Bitter Lake
2015 · Film · documentary · 135 min
Directed by Adam Curtis
An experimental documentary that explores Saudi Arabia's relationship with the U.S. and the role this has played in the war in Afghanistan.
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The term's context belongs to the USSR right before it broke apart.
If you look at Adam Curtis' wealth of documentaries, one of which helped popularize the term hypernormalization:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
you will find Curtis oeuvre relies on mashing up content extracted from BBC's massive news archive arranged according to themes chosen by Curtis.
Once of Curtis' central themes is the observation of an intellectual gap between rationalist comprehension of the world through the news, and the wobbliness of how the world actually manifests, especially in the context of politics and leadership. The implicit, recurring question being what are the limits of our science to account for ourselves.
Curtis offers many views into the Soviets, especially in a series devoted to riffing on the mood of Soviet society during the 80s and 90s titled Traumazone.
Curtis' picks from the archives may help you gain a sense for distinctions between the political preconditions of the end of the USSR and ongoing mess of U.S. politics.
One take is that since the 20th century, the orientation of political leadership has profoundly changed: politicians no longer seek to offer coherent solutions in a mechanical nation, they seek the necessity of their own power in an electoral marketplace of influence within an organism of society.
Under such view, the question can be formed: Did the USSR may come undone because its bureaucrats couldn't account for everything well enough to coherently operate an economically coherent centralized state?
Curtis tries to form the same question for Thatchers' & Blair's UK when observing how the British Empire fell apart.
The intro to his film Hypernormalization sets forth the essential observation leading to such questions:
//"How we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed and have no idea what to do".//
If this observation is true-- which question is begged through the survey of news-- then should it be expected that more centralized societies, however well controlled, might be more vulnerable to limits of understanding of their leadership, and by corollary as no society's leadership has a complete understanding of itself, churn and crisis are inevitable.
All of Curtis' docs deal with variations on the question of the limits of rationalism. His work now amounts large trove on the topic (see filmography):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
A excellent aspect of Curtis' work is that he is careful to always veer away from simple proscriptive judgements. He does not pursue belief that there's any specific way that societies are supposed to work, but rather continuously questions how and why they work as they do, embracing the possibility that minds can change and adapt in the face of uncertainty and crisis.
—
PICKS
For this thread, the obvious place to start is:
1 Hypernormalisation.
After this consider the following, in order:
2 All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
3 Oceans Apart
4 Can't Get You Out of My Head
5 Century of the Self
6 Bitter Lake
and then on in any order that suits your interests.
As these docs produce an effect much like good music as well as offering high-quality narrative insights, they can be revisited and appreciated in changing ways with experience.
It's a reference to a movie called "Empire of Dust" where a chinese-led team has a hard time building infrastructure in Africa.
Whether or not some third world country is worth developing is an economic question, not a moral one. And even if it is, the question of whether or not you will be able to monetize that relationship by the end of it is another one. What the chinse are doing now is basically IMF-style debt trapping of other nations, which doesn't seem like a successful strategy historically.
The bottom line is that if the natives don't want to cooperate with whatever civilization you're building, it's not going to work out. Look at what happened to the USA in afganistan (and pretty much every empire that stepped foot in there). I don't think that's racist, I think it is pretty optimistic outlook towards the sovereignty of nations.
There is a really great movie called Bitter Lake about this, by Adam Curtis.
“Curtis’s stitched-together compositions are less collages than they are Rorschach blots: look into their murk, and you can find your own worldview confirmed.”
This passage, which I see as being core to the author’s critique, doesn’t really jive with me. Basically he’s saying these movies are enigmatic, they offer space for reflection, they resonate with a lot of people across the ideological spectrum.
Well, you can look at that cynically, or you could say that’s precisely — almost definitionally — what makes them effective.
To go a little further than that: I don’t think it’s a fair claim. Each of his movies since Bitter Lake have had the same general arc of “emerging ideological apparatus promises to resolve social contradictions and empower the common person, fails to do so.” In this sense, his narrative angle is broadly _anti-confirmatory_.
Then there’s the aesthetic critique, which, whatever. I really can’t fault someone for finding fault with Adam Curtis’s style. And it’s least overbearing in TraumaZone out of all his movies I’ve seen, so I get why this author favors it.
