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Movie Takes
Zero Dark Thirty
There was more to the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden than torture.
Judging by the reactions to it that I have read, the question about Zero Dark Thirty isn’t so much whether it must be discussed or evaluated solely in terms of its scenes of CIA-conducted torture but whether it can be discussed or evaluated in any other. When Naomi Wolf can compare it to Triumph of the Will and its director, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), to Leni Riefenstahl, then you know that the possibilities for civilized discussion are already at evaporation point. Yet, whatever you think of the torture scenes, you should recognize that that comparison is wide of the mark, even apart from its shameful rhetorical excess. For Leni Riefenstahl was a propagandist, someone with an ideological parti pris which she sought to impose upon her material. In the case of Zero Dark Thirty, it is Miss Wolf and her fellow opponents of torture who are the ideologues and Miss Bigelow who is defying ideology for the sake of art.
A reasoned moral opposition to torture, that is, must begin from the premise that it is wrong even if it “works” — that is, even if it produces the possibly life-saving or otherwise vital information for whose sake it is administered in the first place. There is nothing inconsistent with this point of view in Zero Dark Thirty. Although you would have to say that it appears to come down on the side of those who justify torture by its results, its central character, a woman called Maya (Jessica Chastain), is not seen as an unambiguous hero. Her obsession with finding and killing Osama bin Laden turns her into a lonely and somewhat repellent figure whom it would be easy to see as someone who has given up too much of her own life in order to take what she sees as a personal revenge on the late terrorist mastermind. Miss Bigelow allows a note of American triumphalism to creep in at the end, presumably for the sake of the box office, but the overall moral picture is more balanced and recognizably life-like.
Those who, like Naomi Wolf, state categorically that “torture does not work” are the ideologues and propagandists here. What they mean is that in their version of reality — and an ideology is first and foremost a proprietary version of reality — torture cannot be allowed to be seen as working. They may cite, as she does, “five decades of research” purporting to prove that torture never works, but we know instinctively that the “research,” also ideologically motivated, had to have been designed to prove that and only that. Common sense tells us that, however poor a tool torture may be for acquiring information in the real real world, unrigged by ideological presuppositions, it must sometimes work. Say it worked in the case of the hunt for Osama bin Laden, as some people, not obviously liars or torturers themselves, claim it did. Only then does the central moral question of whether it was worth it arise. The ideologue’s version of the story does not allow for any such subtle moral reasoning but can only reduce the question to a cartoonish contrast between good victims and evil torturers, which is typical of propaganda.
All that having been said, however, I wonder if Kathryn Bigelow, working from a script by Mark Boal who also partnered her on The Hurt Locker, can quite escape responsibility for sending discussion of the central question for America’s foreign and defense policy in our time down this moral blind alley. However helpful or not helpful torture may have been in showing us the way to Abbottabad, it could hardly have been as central to the process as its disproportionate share of attention in the movie would suggest. By stressing the torture as much as she does, she not only inflames opinion among left-wing ideologues but also obscures the more important questions — at least from the military and diplomatic point of view — raised by what used to be called “the War on Terror.”
The main such question is this: What are we fighting for and how much are we prepared to sacrifice to win? By reducing things to a personal grudge-match between Maya — heartbreaking recordings of telephone conversations from people in the Twin Towers on 9/11 which begin the film supply her motivation — and the now-deceased jihadist, the film not only adds to the latter’s exaggerated sense of self-importance but also shows little or no interest in these more pertinent matters. At one point, a character in the film quotes from a letter written by Osama bin Laden: “Continue the jihad. The war will go on for a hundred years.” So far, you’d have to say it looks as if he was right — about the duration of the war if about nothing else. But Zero Dark Thirty’s obsessive focus on him, matching Maya’s own, makes the movie into a reflection of what appears to be the Obama administration’s view, namely that, once we killed Osama, the war was virtually over.
