Last night on Bill Moyers Journal I learned of two documentary films that PBS will be broadcasting next week on Thursday, October 16th - Soldiers of Conscience and Torturing Democracy.
Bill Moyers shared about Soldiers of Conscience:
Finally tonight, it's hard at a time when scruples and principle seem in short supply — to remember that some people do keep alive in themselves "that little spark of celestial fire" that George Washington called "conscience." Yet, it burns, in many ways. Next week public television stations will be broadcasting two independent documentaries that remind us how even in the worst of times, some people strive to do the best of things.
"Soldiers of Conscience" will air on the series P.O.V. It profiles eight American soldiers — four who decide to become conscientious objectors, and four who believe that on the battlefield, killing is a difficult but justifiable choice...
PETER KILNER: I think clearly as we look throughout history, war can be an awful but necessary and morally right choice. You can't say that you believe in human dignity and human rights if you're not willing to defend them.
CAMILO MEJIA: Suddenly, you know, I say, you know, I'm not going to go to war. I'm not going to go back to that. I'm not going to go back to obey everything that I'm told, keeping my mouth shut, and ignoring the fact that I have a conscience. I'm going to take a stand and I'm going to say, "No. I'm not going back to this war."
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More about Soldiers of Conscience:
When is it right to kill? In the midst of war, is it right to refuse? Eight U.S. soldiers, some who have killed and some who said no, reveal their inner moral dilemmas in "Soldiers of Conscience." Made with official permission of the U.S. Army, the film transcends politics to explore the tension between spiritual values and military orders. Soldiers follows the stories of both conscientious objectors and those who criticize them. Through this clash of views, the film discovers a surprising common ground: All soldiers are "soldiers of conscience," torn between the demands of duty and the call of conscience.
Broadcast Date: Thursday, Oct 16, 2008 at 9PM (90 minutes) on PBS (Channel 10 in the Portland area)
Please go here for more information: http://www.socfilm.com/* or http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/soldiersofconscience/preview.html
(*I don't know about you, but watching this trailer made me cry... I am grateful I can cry. I am grateful I want to know hard truths... no matter where they lead...)
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Bill Moyers shared about Torturing Democracy:
BILL MOYERS:The second film — "Torturing Democracy" — recounts how the Bush White House and the Pentagon decided to make coercive detention and abusive interrogation the official U.S. policy on the war on terror.
MALCOLM NANCE: We have re-created our enemy's methodologies in Guantanamo. It will hurt us for decades to come. Decades. Our people will all be subjected to these tactics, because we have authorized them for the world now. How it got to Guantanamo is a crime and somebody needs to figure out who did it, how they did it, who authorized them to do it, and shut it down. Because our servicemen will suffer for years.
BILL MOYERS:You'll see and hear some things hard to bear but you'll also meet some government insiders who refused to go along, who stood up and said "this is wrong."
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More about Torturing Democracy:
When the publication of the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq made prisoner abuse an international controversy in April, 2004, both the National Security Archive and Washington Media Associates were already pursuing the story.
Award-winning producer Sherry Jones was in the final stages of editing the first full-length television investigation of the Administration's detention and interrogation policies, with a focus on the detention camp at Guantanamo. That ABC news special, "Peter Jennings Reporting: Guantanamo" aired on June 25, 2004.
The Archive had just published a reference collection of more than 1500 documents on U.S. counter-terrorism policy - from the earliest plane hijacking crises in 1968 through the war in Afghanistan in 2002 - and had filed hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests for Bush administration documents on terrorism and detention policies.
In May, 2004 the Archive was the first to post on the web the historic CIA interrogation manuals that were precursors to the treatment of prisoners in U.S custody during the war on terror. In June and July, 2004 the Archive added the full posting of the administration's legal and decision memos on interrogation policies - from the officially released papers, and the more revealing leaked documents.
Over the next two years, Washington Media would keep in touch with its sources and keep on the story. And the Archive would collect thousands of primary source documents, thanks to a multitude of investigations, leaks, journalistic coups, and successful lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Associated Press, and others. (For a more complete list of sources, see the introduction to the "Entire Archive.")
In January, 2007, the Archive and Washington Media decided to join forces, as we had done on documentary film projects over the past 20 years. The results are seen on this web site: The documentary, "Torturing Democracy," and the first stage of a comprehensive Torture Archive that aims to serve as the online institutional memory of the essential documentary evidence.
Please go here for more information: http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/
The website states that this film will also air on Thursday, October 16th.
Please help spread the word about these important documentary films. Thank you.
Peace,
Molly
This will go into the record books for historians and teachers and others who look back to ask, "What did we do?" ~ Bill Moyers
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