As it happens, I’m about halfway through TraumaZone right now. It’s great. Poses some interesting questions, doesn’t offer any easy answers.
You might find some of Adam Curtis's films help you feel less baffled. Not that they have 'answers' but good contextual analysis that will give better understanding. Century of the Self, and Can't Get You Out of My Head are the most relevant here. Power of Nightmares, Bitter Lake and Hypernormalization are great too.
Collage historical/philosophical/political documentary maker Adam Curtis uses Burial a lot, has great things to say[1][2],
> "I think Burial is the genius of our time... The most important Burial song to listen to, which will tell you everything about him, is Come Down to Us... Why it's so incredible, because what Burial does is he takes what is essentially industrial noise - and songs - but fuses them together to create something that is epic and romantic, and sort of gives you a clue of the sort of thing that might be coming, culturally - which is a higher [?] system, I think. And I think he's there ahead of everyone. It's so emotional; yet, at the same time, just noise. And, I don't know, it's just, I can't - sorry, this is me being inarticulate - it's just... wonderful... It takes you into another world."
HyperNormalization & Can't Get You Out Of My Head are both amazing modern Curtis works. Going back & watching some of his older stuff like Bitter Lake has been as ever intense & powerful & stunning. Keeping a real eye on the world, really seeing it, is a talent Fisher & his writing showed off. Curtis gives us a wiser, more understandable interlace of the tapestry, through his documentaries, to see with. Just... be prepared for even more self-care afterwards.
[1] https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/33496/1/adam-curtis-hypernormalization-bbc-film-power https://www.reddit.com/r/burial/comments/6dg2or/adam_buxton_interviews_adam_curtis_talks_about/
This simplistic black/white view is a very dangerous position, perpetuating the “war is ok” mentality.
Read some Taleb’s books or watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film) to understand my point.
I genuinely like Curtis' work, and Bitter Lake is peppered with interesting stuff and fantastic stock footage. But the dialogue in his recent films has been predictable:
*But the old systems had never gone away.
And then one person realised there was a vacuum at the heart of it all.
But they had forgotten to program the computers with the one thing that really mattered.
And then...." etc.
I honestly can't tell if it's meta-parody. And that's why I'll keep watching.
Aside; 'Bitter Lake' documentary by Adam Curtis (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw
It's been a couple of years since I watched it, but I don't recall the GBLA being mentioned in the film.
For anyone interested, the film we're talking about is the 2015 documentary "Bitter Lake" by Adam Curtis which tells the story of how an agreement signed on the Great Bitter Lake back in 1945 could have had an unexpectedly huge impact on how the modern world developed through the next 60+ years.
It's long, but entertaining and as always has a great soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw
Adam Curtis is a brilliant film maker. "Hypernormalisation" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM) and "Bitter Lake" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw) are well worth watching too.
HyperNormalisation is amazing, as are all of Adam Curtis's other documentaries. I especially liked Bitter Lake as well. All highly recommended.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I'll check it out.
The disinformation campaigns run by both politicians and companies is covered by Adam Curtis in his documentaries. I might as well mention his other works such as The Power of Nightmares, Bitter Lake, and HyperNormalization in addition to All Watched Over by Machines of Ever Loving Grace. The theme of control via intentional disinformation is a major one in his works.
i highly recommend the work of adam curtis, in particular his documentary "bitter lake", and perhaps "hypernormalisation".
he was influenced by baudrillard's critiques of narrative as well, one of baudrillard's essays that always sticks with me is "pataphysics of the year 2000", in which he predicts the 'news loops' in which narratives are obliterated in the 24-hour news cycle of our information age.
in the Matrix, at the beginning of the film, Neo hides some discs in a hollowed-out copy of a Baudrillard work, which isn't coincidental - baudrillard spent alot of time talking about how narratives often were confused with reality, though this is a very simplified explanation
my favorite essays he did to critique narrative were a series he did in the early 90's: -"The Gulf War Will Not Happen" -"The Gulf War Isn't Happening" -"The Gulf War Didn't Happen"
i might be misremembering the exact titles, but the sort of point he was trying to make is that in our minds, the 'gulf war' is a story about iraq invading a country, and us saving the day. The reality of it was so much more complex, involving centuries of background involving way more participants.
