WASHINGTON - February 26 - Oley, PA-Bullfrog Films announces the release of a provocative new documentary, BREAKING THE SILENCE. Award-winning British-based journalist and filmmaker John Pilger investigates the United States-led “war on terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and raises crucial questions about the real motives behind the violence. John Pilger pulls together all the threads of evidence to present a complete picture of the real motives and outright deceit that lie behind the “war on terror”.

Two years ago, as America initiated its campaign in Afghanistan, George Bush promised that country "the generosity of America and its allies". But the aftermath has shown otherwise. Notorious warlords are regaining the power they held before the events of September 2001, religious fundamentalism is renewing its grip on Afghanis, the status of women is horrific, and military skirmishes continue routinely. Coupled with footage of decimated urban landscapes in Kabul and the faces of its desperate citizens, this portrait of the country is one we have not yet been shown.

Back in Washington, DC, Pilger conducts a series of unflinching interviews with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and leading Administration officials such as Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Ray McGovern was a former senior CIA officer and a personal friend of the President’s father. He tells us that these people, and the other architects of “The Project for A New American Century”, were dismissed as 'the crazies' by the first Bush Administration when, in the early 90s, they originally presented their ideas for pre-emptive strikes and world domination. In a startling and telling moment, Pilger’s interview with Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith is interrupted by a military "minder" in the room, who asks that Pilger's crew stop taping and that Pilger abandon his line of questioning. Pilger's misstep? Pursuing the question of civilian casualties in Iraq.

Perhaps the most revelatory passage in the film comes when Pilger presents us with news footage of Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell from 2001, just months before September 11th. In this footage, both Powell and Rice assert that Saddam Hussein has not developed any weapons of mass destruction, and that Hussein "is unable to to project conventional power against his neighbors.”

Pilger concludes the film by challenging the audience.

“The United Nations was founded so that we would never forget the crimes of great power. Are we now in danger of forgetting?… [D]o we accept the distortion of intellect and morality that empties noble words like ‘democracy’ and ‘liberation’ of their true meaning, that says it’s wrong for a terrorist to kill innocent people but right for governments to commit the same crimes in our name? The answer is that we need not accept any of this, if we recognize that there are now two superpowers: one is the regime in Washington, the other is public opinion, now stirring all over the world perhaps as never before. Make no mistake: it’s an epic struggle. The alternative is not just the conquest of faraway countries, it’s the conquest of us, of our minds, our humanity and our self respect. If we remain silent, victory over us is assured.”

BREAKING THE SILENCE is available on VHS and DVD from Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547. 800/543-3764. www.bullfrogfilms.com

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