Zero Dark Thirty is a fiction entertainment piece, part of a larger effort to “kill” Osama bin Laden in our consciousness. I’d be lying if I said I understood why. At the time of the operation, I speculated that the military was leaving Afghanistan and needed to dispense with the cover story. Others I’ve heard discuss the matter think that because it is so widely known outside this country that 9/11 was an inside job that the Pentagon merely wanted to move forward and invent new realities. Most amazing is that the movie makers surely know that the Navy Seals who supposedly pulled off the mission are all dead, and their comrades too. There is an oppressive sense about this movie in that people who made it have to have some inkling of what is true.
Someday some bright light will offer more insight. But I am in awe at the total uniformity of thought among TV news readers, journalists, intelligentsia, public officials, comedians – it’s hard not to believe in this scam! True, the greatest achievement of American propaganda is that most Americans don’t know there is American propaganda. And movies are a large part of our background thought control system. Here’s a paragraph that I wrote to a couple of film reviewers who loved, just loved, ZDT:
Propaganda, I say? Nonsense! We all know that there was propaganda in film in World War II, but not since. How can I say such a thing? I should stuff that under my beret! That Arabs say Osama died in 2001? That’s my top argument? Gun it down! I should take it and bury it in a garden of stone! A gentleman does not make such arguments, nor do officers. I am making hurtful comments that should never leave my locker! I’m nothing but a hawk looking for easy prey that is already down! I should just ramble on and bother someone else! I don’t get to win this time! Argggho! Such attitudes as mine are clearly a danger and no present to you. But you gotta admit, to approach an American film reviewer and claim that American film reviewers do not recognize American propaganda – that takes valor on my part! That’s quite uncommon – no?
That was just a small list of American propaganda films, best I could do in an email that I knew would not be read. On the other hand, if any reader saw the movie Three Kings, he might notice that even though it was about the 1991 American attack on Iraq, there was no military hardware except one tank, which was probably a movie magic miniature. The Pentagon will freely allow movie makers to use our hardware, but only if it has script approval. With a movie like ZDT, loaded with toys, there were surely Pentagon brass on the set at all times. That was not a Hollywood film – it came from Langley.
But it’s not all bad. There are many good movies, and some, like Three Kings, that even attempt to smuggle some truth our way. Thinking … thinking … Syriana, Catch 22, M.A.S.H., set in Korea, actually about Vietnam, Little Big Men. … oh yeah – one of my all time favorites, Wag the Dog. Warren Beatty’s Reds was a little in-your-face instead of subversive. That never works. There’s many more, I am sure, and I hope to catch one or two more in the comments. But since 9/11 subversive films have pretty much dried up, part of our disaster psychosis. Maybe now that Osama has been wink-wink killed, they can start making an occasional thought-provoking movie again.
Here is one that I just recently learned about, as I never saw it when it was out: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The story of how the Red Trolley system in Los Angeles was dismantled to make way for the freeway system. In a land where lies are our only truth, the only way to say something that is true is to smuggle it by the censors. That was clever.
Piece of Mindful 
How was zero dark thirty did you see it? Looks badass.
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No, have not seen it. I’ve listened to countless reviews, and am trying to knuckle under and sit through it. I’ve got $5 riding on it as best picture in the Oscars, because that’s the way our country operates. And as I’ve said before, killing a guy who’s been dead eleven years ought to be called “Mission Impossible.”
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Well its obviously heavily fictional and a propaganda vehicle even if you believe they killed Bin Laden that night (as I do). I think he was killed there that night but most likely has been a dupe for the last couple decades and was more or less a prisoner at the place. The pakistani govt and ISI are basically running “al queda”, the real question is how much of it is done with active complicity of the US. Because the US definitely knows. The only question is whether they choose to look the other direction because they have no choice or whether they are actively in on it. It still looks pretty awesome though Ill definitely have to see it.
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Several problems – Pakistani officials who say he died in 2011, one of whom attended the funeral; use of obvious doppelgangers in the years since for those little films that would turn up on convenient occasions, and his last known interview in which he denied any involvement in 9/11. Add to that the Taliban offer to turn him over in ’01 if the US could provide evidence of guilt, turned down by Bush, and the fact that charges were never filed against him by the FBI due of lack of evidence, and I think we’re looking at a psy op.
“Al Qaeda” is more or less a US invention, like “Mafia,” used to sell the idea of a mass organization with big time leaders who run the whole show, and espeically, like during the Red Scare, “cells.” There are fighters trained in Saudi Arabia and Kosovo, probalby at Gitmo, used to stir up trouble, but what we know of as Al Qaeda is mostly fiction. They are always killing this or that #2 guy – Al Qaeda has more number two people than a bank has vice presidents.
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Also, kidney disease and need for dialysis – as I understand it and who knows, that’s what killed him.
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““Al Qaeda” is more or less a US invention, like “Mafia,” used to sell the idea of a mass organization with big time leaders who run the whole show, …..” That’s the template, for sure. What’s difficult, and apparently a myth that works for both parties, is the illusion of a centralized, bigger-than-life command structure worthy of military intervention. Are these heavily armed regional thugs and criminals a legitmiate threat to the large, industrialized, post-modern, nation-states of Europe and North America, or not? Perhaps the threat to expected return on global capital is the trigger for military action, and not the oft-advertised — overblown in my opinion — threat to national security. The latest bombing runs in Algeria is at an installation jointly owned by BP, Norway’s Statoil, and Algeria’s state oil company. What’s not known is who’s bankrolling this venture? Some investment bank, or group of banks, is on the hook for this.
Just sayin’.
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i listened to news yesterday about Mali, and sure enough, they are using “Al Qaeda” in just the manner you suggest, a very big operation that justifies a large military response. Their only evidence is the opinions of experts, insiders or State Department or Pentagon officials who verify that this is indeed Al Qaeda at work. It’s so transparent but without a probing journalist on hand in this land, they pull it off with ease, fait accompli.
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