Login / Registermy heart is breaking. if it is you, i am sorry. i am so confused. i can't walk away yet without knowing. but you need to give me a bit more.
Jimmy Carter sets record straight on Argo
Last week, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter went on Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN to clear up some of the confusion about the movie Argo.
The film was loosely based on the rescue of six Americans from Iran after the revolution that brought Ayotollah Khomeini to power.
Carter described Ben Affleck's picture as a "great drama". But the former president also said that "90 percent of the contribution to the ideas and consummation of the plan was Canadian".
Carter noted that the "main hero" was Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, but the film gave full credit to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
"The Canadian government would not legally permit six false passports to be issued," Carter revealed. "So the Canadian Parliament had to go into secret session for the first time in history and they voted to let us use six Canadian passports that were false."
Perhaps this explains why Affleck thanked Canada last night when he picked up the Oscar for best movie.
He was just trying to make amends.
It is unfortunate that Americans have to twist facts to always claim #1.the worlds best, largest, smallest etc. etc.
If they were only taught world history and geography, possibly they would be more open minded.
I am not particularly offended as a Canadian since I recall the details of the Iranian revolution so vividly. As a student at U of A Edmonton, I regularly wore a button that said "Free the Shah's Political Prisoners!" given to be by an Iranian student. I watched the actual revo evolve in horror as the secularist Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was sidestepped by Ayatollah Khomeni in spite of his landslide Presidential election victory. Khomeni told him flat out that if 35 million Iranians said 'yes' to his policies and Khomeni said 'no' that 'no' would prevail. The hostage crisis appalled me but I still held hope the revo would right itself (take note, fans of the Arab Spring). So although the heroism and efforts of Canadian diplomats were and are evident, I was then ambivalent about the 'Canadian caper'. What really galls me about 'Argo' is not the real and frequent enough issue of Canadian efforts being ignored and claimed by others but rather who is in line for the unearned credit for heroism, namely the CIA. The CIA, who engineered Operation Ajax and removed the secular government of Mohammad Masaddegh in 1953 and forced the Shah back on the throne is hailed for heroism? If not for Operation Ajax, Iran would have looked a lot more like modern Turkey then and now. The Iranian revolution would not have unfolded and then detiorated in the way it has. One more aspect is that Bani-Sadr, in exile in Paris, claimed in his memoirs that the Republican presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan tried to negotiate that the hostage crisis be prolongued in order to use it as political capital. So, who are the good guys again? In my view, certainly not the CIA!
All the Americans learned from the experience was to lie and make money from it.
2) Though I'm not particular fond of Affleck's lesser portrayal of the Canadian involvement, I was hardly suprised and thought it was a good espionage movie (though Zero Dark Thirty, Syriana and Munich are all better fare for that genre imo) What Aflleck should be commended for however, is at least including the mention of Operation Ajax as JamesG also mentioned not just in the intro segment (in cartoon) but its also briefly mentioned in the movie as well. The bottom line is that the whole "Democracy in the Middle East" spiel that the US government has been spoutting off for decades was actually thrown in the gutter by the US government when they overthrew the democratically elected Mossadegh.
The situation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran was not too unlike the circumstances leading up to the Cuban Revolution. The US had the Shah over there and Batista over here. Sons of a bitches but at least they were America's sons of bitches.
3) What would have been even better is if it was mentioned that the company that could be argued to have set off the whole sequence of events of Mossadegh/the Coup/the Shah/the Revolution was a British oil company then called the Anglo Persion Oil Company. Today it has the initials BP.
Seems kinda odd that "maybe Iran deserves" to be put "in a negative light" and that we are such victims for not being potrayed to true light in a movie (which isnt right but to be expected but its still a movie). What about what happened to Iran in real life? And how are they deserving to be put in a "negative light" here? Are you familiar with what really went down there since we are so worried about who is getting actual credit for what actually happened in real life?
At least it was (if briefly) mentioned what lead up to the hostage situation in the movie (at the very beginning). Would be awesome if someone were to actually take that a make an Argo prequel - Operation Ajax: British Petroleum and the CIA's First Overthrow of a Foreign (Democratically Elected) Government
While history may have been rewritten for hollywood, people had a lot of appreciation at the time.
2. I'd see Lincoln only because of DDL. The only thing that gives me gas is the fact that SS directed this movie.
3. The only reason Argo won was because George Clooney was involved as an EP.
4. DDL is the greatest English speaking actor alive hands down.
Giving Argo the Best Picture just shows how rigged the Oscars are.
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