“We tortured some folks.” Katherine Bigelow and Mark Boal’s blockbuster on the leadup to Bin Laden’s assassination was alternately ballyhooed and panned upon its release. Fans praised its purported cinematic achievements while critics lamented its alleged militarism or pro-torture sympathies. What’s remarkable today is the attention it received in all directions, perhaps a universal attention no longer possible in a society so fragmented and lost.
Van and Lyle try to make sense of the movie as a contested event, and what its ambiguous ending might tell us about what came next. They also recall where they were when Obama ordered Seal Team Six to pull that trigger.
Bang-Bang does Zero Dark Thirty:
Further Reading
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, Wiki Entry
Michael Scheuer, Wiki Entry
Imperial Hubris (2004), by Michael Scheuer
“Fake CIA Vaccine Campaign” (2014), by Todd Summers and J. Stephen Morrison
Reign of Terror (2021), by Spencer Ackerman
Subtle Tools (2021), by Karen Greenberg
Homeland (2024), by Richard Beck
So I have never watched Zero Dark Thirty, but this analysis and the discussion were really great. There were so many rabbit holes; it was a lovely listen. Now I will watch it just so I can see what Leon Panetta is really like.
On another note, the whole foreign policy thing can be indeed difficult to get a handle on, and people do go off the rails. One thing that I noticed from the beginning - even when they were still on track, and that many a certain whiff of libertarian about them. Perhaps they would rather go mad, than go left, LOL.