Control Room Response

Last week in English we watched a documentary called the “Control Room”; a documentary that gave an insight into the use of bias within the Iraq War of 2003. The video itself was heavily analytical of the US Army and anything that had a connection with its reporting. It was mainly focused on the Al Jazeera news reporting agency and its attempt to provide a story through a neutral lense and by the perspective of the Arabic society and their thoughts of the war. After watching the film, we were given several prompts, including “Deception is just as bad as telling an outright lie”. For me to come to a conclusion or decision as to whether I agree or disagree with the statement should be based on the footage of the film. I say so only because before watching the documentary I was virtually undecided. During the film, it was pointed out that the Us Army was incredibly unclear over their positioning of their soldiers. Sometimes even denying where the troops were, or would hint these locations to protect themselves from the enemy having additional information. However, with this vagueness, came some slight deception of information, because the US Army could claim to be almost anywhere in Iraq, and the rest of the western world would believe them. The documentary often stated how Al Jazeera had been made out as an enemy, due to how they disagreed with the positioning of the US army. The documentary pointed out that Al Jazeera used an expert geologist of Iraq to try and determine the positioning of the US Military by the thought of them saying they had captured a bridge in a southern area. The expert indicated that there were no bridges, and that instead the US army was deceiving western media because they wanted to indicate more progress than had been produced.

Answering the prompt, I would agree with the idea that Deception is just as bad as telling a lie. Mainly because, all of those who had used this deception understood the consequences, knew that they were tricking all of the people listening and watching, and is purposely manipulating the power they have over someone else. In this case, it’s the US army and its troops. These consequences are the unfair demonizing of the Al Jazeera news agency. If an outright lie had been produced, then possibly the excuse was that it was to trick the enemy of the US Military and there would have been little to no consequences. But this use of deception also tricked the US population and other western media societies, because of their lack of evidence supporting the statements provided.