finally, the long-standing & largely neglected harsh fact & “sacred cow” reality of the planet’s largest single polluter – the U$ military – receives the drubbing it deserves.
This reckoning, that has been so long coming, arrives from the quietly ferocious Abby Martin & her partner & co-host of The Empire Files media platform; Mike Prysner (Mike is also U$ ex-military & served in combat missions in the second Iraq war, adding a special credence to the film’s subject).
It’s only in the last couple of year’s that Abby has belatedly come onto my radar, predominantly through contributions to debates on Israel’s ongoing amplified atrocity & impunity in Gaza & the region. A brilliant, fiercely outspoken & intense commentator, her capacity for sharp stridency when required, & willingness to exhibit significant emotion & focussed humanitarian passions whilst engaging her research & subject matter frequently make her voice, lens & reporting particularly stark. Her “nettle grasping” abilities & aptitude are therefore supremely suited to such a controversial & massively harmful topic, augmented by the highly personal experience & expertise of Prysner, who knows the U$ military & it’s war obscenities from the inside & the front line.
The central plank of this documentary is the U$ militaries enormous world record as number one global polluter, with a singular & absolutely astronomic consumption of fossil fuels, extremely toxic & dizzyingly extensive forever chemicals, dumping & disposal of hazardous & highly polluting materials & substance in ridiculous quantities, colossal environmental destruction & ecocide, & chronic & shattering disturbance & disruption at every stage – production, use, maintenance, storage & disposal. the entire chain of activities inflicts an epic aggregate of super destruction, poisoning & death across all the species barriers & beyond. & it’s not just “foreign” casualties; the extraordinarily cavalier approach to the mass poisoning of “their own” soldiers, their families, & American civilians & whole communities, not to mention US soil, water & the environment is made clear, including just a few of the ignominious public episodes such as the notorious Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
It is an incredibly brutal indictment, & an even more brutal reality.
The other atrocity of the matter that the documentary is keen to drive home, is the policy of constant expansion & incrementation of the consumption & expenditure, & the “military machine” itself, in bases, operational reach, capacity & size, along with poorly regulated & opaque “self reporting” style of effective impunity this monster enjoys. This is also further exacerbated by an undeclared but highly efficient “special media exemption”, whereby this absurdity receives almost no exposure or examination. On the contrary, & as the documentary briefly touches on, a gigantic, deeply embedded & elaborate media & public relations machine has been in place for decades, cooperating with complicit & partisan outlets, industry & operators, orchestrating a sophisticated cover-up & disingenuous sanitisation operation that grossly skews its own image, narrative & public perception. It’s also become a carefully cultivated “taboo” of sorts to even question this creature, it’s conduct, & it’s “costs”.
But question it she does. Some of the strongest episodes within the feature are when Abby manages to get into official conferences, sales events (a series of arms fairs), & military press events (Rimpac Hawa’i) where she asserts her typical forthright & no-bullshitting inquiry to unsuspecting executive & “top brass” types, who, with rare exception, get mopped hard & find themselves badly “outgunned” by her direct & merciless grilling (she is normally limited to only one salvo, but always seems to come prepared & strike the mark dead on first contact).
A particularly successful & significant incursion occurred at the laughable COP 2021 Climate summit in Glasgow. Abby’s disarming arrow & subsequent questioning of delegates actually seemed to induce some sizeable consternation, as well as actual results (even in the short term) via Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez, who later posted on the matter. Beside some great footage & exchanges, she clearly reduces it to what it really is … a fucking circus & a corporate event.
The film starts with a savage short from Veteran’s Row, Brentwood California, where a homeless veteran of the second Iraq war recounts his “service”. Now destitute & homeless, with nerve damage & other physical ailments from his “tour of duty”, he lives in a soon to be destroyed tent city, in the same state that homes the sickening Silicon Valley empire wealth citadel. “It was all a lie” he casually imparts, whilst competently playing spiritual jazz on a beat down piano through the nerve damage. Its a very clear & concise singular example of a gigantically more numerous & prevalent phenomenon & scourge shaming America.
