Obama's War

The 24-minute preview for the Frontline piece Obama's War was gripping and disturbing. Producer Martin Smith plunks us right onto the front lines of war in Afghanistan, and he gives a chilling account of the futility of our current counterinsurgency efforts.

The show--if it takes the same tone as the preview--will certainly present the debate through the liberal lens. For me, this documentary segment further cemented my frustration with this war. It shows the insurmountable task the US military faces, and will leave most viewers with the questions: Why are we still there? How can we possibly win this? And I'm okay with that liberal bias--I choose to get my news through public media instead of Fox News for a reason.

First off, in an ideal world, the public should be presented with all sides of a conundrum so that they can come to their own decisions about what is right and wrong. However, so little of what I read/see is presented without any sort of bias or filter. Some pieces convey opinions that are stronger than others, to be sure, but most often there is a particular viewpoint behind it all, however subtle. Even if a journalist hopes to remain neutral, the facts that they deem worthy to present (or not) will color their article to some degree. So I suppose that I should clarify and say that I'm not always okay with bias, but that I expect it.

Documentaries strive to teach their audience about a particular topic, and they all do it with a certain amount of bias. Michael Moore epitomizes one extreme, where even his avid followers can recognize some of his material as propaganda. But other documentaries face the same charge. I was listening to a recent On the Media podcast (September 25, 2009) where a woman was recounting the outright lies many documentarians told. One of the examples she gave concerned the making of the film Winged Migration, a popular documentary about migratory patterns of birds. Apparently the film leads you to believe that the birds were raised in nature and then filmed, but it turns out that the filmmakers raised all of the birds themselves. Things are not always what they seem.

Likewise, in this Frontline documentary, we may not notice the absence of the other side of the story--those who push for more troops. Sure, we hear a bit from General Petraeus and his ilk, but it was only enough to make me shake my head at the gall of requesting 600,000 troops to be deployed. The tone of the film really pushes me to feel that way, even if I might already.