Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have acquired screen rights to 'Jihadists in Paradise,' a Mark Bowden article," reports Variety. The article "details the emergence in the Philippines of the Islamic terrorist faction Abu Sayyaf and one of its leaders," who kidnapped 20 tourists, including Americans. The new film project was not welcomed by some in the Philippines. In a statement, the spokesman for the Fisherfolk Alliance of the Philippines (described as "a leading progressive group") called "Jihadists in Paradise" a "propaganda film and psychological warfare movie." He added that the film will promote the "U.S. war on terror and amplify its [U.S.] tagging of the Philippines as the second front for U.S. military aggression," reports All Headline News. Bruckheimer previously produced "Black Hawk Down," about U.S. military operations in Somalia; that film was adapted from a Bowden book. Bowden "is also penning a drama for Imagine and Paramount based on the subject of 'extraordinary rendition,'" where CIA agents kidnap terrorist suspects and deport them, without trial, for detention and interrogation overseas -- often in countries where prisoners are routinely tortured.
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Dwayne Winseck replied on Permalink
This is a very perceptive
This is a very perceptive article. Bruckheimer's connections to what some call the Military Information Media Entertainment (MIME) complex are even deeper than the article indicates. And Bruckheimer, along with with Bertram von Munster (Amazing Race and 'Cops') have teamed up with Diseny and the Pentagon on another important occasion: the creation of Profiles from the Frontline, which began in 2002, at least as a concept, and began airing around a year later, I think. Bruckheimer also helped design Centcom Media Briefing Centres in Doha and advised the military on how to spin the bogus heroic "story of Jessica Lynch". The connections to psychwar is, thus, perceptive and does fit within the notion of 'information operations', which includes everything from monitoring and 'correcting' blogs (see the Austin American Statesman article above), to Bruckheimers movies and tv programmers, to creating and running media networks (e.g. Iraqi Media Network -- see article Variety referred to in these pages about SAIC) to the destruction of Al Jazeera bureaus in Kabul and Baghdad in 2001 and 2003, respectively. The fact that this stuff is appearing in Variety, as well as, say, Rolling Stone, is also interesting in and of itself, suggestings rifts at the centre of the media entertainment system. Another rather famous media, well, at least Literary Star, Mark Twain, also had some interesting things to say, but in exactly the opposite way, when he condemned American military and imperial ventures in the Philippines just over a 100 years ago (In particular, see his "To the People in Darkenss"). A nice illustration, as this article is as well, that part of the cultural politics of war and imperialism really do play themselves out in the media space, given Twain's stature and Variety's 'voice of record' standing for the US media and entertainment industries. Media space is, as the Pentagon ernestly states, an informational battlespace. It is this latter that we need to keep our focus on most, though.
Dwayne Winseck, Ph.D.
Associate Professor,
School of Journalism and Communication,
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Pat Bell replied on Permalink
Origin of Bertram Von Munster?
I knew a person who signed himself as 'Bertram Von Munster' in 1997 while working in San Diego at Qualcomm. At that time he was very conservative politically, and had copyrighted his name (an unusual step, I believe). He tried to dominate chat on line, and was ruthless to those who disagreed with him. He promoted a far right agenda. I wonder who he really is, and the arc of his life. If anyone has information try to comment. The web has been pretty well swept of items relating to him. I can't say why.