Torture In Zero Dark Thirty

Usama ibn Mohammed ibn Awad ibn Ladin, also known as Osama bin Laden, was the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Bin Laden was responsible for 2,977 overall 9/11 deaths that include the strike at the Pentagon and the airliner crash in Shanksville, Pa.” (McCoy). After a decade in hiding, Bin Laden was found and killed in his compound in Pakistan. While this execution was justified and necessary, many events leading up to it were not. Many individuals who were thought to have information on his whereabouts were brutally tortured and inhumanly treated. The use of torture was very prominent in finding Bin Laden but yielded little to no already known information. Although the film Zero Dark Thirty provides a captivating overview of the capture of Bin Laden, it is falsely represented to give viewers an inaccurate perspective surrounding the use of torture.
To comprehend what most of the torture victims endured, it is important to understand what classifies as torture. According to Article 1 of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment torture can be classified as,
"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is …show more content…
Nor did the agency discover the courier's identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques. No detainee reported on the courier’s full name or specific whereabouts, and no detainee identified the compound in which UBL was hidden. Instead, the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program” (Bergen).
In the film, information obtained from torture was a major breakthrough in finding Bin Laden. This is almost never the case in real life and certainly was not for the pursuit of the world’s most notorious