Tortured Logic

[sageoftruth]

I take issue with one point. The fact that the switch to a more 'good cop' approach (offering food, daylight etc.) achieves the desired result is dependent on the torture that preceded it.
Were the prisoner not maltreated beforehand, the offer of mercy would be meaningless. Furthermore, the fact that they can convince him he already betrayed his co-conspirators under duress is dependent on his treatment beforehand having been sufficiently psychologically damaging to put him in a state of mental weakness. It's not a 'different strategy' proving 'enhanced interrogation' to be a failure. Instead, it shows that such techniques, if used as part of a broader plan, can achieve the desired results.

I find your reasoning somewhat compelling, but ultimately flawed. Part of what motivates these people is the assumption that Americans are evil, godless, and will treat them like animals. Even if the "good cop" approach is their opening move, it could still work simply by forcing them to question whether or not they're fighting on the right side. After all, if they are indeed captured by the evil-doers, why is it that they are treating him with dignity and patience?

It is difficult to say whether or not the "good cop" approach would have worked in this particular context as an opening move, but just because it came after torture doesn't necessarily mean that it was entirely dependent on the torture in order to work. In fact, having the "good cop" approach preceded by torture would probably be less effective simply because the terrorist will see it as an empty and manipulative gesture from their sworn enemies. However, if the "good cop" approach is the only one you see, it's harder to justify defending your allies who you know very well would not treat their captives as well as your enemies are treating you.

Basically, what I heard was that it's not about being good or bad to the person. The idea is that trying to break them with pure brutality is going about it the wrong way. Apparently, the most effective form of interrogation so far involves deluding the person into thinking that you already know more about him than you actually do, so that he feels that resistance is pointless and that lying will get him nowhere. In the movie, they did that by saying that he had already revealed the information to them in his ramblings.

 

[BrotherRool]

I always love it when an article spends the first half of a page badmouthing the people whose opinions are disagreed with and the article is going to go one to deconstruct. If your argument is solid you can just show it to us instead of knocking down the people involved first. Perhaps at the end, after you've shown them false you can explain why they came to a false conclusion, heck that even be a nice thing to do 'they aren't film critics for a job so they probably missed this this and this'

 

[Darth_Payn]

Ever read the lyrics to "Born in the USA" and wonder just why it is that the pro-war neoconservatives seem to love that song? It's like they never actually listened to anything but the refrain.

Because the refrain is the one part you can understand through the upbeat music? It's like nobody on E Street Band had the guts to directly tell Springsteen "Boss, we love ya, but for this song to work, it helps to annunciate when you sing it, m'kay?"

 

[JudgeGame]

The problem with all these controversies is confirmation bias. If you go into the film thinking torture is cool, you'll probably leave thinking it's cool. If you go in thinking the film is out to promote torture, you'll probably leave thinking that. If you go in thinking bin Laden was a victim of a tyranic, violence-obsessed country, you'll probably leave thinking the same. People are incredibly stubborn and thick and their views don't change just because you give them a logical reason to. Maybe this is an argument for artists trying to get messages across to their audiences to stop being subtle and nuanced about it but even then people will probably critisize it for being misguided and trying to excuse the creator's fucked up view of the world with a pithy moral that contradicts everything the work built up to. I'm not implying this is something that happens a lot but it happens enough to become an annoyance.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

When i read the words "based on..." for a movie, i read it as "having nothing to do with...."In reality we tracked Bin Larden cos one of his lackys use his mobile when he shouldnt. It was blind luck we found him and nothing more. But of course, this being an american movie, we have to see that he was tracked down using skill. lol.

 

[Abanic]

I love how Bob starts by talking about journalists who have no grounds to be movie critics because its out of their field, but then goes on to take a stand on whether torture works. He's a movie critic.

Does the "good cop" angle work? Yes.
But it's part of a routine called "Good cop/Bad cop", you need BOTH to be effective. The 'bad' cop uses force (or threat of force) to try to accomplish the objective, the 'good' cop uses a smile and olive branch. You can't just use the 'good cop' side of this system and expect results.

I think the filmmakers were trying to have their cake and eat it too: they got to show torture for shock effect, get publicity out of it, AND say it doesn't work.

 

[Daniela]

Bob Chipman's analysis is absolute garbage. I don't say that lightly or for the sake of being purposefully offensive. I've seen Zero Dark Thirty three times, and the movie depicts or describes the possible efficacy of torture on multiple occasions, including during the interrogation of Ammar.

