TAIBBI: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Osama bin Laden's Last Victory Over America

[kpete]

'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Osama bin Laden's Last Victory Over America

I mean, this is real Keystone Kops stuff, on a grand scale, only it had the minor side effect of destroying everything America purports to stand for, in addition to being comically stupid and ineffective.

Taibbi:

Here's my question: if it would have been dishonest to leave torture out of the film entirely, how is it not dishonest to leave out how generally ineffective it was, how morally corrupting, how totally it enraged the entire Arab world, how often we used it on people we knew little to nothing about, how often it resulted in deaths, or a hundred other facts? Bigelow put it in, which was "honest," but it seems an eerie coincidence that she was "honest" about torture in pretty much exactly the way a CIA interrogator would have told the story, without including much else.

Taibbi nails the reason I've avoided seeing ZD30.

And when they dragged the big prize with its blood-soaked beard back into the copter and flew off, well – the triumph the characters felt at that moment exploded into the theater, there were gasps and patriotic applause, and even I got caught up in it. The only thing I can compare it to was seeing Rocky or Star Wars in theaters as a kid, the way the crowds went wild over the ass-kicking ending.

On the way home I felt buzzed and high, like one always does after seeing a great film, but then various things that had bothered me about the movie started to float to the surface.

This is good.

A more accurate movie about the torture program would have been a grotesque comedy that showed grown men resorting to puppet shows and dance routines and fourth-rate sexual indignities dreamed up after spending too much time reading spank mags and BDSM sites – and doing this thousands of times to thousands of people, all over the world, "accidentally" murdering hundreds of people in the process, going to war by mistake at least once as a result of it, and having no clue half the time who they're interrogating (less than 10 percent of "terror suspects" at places like Bagram were arrested by American forces; most of the rest were brought in by Afghanis or other foreigners in exchange for bounties).

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/zero-dark-thirty-is-osama-bin-ladens-last-victory-over-america-20130116#ixzz2IX7iH6We
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook


won't see this movie, evah...kp

[Bjorn Against]

1. This is one movie I refuse to support

I am kind of a movie nerd so I have seen seven of the nine Oscar nominated movies with Amour and Zero Dark Thirty being the only ones I have not seen. I probably will go to see Amour soon, but I refuse to give a penny to the people who are profitting off false depictions of torture. If I could see Zero Dark Thirty for free I would watch it, but there is no way in hell I am going to financially support the people who made this. If they had gone the route Taibbi suggests and showed the harm torture did then I would be willing to buy a ticket, but even the films supporters don't seem to be suggesting that this shows the harm torture did to to our nation's reputation and moral standing.

[truth2power]

8. I agree, Bjorn. I wouldn't support it, for the reasons you gave. n/t

[MotherPetrie]

2. you'n'me both

[ProSense]

3. This movie is simply another attempt

to link Bush to the capture of bin Laden and glorify torture. From the OP link:

Obviously, torture does produce some information, maybe even some good information. If you really squint hard, it may very well be that, technically speaking, there's a lot of truth in the plot of Zero Dark Thirty. It may be that we wouldn't have found bin Laden without torture. And as such, any movie about the hunt for bin Laden that excluded scenes of torture would have been dishonest.

But that's not what's messed up about this movie. The problem had nothing to do with the fact that Bigelow showed torture. It was the way she depicted it – without perspective, and in the context of a pulse-pounding thriller where the audience is clearly supposed to root for the big treasure find.

It's pure bullshit.

[WCGreen]

4. I think the Hurt Locker and now this is the way Hollywood shows that they are not as "liberal"

as the good folks over at the Right Wing echo-chamber supposes

I think this is why everybody claims these movies are anything but the glorification of US military might and degradation of those who dare to stand up against the US.

The fact that no one is investigating what really happened in the run up to the war on Iraq and that nothing is being done to punish those who hid their vengeance behind patriotism is nothing more than the hubris of empire.

We will be damned in the future as Rome is now.

