Posted on 01/05/2013 8:02:08 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
It is an odd experience to enter a darkened room and, for more than two and a half hours, watch someone tell a story that you experienced intimately in your own life. But that is what happened recently as I sat in a movie theater near Times Square and watched “Zero Dark Thirty,” the new Hollywood blockbuster about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
When I was head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center from 2002 to 2004 and then director of the National Clandestine Service until late 2007, the campaign against al-Qaeda was my life and obsession.
I must say, I agree with both the film critics who love “Zero Dark Thirty” as entertainment and the administration officials and prominent senators who hate the movie for the message it sends — although my reasons are entirely opposite theirs.
Indeed, as I watched the story unfold on the screen, I found myself alternating between repulsion and delight. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
OK, got it.
Shame. I really liked Hurt Locker.
When ‘24’ was on. the govt really hated that they showed the torture scenes.
Orambo
Thank God for Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.
Feinstein and McCain are trying to hide the truth.
That is played out in every crime-fighting movie ever made.
The script almost always focuses on one person, or perhaps a very small team, who are responsible for tracking down the villain, usually while fighting interference from superiors.
This is necessary to provide dramatic tension, as the real-life account of tens, hundreds or thousands of people just doing their jobs doesn't make much of a story. Or at least Hollywood doesn't think it would.
So 0bama arrests a movie maker to keep us safe.
But Cairo Egypt protesters say "0bama we are all Osama!"
So 0bama helps Hollywood make a movie.
A film by Kathryn Bigelow w/assistance from the 0bama administration.
Click on pic to see the trailer @ Youtube.
Lives in Beverly Hills, CA. Net worth $14 million dollars.
Liberals are not only upset about the “torture” scenes, they are pissed because the production company, or the news media, gave the impression a year ago that this movie would portray Obama as the central figure in Bin Laden’s death; a glorified campaign commercial. As a result the White House bent over backwards to help speed things along.
Instead, it sounds like Kathryn Bigelow, the director, produced a lot more serious work than anyone expected. And portraying Barack Obama as just another cog in a big wheel, implying that “torture” helped get Bin Laden, presenting the CIA as an often positive force doesn't jeehaw with liberal group think.
Bigelow won the Academy Award for “Hurt Locker.” It was criticized by a lot of Iraq veterans for inaccuracies and for creating a central character who was idiosyncratic to the point of being an insubordinate rouge. I liked “Hurt Locker” and thought it portrayed the U.S. military as brave and competent soldiers in a complex war environment. But I wasn't in Iraq.
Obviously treatment of prisoners being interrogated exists on a spectrum from perfect politeness and silk sheets to the extreme torture methods used throughout history by those we now generally consider "the bad guys."
Everybody on all sides of the issue recognizes this. They also agree that at some point on this spectrum, the treatment becomes appropriately classified as "torture."
The argument over whether the CIA did or did not torture prisoners is thus entirely over whether certain techniques did or did not cross the line on this spectrum.
Those who claim it was torture usually, dishonestly IMO, just assume that it did without bothering to first prove it.
"Torture," in this sense, is more or less a legal term, with no inherently logical place to draw the line between torture and non-torture. "Torture opponents" just assume that techniques the law does not, or anyway did not, consider to be torture nevertheless are torture.
“they are pissed because the production company, or the news media, gave the impression a year ago that this movie would portray Obama as the central figure in Bin Laden’s death; a glorified campaign commercial”
And that’s exactly what it is. They didn’t need to put in scenes of Obama pointing at maps like he was in a Fredrick Remington painting and barking out orders. Everyone sitting there has already been well steeped in, “Obama ordered THIS”,, and “Obama ordered this director to have unlimited access to the SEALS, DOD, and CIA”. And “Obama conducted a special private briefing for the makers of this film”.
The entire movie and it’s marketing was made to glorify Obama. They don’t need cheesy scenes to hammer it home. They are nothing if not experts at propaganda.
Ping for later viewing.
That’s the first thing that hit me and made up my mind that this would be nonsense.
It’s “Oh” dark thirty.
Strange you should mention that. My wife and I visited his grave in New Mexico last October on our way from Santa Fe to Waco.
I prefer “the Buttcrack of Dawn” myself.....
Obamanazi propaganda
Here’s how it really went down;
Anyone who believes the movie version OR the CIA reviewer’s version of the “facts” is kidding himself.
I heard that “Finding Nemo” should be boycotted b/c Ellen Degeneres was one of the voice actors.
interesting that the picture in the lower right hand corner of the most wanted corkboard looks an awful lot like Osama BIN OBAMA>........a young Barry!
That’s good...
Making them compliant by making them uncomfortable is not torture.
I think that’s called marriage.
With 43 years experience with the same Lady.. I have to agree..
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