SPOILERS WARNING

1. Chipman talks about Dan's failure to get information from Ammar regarding the "Saudi Group"; information that could have possibly prevented the Khobar attack in 2004. That is true, but right after Maya devises a ruse: because Ammar has been brutalized by prolonged sleep deprivation (which any objective legal body would conclude constitutes torture), Ammar can be manipulated and bluffed. Memory loss, Dan tells us, is a consequence of sleep deprivation. So Maya and Dan inform Ammar that he coughed up information while he was being subjected to sleep deprivation, helping to prevent the Khobar attack. As a result, Ammar feels comfortable talking about his Al Qaeda colleagues over a meal because he is under the false impression that he has already disclosed valuable operational secrets to his interrogators. During this lunch, when Ammar hesitates naming other terrorists who were with him in Afghanistan, Dan reminds Ammar that he could always go eat with someone else and "hang [Ammar] back up to the ceiling." Right after Dan says this, Ammar gives up three war names, including that of Abu Ahmed (the Bin Laden courier who would eventually lead the CIA to the now-famous compound).

2. In the subsequent chapter, Maya is shown reviewing detainee interrogation tapes. Several detainees offer information related to Abu Ahmed, his brothers, and the courier's relationship with Bin Laden. Some of these detainees are either being subjected to torture or are clearly distressed.

3. Maya then goes to interview an elderly detainee who is supposed to be the real-life Hassan Ghul. Maya tells Ghul that if he doesn't cooperate with her and answer her questions, he might be sent to Israel (the clear implication being that he will be tortured). Ghul then states: "I have no desire to be tortured again. Ask me a question and I will answer it." Almost immediately thereafter, Ghul talks about Bin Laden, Abu Faraj, and Abu Ahmed.

4. The individual who is used by the Pakistani ISI as bait to capture Abu Faraj (Al Qaeda's number three) is given an ankle bracelet with electric-shock capabilities; the implication being that if he doesn't cooperate in the operation to nab Abu Faraj, he is going to be punished and tortured.

5. Maya then presides over the interrogation and torture of Abu Faraj. While Abu Faraj never gives up information regarding the courier, Maya later states that this 'withholding' confirms her belief that Abu Ahmed and Bin Laden are intricately connected; deductive reasoning based on the fact that Abu Faraj "gave up everything" except for information that pertains to Bin Laden and Abu Ahmed.

6. Two of Maya's superiors at the CIA indirectly criticize politicians for their intrusion into the CIA's detainee practices. The Wolf approves Dan's bribery-money request only after he agrees to take the blame for the program. George challenges Obama's national security advisor, saying that he lost the ability to produce concrete evidence regarding Bin Laden's presence after Obama shut down the black sites. The detainees are now in Gitmo, George tells us, all "lawyer-ed up," and those lawyers will warn Bin Laden if they start asking questions about the Abbottabad compound. After a discussion in the White House situation room, the Obama advisor talks about the risk of conducting a raid since all of the CIA's human-source information regarding the courier (and his link to Bin Laden and the compound) comes from detainees questioned "under duress."

7. Not a single character in the movie explicitly questions torture's efficacy, necessity, or morality. Only Dan expresses concern, but that has to do with the possible repercussions to his career. He even tells Maya that she doesn't want to be the last one holding a dog collar when the oversight committee comes investigating (a warning made right after Maya, the film's heroine, got done torturing Abu Faraj).

END OF SPOILERS

I personally don't think ZD30 is pro-torture. At times, the movie depicts so-called enhanced interrogations as being ineffective or yielding inaccurate information. Torture is also never shown or described as a silver bullet. However, it is undeniable that ZD30, either directly or via character dialogue, presented a narrative that information provided by tortured detainees was helpful in the early stages of the manhunt. Individuals like Bob Chipman either weren't pay close attention to the dialogue, or they're simply ignorant of the fact that torture was used in combination with rapport-based interview techniques. You can't isolate the efficacy of any single technique, or determine with any certainty what exactly caused a detainee to cooperate (in either real life or in the movie).

 

[Lono Shrugged]

So wait a second, I have not seen this movie so I may get my facts wrong. They torture/Witcher 2 enhanced interrogation edition boogaloo a guy. And then later they treat him humanly and claim that in his torture fugue he gave up his target and thus use this against him...

Is-Isn't that how torture actually WORKS? It's more about breaking down a persons mental faculties and manipulating them. It's a massively common tactic and has also been called good cop/ bad cop. The abused latches onto the first sympathetic treatment and lowers their guard and they are pliable and easily manipulated. It's BECAUSE of the torture that this behaviour works. The character would not have responded that way if he had not been horribly abused. The main character Maya uses this to her advantage, I doubt she fed him out of the kindness of her heart it's a manipulation and many soldiers are taught this in S.E.R.E. school. I may have the movie wrong but to me that sounds like a pretty thunderous affirmation that torture works. because....well sometimes it does, after thousands of years it is still a pretty popular intelligence gathering tool. You can pretend you are civilized all you want but some things about war will never change. Like Ron Perlman's face

Personally I doubt it will affect my enjoyment of the film. No movie is history no matter how much it pretends and I hope it's as enjoyable as Bob says. I won't find it cathartic because I live in the real world.

