This movie did not glorify waterboarding and torture
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murad23 — 9 years ago(May 19, 2016 09:23 AM)
We already know from Leon Panetta (a former Democrat congressional leader and Obama's CIA director) that waterboarding absolutely did give us one of the pieces that found the Attabad compound. Panetta says "critical" information gleaned nowhere else came from "enhanced interrogations"
In fact Panetta decribes a 2009 episode in which then Obama Chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel went "berserk" over the fact that the Obama CIA had shown clear evidence to the senate intelligence committee that waterboarding did work and was crucial in finding bin laden when Emmanuel and Obama were publically lying saying the opposite:
Early in the Obama administration, Panetta recounts in his new memoir,
Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace
, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel reamed him out for agreeing to give Senate investigators access to documents on the Bush administrations use of torture techniques. The president wants to know who the beep authorized this release to the committees, Panetta quotes Emanuel demanding, slamming the table in a sulfurous, 2009 White House meeting.
http://www.newsweek.com/what-former-cia-head-leon-panetta-says-now-about-torture-276456
also see this:
http://www.today.com/id/42880435/ns/today-today_news/t/cia-chief-waterboarding-aided-bin-laden-raid/#.Vz3lseXD85s
You may disagree wit the ethics of waterboarding, but the fact is it is Bush Policies that led to finding bin laden, it is people who enlisted during Bush that killed Bin Laden (just as the entire 911 attack was planned financed and enabled during Clinton). The only input form Obama and his people were endless delays and then disgusting whoring to take credit while condemning the work that actually found OBL -
TopFrog — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 05:28 PM)
You quote one paragraph from the Newsweek article and distort what it says, leaving out the subsequent paragraphs:
Five years later, the struggle between the White House, CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee over the release of the latters mammoth investigation into interrogation remains unresolved. Likewise, Panetta says he remains uncertain about the intelligence value of harsh interrogations. No one shouted out [Osama] bin Ladens address when strapped to a waterboard, Panetta writes. Rather, it was the slow accumulation of leads, one building up on the last, some extracted, unfortunately, after unsavory techniques were used, that enabled Navy SEALs to kill the elusive Al-Qaeda leader in May 2011.
Harsh interrogation did cause some prisoners to yield to their captors and produced leads that helped our government understand Al Qaedas organization, methods, and leadership, writes Panetta. At bottom, we know we got important, even critical intelligence from individuals subjected to these enhanced interrogation techniques. What we cant knowwhat well never knowis whether those were the only ways to elicit that information.
Panettas views are a model of equivocation, a skill no doubt sharpened by his nine terms in Congress and a stint as White House chief of staff in the fractious Clinton administration. In 2012, Panettas temporary successor, acting CIA director Michael J. Morell, was far more blunt in dismissing the value of harsh methods in tracking down Bin Laden as depicted in the controversial thriller Zero Dark Thirty. "The film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniqueswere the key to finding bin Laden. That impression is false, Morell said in a statement circulated to CIA employees. -
Vulcans_Rule — 9 years ago(July 12, 2016 06:01 PM)
Harsh interrogation did cause some prisoners to yield to their captors and produced leads that helped our government understand Al Qaedas organization, methods, and leadership, writes Panetta. At bottom, we know we got important, even critical intelligence from individuals subjected to these enhanced interrogation techniques. What we cant knowwhat well never knowis whether those were the only ways to elicit that information.
Panetta's statements support what this movie showed. That is, that harsh methods did help to yield useful information.
Entropy ain't what it used to be. -
j_lechem — 10 years ago(September 16, 2015 09:57 AM)
I took the exact opposite view, I swear multiple times the characters said it would've been easier if they could use waterboarding like they used to be able to. However this doesn't mean the director agrees with it but I was pretty struck by it.
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NikolajCostas1005 — 10 years ago(January 21, 2016 11:52 AM)
I have to watch it again, but I feel like that was much later after the waterboarding of Ammar and Abu Faraj. That comment added yet another dimension to what I feel was this film's attempt at a neutral view. On one hand, the demonstrated torture we see led to no useful information. On the other hand, there are a few instances in which we can see the analysts becoming frustrated with the new anti-torture policies, including the one you mentioned.
See you in hell, candy boys! -
JakeHelmer — 10 years ago(January 21, 2016 11:46 AM)
The movie is irrelevant. Let's talk about facts
Both Leon Panetta and CIA state that coercive interrogation (i.e. waterboarding) led to finding Osama's courier, which eventually led to finding OBL.
Facts
http://bernardgoldberg.com/panetta-confirms-again-that-waterboarding-helped-get-bid-laden-media-still-confused/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/25/osama-bin-laden-capture-cia-harsh-interrogations-c/?page=all -
Vulcans_Rule — 10 years ago(February 18, 2016 01:30 PM)
On top of that, the movie does suggest the techniques helped get the information. Ammar gives up useful information, the name of the courier, only after being threatened to get hung up from the ceiling again. Then others are shown on videos giving confirmatory info under duress. Last, the advisor to President Obama refers to the information having been acquired "under duress".
Live long and prosper.