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Friday, December 21, 2012

Comments from one of my former Intel colleagues on the movie Zero Dark Thirty...oh but first he comments on my recent podcast...I left his name out for obvious reasons...

My first impressions are that it is very professionally done - I also like the fact that your voice is well-controlled and somewhat emotionless -- that helps to drive your points home... also you clearly have some training (duh!) in public speaking -- there are no ahhhhs or uhhhhs in the discussion, which flows very smoothly.
now for the movie...For some odd reason, I often get press preview passes to some movies and I saw ZeroDark Thirty and came away entertained, but as usual disappointed as to how Hollywood distorts historical events in order to make a film... ahhh... entertaining.

My basic issue with Zero Dark Thirty, and almost every single Hollywood movie allegedly representing a historical event, is that I am a pedantic Virgo, who tends to over notice little "wrong" things about celluloid history... little things such as a military ribbon out of place, an uncovered salute from a sailor, a wrong line.

To start, the very start of the movie is made up and never happened. But even before the start of the movie I have an issue.

"How can you have an issue before the movie starts, xxxx? ", you ask.

The title is wrong.

No one in the military says "Zero Dark Thirty."  The statement used to depict a very early hour in the day is "O Dark Thirty" -- "O" as in the letter; not "Zero" -- and I understand that this may confuse some folks who never served, but if I'm going to be pedantic, then I might as well start with an erroneous title.

Back to the start of the movie.

There were only three people terrorists who were water boarded by the CIA in their effort to gather intelligence from the bad guys (and thousands of US military people as part ofthe Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) school - at least when I was in, being water boarded was part of the school curriculum); the dude being water boarded in the movie was not one of them, so why make that up?

That's two strikes already, and we're not even finished the first few minutes of the film,but Hollywood has already seeded suspicion about nearly everything that follows and that bugs the pedantic me.

The vast left wing nut house is going bananas over this film because it thinks that it is too flattering to the CIA, to the US Government, to whatever... they also rightly complain about perceived historical inaccuracies (although I didn't recall any such complaints on equally intellectually dishonest efforts such as Oliver Stone's "W" or Michael Moore's pick any documentary).

As a work of historical fiction, the film was splendid in its entertainment factor... and Hollywood will tell you that it is a "film and not a documentary." As you note very eloquently, the real problem is that a lot more people will see this film, and take it for a full, true story, than will ever read the actual facts and controversies about OBL's death.

Cheers

10 comments:

  1. Your amigo never referenced that OBL was "already dead". "Fiction" (lexicon) can reference any factoid written into the script and omit that the saga on its own merit, is merely visual propaganda and folklore.

    Does he know that any death and "muslim burial at sea" (facing Mecca, naturally,) was a ruse and a pathological prevarication, which the lowlife guttersnipe, Obama, owns as part of his epitaph.?
    Four Million to ship him over to Honolulu and back again after Christmas and back again. The entire era of Obama is Insane!

    On another matter, here's an eyewitness to the Syrian Free Army (FSA) malevolent conspiracy:

    http://aangirfan.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/truth-about-syria.html

    There is a planned Coup for 1-3-13 in the Repubican House...by secret ballot of all things!
    http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/21/House-Republican-members-circulate-plan-to-oust-Speaker

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  2. On the subject of Syria is a statement Putin made yesterday to an AP reporter. I'm with Putin. We should have such a competent leader.

