President Barack Obama has said the United States is considering putting North Korea back on its list of terrorism sponsors after the hacking of Sony Pictures. Last week, the studio canceled the release of the screwball comedy film “The Interview,” about a plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, following threats against theaters and a hack of corporate data, which officials say was ordered by the North Korean government. North Korea was on the U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors for two decades until the White House removed it in 2008, after Pyongyang agreed to full verification of its nuclear sites. 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.
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 so, I think it’s appalling that President Obama goes on a national stage, a global stage, on Friday and basically declares cyberwar, and then, a couple days later, ratchets it back to some kind of like cybernuisance, you know, cybervandalism. And of course North Korea is going to respond to basically a declaration of war by the president of the United States.
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.
Would the U.S. allow a film that was about the assassination of a U.S. president?
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. And I think it’s shameful that, you know, people are all over Hollywood, George Clooney, are looking at this as some kind of like big freedom issue, you know? Well, you know, let’s look at the real role of the U.S. in Korea and try to—you know, you can make comedies about Korea. You can make comedies, like M*A*S*H. But let’s have some—you know, let’s have some humanity in these films.
— source democracynow.org
Tim Shorrock, investigative journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence published in 2008. Shorrock spent part of his childhood in South Korea and has been writing about U.S.-Korea relations for 30 years.