On Friday night, my fiancé and I saw Katherine Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty." I didn't think I would be able to watch it; I had been very vocal about not wanting to see it until it came out on DVD, because I didn't think I could handle the violence. But I was feeling brave and academically minded, so we got our tickets and found our seats.
First, I would like to extend my congratulations to both Katherine Bigelow and Jessica Chastain. "Zero Dark Thirty" is a movie very well done, and Jessica Chastain has a brilliant performance in it.
This movie got me thinking about one of the most prevalent things portrayed in the movie: torture. Now before "Zero Dark Thirty" hit the screen, the government was concerned that it portrays torture as being the reason Osama bin Laden was found. I didn't get that from the film at all.
What I did glean from the film is that our government uses torture on its prisoners. What?! Are we not in the 21st century? Oh wait...I'm sorry. Apparently it's "enhanced interrogation" now, not "torture." I've just heard that it is the 21st century and being politically correct is very important. More important, perhaps, than being humane to prisoners.
I closed my eyes and put my head down for certain scenes in the movie. I can't watch someone torture another person. I don't care if it's someone who had something to do with the 9/11 attacks or if it's "just" some random drug smuggler. If I had been "Maya" (the CIA officer who was the main character in "Zero Dark Thirty"), recruited out of high school to work for the best intelligence agency in the world, and shown up in Afghanistan to find out that I was expected to torture a prisoner as part of my job, I would have quit and blown the whistle on the whole thing.
There is something desperately wrong with our "system" if the way the most advanced intelligence agency in the entire world thinks it can best get information is the same way people got information in the 1300s. If we are the best in the world, do we not have the opportunity--no, the responsibility--to rise above something as banal as torture? I mean, come on. We have these futuristic drones that can put a bullet through a window from seven miles up, but we still rely on pouring water on people's faces and humiliating them with dog collars for information? That's pathetic. *Note: I am aware that in 2009 the Obama administration declared water-boarding illegal. I do not, however, trust that it truly has stopped, nor that we don't engage in other horrifying acts of torture.
When I left the movie theater on Friday night, I was angry, so angry, at our government and the way they handled that whole situation. I'm not angry anymore: I'm ashamed. We can do better. And we must.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world." --Gandhi
and this is the government you trust and don't mind that they (we) are over $16 trillion in debt. you trust them with your healthcare, controlling guns, social security(which they put in the general fund and spend)etc...Just learned that the government is buying 7000 assult rifles, yet they want to restrict our guns. I don't trust them as far as i can spit. Obama is no different than any other politician or president that we've had..says one thing and then does another and the media is complicit.
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