Shock and Awe

"A military strategy focused on overwhelming an enemy with a swift, powerful display of force to paralyze them both physically and psychologically, aiming to destroy their will to fight." 

This is one of the brutal military strategies that the American government sent our army to do in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, called Shock and Awe. 

Which is also the name of a film that exposes the lies and propaganda that was pushed onto the people. 

Shock and Awe  was released in 2017, over a decade since the invasion but it is a powerful film that tackles the dangerous political mindset America was in and how ethical journalism ceased. The film is about a group of journalists who fight against all major news outlets and the government in the effort to post the truth in a post 9/11 America. 9

The film opens with a scene of a wounded solider in court talking expressing his distain for the propaganda produced and the lives that were ruined due to the government reacting harshly and immediately initiating war with Iraq, before true information was even revealed to the public. 

The film then follows the journalists, Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel, John Walcott and Joe Galloway, who are reporters at the media company Knight Ridder. These four journalists are after the truth from the American government following the attacks on 9/11 but they seem to be the only ones who care about the truth. 

The movie shows real clips of politicians and journalists who are promoting the idea that Iraq producing

and possessing weapons of mass destruction. Every other news outlet was publishing the same stories claiming that American was being threaten by Iraq, with the weapons it was claimed that Iraq possessed. Americans were still shaken from the horrific and inhumane events of 9/11 which cause many people to think with their emotions, even hatred.  

It was crucial that journalists would have published true, factual, and correctly-sourced information to the people during this time of vulnerability. However, only one news company did that, Knight Ridder, and they were fighting to claim the truth against all other organizations. 

I thought that this was an excellent movie and a prime example of what it means to be an ethical journalists, even when it forces you against all others. It was admirable that this journalists stuck to their principles and fought so hard to provide truth to the American people.