Shadow World

What a shocking load of rubbish! Living in South Africa, I always had respect for Andrew Feinstein when he exposed the arms deal scandal allegedly involving the SA government and major foreign arms manufacturers. But having now seen this "evidence", I can finally understand why the many official commissions of inquiries held about this matter over many years came to nothing.

Never having read Feinstein's book, I was hoping to uncover some coherence of his accusations in this film, but alas all we got was flimsy uncoordinated conspiracy theories spoken by mostly loose canons, without any real facts, or proof, whatsoever. The dots could not be connected! A great pity as I believe that the underlying theme of the movie is correct, but what's the point if such story is completely unbelievable, bordering on pure imagination, and actually counterproductive?

The truth is out there but not in this depiction.

This is an eye opening documentary showing how far ranging and deep corruption has a stranglehold on our world at large. As it was made in 2016 and I saw it in 2022, I could not help but think what such a film would look like in 2022. And I wondered why it had not been nominated for an Oscar. I just happened upon it. I bet many people had never had an opportunity to even know of its existence. This kind of film needs to be promoted and supported. Highly recommended, if you can find it. Even though some of the players have changed, the game remains the same and I suspect has become far more significant. Catch it if you can.

I just saw this truthful expose on Danish television (DR2 March 18) and thought of how all these wars the US and UK conduct in large part for the gouging profit of their war weaponry capitalist firms just doesn't happen in Russia. How Putin is so clearly working assiduously for world peace while his counterparts in the USA/UK are doing what they can to find excuses to war against Russia. It matters little what anyone in the West thinks of "democracy", "free speech", "free press", "honest elections" that occur or do not occur in Russia or anywhere else--what about the UK/USAs great friends in Saudi Arabia and all the Gulf States and, of course, Israel. What really matters to West citizens as well as all of the planets peoples is whether the US/UK will blow up the world to please war industry's profits. Maybe they have plans to fly to the moon with their cash. When will the Western people wake up and stop this war industry, the military-corporate consort from killing and killing, torturing and torturing? When will the media do its job of watching over the powerful and informing real news to the citizenry? When will we demand such and let Putin win all the elections that clearly the majority of Russians want him to? Can one say the same for any US/UK president or prime minister, can one say they have the vast majority of the citizenry behind them?

Shadow World is an eye-opening look at the international arms trade. It makes for pretty worrying viewing and suggests that this trade is not only endemically corrupt but also works alongside governments to perpetuate warfare. This film casts a light on some of the sordid goings-on behind the scenes and particularly highlights the actions of certain high profile individuals and arms companies. One of the central scandals that underpin the narrative is the illegal dealings that went on between the Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan and British arms company BAE Systems, the latter controlled a slush fund which was used to pay off high ranking officials around the world as well as Bandar himself who even received a huge private jet as a gift. Others such as Mark Thatcher are alleged to have received 12 million pounds for their work in enabling deals. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair comes off looking very poorly indeed, and seems to be a man engulfed in corruption, blocking investigations into corruption in the arms trade, taking huge sums from arms related companies as a representative in his post Prime Minister capacity, as well as most damningly lying to Parliament and the public in order to allow the country to enter the Iraq War, the repercussions of which we endure to this day; including the rise of ISIS as a direct reaction to this.

The film looks at how much of the Islamic extremist groups we have today were actively enabled by foreign policy that sometimes backed them, such as the Afghan mujahedeen receiving military assistance from the USA when they fought the USSR in the 80's, this ultimately led to al Qaeda and the Taliban of course. Moreover, the film looks at the way that the arms trade is inextricably linked to governments to the point that they are part of the establishment who dictate what goes down. The money involved is so massive that what they say goes and politicians often meekly obey. This has led to a scenario where we have self-fuelling endless wars in which supply will never lose sight of demand. A perfect example of this is the 'war on terror', which as Clare Short describes here is a ludicrous concept when you think of it. It's a war against what exactly? It is so vague to be meaningless but can be used to encompass a continual conflict that will never effectively end. How do you ultimately declare victory in a war against 'terror'? The truth is that you can't and so the war goes on. Overall, this is chilling stuff and does not bode well for the future.

I stumbled upon this by mere coincidence during channel surfing PBS Thanks-Giving morning.

Being politically aware, I already knew most of what this production entails. However, it didn't take away from the sick feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach - the opposite. It confirmed everything and brought it home in full color, no filters. Things you won't see on American news outlets. They'd rather report on The Kardashians and American Idol than show you what's going on in the world. It's part of the dumbing down and conditioning of the American populace.

Since this goes back in time and ends in today's world, it is sure to offend people on both sides of the political spectrum. Which is why you see 1 star reviews criticizing this production.

I'm beyond that, having left "my" party last year. To me, it's two sides of the same coin which is another truth you get out of watching this.

It was available for free streaming online on the PBS website, until... today. Wow. I wonder why it was taken down... Not.

Anyway, watch it. And then be honest with yourself.