Josh Rushing's commentary on Control Room

I watched Control Room again with the director Jehane Noujaim's commentary and Josh Rushing's commentary. Both commentaries are great, but Josh Rushing's take on the film is much more interesting in the sense that the film has transformed his life. I strongly recommend that those of you who enjoyed watching the film watch the commentary. The story of how Josh Rushing became one of central characters in Control Room is pretty interesting and he talks about that in the commentary as well (You can also watch his interview at NPR or PBS to find out why he was picked by the film director and became one of central characters.). Josh Rushing has become pretty famous, and there are several articles written on him actually. Some articles are good read, and the following is one of them; I also give my comments to give my view on the article and on the film.

Marine Lands in Film, Collides With Superiors
A military spokesman is silenced after candid comments in a movie on Al Jazeera and Iraq war.
by Mark Mazzetti

WASHINGTON — For most of the central figures in the documentary film "Control Room," the grisly images that emerged from last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq were no cause for a change of opinion.

Over the length of the film, director Jehane Noujaim's inside look at the war through the eyes and lenses of Al Jazeera's journalists based at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, the chasm only widens between the U.S. military officials who speak about the "liberation" of Iraq and the Al Jazeera reporters skeptical of the invasion.

The exception is a young Marine lieutenant named Josh Rushing.

Source - Common Dreams

As I mentioned, Control Room is a documentary film about Al Jazeera, the most popular TV network in Arab world (the network also has its website). The film interviews number of different people surrounding Al Jazeera, and Josh Rushing was a Marine when the film was made; this is one of reasons why he is in the film.

Rushing, a Central Command spokesman assigned to escort the documentary makers during their time in Qatar, is among the film's most sympathetic characters, portrayed as a thoughtful young man moved over time by the grim reality of war.

At no point is he shown doubting the justness of the U.S. effort in Iraq, yet the film documents a budding friendship between Rushing and Al Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim, and moments on camera when Rushing is wrestling with the film's central themes: war, bias and the Arab world's most powerful media outlet.

Source - Common Dreams

Josh Rushing actually only spent a day with Hassan Ibrahim when the film was made. Though these two have a simulating discussion in the film, they are not exactly friends; they just meet and start discussing various issues. The way in which the film is edited gives us the impression that they meet in several occasions during the course of the film's being made.

The Marine's role in the film turned him into a minor celebrity among the art-house-cinema crowd. But the candid comments he made in the documentary and in interviews after its release ran afoul of his superiors in the Marine Corps, which he now plans to leave.

Josh Rushing has joined Al Jazeera interestingly, and Al Jazeera-International in which Josh Rushing takes a part will start in the spring of 2006.

On camera midway through the film, Rushing spoke of being disturbed that footage Al Jazeera, an Arabic-language satellite television channel, broadcast of civilian Iraqi casualties had not affected him as much as images shown the following night of dead American soldiers.

"It upset me on a profound level that I wasn't bothered as much the night before," Rushing said. "It makes me hate war. But it doesn't make me believe we can live in a world without war yet."

Source - Common Dreams

The film allows you to see Al Jazeera from different angles partly because Josh Rushing's view often opposes that of Al Jazeera while he makes fair assessments. He himself actually attempts to understand Al Jazeera's perspective and allows himself to see Al Jazeera from the perspective of Arabs. This is why the film has a certain depth and challenges your perspective.

Rushing, now a captain assigned to the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison office in Los Angeles, has been prohibited from giving any more interviews about his part in the film.

Marine officials at the Pentagon have even asked Rushing to keep his wife, Paige, from giving interviews after she made comments critical of how the military handled her husband's situation. Because of this, several of Rushing's friends say the 31-year-old Marine plans to leave the military in October.

Rushing declined to be interviewed for this article. His situation has angered many in the military public affairs community who say Rushing has been a passionate spokesman for the U.S. armed forces and is being punished for appearing in a film that portrays Al Jazeera — a bete noire of the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks — in a positive light.

"Here's a guy who represents the very best of public affairs in the Marines," says a senior military official who worked with Rushing at Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity. "For whatever reason, it didn't play well with some of the senior brass in the Marine Corps at Pentagon. They're losing one of their finest."

