MovieChat Forums > Zero Dark Thirty (2013) Discussion > Anti-torture advocates here: Is this you...

Anti-torture advocates here: Is this your idea of propaganda?


Explain this to me: A piece of torture-justifying propaganda that features 30 minutes of grueling scenes, in which the CIA got nothing? And the irony of the only piece of information being obtained right *outside* the interrogation room? Surely this must be the most obscure and discreet piece of propaganda ever produced, right?

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See you are one of many who got that one wrong. The only way the big piece of information worked is because they bluffed him. And the only way that was accomplished was by keeping him awake and in stress positions for so long. It worked.

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No, that is your interpretation of it because you obviously support torture. Or at least that is what your post suggests.

This was always my point with the people calling ZDT propaganda for torture, the fact that it didnt produce any workable intelligence.

You chose to see it that way, same as other people who saw torture being displayed on screen saw it as an endorsment of it. It is neither, torture didnt produce any workable intelligence simply because someone being forced to talk will say anything to make it all stop given the right amount of time.

They bluffed him sure, thats called interrogation. Cops bluff their ways through interrogating suspects all the time without having to resort to naked human pyramids.

Movie showed it didnt work, you are wrong, same as any detractors argueing against this movie.

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Forget about the movie. Waterboarding DID successfully help the CIA track down Osama's courier, which eventually led to Osama himself.

Even Leon Panetta said so...

http://bernardgoldberg.com/panetta-confirms-again-that-waterboarding-helped-get-bid-laden-media-still-confused/

And there's this juicy nugget...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/25/osama-bin-laden-capture-cia-harsh-interrogations-c/?page=all


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So sick of liberal Hollywood - these actors don't know half what the REAL men and women serving our country go through every day of their life; What irks me the most is that some of the actors (not all of them) have NO respect for the military at all, but don't mind making millions off of them. Sick. Twisted.

American Sniper was MUCH better b/c Clint Eastwood is BRILLIANT!


I like the director of this movie as well, but I prefer Eastwood over anybody.

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Torture has worked since the dawn of recorded history. Waterboarding is at the mild end of the torture spectrum, and is not considered torture by some. Most historical torture techniques included things much more painful, damaging, and frightening. Red hot metal in the eyes or testicles, for example.

 Entropy ain't what it used to be.

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People will tell lies to avoid physical torture. They'll say anything. How would you know whether what the guy told you was right or not?

The only way to get inteligence out of a suspect is to interrogate over and over, compare stories, and read people. Use pscyhology. Otherwise you are just going to get more and more lies sprinkled with a bit of truth now and then.

Torture has NOT worked since the dawn of recorded history. Do you think everyone that died and were tortured to death were guilty and the torturers knew what they were doing? No.

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Torture has NOT worked since the dawn of recorded history.


Yet almost every nation has used it at some point, and developed specialized techniques and equipment for it. There are numerous historical examples of successfully extracting information through torture. If one considers water boarding or uncomfortable positions to be torture, then this movie correctly depicts torture and the threat of torture being used to successfully obtain accurate information, in this case depicted as the identity, role, and photo of the courier that eventually leads them to bin Laden. It also shows some false information ("Tuesday, Saturday, Friday..." and all the info from Faraj), but the interrogators sift through it and quickly separate the wheat from the chaff. In fact, the movie depicts the act of lying ("withholding") to also be very revealing.

Claiming it cannot be used because some of it will be inaccurate is wrong and contrary to history.

 Entropy ain't what it used to be.

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Of course. And every civilisation has also used and/or are using the death sentence. But some of us have evolved, which is the whole idea of society.

How do you know that this piece of intelligence couldn't be obtained through interrogation, detaining, use of psychology, surveilance?

Some of it being true or false? How do you know? While one person might speak the truth while tortured, another ten might lie their ass off to avoid physical pain and harm. There is no evidence here, and if we were to study that, it would be highly ammoral, on par with the WW2 experiments on human prisoners of war, something I don't think we want a repeat of.

This film only tells one story of torture, and it is a film, not evidence for anything.

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What do you know, what experience do you have, what are your credentials Because if you are just some punk white boy working their 9 to 5, you have no clue and really have no idea of what the hell you're talking about do you ?
I can debate you and I can shoot down in flames your claims but I'm not going to waste my time until you share with us your experience/credentials. And no, playing Call of Duty in your parents basement doesn't count for experience.

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Many believe as he does because they read some partisan propaganda. In the admirable desire to make society progress, facts and reality are twisted in order to persuade.

History is different. The facts are there in the records. I recall a Japanese destroyer picked up a downed American aviator at Midway (there were many that day), tortured him, and learned the identites of the US aircraft carriers at Midway. Then they tossed him overboard to drown (probably with hands tied). The techniques they used were not recorded, but the Japanese often did not play nice. I suspect knives in sensitive places. Or perhaps repeated kicks to the groin.

I also recall reading of Germans extracting information from captured Russians. Those techniques were documented, and make a knife to the genitals seem mild. The victim was often not expected to surive, so there were no real limits. There were often multiple prisoners, so the first one or two might just be killed horribly without any questioning to impress the rest and make them talkative.

Some are described in The Theory and Practice of Hell.

After reading of that, I hear modern revisionists try to claim uncomfortable positions are some horrible torture and that torture never works. They desperately want to believe that, but it's far from true.

 Entropy ain't what it used to be.

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The stuff you post here is anecdotal. You 'recall' some Japanese crew torturing an American POW with knives? Regardless if that stuff were true - is this the kind of treatement of combatant soldiers you'd want for your own troops?

If so, then I guess you're most likely a sadistic person who should be no where near politics, laws, guns and I guess, knives.

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You are poorly informed. There is much recorded history out there, and there are many historical records of torture successfully used to collect important information. And by "torture", I mean truly cruel methods, far worse than anything used by the USA in this century. They work often enough, and that is why they were used by many different countries for centuries.

I'm sorry if historical facts conflict with your preferred belief system. Read some history.

 Entropy ain't what it used to be.

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I'm not about to give my CV to some stranger on the internet, and by reading your vapid response, it would also be a complete waste of time and effort.

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But why did they successfully bluff him? You can't answer that can you? 'How can I know? I don't remember' he said which is the point. I'm not saying everything worked and they showed that in the movie (they got nothing on Faraj later on using the same measures). I'm saying they could bluff him because of the set up. If he had been served 3 meals a day and given 8 hours of sleep with some tv in the mean time, that bluffing would have never worked.

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Torture has been used since the dawn of time but nothing obtained through torture is admissible in court. If you wanted to put these guys on trial in a court of law you would have nothing and one of the guys in the film even said so. This proves that tortures is counterproductive.

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Don't think anyone was concerned about a 'trial', considering all the other issues, like using black sites, kidnapping, and shooting on sight.

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