[leftstreet]

13. That would actually make a good movie

The fact that no one is investigating what really happened in the run up to the war on Iraq and that nothing is being done to punish those who hid their vengeance behind patriotism is nothing more than the hubris of empire.

Wish someone would do a film based on the above

[spanone]

23. precisely....cheney & bu$h* should be prosecuted for starting an illegal war

then re-prosecuted for torture.

[theKed]

65. You should watch

In the Loop

It's a British comedy, and a thinly veiled parody of the lead-up to the Iraq war.

[RZM]

20. I didn't get that impression from the 'The Hurt Locker' at all

I didn't think it was particularly ideological. If anything, it struck me as somewhat hostile to the American presence in Iraq. It was shown as a chaotic and violent place and the American soldiers always seemed confused as to what their role was. I thought the takeaway was that war in general is bad and the Iraq was a mess.

I also thought it was a tad overrated too. Not a bad movie, but when it was over I didn't quite feel it had lived up to the hype (I saw it after the Oscars).

Haven't seen ZD30.

[coalition_unwilling]

53. +1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 - Well put and definitely

needed saying.

In fairness to the Roman empire, though, it left behind a legacy of wonderful art, literature and philosophy. Our empire by contrast will leave behind a legacy of Golden Arches and Laverne and Shirley.

Also, there are 2-3 million dead Southeast Asians whose souls cry for justice as long as Henry Kissinger walks around a free man.

[arely staircase]

5. one of the best movies i have ever seen

above criticism may all very well be valid and it is still one ove the best movies i have ever seen.

[lame54]

6. If you haven't seen it - don't review it

[truth2power]

10. kpete didn't review it. Taibbi, the author of the article did see it...

Taibbi: "I went to see Zero Dark Thirty this weekend with great anticipation."

[kpete]

22. thanks truth2power

won't see it, so can't review it...
don't even care to see it...
not even for free...

peace, kp

[truth2power]

70. me either. n/t

[lame54]

73. Sorry - that was meant for another poster - not the OP

[truth2power]

74. No problem. n/t

[raouldukelives]

7. Hey, if Judgment at Nuremeberg can win an Oscar, so can its polar opposite. nt

[Orrex]

9. Despite its many critics on the Left, 24 actually did a fair job of this

I confess that I didn't watch much of the final season, but in very nearly every case where the "good" guys used torture throughout the show's run, torture was portrayed as ineffective. That is, it yielded false or inaccurate or outdated information, often demonstrating that the torture victims simply had none of the information that was sought. Further, it had a clearly damaging and dehumanizing effect upon the people who used it, notably including Kiefer Sutherland's character.

This fact was often missed during the chorus of condemnation heaped upon the show, but it always struck me how ineeffective torture was routinely shown to be.

[another_liberal]

18. I'll have to take your word . . .

Last edited Sun Jan 20, 2013, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)

I'll have to take your word for the show's redeeming values. On the face of it, however, that seems a little like arguing the butchery at the Colosseum in ancient Rome should be excused as lessons in self-defense.

In all seriousness, though, I have never before heard the show "24" described (approvingly or not) as anything much more than a celebration of the "torturer's high." For the sake of all the people who were so devoted to that series, I do hope you're right.

[Bainbridge Bear]

26. "24" was Lynne Cheney's

favorite TV show. What a surprise.

[another_liberal]

28. She said that?

What a fool!

[Kennah]

59. Only because "Real Housewives Of The One Percent" was canceled

[grantcart]

29. It showed that torture was completely ineffective and clever interrogation got restyles.

There are a couple of key scenes. In one scene after a prolonged water boarding the CIA guy loads up the guy in a box and asks him what day he met with the contact. While they are loading the guy into a small box the guy goes through every day of the week in a weak voice showing, clearly, that torture breaks a person into saying whatever they want as the guy continues to say every day of the week over and over again.

Then over time they show various clips from interrogations where they are asking a series of seemingly unrelated questions.

