Zero Dark Thirty is a new adventure movie which re-frames the facts of the killing of bin Laden to imply that torture was an important source of information in locating him. The movie opens with the words “based on first-hand accounts” but by that it means the author allowed CIA propagandists to shape the script.
The movie begins, of course, with shots of 9-11 and moves to repeated scenes of torture as agents seek to get information that will make America safe. The fact that torture is immoral and illegal is missing from the narrative.
Bonnie Tamres-Moore was at the opening of the movie last night to protest. She has developed a national movement to end torture. At the event they passed out the following handout.
JUST THE FACTS
Zero Dark Thirty is a work of fiction that creates the false impression that torture produced critical intelligence. In December 2012, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved with a bipartisan vote a 6,000-page report on the results of a three-year investigation into the CIA torture program. This report contains the facts about torture.
Here is what senators who are privy to the report said:
“[The] CIA did not first learn about the existence of the [Osama bin Laden] courier from detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques. Nor did the agency discover the courier’s identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques.”
– Joint statement from: Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairman, Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee
“It was not torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of detainees that got us the major leads that ultimately enabled our intelligence community to find Osama bin Laden.”
– Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
And Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director, had this to say:
“In the end, no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier’s full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means.”
For more information about U.S.-sponsored torture, check out www.nrcat.org/fact-not-fiction
or contact Bonnie Tamres-Moore 907 S Center St. Austin, TX 78704 512-436-9307