 

[Brainwreck]

Oooh, those last bolded words.
Bob's still upset over Sucker Punch.
Is funny to me.

Haven't seen the movie, not even sure if they're playing it over here. Might use enhanced acquisition techniques to get it at some point.
Edit: also, as has been said here; good cop-bad cop. That's 'enhanced interrogation' right there.

 

[gorfias]

Ammar has been brutalized by prolonged sleep deprivation (which any objective legal body would conclude constitutes torture)

That is a big part of the problem in the torture debate, which is, what the hell constitutes torture? Arguably, making a terrorist feel emotionally bad/slightly sad constitutes torture. It almost isn't worth it to even try to end torture as simply the USA and fighting back against adversaries will be taken by those who hate the USA as torture.

Another issue I've argued here is with people that argue torture does not work. That you won't get reliable information. Another movie, "The Lives of Others" an interrogation leads to willful misinformation. It is the rote nature of the misinformation that is used to convict the guy. Interrogators are taught to sift through the cloud of information to try to find the truth. They may not always find it, but I'd hate to guarantee our enemies we won't even look for it.

 

[SixShooter]

It's important to note that: Bob is NOT accurately describing the relevant scenes.

1. Part of the reason they were able to do "the switch", is because the tortured captive had been subjected to 96 hours of sleep deprivation, giving them plausible cover. Bigelow claims this to be actual journalism, which is problematic, since the facts run counter to this narrative.

In the movie, the key piece of evidence that led to the assassination of Bin Laden, was the name of the courier, obtained after the 20 minute montage of "breaking" the original detainee.

2. And this is *KEY*, during the "switch", the captive only releases the information when he is threatened with more torture. It is absolute malpractice for Bob to have omitted this from his column, as it is a damning piece of evidence against Zero Dark Thirty's endorsement of torture.

3. Selective narrative. Even if we buy Bob's premise that the film is detached and "neutral",that doesn't mean that the presentation itself isn't heavily slanted. In the real world, there was fierce internal pushback against the use of torture from within the CIA itself. In Bigelow's world, the only people that complained about it were scumbag "politicians" who want the terrorists to "lawyer up so they can warn Bin Laden" (actual quotes).

We are assured by one of the protagonists that "everyone breaks bro, it's biology". This was not the consensus, but in Bigelow's world it's the only acceptable view.

Our main protagonist (Chastain), herself begins to engage in abuse. The fact that she is presented as a strong, smart, dedicated protagonist fighting against corrupt bureaucrats, only further cements the point that we are supposed to feel sympathetic with torturers and war criminals.

The only footage of Obama in this film, is superimposed on him being scoffed at by a "good guy" character, that then tragically dies in her dedication to finding the bad guys. What was she scoffing at? That Obama was saying it's immoral to torture.

Finally, the bureaucrats are once again depicted as "getting in the way" and "unreasonable" because they demand evidence, even though "how can we get evidence without the detainee program!!".

There's tons more that can be said about this, but it's unnecessary at this point. The basics are incontrovertible: Bigelow claims X was true. X is not true. Then, since the reason for including X can't be defended as pure truth telling, its inclusion is a choice that should be judged. And the judgement is that she creates a false impression that torture worked, thus glorifying it because anything that resulted in getting Bin Laden, is inherently glorified.

P.S.: The movie wasn't even that good outside of the bad politics.

 

[SixShooter]

Ammar has been brutalized by prolonged sleep deprivation (which any objective legal body would conclude constitutes torture)

That is a big part of the problem in the torture debate, which is, what the hell constitutes torture?

96 hours of sleep deprivation is physically harmful, and psychologically scarring. Being waterboarded is extremly distressing. Being strung up on ropes and stuffed into a box is physically painful and psychologically tormenting. As for "who decides", the United States has agreed to definitions as codified in various international treaties. Intentional infliction of pain and distress, such as sleep deprivation, is torture by our own definition. It's been decided.

 

[Something Amyss]

Anybody can hop on the bandwagon once it's too late to actually DO SOMETHING about it.

That's the American way.

I take issue with one point. The fact that the switch to a more 'good cop' approach (offering food, daylight etc.) achieves the desired result is dependent on the torture that preceded it.
Were the prisoner not maltreated beforehand, the offer of mercy would be meaningless. Furthermore, the fact that they can convince him he already betrayed his co-conspirators under duress is dependent on his treatment beforehand having been sufficiently psychologically damaging to put him in a state of mental weakness. It's not a 'different strategy' proving 'enhanced interrogation' to be a failure. Instead, it shows that such techniques, if used as part of a broader plan, can achieve the desired results.

