of the first episode?"

Well, yes. The first five minutes went over what the programme was planning to argue and covered all those issues.

"Not being funny, just I haven't yet found any transcripts and the above seems to imply you have some other source of info on the contents of the program and I was wondering if you would share?"

Much of what I've seen on the programme was discussed on other message boards by people who had seen the series and were either supportive or disdainful of it. Based on those, I decided to watch the first episode and (like I said) turned it off when it became clear that it wasn't going to be much more than a single-viewpoint (which is what it's detractors had claimed it was and what it's supporters had said it wasn't).

I was disappointed generally because the early trailers (which made no mention of Islamism or America) suggested that TPoN was going to be a proper, historic look into the use of fear as a political weapon (by, I hoped, everyone including wartime British governments, the Soviet Union, Cold War America, Al-Quaida, and the USA circa the current 'war on terror') and thus a proper documentary. I was annoyed that it turned out to be someone with a bee in his bonnet about neoconservatives.

"I was disappointed generally because the early trailers (which made no mention of Islamism or America) suggested that TPoN was going to be a proper, historic look into the use of fear as a political weapon (by, I hoped, everyone including wartime British governments, the Soviet Union, Cold War America, Al-Quaida, and the USA circa the current 'war on terror') and thus a proper documentary. "

It did do a lot of these things in (I think, it is a while now since I saw it) the first episode - it certainly covered the cold war.

Ah, I see!

You should have stuck with it. You wouldn't have agreed with the majority of it (I don't think so, anyway, given your previous postings) but there was some very interesting stuff in there about the various players in the game.

But anyway, the point here was not a discussion of the programme, that's been done to death. No, I just thought people might be interested to see where the programme is going now and how it is developing.

"You should have stuck with it. You wouldn't have agreed with the majority of it (I don't think so, anyway, given your previous postings) but there was some very interesting stuff in there about the various players in the game."

From what I can gather that's true. Certainly, if you create a biased point-of-view documentary but base it in fact (if distorted) you're going to throw up all sorts of interesting genuine-debate. For example, I think there was supposed to be some comparisons of Donald Rumsfeld bigging-up the threat from the dying USSR of the 1980s and some comparisons with claims of threats from Al-Quaida. The issue with this documentary isn't the idea of the Al-Quaida threat being exaggerated (which is almost certainly true) but the idea of the Al-Quaida threat being largely a fabrication and Al-Quaida being simply a small cadre of desparate Islamists who are no real threat (which is nonsense).

"It did do a lot of these things in (I think, it is a while now since I saw it) the first episode - it certainly covered the cold war."

Yes, but from what I can tell (and have seen) it did that in order to rubbish the USA and to draw links and comparisons with the Islamists and neoconservatives and was thus just priming for it's *main* argument.

Once again, I just want to say, I *wish* that would be shown in New Zealand!