Zero Dark Thirty spin

Senators: ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ film a ‘dangerous’ mix of fact, fiction

From The Hill

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says the film “Zero Dark Thirty” is a combination of “fact, fiction and Hollywood” that dangerously links the use of torture with the killing of Osama bin Laden.

“I thought it was terrible,” said Feinstein, one of a handful of lawmakers to see the film ahead of its limited release this week. “It is a combination of fact, fiction and Hollywood in a very dangerous combination.”

“McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said Tuesday that he was “sickened” by the film when he saw it, according to The Associated Press, saying the filmmakers fell hook, line and sinker for the torture storyline.”

With former Vice President Dick Cheney maintaining that techniques, including waterboarding, depriving prisoners of sleep, and putting them in stressful positions for extended periods of time did play an important role in the gathering of intelligence, it’s unclear to me exactly who to believe here but I’m not sure that is really the point as I am sure Senators Feinstein and McCain are fully aware.

As quoted above, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says the film “Zero Dark Thirty” is a combination of “fact, fiction and Hollywood” that dangerously links the use of torture with the killing of Osama bin Laden. But, what exactly is her problem with this?

The problem has nothing to do with the never before seen Hollywood mixture of fact and fiction and everything with the fact that, for many people in the world, perception equals reality regardless of whether there is a grain of truth to the perception or not.

Unfortunately for the current administration, this problem was made significantly worse by their consistent insistence that a YouTube video was to blame for the Benghazi massacre. Now, when the Muslim world sees Americans torturing their people, they are going to believe that is what happened and, God forbid, react accordingly.

Not only did the Obama administration lie to the American people to absolve themselves of accountability for the systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies that led to the Benghazi deaths, they told the entire Muslim world to believe what they see on YouTube is truth. That being the case, they are now forced to set the “this movie is not based on fact” narrative in motion prior to the film’s release.

This is going to be a pretty hard case to make since it has been well reported that the moviemakers got top-level access to the most classified mission in history to make what many perceive to be pro-Obama propaganda.