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Saturday, August 31, 2019

Film "Official Secrets" Points to a Mammoth Iceberg — Sam Husseini

Review.
Two-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as Pride and Prejudice, so her playing the lead in the new film Official Secrets, scheduled to be release in the U.S. this Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the time span being depicted-- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq-- is one of the most dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun, played by Knightley, is so little known. I should say from the outset that having followed this story from the start, I find this film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to date. "To date" because the wider story still isn't really over....
Just to remind. The escalation of the Vietnam war was also based on a lie, the Gulf of Tonkin incident that never happen, but it was not outed at the time. Outing didn't stop Iraq either and no one was ever held accountable for either deception of the public.

The Pentagon papers were not published until 1972 and the war continued for several years thereafter. Edward Snowden's whistle blowing doesn't seem to have changed anything, and John Kirikou was the only person to be held accountable for the official torture program that took place during the Iraq war and that was for revealing classified information about it. Other whistleblower, the same. All it did was result in some embarrassment for people at the top, and they responded by taking revenge.

Is liberal democracy a waste of time that actually serves as a veneer and veil?

Down with Tyranny
Film "Official Secrets" Points to a Mammoth Iceberg
Sam Husseini

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