I read several articles and entertained several discussions before seeing Zero Dark Thirty. The topics ping-ponged between the movie's depiction of torture, and the depiction of the female lead, to reflect on women in intelligence in general. For this, I was prepared.
I was not prepared for the first couple minutes of the film, arguably the most powerful in the entire epic. For all the controversy, no one discussed the very first "scene." As the film begins, the audience is met with a dark screen. Instead of visuals, we are immersed in audio recordings of 9-1-1 calls from people in the World Trade Center Towers during the 9/11 attack. I remember thinking how powerful it was to sit in a crowded theater full of people who survived, listening to others who didn't.
My friends all reacted differently to this introduction. One of my friends objected outright to the use of such sensitive calls in such a public, dramatized fashion. Part of me agreed with her, but part of me felt that the opening scene was necessary to tie the story together. To ignite that fire within us that set us on the path to Bin Laden in the first place.
Just this morning I was accused of assessing U.S. national security endeavors in a vacuum, devoid of the ever-important long term context. Maybe this is true. How often we forget that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. American history is full of tales of detrimental foreign intervention that caused current suffering, or worse formed the enemies we face today. Yet one of the most rewarding scenes in the film depicts American helicopters sneaking through the Pakistani skies ready to right the ultimate wrong, and halt progress on any future plans by the terrorist mastermind.
Which brings to light the challenge of counterterrorism. It is simultaneously preemptive and reactionary. Take Mali for example. Should American powers intervene in order to quell a known terrorist presence? Or should we opt out of intervention this time lest we make everything worse... again? The torture debate also raises issues of short term gains versus long term setbacks.
The Israelis compare their counterterrorism efforts to attacking a production line, aiming for the beginning of the chain so as to halt the activities of the powerful and any workers standing downstream. Ideally, it would be necessary to destroy the factory altogether. True, Americans have been successful in eliminating key players. But the game is still being played, in Mali, in Pakistan, and elsewhere. In terms of the way forward, we have to do both. We have to react to existing threats and we have to preempt new ones. This will require action, reaction, and in some cases inaction.
The point is, principled, effective counterterrorist strategies that work in the short term and long term are possible. We cannot lose sight of one or the other. We cannot sacrifice safety in the short term to allow terrorist trends to disappear in the long term. Likewise, we cannot sacrifice long term stability on the alter of vengence.
Unfortunately the fight against terrorism has to continue on multiple tracks and on multiple fronts so that we never again have to watch dark screens.
I was not prepared for the first couple minutes of the film, arguably the most powerful in the entire epic. For all the controversy, no one discussed the very first "scene." As the film begins, the audience is met with a dark screen. Instead of visuals, we are immersed in audio recordings of 9-1-1 calls from people in the World Trade Center Towers during the 9/11 attack. I remember thinking how powerful it was to sit in a crowded theater full of people who survived, listening to others who didn't.
My friends all reacted differently to this introduction. One of my friends objected outright to the use of such sensitive calls in such a public, dramatized fashion. Part of me agreed with her, but part of me felt that the opening scene was necessary to tie the story together. To ignite that fire within us that set us on the path to Bin Laden in the first place.
Just this morning I was accused of assessing U.S. national security endeavors in a vacuum, devoid of the ever-important long term context. Maybe this is true. How often we forget that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. American history is full of tales of detrimental foreign intervention that caused current suffering, or worse formed the enemies we face today. Yet one of the most rewarding scenes in the film depicts American helicopters sneaking through the Pakistani skies ready to right the ultimate wrong, and halt progress on any future plans by the terrorist mastermind.
Which brings to light the challenge of counterterrorism. It is simultaneously preemptive and reactionary. Take Mali for example. Should American powers intervene in order to quell a known terrorist presence? Or should we opt out of intervention this time lest we make everything worse... again? The torture debate also raises issues of short term gains versus long term setbacks.
The Israelis compare their counterterrorism efforts to attacking a production line, aiming for the beginning of the chain so as to halt the activities of the powerful and any workers standing downstream. Ideally, it would be necessary to destroy the factory altogether. True, Americans have been successful in eliminating key players. But the game is still being played, in Mali, in Pakistan, and elsewhere. In terms of the way forward, we have to do both. We have to react to existing threats and we have to preempt new ones. This will require action, reaction, and in some cases inaction.
The point is, principled, effective counterterrorist strategies that work in the short term and long term are possible. We cannot lose sight of one or the other. We cannot sacrifice safety in the short term to allow terrorist trends to disappear in the long term. Likewise, we cannot sacrifice long term stability on the alter of vengence.
Unfortunately the fight against terrorism has to continue on multiple tracks and on multiple fronts so that we never again have to watch dark screens.