There are some good things about the movie’s portrayal of America’s intelligence-gathering operation. For one thing, it shows — one imagines accurately — a CIA spooked, as it were, by the fiasco over the non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. In one particularly memorable scene Maya confronts a room full of her CIA colleagues as they weigh the probability of its being Osama who is holed up in the Abbottabad compound. The consensus is for sixty percent. Then Maya speaks up. “One hundred percent,” she says, like the winning bidder at a high stakes auction. There is a stunned silence around the table until she adds: “OK, ninety-five. Because I know certainty freaks you guys out. But it’s one hundred.” Clearly, we are meant to remember this when, as the Navy Seals are preparing for the raid, one of them says to a more doubtful other that he believes Maya’s story about their objective. “What part convinced you?” asks the doubtful one.
“Her confidence,” he replies.
“That’s the kind of concrete data point I’m looking for,” says the other. “I’ll tell you buddy, if her confidence is the one thing that’s keeping me from getting ass-raped in a Pakistani prison I’m gonna be honest with you, bro’, I’m cool with it.”
That kind of black humor also has the ring of reality about it, as does the hint of disdain, otherwise almost entirely if improbably absent from the movie, for someone of Maya’s sex who takes on some of the authority of leadership in such a quintessentially masculine military operation. But then the feminist ideology, which would forbid any notice of such a thing in an otherwise sympathetic character, must have been even harder for Miss Bigelow to resist than that of the anti-war left. The only other time I can remember when the question of “gender” is raised, Maya is surprised that her new CIA station chief in Pakistan gives her no argument when she makes demands on him for help with her project. “I have learned from my predecessor that life is better when I don’t disagree with you,” he says, as if she were a nagging wife. One cannot imagine such a line being directed to another man, but the director is presumably quietly on board with Mark Boal in presenting Maya’s quest as, at least in part, an example of girl-power.
The final half hour of this more than two-and-a-half hour movie is taken up with a more-or-less straightforward account of the raid on the Abbottabad compound, and it is much the best thing about the movie, managing to be taut and suspenseful throughout even though everybody in the audience will already know how it all comes out. Having Miss Chastain pacing nervously as she waits for news from the men who alone can finish the job to which she has devoted her whole life not only belies, to some extent, her earlier arrogant certainty, but also helps to raise the emotional energy by putting us, along with the whole country, in her watchful, waiting place. Moreover, it hints of that wider social context in which she stands for the values and virtues of liberal democracy — including, in spite of the torture, the value it places on human life — in its confrontation with a fanaticism to which such morally troubling questions as are raised by Zero Dark Thirty do not occur.
About the Author
James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.
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TLP| 1.28.13 @ 6:17AM
If I may? I would like to draw your attention to the Photo on Drudge.
It clearly puts the lie to the "Testimony" given by Secretary of State Hillary Cattle Futures Rose Law Firm Billing Records White House Travel Agency Firings Vast Rright Wing Conspiracy Clinton.
The Photograph clearly shows the Administration watching the attack on our Consulate in Benghazi, if not the actual Rape and Murder of the Ambassador, on a Monitor, in Real Time.
SUBVET| 1.28.13 @ 11:36AM
Tim ..............with all due respect they could be watching the Simpsons....but in the end just like I said when 911 happened this whole thing will be treated like a TEFLON frying pan.......
They are clearly in control and until we the people hold these polititions accountable we are headed for a total CHANGE......
SUBVET| 1.28.13 @ 11:40AM
We can't even ask the lezbo real questions just grandstanding ....what a total dog and pony show.
Queen H. is smarter than a 5th. grader.
SUBVET| 1.28.13 @ 11:42AM
Oh .........and by the way it's not worth the price of admission.....just more propaganda from the left for the sheep.
even at a seniors discount......
Maxwell| 1.28.13 @ 2:33PM
SUBVET, with all due respect, the last flick I saw was Animal House. Nothing coming out of Hollywood has any interest for me. I'd rather spend my money on a pie (pizza) and a brew.