Today I saw the BBC's "Bitter Lake" documentary. It explains why Afghanistan is so fucked up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p0z6iHGzdE
Check out the Adam Curtis documentary/social commentary film 'Bitter Lake' for more on this
Having recently discovered Adam Curtis (from other HN posts), I'd highly recommend watching his documentaries. All of them. Absolutely riveting stuff.
HyperNormalization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
Bitter Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys
The Trap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y97Ywl7RtUw&list=PLsGiHTmHVDNlAc15kb23Q9Oz386MNXYIn
The Power of Nightmares: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTg4qnyUGxg&list=PLtPP_-rkrT3CmuUxjezhbewL5C8fcI1Fv
The Mayfair Set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuqYbohCLFM&list=PLtPP_-rkrT3D-9HZkN0BAgMS1F1ODLQES
The Century of the Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
Adam Curtis is great. He's been making films for about 30 years and has a large fimography. Early in his career he's made some 20th century history documentary series, very recommended. Lately he's been making great films about contemporary phenomenon, I loved both of his last films, Bitter Lake (2015) and HyperNormalisation (2016). Highly recommended, especially the latter.
In the UK it can still be seen on iplayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
(As with the equally amazing Hypernormalisation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisation )
I recommend watching the Adam Curtis documentary Bitter Lake (can be found on YouTube). It explains how the currrent Anglo American relationship with the kingdom of saud started almost immediately post ww2, why it won’t be going away any time soon, and all the blowback it has caused.
Adam Curtis' short "Oh Dearism" (https://thoughtmaybe.com/oh-dearism/) 12 minute mini-documentary is a good ramp up to his longer movies and is a critique of the failings of television news media in the late 20th century. My favorite of his is "Bitter Lake" (https://thoughtmaybe.com/bitter-lake/), a haunting "how did we get here" view of the middle east. His 3 part miniseries "All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" (https://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/) is a pretty good examination of 1970s silicon valley ruh-roh cybernetics culture and how it collided with the rest of the world vis-a-vis objectivism, finance, etc.
Somebody in this thread mentioned Wiseman's titicut follies, a lesser known but equally fascinating documentary of his is called The Store (http://www.zipporah.com/films/19) and just follows and examines the goings on at the Nieman-Marcus flagship in Dallas during holiday season of 1983.
Another favorite documentary that's more like watching a really good lecture is Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Plays_Itself ). it's a survey and exploration of the history of Los Angeles and its relationship and portrayal in hollywood and pop culture in general.
Adam Curtis has made quite a few documentaries that are really worth watching. A few that spring to mind are:
The Trap All watched over by machines of loving grace (Essential viewing for hackernews readers, I think this is his best work) Bitter Lake HyperNormalisation
They are not without flaws, and sometimes I think some of the connections made between events are a little far fetched.
However they are thought provoking and extremely well made.
...which didn't use to be a reason for war. I recommend watching Adam Curtis' Bitter Lake. The west has more involvement in shia/sunni split and hate than it'd like to admit.
If you like this there are many other great documentaries by him - Century of the Self, Every day is Sunday, Bitter Lake, The Power of Nightmares (?) - watch them with a grain of salt, all of them, but definitely rewatch them, too..
(I know this is going to be a bit of a controversial statement for HN bc of politics and junk, but, to butcher and reconstitute a particuarly memorable Slavoj Zizek quote about Peter Sloterdijk, "Adam Curtis may be a conservative, but he's not an idiot!")
edit: if you dont have the 3 hrs to watch this documentary, you can get a great taste by watching this podcast clip set to some particularly moving imagery and music.. (hat tip to adam curtis editing style, perhaps? ;) )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW_R98EBO7s
edit2: transcript, because its worth it:
> WILL MENAKER: What would it look like to imagine a different world? Do you have a vision of it How would we know if we were beginning to imagine a different world? Even within this hyper-real one?
