Waterboard this!

US Chief of Propaganda, Kathryn Bigelow, has responded in the LA Times to charges that “Zero Dark Thirty” glorifies CIA use of torture. It’s an impotent response not even worth reading--unless you like wimpy apologetics. She says it’s her First Amendment right to create works of art without censorship--& she’s damn right about that. So why  did she allow the CIA to guide the creation of her monstrosity!? Isn’t that more like censorship? Isn’t that more like propaganda than art?

Three US senators have been making a stink because they say the film erroneously suggests coercive interrogation was instrumental in tracking down Osama Ben Laden &  they believe Bigelow got that misimpression from CIA officials. The senators might be more politically judicious than the thugs in the CIA by understanding many Americans don’t approve of waterboarding to get information. They’re pursuing this with the CIA most likely for damage control against a potential tsunami of political opposition to the CIA for unspeakable crimes committed in the name of national security. The CIA may have made a colossal misjudgement in exposing what they do.

No slouches when it comes to national security, the US media is citing the role of Maya, the female torturer who headed up the hunt for Ben Laden, to play up the role of women in the CIA as analysts, agents, officials--as if that’s a selling point for torture. They use feminism as justification for war so why not for waterboarding too!? They dragged out Valerie Plame Wilson & another woman agent who confirmed the CIA is still a man’s world. (Who’s kidding who!? It’s a hell hole of misogyny.) Wilson said women make good torturers (she erroneously used the word agents) because they listen better & are more nurturing “when that’s useful.” Both her & the other agent who creates disguises for the CIA hope the film will motivate more women to join. The rest of us hope it generates a growing opposition to CIA departments & recruitment on campuses & inspires people around the world to picket the agitprop thing when it shows up in your local cinema. Because torture administered by psychotic women isn’t one bit more nurturing than when it’s done by psychotic men. Nor is propaganda glorifying it one bit less repugnant when directed by a woman.

(Photo is of waterboarding)