The woman who becomes convinced that the courier they are trying to find is Obama's key courier notices that a whole bunch of middle level people have no problem identifying the guy and talking about him, even thinking the guy had died. She notes however that all of the big fish refuse to even identify the picture and state that they have no knowledge of this guy what so ever.

Using deductive reasoning she becomes obsessed with this guy because like Holmes solving the case where the dog didn't bark she attaches importance from the things that are not said.

This becomes the foundation for finding OBL.

I will say that there is something later in the movie where they are having a meeting at CIA headquarters and the same CIA guy makes a throw away line "well if we grab somebody now they will lawyer up and we won't get anything out of them".

That line didn't fit the narrative, wasn't true and wasn't challenged, it was a gratuitous salute to the neocons.

You should see the movie but if you don't want to reward the producers then buy a ticket for another movie and see it.

Any thinking person who is following what is being said will understand that there was much more useful intelligence from clever interrogations than in the water boarding or other severe 'enhancement' techniques.

[another_liberal]

32. The United States executed Japanese . . .

The United States executed Japanese officers who ordered the water-boarding of American prisoners of war. I'm glad the movie seems to cast doubt on the usefulness of torture as a means of interrogation, but that is really of secondary importance. Americans who tortured helpless prisoners are criminals of the worst kind. The harm they have done our country will last for generations.

[Quixote1818]

52. Well put. nt

[plethoro]

11. Excellent. I refuse to see the movie. Why in

God's name that woman made it is beyond me. Between this and Hurt Locker, I think she has issues.

[another_liberal]

12. Excellent post . . .

Thanks for an excellent post.

I have not and will not go to see this movie. I have never watched a single episode of "24" either, and for the same reason. Torture of captives, whether terrorist suspects or prisoners of war is the most shameful and damning policy our government has ever condoned or promoted. Nothing can make it right, and nothing ever will.

On a very real level, until we have prosecuted and imprisoned all who ordered and carried out such torture in our name, we have forfeited our right to be called a civilized nation.

[Orrex]

14. See my post above

Whatever its faults, 24 gave a very different portrayal of torture than is commonly asserted.

[Robb]

44. I agree. So completely opposite what is typically described.

24 was an opus on the failure of torture -- and on the evil of whittling away our civil liberties.

One had to watch many episodes to get the picture, however.

[ReRe]

31. Yes...

Where ARE the movies depicting the indictment and bringing to justice the masters of terrorism themselves, the Bush cabal? How about a series of movies depicting the indictment of the creation of the MIC, going all the way back to Truman and the Dulles brothers? Hey. and if we can get them to pump out some of these kinds of movies, why not some movies depicting the evil of unregulated capitalism, of how the evil is taking our country down...about the fall of the "greatest country in the world"? Some movies of what has happened to people's lives since unregulated capitalism started changing our country?

[another_liberal]

35. I'll buy . . .

I'll buy a ticket and take a date.

[99Forever]

15. Saw it, and quite frankly...

... that isn't at all any of the thoughts I came away with.

Seems the loudest bitching about it, is coming from people who haven't seen it. Funny that.

See it, don't see it. Love it, hate it.

Whatever.

[drm604]

25. The article quoted in the OP was written by someone who DID see it,

but for some reason you're complaining about people who didn't see it. Funny that.

[99Forever]

27. I comment to both.

For you see, I can walk AND chew gum at the same time.

Have a nice day.

[another_liberal]

33. I have never seen a snuff film either . . .

I have never seen a 'snuff' film either, but I am still appalled by them.

[99Forever]

39. Not so sure what that is supposed to mean.

But thanks for whatever it is.

[another_liberal]

46. It means . . .

It means one does not have to be a first person witness to find something awful. None of us was an eyewitness to the Titanic disaster, but we all recognize the horror of that event, through accounts of those who were.

I read accounts of the movie by those who saw it. I am appalled by those accounts. Therefore, I find the movie appalling.

