1996's action thriller Executive Decision may be light on action and lacking thrills but it is notable for one thing - the script violated the Geneva Convention and led to the Pentagon temporarily withdrawing support for the film. When the producers initially approached the DOD they were told that military ...
Read more

The 1996 action thriller Executive Decision was an early example of what should be called ‘irregular war films’, pitting a team of special forces commandos against a gang of terrorists, on a hijacked plane headed for Washington DC. In this episode I analyse Executive Decision for it’s bizarre mirroring of ...
Read more

Aimen Dean, born Ali Al-Duranni, was MI6’s spy inside Al Qaeda from 1998 to 2006. In this episode I do a critical view of his autobiography Nine Lives: My Time as MI6’s Top Spy Inside Al Qaeda, and how Dean’s story connects to other people and events explored in this ...
Read more

In this penultimate review episode I look at how the education system is a poor place to learn anything, how standardised testing is a form of child abuse, the fundamental problems of electoral politics, and expand on why an intelligence-based approach to societal problems is always better than a military-based ...
Read more

Since launching National Security Cinema last year, Matt and I have encountered a lot of questions about the field. These are our answers to some of the most Frequently Asked Questions and Comments about entertainment liaison offices and the politics of Hollywood films ...
Read more

Just as politicians start to believe their own speeches, intelligence agencies start to believe their own propaganda. Nowhere is this clearer than in the CIA's black stite torture program initiated in the wake of 9/11. Recently declassified documents detailing current CIA director Gina Haspel's role in the torture program show ...
Read more

The pain of 9/11 remains unresolved because the crime of 9/11 remains unsolved. In 17 years no one has been prosecuted for carrying out the attacks, and the court of public opinion is very much a hung jury ...
Read more

The military legal drama Rules of Engagement is perhaps the greatest modern example of racist, warmongering propaganda. Unsurprisingly, it benefited from full Pentagon support, in exchange for numerous script changes. The film was eerily prescient, foreshadowing two terrorist attacks in Yemen, and in some ways the entire post-9/11 war on ...
Read more

This week I am joined by long-time 9/11 researcher and activist Jon Gold, to talk about his new book We Were Lied to About 9/11. We discuss Jon's experiences both of the 9/11 attacks and of his years of research and activism, along with the legacy of the 'truth movement' ...
Read more

I am joined today by Robbie Martin and Pearse Redmond to talk about the 2008 9/11 conspiracy thriller The Reflecting Pool. We pick on various aspects of the film that relate or comment on the 9/11 truth movement, including the bizarre consensus that thermite brought down the WTC which has ...
Read more

On this month's subscriber-only podcast I explain my criticisms of 21st Century Wire and Patrick Henningsen in particular. I outline their disturbing habit of denying the suffering of non-white people, often by claiming they are mere 'crisis actors', their implicit and explicit endorsement of white supremacism, and their martyr-lite marketing ...
Read more

November 22nd is the 27th anniversary of a European Parliament resolution condemning Operation Gladio. For decades, secret armies in over a dozen NATO countries carried out terrorist attacks to influence the political landscape and manipulate elections. In this article I look back at Gladio, highlighting the damage it did and ...
Read more