> ADAM CURTIS: You ask what real change might look like, and I think that’s a really interesting question for liberals and radicals, because there is a hunger for change, out there - millions of people who feel sort of insecure, uncertain about the future who DO want something to change. I think that change only comes though a big imaginative idea. A sort of picture of another kind of future which gives people - which connects with that fearfulness in the back of people’s minds. And offers them a release from it. That's the key thing. But I think the question for liberals and radicals is - they are always suspicious of big ideas. That's what lurks underneath the liberal mindset. And the reason is - and they are quite right in a way - is look what happened last time when millions of people got swept up in a big idea! Look up the last hundred years - what happened in Russia, and then in Germany. The point is , Is that Political change is frightening. It's scary — it's thrilling because it is dynamic and is doing something to change the world but it is scary because it can change things in ways where nothing to secure. Its like being in an earthquake. Even the solid ground beneath you begins to move. And things dissolve that you think are solid and real. And I think the question liberals are left have to face at the moment is a really sort of difficult question which is: “do you really want change? do you really want it?” Because if you do many of them might find themselves in a very uncertain world where they might lose all sorts of things. What we were talking about, in many cases, is people who are at the center of society at the moment, they are not out in the margins. They would have a lot to lose from real political change because it really would change things in the structure of power.
Or - and this is the brutal question: Do you just want things to change a little bit? Do you just want the banks to be a little bit nicer, or for people to be a little more respectful of each other's identities - All of which is good - but basically you carry on living in a nice world where you tinker with it.
That’s the key question. But you can't just sit there forever worrying about big ideas because there are millions of people out there who do you want Change. And the key thing is: they feel they’ve got nothing to lose. You might have lots to lose, but they feel they’ve got absolute nothing to lose. But at the moment they're being led by the Right. So things won't remain the same. But society may go off in ways you really don’t want.
SO in answer to your question, what you need is a powerful vision of the future. With all its dangers. But it is also quite thrilling. It will be an escape from the staticness of the world we have today. And to do that, you’ve got to engage with the giant forces of power that now run the world, at the moment. And the key thing is that in confronting those powers, and trying to transform the world you might lose a lot. This is a sort of forgotten idea. Is that actually you surrender yourself up to a big idea and in the the process you might lose something but you’d actually gain a bigger sense, because you change the world for the better. I know it sounds soppy, But this is the forgotten thing about politics. Is that you give up some of your individualism to something bigger than yourself. You surrender yourself - and it’s a lost idea. And I think really in answer to your question: You can spot real change happening when you see people from the liberal middle classes, beginning to give themselves up to something. Surrender themselves for something bigger. And at the moment, there is nothing like that in the liberal imagination.
I on the other hand like the style for its own sake but enjoyed HyperNormalisation a lot less than Bitter Lake or The Power of Nightmares. But the style really does not help the credibility of the story or allows following the argument and spotting potential holes in it. In the end I am left with the feeling to either forget about it or having to fact check the whole thing. There are certainly interesting points in his films but they are almost impossible to evaluate without consulting other sources.
Bitter Lake (by Adam Curtis) is a good documentary on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys
Last one to try to circumvent the petrodollar was Ghadaffi. It seems China now takes the opportunity of the current political climate to try it themselves.
(Petrodollar principle is explained well by Adam Curtis' documentary "Bitter Lake")
'Bitter Lake' is one of his harder to watch films. Still good, though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbq63r7rys
All his documentary series are worth watching. These are
Hypernormalisation
Bitter Lake
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Every Day is like Sunday
The Power of Nightmares
The Century of the Self
The Trap
Pandora's Box
The Mayfair Set
Inside Story
Inquiry. The Great British Housing Disaster
The last one is particularly relevant after the Grenfell Tower Fire.
Wasn't Iraq rather overshadowed by the subsequent events in Afghanistan which does have some superb movies (Kajaki, Restrepo, Korengal, Bitter Lake....).
Adam Curtis is, by far, the best documentary maker I know. His origin-of-terrorism doc "Bitter Lake" gives an insight no one else will.
Hypernormalisation is, also because it is simply the most recent, his best docu imho. If you liked this, take a look at The Century of the Self as well.
This was mentioned here a couple weeks ago. I watched it and his previous film, Bitter Lake, in quick succession. Both were really interesting and well worth the time.
I really enjoyed this documentary when I saw it, and also ended up watching Bitter Lake and (half of) Century of the Self. The concepts were quite bold and the seemed nearly-self-evident. But then I asked myself, "so why am I just only now hearing about all this?" as a heuristic of the measure of the sufficient strength of supporting evidence.
It dawned upon me that some of the techniques of desire-manufacturing/advertising that used psychological techniques, as mentioned in Century of the Self, were also used to compel the viewer about the curated historical web of causality. And I really think that Hanlon's razor supplants to much of the powers that be mentioned movie.