Get it now?

[99Forever]

47. What I "get"...

.. is that you are content to let others do your thinking for you.

Me?

Not so much.

But it takes all kinds.

[another_liberal]

51. If drawing . . .

If drawing such a disingenuous conclusion makes you feel like some kind of a winner, be my guest. Let this one be on me.

[99Forever]

60. Well sir...

.. if there is some other "conclusion" to be "drawn" from you passing judgement on something you have no firsthand knowledge of, but instead do so based on the opinions of others, I'm wide open to hearing it.

Proceed sir.

[another_liberal]

68. OK, 99, I offered you the point for free . . .

OK, 99, I offered you the point for free, but that was not good enough, was it?

If one were to follow your logic, then there would be no such thing as recorded history before the invention of the movie camera. It is complete nonsense to even suggest such a thing. One reads accounts of all sort of events and performances he never sees, and he reaches conclusions about them in that way. Are we to assume you never form a judgement based on sources, not even first person sources? Of course you do. Everyone does and everyone always has. You make not a bit of sense arguing otherwise.

Now go away, you're boring.

[99Forever]

69. Well alrighty then.

[another_liberal]

71. I also took that freebie back . . .

I also took that freebie back, little buddy. Or didn't you bother to read my response?

[99Forever]

72. ..

[Hugabear]

50. A gungeoneer has no problem with a torture flick

Go figure

[99Forever]

61. Would I be that ...

... "gungeoneer" you are referring to?

[dogknob]

16. I miss Stanley Kubrick

He could have pulled a comedy out of this. He pretty much got chased out of the US after he made Dr. Strangelove.

A more accurate movie about the torture program would have been a grotesque comedy that showed grown men resorting to puppet shows and dance routines and fourth-rate sexual indignities dreamed up after spending too much time reading spank mags and BDSM sites

In The Men Who Stare At Goats, prisoners were dosed with LSD, locked in a cell with a strobe light and a high-volume loop of the "Barney" song.

[busterbrown]

17. Anyone ever think that that our involvement with torture now sets a precedent?

That if someone has children, torture will now be on the table to be used against our
troops in future armed conflicts !!!!!
Think about this when you’re on line buying your ticket!!!

[another_liberal]

19. So true . . .

So true. We can never take it back.

[Orrex]

36. That same point was made to Donald Rumsfeld

By then-Senator Joe Biden, who rightly pointed out that we would have to assume that other nations would readily--and with as much justification--torture US troops under the pretext of obtaining information.

[DirkGently]

21. Nailed it. There's no "honesty" in alluding to torture w/o including its moral & practical failure.

[LittleBlue]

24. Won't be seeing this. Military Apes with Guns Part 4591405739

How many times can they make a "realistic" war/ops movie? All the same IMHO

[grahamhgreen]

30. It's an awful film. Even the acting is terrible.

[OnyxCollie]

34. Let me see if I got this straight:

The Obama administration declares it is going to "look forward" and not investigate claims of torture committed by the Bush administration. (WikiLeaks cables show that the Obama administration pushed Spain to stop its investigation, in violation of the Geneva Convention.) This alleged torture produced confessions that were used by the Bush administration to fabricate a rationale for going to war with a country that hadn't attacked us, nor had the capability to do so. (Iraq had the will to use WMD against the US.) The war was a boon for military contractors and oil companies. According to this movie, the instigator of 9/11 is killed through the acquisition of information from torture. In reality, after the mission bin Laden's body is buried at sea, and no pictures are released. (Bin Laden had been thought dead for years prior by many, including Benazir Bhutto, who ends up getting assassinated.) The Obama administration declares bin Laden was killed and that they have his DNA. In Pakistan, a doctor is considered a traitor for working with the CIA to use smallpox (?) vaccinations as a way to collect DNA from bin Laden's family.

Is that right?

I'd rather see a movie about that, instead.

[LAGC]

42. NatGeo did a docu-drama on that very thing.

It aired just before the 2012 election and was much more favorable to the Obama Administration.

