commentaries

The beings that enhanced interrogation were used on were not humans. And yes, the information gathered by using those tactics not only saved the lives of humans (us) but the information gathered also sent Bin Laden straight to hell for eternity. These sixth century subhumans do not deserve any treatment with regard to the rules of civilized society. They are not civilized, and do not qualify as human.

I refuse to help pay the profits of any movie which bills itself as a pseudo-documentary on an actual piece of history and employs pure propaganda. Enhanced interrogation has been roundly disproved to have lead to the ending of bin Laden, yet this movie just couldn't resist its own sensationalistic version. Several US senators, including Republicans, have written its director/producer insisting on -at the very least - a disclaimer about the movie's first half hour depicting water-boarding. They refused to do so. What this country does NOT need is a fictionalized glamorization of torture techniques, much less the blatant suggestion that they lead to finding bin Laden. I am incensed that Hollywood would fabricate such events just to make more of a profit. No one I know plans to see this movie because of the lie they portray at the beginning of the movie.

The failure of the author and his "torture expert" is--> one's person's torture is another person's choice. A country with a million surgical abortions per year and a warrantless droning program that sends Hellfire missiles into family living facilities is guaranteed to pretty much yawn at waterboarding or sleep depriving a few POW's. How about executing civilian prisoners in America, is that less than torture? I am shocked that Hollywood could release a movie so capturing the complexities of a nation unsure if a nuke was around the corner. It is likely why Oscar shunned her directing nod.

I do love our regular poster castigating the film as "lying" and she then cites GOP Senators (aka = plural) as writing the director. Aside from McCain, could the honest blogger list other GOP Senators who "wrote the director?" Indeed, the acting CIA director just went on record as saying enhanced techniques DID provide one of the several information streams that helped lead to OBL. Have you seen the film? This film hardly glamorizes torture, does it? I think libs will avoid this film because, as they say, the truth hurts.................

When the more current issue of torture began under former President Bush, many were appalled at how low the U.S. had sunk reverting to enhanced interrogation techniques. Because this of course had never occurred. It is so tragic that so many people have time for MTV, Late Night TV, Reality TV, etc. Discussions will and should continue on the future opportunities and issues surrounding this. However, enhanced interrogation techniques were used by George Washington in the Revolutionary War, The North and the South in the Civil War, WWI and WWII.

If the shoe fits.

goferfanz: A "warrantless" drone program? What possible warrant would the military have to get before taking action? Certainly not an arrest or search warrant, those only apply to criminal cases. There is also no court with jurisdiction over military actions abroad.

McCain, a Republican senator for the state of Arizona, joined two Democrats – Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin – to write a public letter to Michael Lynton, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Pictures, which backed the picture. They claim that Zero Dark Thirty is "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the capture". Other politicians have indeed spoken out against the blatant misinformation this movie portrays, but only these three senators have lodge a formal complaint.

"Indeed, the acting CIA director just went on record as saying enhanced techniques DID provide one of the several information streams that helped lead to OBL"....................His is a stand alone opinion not backed up by every other official involved in the search for bin Laden and has been roundly debunked.

Michael J. Morell, acting director of the CIA, is quoted as writing: "The truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well." ... A bit of a weasel statement. Obviously the quote from Morell plainly indicates that there were instances of torture, or so-called "enhanced techniques," used to obtain intelligence from detainees concerning bin Laden's whereabouts, though he clumsily tries to downplay this. (Evidently he recognizes it would beggar all plausibility to lie and deny it.) But the bigger problem: Morrel's statement implicitly pivots on acknowledging only successful instances, however few, of enhanced interrogation in which viable intelligence was obtained; what of the all the failed instances? In other words, of the hundreds or more detainees known or suspected of al-Qaeda affiliation, held in US custody and subjected to enhanced interrogation, are we really expected to believe that they weren't asked about bin Laden's whereabouts in the course of their interrogation? Morrel plays a shell game with words. The issue remains torture, not which few and far between instances of torture yielded results versus the many more that didn't and are conveniently disavowed.