I almost feel like this movie really displays the enouement of neoliberalism: nothing ever changes in this world any more (thus we're near "the end of history"), we're stuck in a massive deadlocked monetary system that has only "unrealistic" alternatives, "humanitarian interventions" in conflicts are necessary crusades and we cede that they may have the same power dynamics of imperial invasions but since they are done in the name of freedom and democracy they are to be absolved for their ambitions, and so on. I think that in that regard, the documentary falls short of exploring things that are subversive to hegemony.
I was unsatisfied with the idea of watching a powerful documentary about hypernormalisation without searching for a critical explanation of the hypernormalisation of the documentary maker, too. Here's one such: That said, I did genuinely enjoy the movie and appreciate that it inspired me to reflect on modern history.
To counterbalance Curtis' fairly conservative view of modernity, this talk by the late Mark Fisher is really good: the slow cancellation of the future [1]
[0] http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/adam-curtiss-essential-counterhistories
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCgkLICTskQ
I strongly recommend watching the documentary "Hypernormalisation" by Adam Curtis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperNormalisation).
The main focus of the documentary compares the styles of Trump and Vladimir Poutine, but has interesting recap/point of view on the evolution of terrorism in the middle east.
(his previous documentary, Bitter Lake, was on Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia, also interesting, but the visual/narrative style kind of annoyed me)
I think it's easily misleading to look at these things only by the numbers. We need a better understanding of the background. Numbers can support your argument/context, but you need a better argument.
Bitter Lake is another film by the same person (Adam Curtis) film I think you'd like
As have stated other film critics [1] this documentation takes a rather one-sided approach in that it's basically the fault of the west (and of the USSR).
It seem to lack fact checking and leaves out one of the main issues surrounding modern arabic history: the delayed formation of nation-states and the threat modernism posed to existing, usually aristocratic power structures.
Specifically Saudi-Arabia felt threatened by movements like Pan-Arabism and Ba'athism and used religeous radicalism as an ideology to counter them.
Yes, the cold-war factions quickly found their adversaries on either side but it doesn't take a grain away from the pile of guilt the Saudi Establishment has amassed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)#Reception
This doco (Bitter Lake) suggests they don't want radicalisation at all:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
It claims the Saud family needed to appease conservative clerics to maintain power, so that's why they sponsored all these fanatical clerics. They kicked the can down the road and now their chickens are coming home to roost.
What Putin says, largely for domestic consumption, and what he truly feels, are, I quite strongly suspect, rather different things.
Adam Curtis has touched on this, in "Bitter Lake" IIRC. Recommended. (BBC video documentary -- this bit comes early on.)
I thought Bitter Lake was an amazing documentary.
Can anyone recommend related or similar work of the same quality?
I feel like the problem with Adam Curtis' work is... well, Adam Curtis. It's very easy to dismiss his entire body of work as "conspiracy theory", because he only writes about these sorts of topics. And it does him and his work a disservice, because of course there is a lot of truth in what he writes and produces. As with anything, there is also a lot of unsubstantiated narrative, but for anyone who's on the fence I would highly recommend watching Bitter Lake. Even if you think Curtis is a crank, the film is beautiful and the score is fantastic (Burial, Four Tet, etc.) and you might find some of the facts interesting.
There is a fantastic Adam Curtis documentary about Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism called Bitter Lake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)
Due to various issues, you'll just have to find a way to watch it... (BBC iplayer blocked in us, copyright issues when posted on youtube, etc, etc, etc)
I can recommend Bob Baer's book "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_with_the_Devil
Also the excellent Adam Curtis BBC documentary Bitter Lake - which is probably the best thing I've watched in the last year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_%28film%29
If you're interested, the documentary Bitter Lake goes into some of the history of the alliance between the US and Saudi Arabia, I would recommend seeing it if you'd like to know more about how the US managed to end up supporting Islamic fundamentalists:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_(film)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hdcji
There isn't a "single" thing that gave rise to ISIS, it's a complex amalgamation of a lot of different things that led to this mess.