I kind of wish they had gone on in more detail of the aftermath of the raid though, what exactly happened to all the "traitors" and collaborators who risked their lives gathering intel which made the whole raid possible.

[ReRe]

37. I have NO desire to see ZD30 either...

K&R

Each to their own. Far be it from me to try to persuade anyone else from seeing it. Whether the makers of this movie will admit it or not, any movies that includes anything about the MIC is supported by them. By the use of their worn out machines of war and/or their financial support and/or their direct input to the script, not to mention the thousands, if not millions, of mercenaries we now have in this country who are for hire, either for movies or for war-making. I will admit watching early MIC movies, like the VietNam movies back in the late 70s and 80s. I am a hump baby and was young when the VietNam War was being fought, so naturally I was interested in those movies then. That was before I knew what I know now. Didn't watch "24", didn't see Hurt Locker, and won't see ZD30.

[kpete]

41. ReRe

you are SO right,
i too am SO tired/bored/bothered...
don't need that in my life
especially NOT from a movie

peace to you, kp

[ReRe]

43. And peace to you...

...sweet Kpete. I used to have a book that revealed all of this, but gave it to my son. Can't call son today, as he is visiting his SO in the hospital. If he calls me later when he gets home, will ask him to give me the author and title. Checked my bibliography and couldn't find it in there either. Later...

[Festivito]

38. Director's: "depiction is not endorsement," seems TWO-FACED.

On one side the movie is endorsed as a depiction of a true story. (Capturing bin-laden)

On side two the movie is endorsed as a depiction of a true story -- NOT! (Torture getting information that leads to getting bin-ladin)

And the "NOT" is only added later, in a newspaper, not a movie. That is as disingenuous as the concept of two-faced implies.

[graham4anything]

40. EXCEPT the movie showed torture DID NOT WORK. but detective work over a decade did

the torture failed and it showed it failed

hard detective work like Columbo was what worked

so it appears MT didn't see the movie

was he wearing 3d glasses in a movie that was not 3d?

[Robb]

45. I know. What movie did he see?

Torture failed and failed and failed in this film.

Kind coercion -- and an expensive bribe -- brought results.

[Quixote1818]

49. I agree 100%. Torture happened and the movie didn't gloss over that fact. It's historical fact

However the movie showed torture really didn't get any results. Not sure what Matt's point is because he didn't seem to understand the movie.

[grantcart]

62. Like Sherlock Holmes "The Dog that didn't bark" see # 29 above

[datasuspect]

48. i liked the part when bruce willis rode in on a gold unicorn with twin mount .50 cal

and said, "A SALAAM ALEYKUM MOTHERFUCKER!"

USA!!!!! USA!!!!!

[coalition_unwilling]

54. Emphatic K&R! I refuse to fund the mass media glorification of extra-judicial

executions and war crimes.

[another_liberal]

56. Too right.

Well put.

[idwiyo]

55. Wonder how this drivel presents fucking CIA fake polio vaccination drive and how much harm it did.

My guess some nice screenshots of paralysed and dead kids would just add to authenticity of the movie, right?

[another_liberal]

58. They're just "Collateral Damage"

And we're the good guys. Right?

[idwiyo]

63. But of course! Little bit of torture - who gives a shit, it's all worth it! Dead and paralysed kids?

Their own damn fault, they should have told nice CIA people where Osama was hiding.
And just think about all the cool books and "brilliant" movies produced to provide entertainment for countless people who really don't give a flying fuck about what really happen or how many innocents got hurt, as long as its their team that wins. After all, it's all that really matter, isn't it?

[another_liberal]

64. Just like a big football game . . .

Just like a big football game, and the trash left behind from the tailgate parties is a problem for someone else.

[truebrit71]

57. Can't wait to see this tomorrow...

...loved the Hurt Locker, a very powerful, depressing, and ultimately anti-war movie...interesting to see how she handles actual history..