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Fragment of a discussion from Comments:Senate publish report on CIA torture and misinformation
When a country does something really bad, the population may later have a hard time admitting it happened. For some it's cover-up, but for many it's just plain denial. With no clear line between the two; when you've got enough of a personal investment of belief in what was done, denial can edge over into cover-up so quietly you don't notice (at the time, anyway).