James Evan I.

Obnamia
11684917
Zero Dark Thirty: Subjective Justice
The movie is set in the happenings post-September 11 bombing, in particular the retaliation
of the US government and its allies in order to capture the master-mind of the aforesaid bombing,
Osama Bin Laden.
The movie introduced us to the core program of the west in this effort, the detainee
program. In the perspective international humanitarian law, it sounds like a positive program
dedicated in the protection of detainees as to maintain the well-being of the captured insurgents.
We are instead presented, even more than thorough as one could normally stomach, with all the
different methods of torture that intelligence offices are ready to perform in order to obtain most
valuable information from their detainees.
The acts performed are very dehumanizing, it is focused on the purpose of making the
subject feel worthless and helpless. It was made to establish as sense of the interrogator’s
superiority over the subject, even taking the usually romantic like, “you are mine” into a very
powerful dehumanizing speech in order to make the subject feel like an object or a property that
is at the very disposal of his owner-interrogator. Threats of harm as well as actual injuries were
inflicted throughout the program in order to extract what the agency need to perform its duties.
Behind the gruesome acts within the confinement of its detention facilities, the actors of
the intelligence of the agency operated for the purpose considered noble, to save lives through
preventing the attacks by extracting the necessary information of future attacks from the detainees.
There is this question that was clearly presented to us but was not definitely answered at
the end of the film. Can the violence and torture inflicted against the captured terrorists be ever
justified? In the film, the violence was inflicted for a very noble cause of saving multiple lives by
preventing the attacks from happening. In the eyes of the agents, their dehumanizing acts are
greatly justified of their cause. For them, there is equal trade between the life of this terrorist and
the number of lives they could save. There is no clear answer to this. It is hard to imagine that one
would be fine to know that a multiple of lives would be lost although there is a way to prevent it,
but it is as well hard to give quantitative or qualitative values to each lives involved in the situation,
both the terrorists and the future victims of the bombings.
Instead of giving us a clear response to the earlier question, the movie gave us an idea of
how those involved react to the situation, especially the interrogators. The female detective has a
very interesting character development where she was apprehensive at first to the methods of
questioning the detainees. We could see from her reactions that she was not as detached as the
other interrogators from the sufferings of the detainees, she is sometimes appalled by the methods
performed, but she nevertheless did not stop it from happening since she believes that it is
necessary in order to save innocent lives. In fact as the story progresses, she also became a battle
hardened interrogator and even adopted the lines of his predecessor-“mentor.”
 The movie also touched upon another concept of international humanitarian law:
proportionality and distinction. This happened in the event of preparing for the operation against
the Bin Laden compound. The female agent is really appalled by the acts of Bin Laden that she
dedicated her life in the pursuit of his death. She wants Bin Laden’s death be handed to her. She
even told the soldiers that if given the chance, she would like to have a bomb be dropped in the
compound just to have it done and over with, but the government would not allow the same since
the compound is near a residential area and that a bomb would potentially cause damage against
the civilian population as well. Also the fact that there are other people in the compound, including
the wives and children of the said terrorists made the use of bomb prohibited.
They instead opted for the use of the canaries, or the soldiers to have the job done. Unlike
a bomb, these specially-trained soldiers have the ability to minimize their impact to non-target
subjects, and also distinguish and spare them. These soldiers showed their skills in making split
second decisions when an individual is a threat or not, because of this, the women (aside from one
who tried to reached for the gun) and the children were spared. The soldiers also showed they
restrained from firing against the civilians approaching the compound during the operation even
though there are signs that these people could be threats to them. The movie, however, showed
that this is not perfect also, since there is this one soldier who in the heat of the operation
accidentally killed a guy who appeared to be unarmed.
Although the movie ended in a celebratory note for the death of the most wanted terrorist,
one could not help but think of what will happen to the detainees shown earlier in the films? If the
government finds these individuals as grave threats to their security, will they ever get out? When
one of the agents said that they have no reason to be afraid of retaliation from their subjects since
they are never getting out, does that mean that these people will be killed eventually? These
questions shows that there are multiple sides in each story, and sometimes it is a lot darker, and
considering that multiple subjects were needed to be tortured for this single operation, how much
more suffered for the countless operations conducted in the war or rather fight against terrorism?
James Evan I. Obnamia
11684917
Hotel Rwanda: Putting Numbers on People’s Heads
In a creative perspective, it is great that the movie started by explaining the root of the
controversy that the film is about to explore. It is more so important that this introduction will give
light to one of the most gruesome incident of mass killing in history. It is appalling to know that
the reason behind one of the worst act of violence due to racism was not even rooted in the
country’s history but instead whimsically imposed by their Belgian colonizers. Belgians sparked
the hatred between the Tutsis and the Hutus. What is worse is that the Belgians left Rwanda to
their own devices when they were done with their business.
When the killing started, a lot of hope was put into the shoulders of the UN into protecting
the lives of the innocent Rwandans. That hope did not last as UN is even unsure of what measures
to take in such a case since they are “peacekeepers not peacemakers.” They have guns but they
cannot confront the rebels even if it is for the protection of the civilian population. The situation
comes to worse when the UN decided to act on the matter, they opted to recall its personnel from
the country instead from protecting it. The order requires that all the whites be evacuated and leave
the Rwandan population again to their own devices. The frustration of the head of the UN
personnel deployed in the hotel showed us that racism exist not only within the confines of Rwanda
but also in the international community. The whites are being salvaged for the reason they are
whites. The community was not ready to commit to the expenses and consequences of dealing
with the rebel groups in order to save the civilian Rwandans. The community do not think that
they are worth it. They were even considered worse than “niggers,” they were Africans.
There were also media coverage when the killings happened. A lot of hope was also put on
the footage shot by the media showing the atrocities being done, that when shown to the world
someone would intervene, but this was immediately shot down by the cameraman. When asked
why would the world not intervene even when they witness such atrocity, the cameraman simply
answered that when the world see the footage, they will feel bad, but then eat their dinners
afterwards. The world was apathetic to realities far away from them.
Instead of the UN, Red Cross was the main source of help during the crisis. Their marked
vehicles were used to save civilians and that they were freely moving around just to do that. They
were not afraid to go in the heat of battle to save lives. This did not last long either since rebels
trashed the marked vehicle as retaliation. This is considered a war crime. The rebels even let the
red cross personnel to watch the killings of the Tutsi children. The personnel even noted that the
rebels are specifically targeting children to cut off the next generation. The personnel also recounts
the horrifying memory of a child pleading not to be killed by promising that she will not be a Tutsi
anymore as if it was her fault for being one.
While all of these atrocities are happening, the world was unsure how to react. The world
cannot grasp its way around the concept of genocide. It does not know how to define it. They even
suggested to use a formula for its determination. A formula that would put numbers above the head
of people dehumanizing them in part by giving values for their lives. It was not enough that a lot
of people are cruelly killed out of hate in order to demand help from the international community.
In the end, Paul survived by his own devices, he struck a deal with the general, who was
himself a Hutu, that Paul will stand as witness in front of the international court to defend the
latter’s innocence from the involvement of the genocide. It was great that due to this, Paul and his
group were finally saved from the killing but it is appalling to think that such general who willingly
neglected his duty to protect his people and is guilty of war crimes, to escape unscathed from all
his liabilities while millions died without dignity in the hands of the rebels.