Source - Common Dreams

As I mentioned already, he left Marines, and (rather unfortunately) after he left, he gave number of interviews including one with NPR and one with PBS.

A 14-year veteran, Rushing enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1990. After serving nine years, he entered the University of Texas on an ROTC scholarship and earned a dual degree in classics and ancient history. This background, Rushing's friends said, gave him a more nuanced view of the Arab world and its attitudes about the West.

Source - Common Dreams

He majored in Classics and History; he is an educated man, and this enables the film to be intellectually stimulating. Josh Rushing was not an expert in the middle eastern affairs, nor was he originally from the region when the film was made. However, he has natural ability to think critically and ask genuine and intelligent questions about the situation in which he is in. This is why the film makes you to think and ask questions that really matter to you, and also the film becomes educational.

"It benefits Al Jazeera to play to Arab nationalism because that's their audience, just like [the Fox News Channel] plays to American patriotism, for the exact same reason — American nationalism — because that's their demographic audience and that's what they want to see," Rushing says at one point during the documentary.

For their part, Marine officials said their problem was not with what Rushing said in the film, but with comments he made after the film was released and received international attention. Some suggested he did not understand his role as an officer.

"He did a few interviews that indicated he might not know what his lane is," said Lt. Col. Stephen Kay, deputy director of Marine Corps public affairs at the Pentagon. "He was way too far in the opinion realm."

One of the articles Kay cited appeared in the Village Voice in May. "People don't understand what a complex organization Al Jazeera is," the article quotes Rushing as saying. "They say it's all Islamists, or Baathists, or Arab nationalists. You have all that, but you have really progressive voices too. Al Jazeera shows it all. It turns your stomach, and you remember there's something wrong with war."

Source - Common Dreams

Another important message that Josh Rushing delivers in the film is that the war should never be the first or easy solution to the problem; it needs to be the last resort. One who delivers the message, Josh Rushing, is ironically on the side which starts the war. Though it is not the central message of the film, it is an important message, and the fact that Josh Rushing delivers the message affirms that he is an important character in the movie.

This is a far different picture of Al Jazeera from the one normally described by top U.S. officials. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has denounced the network from the Pentagon podium, calling it a mouthpiece for Al Qaeda and a vehicle of anti-American propaganda.

"We have been lied about, day after day, week after week, month after month for the last 12 months in the Arab press," Rumsfeld said recently after news of the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, specifically citing Al Jazeera and the newer and less influential Al Arabiya channel, based in Dubai.

Kay argued that because Rushing was no longer posted at Central Command, it was not appropriate for him to give interviews about a project he worked on during his old job.

Kay confirmed, however, that he recently sent an e-mail to Rushing asking the Marine to talk to his wife about not giving interviews.

"I did tell him that he could control that if he wanted to. I asked him to consider it," Kay said.

Source - Common Dreams

Josh Rushing actually does not criticize Marines or Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. It may be because he was not allowed to do so when he was a Marine and it has become his habit, but that actually helps him to give a more balanced view when he comments on Control Room. Though Marines and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld should probably be criticized, criticisms on them are not a part of the film.

According to several officers assigned to Central Command during last year's invasion of Iraq, Rushing was directed to help the documentary team making "Control Room" in part because he was lowest in the pecking order of public affairs officers in Doha.

"We thought it was just a school project," said one officer who worked with Rushing at Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And Josh, being the first lieutenant that he was, was assigned to deal with these folks."

In fact, the film has had an effect far exceeding the expectations of the officers at Central Command. Filmed on a shoestring budget and already banking $1.7 million at the box office domestically since its May release, "Control Room" presented a behind-the-curtain look at the Arab world's first big experiment in breaking free from state-sponsored media.

Source - Common Dreams

Josh Rushing discusses this in more detail in his interviews (Interview 1, interview 2).

"Al Jazeera has become far more powerful than any Arab leader," said director Noujaim. "A Bedouin can hook up a satellite dish to his truck and watch. They can affect change like no other force in the Arab world has been able to."

Source - Common Dreams

The film Control Room has great value for this reason alone.

Read the rest of the article here.