Control room - Movie Review Example

Al Jazeera showed the true picture of the war and not what the American government wished for its people to see; the realities of the war. In fact, if one carefully considers the information that this channel broadcast during this war, there would be a realization that the American public would not have supported such a war had they seen what it did not, only to the Arabs of Iraq, but also to the American men and women who went to fight in the war. Control Room is a revelation towards some of the events that took place in Iraq and how these events were covered by the Al Jazeera network.

It reveals that, despite the statements made against it by the Bush administration, none of the statements made were true and were, in fact, an attempt to cover up the truth about the war from the American public. This documentary is an attempt to show the news about the Iraq war, not from the perspective of the media of the west, but that of the region in which the war occurred. The first scenes of this documentary seem to reinforce the belief that the network sole purpose is spreading anti-American propaganda.

The people who are seen working behind the scenes are all dressed in traditional Arab headgear, and when the American president issues an ultimatum to the Iraqi president, it is seen that those observing in the room jeer at the former. While, for many, this would reinforce the stereotype that has come to plague the Al Jazeera network, the truth is that the scene was inserted in the documentary to show that this network is not as different from those in the west as many would think. The documentary reveals that the statements by President Bush and his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, that Al Jazeera was the mouthpiece of Osama bin Laden and that it was the Centre of anti-American propaganda in the United States are completely unfounded (Turan).

In fact, it is revealed that the exact opposite is the truth; that Al Jazeera is a network that is dedicated