{"id":24634,"date":"2014-12-18T10:21:25","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T18:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=24634"},"modified":"2014-12-18T13:09:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T21:09:57","slug":"state-dept-the-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/18\/state-dept-the-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Emails Reveal US State Department Influenced Sony\u2019s \u201cThe Interview\u201d so as to Encourage Assassination and Regime Change in North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sony\u2019s decision yesterday to cancel its release of\u00a0The Interview\u00a0<\/em>after being hacked and threatened by a group that may or may not be tied with the North Korean government has been the top story in the media ever since. Decidedly less-covered, and almost completely obscured by the cancellation, is another revelation made yesterday about the movie that is actually far more important.<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast\u00a0<\/em>reported<\/a>\u00a0yesterday on leaked emails from the Sony hack which show that the United States government was involved at high levels with the content development of\u00a0The Interview<\/em>, especially its controversial ending depicting the assassination of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Un. As the report\u2019s headline states, \u201cSony Emails Say State Department Blessed Kim Jong-Un Assassination in \u2018The Interview.\u2019\u201d The emails also reveal that a RAND corporation senior defense analyst who consulted on the film went beyond \u201cblessing\u201d and outright influenced the end of the film, encouraging the CEO of Sony Entertainment to leave the assassination scene as it was (in spite of misgivings at Sony) for the sake of encouraging North Koreans to actually assassinate Kim Jong-Un and depose his regime when the movie eventually leaks into that country. According to the Sony\u00a0CEO, a senior US State Department official emphatically and personally seconded\u00a0that\u00a0advice and reasoning in a separate correspondence.\u00a0The emails also reveal that the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human-rights issues also consulted with Sony on the film.<\/p>\n

While a tiny nation state possibly being involved in scuppering a movie premiere by hacking and threatening a Hollywood studio by proxy may be more novel and sensational than yet another psyop by the US Regime Change Machine, the latter is far more important. The United States, as part of its \u201cAsian Pivot,\u201d made an explicit push for assassination and regime change in yet another foreign country under the cover of art and commerce, and the North Korean regime and its ally China are both now 100% aware of it. That has huge implications for politics in the region, for US relations with those countries, for the character and integrity of American art and media, and for the mischievous, generally havoc-wreaking way our government is secretly using our tax dollars.<\/p>\n

Imagine how the U.S. and its CIA would respond if a major movie studio anywhere in the world were to make a film centered around the assassination of a sitting U.S. President: especially if a foreign government was involved, pushing for just such an assassination. That North Korea, or any state, might respond with speech-suppressing attacks and threats is not to be excused, but it should be no surprise either. Yet the US was more than happy to help foment a predictable crisis like this, thereby putting its own people at risk. And it did so by surreptitiously penetrating Hollywood to steer it toward using \u201cartistic\u201d existential threats to taunt a nation-state that is such a basket-case that it would only be dangerous to Americans if made desperate by such existential threats. That shows what little regard our \u201csecurity force\u201d has for our actual security, as compared to pursuing global power politics.<\/p>\n

On a side\u00a0note, this\u00a0makes one wonder if the State Department\u00a0also pushed for\u00a0this other memorable dictator-detonating scene<\/a> from Charlie Sheen’s 1991 comedy\u00a0Hot Shots<\/em>, depicting regime-enemy Saddam Hussein catching a bomb in his lap while sipping a cocktail in his poolside lounge chair.<\/p>\n

Here are the key passages from the\u00a0Daily Beast\u00a0<\/em>report<\/a>\u00a0(emphasis added):
\n<\/p>\n

“The Daily Beast has unearthed several emails that reveal at least two U.S. government officials screened a rough cut of the Kim Jong-Un assassination comedy\u00a0The Interview\u00a0in late June and gave the film\u2014including a final scene that sees the dictator\u2019s head explode\u2014their blessing. (\u2026)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A series of leaked emails reveal that Sony enlisted the services of Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation who specializes in North Korea, to consult with them on\u00a0The Interview. After he saw the film, including the gruesome ending where a giant missile hits Kim Jong-Un\u2019s helicopter in slow-mo as Katy Perry\u2019s \u201cFirework\u201d plays, and Kim\u2019s head catches on fire and explodes, Bennett gave his assessment of it in a June 25 email to Lynton, just five days after North Korea\u2019s initial threat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe North has never executed an artillery attack against the balloon launching areas. So it is very hard to tell what is pure bluster from North Korea, since they use the term \u2018act of war\u2019 so commonly,\u201d wrote Bennett. \u201cI also thought a bunch more about the ending. I have to admit that the only resolution I can see to the North Korean nuclear and other threats is for the North Korean regime to eventually go away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He added, \u201cIn fact, when I have briefed my book on \u2018preparing for the possibility of a North Korean collapse\u2019 [Sept 2013],\u00a0I have been clear that the assassination of Kim Jong-Un is the most likely path to a collapse of the North Korean government.\u00a0Thus while toning down the ending may reduce the North Korean response, I believe that a story that talks about the removal of the Kim family regime and the creation of a new government by the North Korean people (well, at least the elites) will\u00a0start some real thinking\u00a0in South Korea and, I believe, in the North once the DVD leaks into the North (which it almost certainly will).\u00a0So from a personal perspective, I would personally prefer to leave the ending alone.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That same day, Lynton responded saying that a U.S. government official completely backed Bennett\u2019s assessment of the film.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBruce\u2014Spoke to someone\u00a0very senior in State (confidentially),\u201d wrote Lynton. \u201cHe agreed with everything you have been saying. Everything.\u00a0I will fill you in when we speak.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The following day, June 26, an email from Bennett to Lynton\u2014as well as several other forwarded emails\u2014revealed that Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human-rights issues, was helping to consult on the film as well through Bennett and addressed the June 20 threat by North Korea.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sony\u2019s decision yesterday to cancel its release of\u00a0The Interview\u00a0after being hacked and threatened by a group that may or may not be tied with the North Korean government has been the top story in the media ever since. Decidedly less-covered, and almost completely obscured by the cancellation, is another revelation made yesterday about the movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":193,"featured_media":24635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,35],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-24634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-north-korea"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/o-THE-INTERVIEW-TRAILER-facebook.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24634"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24648,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24634\/revisions\/24648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24634"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=24634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}