France Televisions - Political Deception (2017)

Recounts and analyses great lies that have changed the course of history. An illuminating examination of wide scale disinformation and cunning deceptions with serious geopolitical, historic and human consequences. Between an investigation and a forensic analysis. The biggest bluffs in our history.
Deceitful politicians may escape scrutiny by claiming that truths are false, falsehoods are true, and in any case nothing can be proved. Deception is a documentary series, which recounts and analyse great lies that have changed the course of history. Between an investigation and a forensic analysis, each film is presented like a political thriller, and deciphers each step of a particular brainwashing operation that had a dramatic historical impact, questioning the motives and strategies of the different parties involved. Comprehensive hoaxes that changed the face of the world.

Part 1: Star Wars: Reagan's Gigantic Bluff
President Ronal Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars, was a space-based missile defense system aimed at neutralizing the Soviet military threat. The Kremlin claimed that this would provoke certain nuclear war, but it Reagan's military deception ultimately contributed to the unravelling of the Soviet Union.
It begins like a children's story, like the universal tale of the battle between Good and Evil. A gigantic farce, called Star Wars, that the former movie star, Ronald Reagan, President of the USA, set in motion to bring down his sworn enemy, the Soviet Union. The American president's last leading role was to benefit from an epic staging and setting, and would enshrine Reagan in history.

Part 2: The Italian Conspiracy: The Years of Lead
Assassinations, kidnappings, terrorism… In the midst of the Cold War, a "strategy of tension" blocked the way for the communists in a country that was strategically key for the United States. Corrupt secret services, rebel soldiers, dirty politicians, the mafia… an investigation into 12 years of manipulations in the Italian peninsula.
What happened in the blood and shadows of the "years of lead"? From the end of the 1960s to the 1980s, Italy lived to the rhythm of social mobilizations but also massacres, assassinations and kidnappings. A dark era of extremism on both the right and the left, macabre connections and terrible suspicions of criminal complicity, at the initiative of certain sectors of the state apparatus (police, secret services) and foreign powers.
From the explosion in Piazza Fontana in December 1969 in Milan to the massacre at Bologna station in August 1980, including the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, in May 1978, violence struck Italy like nowhere else in Western Europe. A low-intensity civil war and an open wound for Italy, which, forty years later, is still struggling to untangle the responsibility.

Part 3: Iraq: A Veritable Imposture
Saddam Hussein's arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction" was George W. Bush's main justification for waging war against Irak in 2003. After the invasion of the country, American leaders recognised that they had been mistaken, and that the Baghdad tyrant did not possess such a capability. Bush claimed it was an error and defended his good faith, denouncing the negligence of his secret services. The power vacuum created by this blunder directly led to the creation of ISIS.
The Iraq war was decided on proven lies. It is the result of an unprecedented manipulation of American public opinion, the international press and political personnel on a global scale. This investigation reveals these mystifications, deciphers by whom they were conceived and reveals why America launched itself into a conflict that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and approximately 3000 billion dollars… American officials have also acknowledged that they were "wrong" and that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Bush pleaded error… But the truth is more cynical, more brutal. The Islamic State is one of the consequences.

Part 4: Killing Gaddafi!
How a military campaign in Libya, for a time spearheaded by Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama, was in fact part of the strategy for regime change in the Arab-Muslim world, decided by the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Revisits the lies that justified the outbreak of hostilities against Mouammar Gaddafi, with misleading arguments to cover up the decision.
A look back at the lies that mobilized public opinion at the beginning of 2011 and that helped justify the outbreak of hostilities against Muammar Gaddafi. A military campaign that was in reality a link in the strategy for regime change in the Arab-Muslim world, decided by the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 2001. The elimination of the dictator was then presented as a humanitarian intervention to save the Libyan people. It thus allowed the West to fuel a civil war in Libya. Plunged into chaos, the country has become the crossing point for cohorts of migrants fleeing to Europe and the lair of a new generation of terrorists.