In a movie review on Friday July 16 2004, movie reviewer Katherine Monk of the Vancouver Sun reveals herself as a historian and political scientist, albeit one who employs junk/bunk history and science.
Unlike me or you, Monk actually has the skills required nowadays to be a much sought-after war and history commentator for a major Canadian daily—she has an English degree, and a post-grad diploma in film. We all know how those Hollywood types know everything about Iraq, Bush, and Lies. Her other obvious credentials include CBC movie reviewer and video reviewer for the Women’s Television Network. She has also done work in the advanced field of video game reviews. Perhaps that’s where she got her war experience.
Her Vancouver Sun review of the documentary (oh-oh, here we go again with the “documentary”) called Control Room was framed as a commentary piece—a movie review— rather than a news story, yet she combines commentary about the movie with what seems like her presumed role of informant to the people and a reporter of fact, in this case. Thanks goodness, because we just can’t have enough entertainment types rewriting history.
(I often wonder why, if it’s a documentary, the reviews aren’t news articles reporting on the facts as uncovered in the revealing documentary, rather than movie reviews in the entertainment section).
Though not as venal as Michael Moore’s latest excellent factual educational historical right-on documentary that reveals the unadulterated truth about that evil man, George Bush, this one is about getting into Al-Jazeera’s news control room during the Iraq war to tell the story of their ever-so-noble coverage, in which they managed to somehow get to the real face or war, dead Iraqis, kids of course—despite the evil American government’s effort to brainwash the world with a dizzying spin.
No word on the dozens of reporters world-wide who were on the front lines at the invitation of the American government filing live satelite broadcasts right to my home and getting shot and pummeled with rocket-fired grenades and bombs while all this American covering-up was going on.
At one point in the movie, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was interviewed on CNN and laments at the lies being told by Al-Jazeera in order to shape public opinion. Monk ironically chooses to discuss this on a political level. She says:
“The irony of Rumsfeld’s words ring loud and clear now that the threat of weapons of mass destruction has been shot down once and for all, but during the initial stages of the war, it was only the Arabs who smiled quizzically at the feed.”
Monk, abandoning her role of movie critic just for a moment, has declared that there wasn’t even a “threat” of WMD, much less stockpiles of them. No threat even.
By whom has this threat “been shot down, once and for all”? Perhaps she should contact the CIA and the United Nations with her scoop.
She also seems to claim that the Arabs also knew, all along, right from the beginning, and reacted to Rumsfeld by “smiling quizzically” at the gall of Rumsfeld. See, Al-Jazeera wasn’t lying at all, it was Rumsfeld.
These facts, in contrast to what the entire rest of the world knew, which was that there was (at least) a real threat that there were WMD. The United Nations agreed that there was that threat in Iraq. Hussein had used them before and failed to document, to the satisfaction of the United Nations and the entire Security Council, that he’d gotten rid of them as he so honestly declared. But Monk, and Al-Jazeera knew the truth all along. And Sean Penn, and Michael Moore. And Barbra Streisand.
Inasmuch as every national security agency in the world, and the United Nations, and both Bill Clinton and George Bush agreed that (at least) the threat was real, I can’t figure out how Monk got the inside scoop when all these buffoons missed it.
Of course I then recalled that she’d seen the Michael Moore flick and that’s how she got her edumacation.
You can see how the re-write of history is taking shape here. Not only were there (in retrospect only, of course) no major stockpiles of WMD (although significant evidence has been found), but there was, it has now been proven, according to Monk and some unknown sources, not even the threat of WMD.
She then completes her review by saying:
“Like Rumsfeld says, the truth will eventually reveal itself. Thanks to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, Sandra Goodman’s Army of One, and Jehane Noujaim’s Control Room, that truth grows a little stronger—a little more complete—every day.”
So you see there we have it folks, right from the pen of the great Katherine Monk, couch potato of the Vancouver Sun and junior writer of the revisionist history of the world: We haven’t actually gotten the truth, but for that which Michael Moore and other saints have provided us ever so factually. And more ominously, there’s more to leak out yet—you know, the “complete” truth. That’s what she says.
She might have just summed-up her “movie review”, or perhaps entitled it, “Bush Lied—Kids Died!”
I finished reading Monk’s review and after cleansing my mind of the muck by double-checking my 18-inch-high pile of documents outlining the threats posed by Saddam Hussein, got to today’s paper and read a letter to the editor which reads, in part:
“This sentiment [referring to the same last paragraph noted above] sickens my stomach. The popular media has almost succeeded in instilling this twisted distortion of reality into the minds of the masses.
I believe in a completely different truth.
I believe Saddam Hussein is guilty of genocide. I believe he was a tyrant and ruthless dictator who lustfully murdered millions. I believe he used chemical weapons of mass destruction to murder tens of thousands. I believe he is guilty of crimes against humanity. I believe that if left unabated, he would have succeeded in procuring and using dangerous chemical and nuclear weapons. I believe his stockpiles of dangerous weapons are stored somewhere outside Iraq. I believe U.S. President George W. Bush should be saluted for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein.
As I see it, the world is a much safer and better place with Saddam Hussein behind bars, or better yet, executed for his crimes against humanity. The truth is that George Bush had the brains to take on the job without popular support, and history will show his actions were correct. But it might take 20 or 40 years for the masses to see it that way.”
It won’t take that long, since nothing backfires faster than a lie, after it has been fully exposed. History will show that the real incomplete story is not the truth—it’s the lie.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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