The Report

This week's movie rental (actually free streaming from Amazon) was The Report ...

a 2019 American drama film written and directed by Scott Z. Burns and starring Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Ted Levine, Michael C. Hall, Tim Blake Nelson, Corey Stoll, Maura Tierney and Jon Hamm. The plot follows staffer Daniel J. Jones and the Senate Intelligence Committee as they investigate the CIA's use of torture following the September 11 attacks. It covers more than a decade's worth of real-life political intrigue, exploring and compacting Jones's 6,700-page report ...

I had wanted to rent the movie sometime, but when I saw it was free at Amazon, I watched it last night. I'd wanted to see it because I like Adam Driver (Kylo Ren!) but also the subject matter was interesting - in a way it sort of follows the miniseries The Looming Tower, picking up the story of the intelligence agencies' anti-terrorism strategies after 9/11.

The story, not fiction but based on actual events, is pretty horrifying. Over 100 suspects were held (never any trials) in black sites in other countries where they were tortured ("enhanced interrogation techniques" like waterboarding), though the CIA knew for many years before this that torture was an ineffective tool that did not produce worthy information. Contrary to the common assumption, intelligence gained from these prisoners did *not* lead to finding Osama bin Laden.

Here's a segment from the PBS NewsHour on the movie ...



It's a really good film. We need to know about this stuff, this contemporary history of our failures, so that we don't repeat them. That's why it's so awful that now we have a president who pardons war crimes and wants to bring back torture. And just to be clear, I think torture is evil.