Leni Riefenstahl Takes Over NCIS

I quite like a silly little show called NCIS, or used to. The writing has gone a bit off lately and you can tell that there is a desperate bid to retain viewers with more zany antics than engaging plot. But I found something the other night truly disturbing.

First, the premise of the show. NCIS stands for Navy Criminal Investigation Service. In America, the Navy has 335,000 people in its employ, so that’s like being a policeman in a good sized town. There’s the hard bitten but lovable ex-marine widower. The deadly and gorgeous Mossad spy on loan. There’s the competent but slightly goofy womaniser, who we all secretly like, even though he is a bit mean to the new boy. The new boy is a highly intelligent uber-nerd, with a crush on the super scientist downstairs, despite (or maybe because) of her hell-goth tats and boots. Oh and there’s Ducky. So called because his name is Doctor Mallard (oh my sides), and he’s a serial corpse conversationalist.

Last week, a suspect was not immediately forthcoming with all that the agents needed to know, and was threatened with ‘Guitmo’.

This absolutely sucks. It is so bad that no-one in the US administration is capable of even using proper language about the place. The euphemisms that surround Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp start with its name - Guitmo sounds cuter doesn’t it?

And rather than being illegally detained, kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared into a facility that has put itself outside the US borders, outside the law, and inside the M.O. of Auschwitz, - you are instead being subjected to “Special Rendition.”

The suspect was also a white US citizen, so Rome is not above threatening the Romans. I have watched this show from the start, and have grown to like the characters. I was attracted to it because I always thought that Mark Harmon was a pretty good. It was also the only thing on when I came home form my late shift. However they are normalising the US’s reprehensible behaviour through the show, and I hate it when a favourite gets used for propaganda.

Torture is fun kids, and it’s even more fun when it’s done in the name of your misguided administration.