Now you may ask why that's a problem. There are a lot of very good fictional films produced every year. That is true, but when a film is based on actual events, most people expect those events to have actually happened -- and that is not the case here (even though far too many people will leave the theater thinking what they have seen is true, because they know parts of it like the death of bin-Laden is true).
The problem is that the film leaves the distinct impression that valuable information, that led to the killing of bin-Laden, was gained through the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" -- or torture as it is commonly and truthfully called. And that is just not true. It has been reported by several of the CIA agents involved that no useful information was ever derived from the torture authorized by President Bush. In fact, some of the information gotten from torture actually impeded the hunt for bin-Laden, because it was untrue and led agents in the wrong direction. Here is what the Acting CIA Director had to say about the torture:
". . .the film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were the key to finding Bin Ladin. That impression is false."
I know that some people believe people will tell the truth when subjected to torture, but that is simply false. What they will do is tell the interrogator what he/she wants to hear, so the torture will stop -- and that may be far from the truth. In fact, it probably won't be the truth -- especially if the truth is an unlikely scenario (which the interrogator is not likely to believe), or the person being questioned doesn't know the truth (which the interrogator is also unlikely to believe).
I'm not a big fan of Republican Senator John McCain, but I appreciate his stepping forward to blast this film for its erroneous premise. McCain probably knows more than any other person in Congress about torture -- because he is the only person in Congress to have been repeatedly tortured (as a prisoner in the Vietnam War of the North Vietnamese). He has also sat on senate committees that were privy to the uselessness of the torture techniques that were used.
Sadly though, many people will leave this movie thinking they have witnessed the truth, and they will be inclined to support using torture in the future since they'll think it worked this time. But it didn't. It just justified the use of torture against our own soldiers by our enemies, and that's all it will do in the future.
I'm sure this is a well-made movie, because it was made by some very talented people. It's just a shame that they didn't think they could make a good movie by telling the truth -- because the truth about the hunt for bin-Laden (who was NOT found using torture) is a very compelling story.
Or the fact that others had said bin Laden died years ago. Why should I believe the White House and its story over the others, especially when piece by piece, what Obama claimed happened that night was corrected over the months after, and our government had a well-known history of lying to us about bin Laden and terrorism in the years before?
ReplyDeleteObama's no different than Bush, on the matter. The establishment figured you'd be more likely to believe his "story" than Bush's, or they'd probably have told it years before, when they shut down the CIA unit that was tasked with finding bin Laden back in 2006. But there was still too much money to be made.
If bin Laden's body had been physically verified, for all the world to see, instead of allegedly buried at sea before anyone could see it, then I'd believe it. No, I don't believe that would have infuriated Muslims, because they wanted to know for a fact just like everyone else. It's not like bin Laden was the Prophet Mohammed. They wouldn't have rioted the same. Since the body wasn't, and we had been shown all these tapes over the years of what clearly was not Osama bin Laden, I have to believe they lied to us about even killing him, because for them to come out and admit what others had said (i.e., foreign officials, former CIA folks, French reports), that bin Laden had "died" of illness, would've been such a "let down" for many, and there would've been backlash for wasting trillions more in the years since he died doing what most CASUAL OBSERVERS in the public believed was "looking for bin Laden" instead of filling the pockets of defense contractors, so they cooked up a story to close out the case of the man who human disease had already closed out long ago.
That's why I won't be watching "Zero Dark Thirty", because I see it as just more War on Terror propaganda. Whether or not my suspicions are true, there's nothing from the "Obama killed bin Laden" crowd that proves otherwise. Just his words versus others. Why should I believe his?