Of course, you can use such techniques without torture--the CIA and other bodies had been using them for years before the rules changed. Confidence building (one half of the puzzle here) is also a recognised useful tool that tends to yield more positive results than torture. In fact, it's almost like the torture element is superfluous.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I haven't watched the movie, but I'll take Bob's word for it. Can't really see video games handling it with any kind of nuance, though. After the new Splinter Cell's knife-gouging interrogation, I'm fully prepared for a 'Press X to Waterboard' next.

Well, Spec Ops had Sandboarding. The main difference there is that it's presented as a horrible, painful, brutal technique used by desperate people who have good intentions but don't really care how low they have to go to keep peace. Which is kinda what torture is even in the best of circumstances.

OT: Bob, what did you expect? People are always gonna find things to complain about. Remeber that guy that called Portal 2 anti-orphan? Or those people that clamied one american football team having a monkey as their mascot was racist because they were facing an all-black team? All we can do is hope good people don't get put off from the movie by this. Heck, the ticket sales will probably dobule because people who endorese torture will be queing up to see their viewpoint validated and see one of those damn muslimcommienazis get what's coming to it for messing with EMERICUH.

 

[gorfias]

That is a big part of the problem in the torture debate, which is, what the hell constitutes torture?

96 hours of sleep deprivation is physically harmful, and psychologically scarring. Being waterboarded is extremly distressing. Being strung up on ropes and stuffed into a box is physically painful and psychologically tormenting. As for "who decides", the United States has agreed to definitions as codified in various international treaties. Intentional infliction of pain and distress, such as sleep deprivation, is torture by our own definition. It's been decided.

Link? Is it pain AND distress? Not that it matters. The USSC hallucinated that non-signatory, non compliant members of an international terrorist organization are actually supposed to get Geneva Convention protections, so, written rules are pretty meaningless. People will hallucinate whatever they want.

I heard of a technique of grabbing a terrorist by the shirt and slamming him into a fake wall that makes a loud crashing sound (on purpose)while screaming at him to turn over information. I suppose you could say the screaming hurt his ears and the shouting hurt his feelings and this constitutes torture.

On the other hand, we could pull out someones fingernails and demand information while dripping acid on him and I could argue that is (edit: NOT) the "type" of pain meant by the anti torture statute. Someone just as nutty as the Hamden court might agree.

The term in meaningless and the US needs to do what it must to protect itself.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

snip.

Allright then, What if I told you there were groups in the US that waterboard babies?

I'm not even kidding, look.
http://www.fstdt.net/QuoteComment.aspx?QID=79263 [footnote]By the way, I am sorry to link to that quote, but I just had to make a point.[/footnote]

But by your logic, that's just good clean fun, right?

Edit: Wait, those nuts are in Canada. My bad. my point still stands though.

 

[SixShooter]

Link? Is it pain AND distress?

No. Even the mere threat of physical pain is considered out of bounds: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340

"(1) ?torture? means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
(2) ?severe mental pain or suffering? means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from?
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and"

Not that it matters.

The funny thing is, you don't get to fiat this. Maybe it doesn't matter to you. But like all torture apologists, what you think is irrelevant.

I heard of a technique of grabbing a terrorist

Typical authoritarian mindset. They don't "grab terrorists" they grab detainees which may or may not be terrorists. Normally, they haven't been charged with anything, and in the rare instances that they have, evidence presented is usually torture induced confessions.

On the other hand, we could pull out someones fingernails and demand information while dripping acid on him and I could argue that is (edit: NOT) the "type" of pain meant by the anti torture statute.

That would make you seem even sillier than you do now.

The term in meaningless

Your argument is meaningless. Just because some obstinately disagree about what "torture" means - that disagreement doesn't disqualify the illegality of individual acts, call them whatever you will. So for instance, sodomizing a detainee, as was recently done (link:http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/13/human-rights-court-cia-tortured-sodomized-german-citizen/), may be in your opinion "not torture". Call it torture or not, raping detainees is still illegal for a plethora of reasons. Those same reasons why such an act would be illegal, mandate that other forms of physical and psychological coercion be illegal.

So unless you're willing to throw out basic logic (and judging by your post you probably are), there is no way to argue your position with a straight face, let a lone in a logically consistent good faith.

and the US needs to do what it must to protect itself.

1. That's a tautology. Definitionally you "need to do what you must".

2. Rephrasing that into something more legible, you mean: "The U.S. should disregard legality in the pursuit of these cells". Which is still silly. You don't even apply these principles in everyday life. Should the U.S. disregard any legal check in its pursuit of criminals? If torture is ok to stop potential plots, why not use it as a tool to fight everyday crime?

3. That's precisely what's in dispute. Bigelow's propaganda film gives the impression that torture works. It doesn't. So even if you're one of those "rawr, do everything Murrica needs to do!!!", you should still oppose torture.

So you've basically demonstrated in your post, what a terrible film ZDT is, and how warped the authoritarian defense of torture is.