    Putin Answers A Question On Syria
    December 21st, 2012 • 9:45 AM

    At his annual year-end press conference today, Russian President V.V. Putin answered a question on Syria from foreign press.
    QUESTION: Associated Press, Vladimir Isachenkov. My question concerns the situation in Syria. As you know, the Western countries, the Arab League, and Turkey are all in favor of Bashar al-Assad leaving his post, and they say that peace in Syria is not possible without this. Don't you think that Russia's disagreement with this position will lead ultimately to Russia's becoming isolated and losing its influence not only in Syria, but also in the Middle East region as a whole, if Bashar Assad's regime does fall?
    VLADIMIR PUTIN: OK, fine. Listen, my dear man, hasn't Russia lost its positions in Libya after what the interventionists set loose there? Regardless of how they have explained their position, the state is falling apart. Ethnic, clan, and tribal conflicts are continuing. Futhermore, there was even such a tragedy as the murder of the U.S. Ambassador. Is this the result of [their] work? I have been asked about mistakes; wasn't that a mistake? Do you want us to repeat these mistakes constantly in other countries?
    Our concern is not with the fate of the Assad regime. We understand what's going on and that this family has been in power for 40 years. Of course there is a demand for change. But our concern is something different: what happens next. We do not want to see the current opposition, upon becoming the government, simply launching a fight against the current authorities, who would become the opposition, and so on forever.
    Of course we have an interest in the position of the Russian Federation in this region of the world: it is nearby. But we are most of all interested not in our own interests, which are actually not so great; there are practically none. Do we have some kind of special economic relations? No. Has Mr. Assad been constantly in Moscow during his Presidency? Indeed, he has been in Paris and other European capitals more often than here. We advocate finding a solution to the problem which would spare the region and the country from disintegration and endless civil war.
    That is our proposal and our position is: not that Assad and his regime remain in power at any cost, but that people first reach agreement among themselves on how they are going to live, and how their security and participation in government is to be assured, and then begin to change the existing order of things in accordance with those agreements. Rather than the reverse, which would be first to drive out and destroy everything, and then try to negotiate. I think that agreements based on a military victory are out of place in this case, and cannot be effective. And what happens there depends above all on the Syrian people themselves.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for sharing this, Putin is a very experienced geo-politician and strategist. Keep this stuff coming.

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    2. I disagree. I think Putin's merely backtracking and I find his concern for the Syrian people hollow, to say the least. These revolutions are bloody and chaotic because any opposition has been suppressed to extinction, and now Putin claims he wants a kinder and gentler opposition which can meet somewhere and plan their utopia.

      I'm not buying it.

      I don't believe his claims that he's not a billaire either.

      Maybe it's the German in me but I haven't seen Russia produce anything civilized, and that includes the present regime. Russia is a scourge on the world.

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    3. As for 0 Dark Thirty...

      I have no idea when bin-Laden died, or how.

      It's disgusting to see this country, which used to be civilized, GLOATING over the assassination of ANYBODY.

      In times past any President in Obama's situation would have reported the killing as an "unfortunate consequence of events..."

      Today NO WAY...

      WE GOT 'UM!!!

      I KILLED THE GUY INSTEAD OF CAPTURING HIM FOR TRIAL.

      HOOO-RAH

      YIPPI

      Trials and shit are for sissies.

      We're fighting with HIP-HOP rules...

      Yo yo yo

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    4. Bring on Jay-Z and Beyonce and I'll show dem da pics of bin-Laden wit his head blown off..

      yo yo yo

      Let's go shoot sum hoops.

      Pass da Malt Liquor!

      Where my Camels at? Who be smokin' my Camels?

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    5. Right, where's the autopsy? Bin Laden's mother is still alive; what about having her identify the body? Instead they put on cement overshoes and fed him to the sharks. yo yo yo!

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    6. MITmichael, on the subject of Russia, all I can say is, I vehemently disagree. You sound like a Russophobe. It's not the German in you (unless you mean the Nazi, which I hope you don't) it's the British. Good relations between the U.S. and Russia are absolutely essential. It's the damn British that started the Cold War after Roosevelt was out of the way and their pawn Truman was in office. Destruction of Russia is the final geopolitical objective of the British empire and has been for centuries. Russia is the last domino in their path to world conquest. Or is it "our" path to world conquest? Who are we, anyway?

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  3. More on Sandy Hook - original reports now vanished from their original sites:
    http://blog.al.com/wire/2012/12/connecticut_elementary_school.html

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  4. Also this
    http://www.sott.net/article/254925-Sandy-Hook-massacre-Evidence-of-official-foreknowledge

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