Zero Dark Debate

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Carl Levin, coercive interrogation techniques, Dianne Feinstein, Hollywood hacks, liberal lies, Osama bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty

New film may reignite torture question

by Dave Ficere

It’s been more than 18 months since the daring raid in Pakistan that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. While numerous books have been written about the operation, a film opening next week may rekindle the debate over the role torture played in the events that led up to the May 2, 2011 mission.

The movie Zero Dark Thirty opens nationwide on January 11 after a limited release last month in a few select markets. The film is billed as the compelling true-life account of the decade-long manhunt for the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The movie is already receiving accolades for its realistic and riveting story about the search for the al-Qaeda terror chief responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans.

In developing the script, director Kathryn Bigelow and scriptwriter Mark Boal were granted unprecedented access to national security officials at the Pentagon, CIA and White House as they recorded hundreds of hours of interviews. The same duo were responsible for “The Hurt Locker,” the Iraq war drama that swept the Oscars in 2009.

While Zero Dark Thirty is getting rave reviews from those who have seen it, the film is already reigniting the debate over so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” (such as water boarding) and whether such tactics were really helpful in bringing down the world’s most infamous terrorist.

Former presidential candidate John McCain is one of three United States Senators to openly criticize the film’s depiction of torture as being critical to gathering information that led to the raid on bin Laden’s Pakistani compound. The Arizona Republican joined Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin in expressing their concerns to Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton. In their letter, the trio charged Zero Dark Thirty with being “grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the (bin Laden) capture.”

Feinstein, in her role as chairwoman of the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, insists that a classified 6,000-page three-year investigation concluded that enhanced interrogation techniques didn’t play “a significant role” in helping the CIA find bin Laden. That viewpoint was echoed by Ali Soufan, an FBI agent credited with being among the first American operatives to elicit valuable information from senior al-Qaeda detainees. He has publicly said CIA water boarding didn’t produce any additional or useful intelligence in the hunt for bin Laden.

National security expert Peter Bergen, who served as an unpaid adviser to Zero Dark Thirty, says the film, “distorts the story” in a way that could give the misleading picture that coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA on al-Qaeda detainees – such as water boarding, physical abuse and sleep deprivation – were essential to finding bin Laden.”

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What is the MORAL answer? How far can we go in the name of freedom?

Yes, Virginia, America has a Godly Heritage Vol 1, 2013

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freedom, George Washington, Godly Heritage, John Armstrong, Jr.

George Washington, First U.S. President

George Washington (1732-1799), First President of the United States

Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy Holy protection; and Thou wilt incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field.

And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation.

Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.



Washington at Valley Forge. Lithograph by F. Heppenheimer, 1853.

“Washington’s prayer for the United States of America appears on a plaque in St. Paul’s Chapel in New York City as well as at Phick Church, Fairfax County, Virginia, where Washington was a vestryman from 1762 to 1784.

“George Washington was born in January 1732 on his family’s Pope Creek estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia. Washington’s ancestors were from Sulgrave, England, his grandfather having emigrated in 1657. His father was a slave-owning tobacco planter.

“Although he expressed opposition to the Stamp Act, it was the passage of the Intolerable Acts in 1774 that caused him to attend the First Virginia Convention, at which he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. After the battles of Lexington and Concord, Washington appeared at the Second Continental Congress in a military uniform, signaling that he was prepared for war with the British. He was quickly made Major General and Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

“His war accomplishments were difficult, many, and in some cases miraculous. His return to Mount Vernon was short-lived. He attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he was elected president of the convention. After the ratification of the Constitution, the Electoral College elected Washington unanimously as the new-born nation’s first president. He remains the only president to have received 100 percent of the electoral votes.

“He served eight years, and retired once again to Mount Vernon, relieved to be at the place he loved. In less than three years, he had died of a throat infection. The Nation spent months in mourning him. He is interred at Mount Vernon. On the rear side of Washington’s tomb is engraved: “I am the Resurrection and the Life, sayeth the Lord. He that believeth in Me, although he were dead yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” Throughout his life, Washington was an Anglican.”

Today’s progressive historians are working to distort the truth about the amazing , but imperfect men who designed our experimental system of government. While they were not all traditional thinkers in regards to education or religion, they were men of virtue who strove to better themselves, not just financially or intellectually, but spiritually. Each of these brilliant men, understood the importance of spiritual thought. The majority of them were Christians, though not necessarily traditional Christian.

In spite of their religious differences, or maybe because of them, they valued the freedom to seek God as they saw fit, to seek the TRUTH as they needed. It was understood by these Founders that future generations of Americans would need to govern themselves in this new experiment via men and women of Character and Virtue. This is where today’s leadership fails. There are but a few men and women worthy of popular trust serving in Washington DC or state capitals. Integrity and Virtue are now laughed at by many, and certainly not encouraged on any front. We must remind ourselves that FREEDOM was GOD’s idea first!

John Armstrong, Jr. (1758-1843), Senator, Secretary of War

“Nor is this spiritual admiral disease to be healed by a better education, a few a few external, transient thoughts. It requires the hand of the great Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, and belief of the truth renewing the state of the mind and disposition of the heart as well, thereby leading the soul from a sense of fear of the wrath of God, the penalty of His broken law, and helpless in itself, to flee to the merit of Jesus, the only refuge or foundation which God hath laid in His Church, and who was made sin for us (that is, a sin-offering), that all ‘believers be made the righteousness of God by Him.’

“John Armstrong, Jr. was born in 1758 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He studied law at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) but broke off his studies to fight in the Revolutionary War. After the revolution, he was a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress. Although initially offered many political positions, he declined them all to be a country gentleman farmer. He later served two separate terms as a United States Senator from New York. President James Madison chose Armstrong to be the Secretary of War. He was married to Aida Livingston, and a member of the Livingston family still operates his farm in Duchess County. He died in 1843 at his farm in Red Hook, New York, and is buried at the cemetery in Rhinebeck.”

Have we no higher ambition than to stuff our pockets, build a bigger mansion, possess more stuff? Whatever happened to RIGHT and WRONG? They’ve been turned around. RIGHT is now “old-fashioned,” “narrow-minded,” or simply odd, while perversion is encouraged, greed infects every stratus and income level of our population, and it’s “fair” to expect others to pay for my needs and wants! WRONG emanates from Washington DC, from the highest seats of power in our nation all the way to the youngest children imitating their parents or other adults. Yet if God is mentioned, he is mocked or denied.

If humankind is capable of improvement without God, we better get started on it soon before we self-destruct!