Dhar Jamail also pops up early. This guy wrote one of the best books on the Iraq invasion as an un-embedded journalist during the second war in Iraq, Beyond the Green Zone, along with another crucial contribution on the subject – The Will to Resist – about conscientious objectors & anti-war activism from war vets that sits alongside scribe like Leo Docherty’s Desert of Death. Unbeknown to myself, he now specialises in climate catastrophe, specifically the melting of icecaps, & has authored a renowned book on the threat; The End of Ice”.
Towards the end of the documentary, a section is dedicated to various direct action & civil disobedience campaigns. This includes the small tropical island of Okinawa, part of the Ryuku islands chain that sits south of Japan, & which is besmirched with a humongous U$ military presence, despite being the poorest province in Japan. The Okinawan’s have a strong culture of organised local opposition & have long since contested this widely resented imposition, & the many, many problems that come with it, & have continued to wage a dedicated & entirely peaceful protest medley (some of which I have seen personally in action up close) against the constant expansion of U$ military installations & personnel which is permitted by the mainland “vassal” government.
So what you have in Earth’s Greatest Enemy beside the central topic, & in a combined format, is a kind of anti-war & anti-military industrial complex, climate change, environmental pollution, non-violent resistance, media cover-up operation & “special exemption” enabled “industry” documentation, all pressed into one specialised farrago. It’s a broad but highly interconnected ambit, & the pastiche approach the film enacts works fluently.
Whether intensely focussed or more scattergun in its approach, it is brilliantly successful & consistently excellent in its coverage & criticisms, & the facts, figures & statistics of it’s reporting, & reality of the militaries toll, are flabbergasting.
Earth’s Greatest Enemy is a major triumph, although there are a few minor criticisms I would mention.
There is only a fleeting portion on how field tactics from conflict zones, related practices & military grade equipment – that are deployed in overseas invasions & military violence & destruction – are “brought home” & integrated into domestic “law enforcement” & national security infrastructure. What was once used on “enemy combatants” ends up being applied domestically against civilian targets & populace. This is particularly acute in the U$ & it’s rapidly expanding & “militarised” police & National Guard contingent. To be clear, this is covered in the feature (with the National Defense Authorization Act of 1997 remarked on specifically), but it is a very fleeting & cursory moment, which I feel really should have had more attention.
Furthermore, in regard to the horror & expansion of the contemporary “military industrialisation complex”, it is very unfortunate that the deeply malefic criminal outrider Palantir is not even mentioned. This is the worst climax of the entire strata, turbo-charging every flaw & harm in it’s possession whilst radically inflicting new maladies & novel expansions (the “direct partnership” with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is just one more extreme example). Its just wrong to not have such a super offender even mentioned in such a documentary. Saying this, Abby Martin has been very vocal & vigilant on the curse of Palantir in her other work, although I still think that it should have been essential to have them included in this feature, even momentarily.
lastly, on a very minor note, some of the choices in editing (Taylor Gill) may be worth flagging. The editing style is quite slick & savvy, often with artistic delivery. nothing wrong with this really, & a good job has been rendered, but there is a penchant for some long & lingering slow motion shots of various protagonists that I find commercial, self-indulgent & questionably a little staged. I don’t think the feature, or subject, benefits from this kind of editorial style, & the people concerned, along with the subject matter, do not require this unnecessary treatment or presentation. Some of the musical score (there is also some great material, especially in the IDM field) is also too close to “framing” & can be invasive. The facts & dialogue speak for themselves, & there is no need to overcook or “emote” with excessive prompting via emotional scoring. I sometimes feel a little pang of “propagandistic” alarm in the odd section, simply because the accompanying music is overdone & is pushing too eagerly to set the exact emotional tone. Again, these are mild & inconsequential criticisms that by no measure outweigh the rip-roaring quality & excellence of this bold film, but we need to be careful with how this reporting, messages & mediums deliver the facts on the ground.
Small gripes & personal minutia aside, you unquestionably have an excellent, historically important & overwhelmingly timely documentary here, confronting a central predicament & major ill that needs a lot more attention, scrutiny, & inevitably; curtailing & avasting.
Abby Martin, co-directed with Mike Prysner, The Empire Files, 2026
https://earthsgreatestenemy.com