CRAZY RULERS OF THE WORLD - - Channel 4 - BBC/UK
The Channel 4 BBC documentary is based on the investigative research compiled in the book:The Men Who Stare at Goats, by Jon Ronson, a British journalist, documentary filmmaker and author of four non-fictional books.
Ronson decide to investigate "the most whacked-out corners of George W. Bush's War on Terror," as he puts it.As he investigates, he soon learns that the U.S. First Earth Battalion's bizarre ideas inspired some of the torture techniques being used in the American "Torture Program".In his book The Man who stares at goats, Ronson examines connections between military secret programs and torture techniques being used for interrogation by the United States military. It traces the evolution of these covert activities over the past three decades, and points out to the fact that they are alive today within U.S. Homeland Security and U.S. occupied Iraq.
The book accompanies the three-part TV series broadcast on Channel 4 in Britain, Crazy Rulers of the World. The three parts were titled "The Men Who Stare at Goats", "Funny Torture" and "Psychic Footsoldiers" respectively. The idea of the project was to explore "the apparent madness at the heart of U.S. military intelligence." The series discusses and includes members of Psychological Operations, First Earth Battalion and also includes Project MKULTRA and Frank Olson's death after being drugged by the CIA.
The full video is not available to embed but 5 min trailer for each part follows: ( no intention of promoting any advertising but this was the best I could find.)
TRAILER can also be watched on line at:
http://youtu.be/LS-jutv-rh0
Part I of 3- The Man who stares at Goats
Part II of 3 - Funny TortureOne technique involves subjecting prisoners to 24 hours of Barney the Purple Dinosaur's song, "I Love You,". Another makes use of the Predator, a toy-like object designed by a military martial arts expert to inflict a large amount of pain in many different ways
Part III of 3 - Psychic Footsoldiers
In the book, Jon Ronson also examines the smuggling of a hundred goats into the Special Forces command center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and the connection between the U.S. military and the mass-suicide of members of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego.
As the events recounted grow more bizarre and the accounts by the individuals Ronson interviews more disturbing, it becomes important to remind oneself of Ronson's opening words: "This is a true story."
A movie with the same title and based on the book, was released in Autumn 2009 by Winchester Films, BBC Films and Mandate Pictures . The "humorous" tone given, Ronson explains, may be a way of dealing with the absurdity of these experiments by the US Military.
Since then, more and more individuals who were in American custody, have given detailed accounts that indicate they were used in human experiments by the American military.
More on Jon Ronson: www.jonronson.com
THE MOVIE based on the book:
MORE ABOUT the First Earth Battalion and its bizarre experiments at:
""The real-life "Men who stared at goats" were even weirder" - Boing Boing , November 2009
HERE - http://boingboing.net/2009/11/09/the-real-life-men-wh.html