Norman Conquest| 1.28.13 @ 6:19AM
Comparisons to Triumph of the Will are apt. This movie is pure propaganda. The staging of the fake raid, killing, and subsequent burial at sea of the long-dead Bin Laden could only have been accomplished with a compliant military and a sycophantic press. For an administration that gloats over its every minor accomplishment to not show pictures of the dead terrorist doesn't wash. Nor does it that the quick burial was done to assuage Muslims. Such concerns were noticeably absent when Obama's campaign featured the raid the high point of his first term. All the more reason for them to cover-up the Benghazi debacle. The last thing they need is for the great mass of the uninformed who voted for him to begin to realize that Benghazi was Al Quaeda's revenge.
Stuart Koehl| 1.28.13 @ 11:04AM
Have not yet seen the movie, but will soon. A couple of points on the essay:
1. On torture, the sociologists may be out on whether it is effective or not, but we historians have no doubts--torture works. Whether water boarding and other harsh interrogation techniques practiced by the U.S. are torture is another question. Knowing people who really were tortured by experts leads me to say no. But, then, that's neither here nor there.
Torture is said not to work, because the victim will say whatever the torturer wants to hear, just to make the torture stop. That is true, and it is sufficient, if all the torturer wants is a signed confession. But torture has also proven remarkably effective in ferreting out true actionable intelligence, which is why the Germans and the Soviets were so effective in rolling up resistance organizations in the territories they occupied. Here it must be understood that the torturer does not take the statements of the subject at face value--he correlates them against other sources of information. He may even begin by asking questions to which he already knows the answer, so as to impress the subject with his omniscience. He rewards true statements and punishes false ones, with a consistency that convinces the subject there is no sense in holding back any information--and he spills his guts. A reputation for brutally effective interrogation usually obviates the need for torture at all--the mere threat is sufficient to make the canary sing.
Stuart Koehl| 1.28.13 @ 11:04AM
2. Women in the CIA. Shocking as it may seem, the CIA's present mission/vision statement (frankly, I'm shocked that the Agency even HAS a mission/vision statement) says "Diversity is our highest priority".
Going back more than twenty years, there has been a concerted effort to open up the highest positions in the Agency to women, regardless of their suitability for the job. The inevitable equal employment opportunity lawsuits have made the Seventh Floor notably gun-shy--opposing a woman for a position is potentially career-ending. That's why, for instance, a woman successfully sued to be made station chief in Riyadh, even though her sex alone makes her ineffective, given the nature of Saudi society.
By a similar token, a woman station chief in Afghanistan got herself and several of her subordinates blown to bits when she circumvented standing security procedures to debrief a leading Taliban double-agent (who turned out to be a suicide bomber). One wonders about the logic that would put a woman in charge in a male-dominated society like Afghanistan's, where the sight of a woman giving orders to men would not only invite hatred of the woman, but contempt for the men she commands. Egalitarianism, in this case, was allowed to supersede effective execution of the mission, showing that we really do not take intelligence operations seriously.
Gary B| 1.28.13 @ 11:28AM
First priority is political correctness. Everything else is a lower priority. The ruling class doesn't care if it costs lives. Compliance is what counts. This is a symptom of a country controlled by its press. There will be hell to pay if the press questions compliance. It's an upside-down world of fatal nonsense.
C. Vernon Crisler | 1.28.13 @ 11:41AM
I would agree that torture is morally repugnant for soldiers, religious or political dissidents, or for just about anyone else. But for terrorists?
Consider a nuclear device ready to explode near a large population center. You have a terrorist in custody who is part of the group that set up the bomb. What do you do? If you don't torture him, the bomb blows up and kills thousands or millions. If you torture him, you might be able to get the necessary information to disarm the bomb. Then again, you might not get the correct information.
What would you do in this situation?
Bill8472| 1.28.13 @ 12:25PM
I don't even go as far as to consider a nuke in the hands of terrorists. My standard more or less follows the "Dirty Harry" standard (remember the Kezar Stadium encounter between Callahan and the Scorpio Killer?). One suffocating little kidnapped girl would be enough.
The torturer should be tried, and, if guilty, punished by being fined $10 or doing ten minutes of public service, something like that. In his memoirs, General Franks recalls an experience he had with a defiant private while Franks was a captain: he put his hands on the rebellious enlisted man and jammed him up against the wall. Franks's battalion commender disciplined him by having him stand in the corner of the CO's office for one minute. That kind of punishment.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 1.28.13 @ 12:34PM
"That kind of punishment."