This is a documentary that only scratches the surface of this complex history but it's interesting altogether:
Adam Curtis - Bitter Lake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvyeWaVMDrI
> "Our" best ally in the region is an absolutist monarchy running an Islamist totalitarian regime
Reminds me of that Adam Curtis documentary Bitter Lake[1]. I wonder if Oil Countries are the real reason these terrorist keep appearing again and again.
I bet the moment world gets rid of oil, is the day Islamic terrorist stop appearing.
[1] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hdcji
For more on point 1, see Bitter Lake by Adam Curtis http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gyz6b (if you are in the UK, if you are outside there are likely other ways to see - http://m.imdb.com/title/tt4393514/ )
A good documentary to watch:
Adam Curtis - Bitter Lake (2015)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hdcji_bitter-lake-2015-adam-curtis-documentary-1-of-3-720p_shortfilms
Adam Curtis, a documentary film-maker and journalist, has a brilliant aptitude at analysis in this area. His work in general, at the intersection of reporting and politics, is pretty excellent.
It is some malice, more than you might expect; with with a great dollop of ineptitude, far more than you might expect; that allows this climate of total disorientation to exist.
Take some of his thoughts:
> "Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events.
> "But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis - leaving us bewildered and disorientated.
> "And journalism - that used to tell a grand, unfurling narrative - now also just relays disjointed and often wildly contradictory fragments of information.
> "Events come and go like waves of a fever. We - and the journalists - live in a state of continual delirium, constantly waiting for the next news event to loom out of the fog - and then disappear again, unexplained."
The rest of that article is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/ae14be85-3104-3c74-a9da-85807434a38e
And the documentary-film that he's referring to in that post, Bitter Lake, is available on iPlayer (for British viewers...or people on a VPN...), here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
Second time in a few days I get to recommend Adam Curtis' documentary Bitter Lake (available on iPlayer in the UK).
One of its themes is that simplistic tales of good versus evil are an issue with the recent US (with their UK side-kick) wars.
It touches on this issue, though without specific talk of sexual abuse. It does suggest that the "police" were basically just a bunch of warlord militias and so when the west turned up and started helping them, they were immediately seen as part of the problem not the solution by many of the locals.
Fantastic film. While Curtis is clearly subverting the documentary genre, the view he presents of the modern world (not only in Bitter Lake but in his other works) is a fascinatingly bleak and much-needed reminder that we humans do not know as much about history and the human mind as we often pretend.
Adam Curtis: Bitter Lake
Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer.
These may help:
http://wartard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-idea-of-isis-history-and-future-of.html
http://wartard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-west-v-isis-air-strikes-just-mean_6.html
You will also find the new adam curtis film, Bitter Lake, informative.
TL;DR its not just to do with religion, its to do with history, and a lot of stuff.
Everyone should watch this documentary by Adam Curtis about the history of extremism and the rise of the banks...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_Lake_%28film%29
The documentary is long (2h 16m 44s), and somewhat nonlinear. It includes many segments of footage presented without explanation or context, though the narrative is highly informative.
There's a YouTube link for those outside the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXcpDO8_3qU
The story told is a fascinating one, and links up with a few others I've seen.
There's an alternate telling of the Bitter Lake story in Daniel Yergin's the Prize. See episode 5, at 23m 34s:
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=IIJxBrHcSUo
(The entire series is excellent.)
And while it covers some different ground, Robert Newman's "History of Oil" also covers the petro-politics of the middle east in a highly provocative mannner:
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=2DCwafIntj0
Some have claimed here that Curtis is creating opinion pieces. ThatsThePoint.jpg
The stories we've been told of the Middle East are opinion pieces, with a specific narrative and agenda. The introduction to this piece notes that the stories that narrative is composed of no longer hold together, and no longer make sense. A frame is necessary for understanding (though as I've said, Curtis often removes that entirely), and yes, Curtis is offering an alternative one, but also quite deliberately breaking the conventional frame.
It's a large part of the excellence of the piece.
I'd also like to credit dmschulman for pointing out the documentary to me.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9006688
Adam Curtis just came out with an incredible documentary titled 'Bitter Lake' which details the origins of the United State's relationship with Saudi Arabia and how the terms of that relationship have impacted the development of terrorism in the Middle East, especially Afghanistan.
It's an intrinsically relevant part of this conversation (especially considering Saudi Arabia's adherence to and history of practicing wahhabism) and I'd encourage others to check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXcpDO8_3qU