Democracy now: "NYT is possibly instigating another war, another confrontation"

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"The Interview" Belittles North Korea, But is Film’s Backstory and U.S. Policy the Real Farce?

Last month’s cyber-attack was claimed by a group calling itself The Guardians of Peace. The group released the salary and Social Security numbers of thousands of Sony employees, including celebrities, and also threatened to attack screenings of the film. Although U.S. officials have said North Korea is behind the attack, many experts have questioned whether the evidence is sufficient. North Korea has denied involvement and proposed a joint investigation with the U.S. government to prove it.



CHRISTINE HONG: You know, I think that President Obama’s interview with CNN was very revealing. He refused to call this attack, this cyber-attack, anything but cybervandalism. He did not call it an act of war. And I have to wonder if that’s not because the United States is one of the most egregious global actors when it comes to cyberwarfare.




And the content of this film is supposedly—you know, it’s about the CIA using Hollywood entertainment and a talk-show host sort of vehicle as a kind of cover to assassinate the leader of North Korea. What’s interesting about this film is, on the one hand, it’s framed in the United States, in U.S. media, as a kind of free speech issue, but this is really a red herring. You know, what’s interesting to me about this is the fact that if you actually look at what the Sony executives did, they consulted very closely with the State Department, which actually gave the executives a green light with regard to the death scene. And they also consulted with a RAND North Korea watcher, a man named Bruce Bennett, who basically has espoused in thesis that the way to bring down the North Korean government is to assassinate the leadership. And he actually stated, in consulting with Sony about this film, that this film, in terms of the South Korean market, as well as its infiltration by defector balloon-dropping organizations into North Korea, could possibly get the wheels of a kind of regime change plot into motion. So, in this instance, fiction and reality have a sort of mirroring relationship to each other.







IM SHORROCK: Well, first of all, the person she just mentioned, Bruce Bennett, who was a consultant on this film, works for the RAND Corporation, which is a think tank for the U.S. military and has been for decades. And it so happens that the Sony CEO happens to sit on the board of directors of the RAND Corporation. It has—Sony has extensive ties with the U.S. national security system. Its CIO used to work for the secretary of defense, in terms of their—guarding their internal security. That’s one point.

But, you know, second, I think that—you know, that this attack began in late November, early December. At that time, this cyber-attack was run by this group that you mentioned, this GOP, Guardians of Peace. They made no mention whatsoever of the film. It was all about Sony and its internal racism and that kind of thing. I have seen no indication whatsoever that there was any similarity—some real similarity of this attack to anything that North Korea has been accused of before. And, you know, many cyber experts, from Kim Zetter of Wired to Marc Rogers and others, have raised real questions about the FBI evidence.




And, you know, we have a massive build-up going on in Asia, military build-up. And I think, you know, we need to keep North Korea as the enemy, as the armed enemy that’s going to attack us at any moment, so we can defend these bases in Japan, particularly in Okinawa, which are the focus of a massive public protest. You may have noticed—Americans didn’t notice, but Okinawans and Japanese voted to pull these bases out in recent elections. They want the U.S. forward bases removed.

So, I think there’s a lot of political, you know, situation going on here, a lot of politics going on that’s completely unnoticed. And I think it’s shameful of The New York Times, once again, to be in the leadership of spinning out these claims, dubious claims, and, you know, possibly instigating another war, another confrontation.


But, Tim, I wanted to ask you: Would the U.S. allow a film that was about the assassination of a U.S. president

TIM SHORROCK: Well, you know, I can imagine what our response would be, not only to an assassination of our president, but showing his head being blown apart and his skull flying all over the place. I mean, you know, this is a racist kind of—racist kind of imagery. For these white, rich stoners to be laughing to the bank all the way about this, I think, is disgraceful and disgusting.

It’s not a matter of freedom of speech. I mean, these people—Seth Rogen and his pals over there at Sony are just, you know, the lowest of the low of the U.S. propaganda on North Korea. Look at the New York Times interview he did yesterday. He has no knowledge. He knows nothing about North Korea, the past of the United States, the U.S. bombing during the Korean War, the standoffs, the military crises over the last, you know, 20, 30 years, the cost to the Korean people of this militarization, the cost to the Korean people, North and South. All he’s interested in is making money and getting stoned.





JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, leaked emails between Sony producer Scott Rudin and Sony executive Amy Pascal are also making headlines. In one email, Pascal wrote, quote, "What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?" And Rudin responded, quote, "Would he like to finance some movies[?]" Pascal then wrote, "I doubt it. Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?" Rudin wrote back, "12 YEARS." They then continued exchanging the names of other popular films with black actors, including The Butler and Think Like a Man. But executives later apologized.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, can you—do we have North Korean—are there North Korean agents all over Hollywood that really understand Hollywood like this and know who’s who in these studios? I kind of doubt it. And I think it’s—you know, if you look at the early stories of this hack, which is important to do, because before North Korea even came up as the source, there were many articles in the tech press and the Hollywood press about this. And it shows, you know, extensive knowledge of Sony, who is who, where their emails are kept, where all the stuff is kept inside their servers. I just find it ludicrous to think that the North Koreans, so isolated, so crude in their technology, have been able to completely penetrate and, you know, almost destroy an American Hollywood studio like this.




CHRISTINE HONG:


But it uses the pretext of a nuclear-armed and dangerous North Korea as a very convenient devil function. And this has justified the acceleration of a missile defense system.

朝鮮を題材とした映画「The Interview」をめぐるきな臭い話。いくつかのポイント


○多くの専門家は、今回の不法侵入の犯人が北朝鮮であることを疑っている。
○アメリカも、サイバー戦争に関しては、もっともえげつないことをやってきている
○表現の自由の問題にしているが、それは、注意を主要な問題からそらすことを目的とするごまかしである。
○アメリカが朝鮮にしてきたことも知らないで、金もうけのために、しかも、人種差別的な表現を含んでいる。
○北朝鮮の首領暗殺が体制崩壊への道と説くアメリカ人がおり、その人物が今回の映画にも、助言し、また、この映画公開によってそうした運動に拍車をかけるだろう、といっている。
○北朝鮮を敵・脅威として煽り、アメリカ軍が沖縄の基地に必要であることを宣伝したい。
○NYTがふたたび、この手の疑わしい主張を宣伝し、戦争や、対立を扇動しているのは嘆かわしいことである。


NYT is not the solution but it is the problem というのは、一部の人の間には浸透しているわけですね。

産経が、ほぼ、自民党の宣伝機関のように、NYTはほぼ、アメリカ政府の宣伝機関である、ということは、われわれはちゃんと認識しておく必要がある。