Maybe, if they can stand it, more people should see The Interview, a dismally failed, low-grade movie, and decide for themselves if the ominous response from United States President Barack Obama is not just a little out of proportion. Actually viewing this inconsequential insomnia cure – which was most likely sabotaged by any one of a number of disgruntled Sony employees – might dispel the aura of intrigue and mystery surrounding it. Obama wasted no time in commenting, his words echoing those of George W. Bush after 9/11: "They caused a lot of damage and we will respond … proportionally, and … in a place and time and manner that we choose."
You would think war strategy and secret weapons programs had been hacked, not a loser Sony movie.
Experts in the field claim the hacking was too amateurish for North Korea, which had nothing to gain, and any hacker in the world was capable of it. Whether the intended outcome or not, the movie has received immensely more media coverage than it would otherwise, and elicited mindless chauvinism.
The West loves nothing more than ridiculing leaders of countries it can't dominate, but it's throwing stones from glass houses, of course. North Korea did not destroy Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, nor does it drone-kill people without trial or even evidence of terrorism in Somalia, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali and other places, every "kill-Tuesday," as does President Obama. President Kim Jong-Un has more serious matters to consider, but this tempest in a teapot serves the objectives of others.
We should be very skeptical about what that might entail.
Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert
