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selenakNot a surprise but news all the same: the "eye witness" quoted by Colin Powell in the 2003 presentation of the US' case against Iraq at the UN - you know, as in - "We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels. The source was an eyewitness — an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died." -, codenamed Curveball and actually named Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi admits he made it all up. (Detailed reporting here.) His current day justification is that he wanted Saddam gone and if lies achieved this, then so be it. Reading through the article and listening through the interviews, I thought, hang on, what Sci Fi plot does this remind me, until it finally dawned to me: "...and the self respect of one Starfleet officer", of course! In the Pale Moonlight, arguably one of the best if not the best DS9 episode. It also brought home one of the different ways we perceive fiction and reality. In the Pale Moonlight is DS9 at its most shades of grey, true, but both the episode and its place in the general Dominion War arc is constructed in a way that the audience basically is bound to think Sisko makes the right choice. We would think less of him, the episode and the show if he had decided to put principles first in this particular scenario.
Otoh, it's not exaggarated to say that a lot of people despise Bush, Blair & Co. for what they did. "Curveball" might be a different case because he's actually Iraqi - as opposed to B&B - and that makes the deceit feel differently (at least it does to me, personal opinion as always); also I was interested to learn the involvement of the BND (= German secret service) in the whole affair given our own policy later re: the Iraq War. But it's still true that the fictional case, so famously shades of grey, suddenly looks a whole lot easier and black and whiter when compared with the real life scenario and the ongoing consequences (and deaths) it caused.
...You know, being unable to make up my mind on the real thing, I wish that planned season 7 story about Jake having a Watergate experience while uncovering Dad's involvement in the Pale Moonlight affair would not have been scrapped in order not to upset the warm father-son relationship between the Siskos.
Otoh, it's not exaggarated to say that a lot of people despise Bush, Blair & Co. for what they did. "Curveball" might be a different case because he's actually Iraqi - as opposed to B&B - and that makes the deceit feel differently (at least it does to me, personal opinion as always); also I was interested to learn the involvement of the BND (= German secret service) in the whole affair given our own policy later re: the Iraq War. But it's still true that the fictional case, so famously shades of grey, suddenly looks a whole lot easier and black and whiter when compared with the real life scenario and the ongoing consequences (and deaths) it caused.
...You know, being unable to make up my mind on the real thing, I wish that planned season 7 story about Jake having a Watergate experience while uncovering Dad's involvement in the Pale Moonlight affair would not have been scrapped in order not to upset the warm father-son relationship between the Siskos.
