WikiLeaks – Even The Guardian Gets Suckered

Another day, another release of cables from WikiLeaks. There is so much material being released that, on occasion, interesting items get missed, and this was the case on Friday last. The subject was Michael Moore’s film Sicko – which found adversely on the USA’s health care system – and the cable suggested that the film had been banned in Cuba.

The reason for the Castro Government imposing the ban was, supposedly, because Sicko showed the Cuban health care system in a “mythically” favourable light. If that sounds strange, it is: Moore himself made sure that Sicko was available for release in Cuba, and the film was even broadcast on the country’s national TV in late April 2008.

So it might be thought that this fact may have been included in the Guardian’s report last Friday when it revealed the contents of the cable sent by a State Department representative in Havana. But only after Moore revealed the real story on his own website was the Guardian article appended with a one line acknowledgment of Moore’s statement.

Which is a pity: as Moore suggests, the more significant story is not merely the leaking of another cable, but the passing of totally misleading information around US Intelligence. Small wonder that the collapse of the Castro Government has been predicted regularly for decades, and that it hasn’t happened.