Unfortunately, in the modern military, any disciplinary action in an officer’s record can be a career ender. As a result, that leaves too many rebellious privates who do not get straightened out, and hyper cautious career managers in the field grades and above.
Bill8472| 1.28.13 @ 2:25PM
That, I guess, is why the service and I parted ways early in my life.
CrackerHound| 1.28.13 @ 12:45PM
C. Vernon: "What would you do in this situation?"
Well if a Republican is in the Whitehouse it won't matter what you do..it will be wrong and evil. If a democrat (or marxist in this case) is in the Whitehouse, you will not even hear about it...which is the way it should be.
That brings me to an important point. Why were these acts of "torture" by the CIA all over the front page every time they happened when Bush was the President? In fact, the CIA became a more open society than Kardashian's sex life back then. Isn't that the whole point of the CIA...you know, secrecy? The CIA has seemed more keystone cops than James Bond lately with all the failures of intelligence and "leaked" information.
There are real traitors among us and they are the die hard progressives. They would bring the nation to ruin if it advanced even the smallest of their agenda.
Bandido| 1.28.13 @ 12:21PM
Leni Riefenstahl has gotten a bum rap. Triumph of the Will is a very beautiful film, as is Olympiad. Riefenstahl was a true artist. As propagandists go, she was a mild sort, not a racist, certainly no Julius Streicher. She was nowhere near the regime prostitute of, say, Maxim Gorky. The Third Reich she depicted at the Nuremberg Party Rally of 1934 bore minimal resemblance to what it became later. At the time, men like Lloyd George, H.G. Wells, and Duff Cooper were praising Hitler for his modernity and progressivism. Was Riefenstahl a useful idiot? Surely. But for Naomi Wolf to make her out to be some slavish propaganda hack is historically ignorant.
PolishKnight| 1.28.13 @ 4:26PM
And a feminazi making that comparison is especially amusing except for one thing: The nazis weren't a bunch of whiners. One can't say the same of feminists.
fmm| 1.28.13 @ 1:25PM
Sounds like mostly a propoganda film not worth watching - thanks for the tip. On the other hand, I did watch "The Hurt Locker" because my son who spent 13 months beyond the wire in Iraq said the main character was a lot like him. So there was truth in that film.
CrackerHound| 1.28.13 @ 1:27PM
I saw the movie Friday night. I liked it for the most part. It is a long movie.
Stan Redmond| 1.28.13 @ 1:54PM
I haven't seen the movie. Does it portray Valerie Jarret as the one who in fact approved the mission after calling it off several times?
Tina B| 1.29.13 @ 9:05AM
No, Stan, that is the Truth. Not a priority here.
MachiasPrivateer| 1.28.13 @ 2:46PM
The reason the SEALS believe her is that the typical female response would be to wuss out like Holly Finn did when given the necessity to choose between life and violent death https://twitter.com/HollyCFinn/status/244988232369049600
Maya did NOT wuss out. The waterboarded terrorists did NOT wuss out. Acting against type is telling.
BTW - Holly Finn was wrong. Brave people do not underestimate, cowardly people overestimate!
SEALS live in the Real World, Holly Finn and those Hollywood types live in the World of Make Believe.
Bernfp| 1.28.13 @ 2:49PM
In the Air Force we always said "Oh Dark Thirty" when referring to early AM briefs and flights. So I had to get beyond the Zero part first. Not a bad flick. The bad guys are probably yukking it up at what the US calls torture these days. I wish the movie had shown some of the people leaping out of the Twin Towers, preferring death by sudden impact vs death by burning, and then cutting to the "torture" scenes that the victims walked away from, but I wasn't the director.
Adams'| 1.29.13 @ 12:16AM
An utterly disgusting film...several, well-trained, young, studs attack and shoot a sick old man and toss him in the drink. There should be metals all around. He was no longer effective to al Qaeda.
Adams'| 1.29.13 @ 12:24AM
Why is there a problem?