Afstan: "Kesterson at War"
Scott K comments about At War feedback
February 19th, 2009
It has recently been brought to my attention that several blogs and websites in Canada have been chatty about the CBC story on Scott and his Documentary, At War. I forwarded the sites to Scott so he could read them. Last night while he was at Ft. Bragg, NC doing screenings for members of that base he took some time to talk about the chatter from our cousins up north and about the feedback he has received from the half-dozen screenings he and David have done across the country.
Of course with the President’s trip to Canada today and this announcement, http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/19/obama-future-afghan-troop-levels-uncertain/ it makes this interview even more relevant.
Some of the “chatter” that Scott and I are talking about in this Podcast Interview are at
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/curse-upon-canadian-broadcasting.html
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/02/afstan-more-reasons-to-curse-mother.html
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=8niu5kqvnkt42u3mgfsu4jr2o1&topic=83794.15
To Listen to the Podcast/Interview, click below.
2 Responses to “Scott K comments about At War feedback”
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 3:25 p.m.
Hi Troy. Thanks very much for this interview with Scott. I’m going to link to it at: http://membrain.blogspot.com/ I’m looking forward to seeing At War. I like Scott’s point about the fact that this being the first footage of the Canadian Forces in combat since Korea. In that context it’s historical footage.
Very good response about the CBC coverage. He makes a good point about the relevance of contreversy in the context of the CBC,s slant.
Thanks, Troy. For the benefit of others, an excerpt from an e-mail to you, Feb. 19:
“Indeed the gripe was with the spin the CBC reporter put on the footage–”Oh my God! We’re not doing peacekeeping anymore!” As if Canadians needed reminding of that after the CF have been in combat at Kandahar since 2006.
As for Canadian feelings, I would think it safe to say that at least half the population (much more in Quebec) are not happy to have the CF engage in actual combat rather than “peacekeeping”–a sentiment the CBC piece was playing to. Plus the fact that we have been fighting as allies of the dreaded Dubbya has only hurt support for the mission. But with President Obama that negative American baggage may be relieved to a large extent.”
The CBC’s showing Scott’s footage this month was not exactly opening Canadian eyes to combat in ways never before seen, even on the CBC. In fact on January 5 this year the same news program, “The National” (their flagship news broadcast), ran a 16 minute video, “Fighting Ghosts”, by a Canadian Army non-commissioned infantry soldier about his reality fighting in Afstan (with combat footage). The soldier ends saying “It’s very important to see this through.” And adds more on why he thinks the mission worthwhile.
http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/special_feature/fighting_ghosts/fighting_ghosts.html
More:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/01/fighting-ghosts-in-afstan.html
To my suspicious mind it’s almost as if the CBC realized that “Fighting Ghosts” might have been seen as, gasp, “pro-war”, and then decided to run a month later the piece based on Scott’s footage as a corrective measure. And they’d had footage from Scott in the can for some time.
In fact the CBC had already used some of Scott’s July 2006 footage (04:31, Chapter 6: “Tracking the Taliban”)
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/popup.html?/mrl3/8752/doczone/afghanistan_6.wmv
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/afghanistan/video.html
as part of a major two-hour documentary, “AFGHANISTAN: BETWEEN HOPE AND FEAR”, that was broadcast on March 23, 2008:
http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/afghanistan/index.html
Reaction (mixed) to that documentary at Milnet.ca:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/index.php?topic=72276.0
Mark
Ottawa