I was in Arizona on 9/11. I was in the Army at the time, doing a summer of training at Fort Huachuca. Someone told us as we milled about after morning class that there was some kind of attack in New York. By the time we got to lunch there were wild rumors about how many bombs had gone off and how many planes were in the air. They cancelled afternoon class and we watched news the rest of the day, forty or fifty soldiers crowded into a small common room. We turned the TV on just in time to see the second tower collapse on live TV. I will never forget the gasps, the anger, and the profanities that filled the room as we watched.

I.

I have no idea if you will like Zero Dark Thirty (2012). The film is too close to home for me to watch like a regular movie. I served in Afghanistan with the Army in 2002. I served in the CIA as an analyst in the Office of South Asian Analysis from 2003 to 2007. I worked in the White House as Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2007 to 2009. My entire career has been defined by 9/11 and the aftermath. I have such a deep personal stake in it that when I heard someone was making this movie, I felt, at first, violated.

Watching the movie was all the more personal and unsettling  because of one particular violent scene. I am not  normally squeamish about movie violence -- I love the Alien franchise -- but it took a few years after serving in Afghanistan before I could watch war movies again. It seemed weird and disrespectful to watch real-life horror as entertainment. That sense was magnified infinitely during one scene in Zero Dark Thirty in which a fictional suicide bomber pretends to blow himself up, we see a special-effects explosion, and we see a half-dozen actors pretend to die.

The scene is based on a true incident -- an attack on a CIA forward operating base in Khowst in December 2009. The incident was so devastating to the CIA that the President released a statement and CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote an oped in The Washington Post.

A friend of mine was there. I attended his funeral and met his widow.

II.

Watching this movie made me both sad and angry. Not angry at Kathryn Bigelow or Columbia Pictures. I would have been if she had made a cheap and splashy film that exploited 9/11, my friend's death, and the bin Laden raid as blockbuster fare. This movie, if made by Michael Bay, would have been disgusting.

But Bigelow has made a sensitive and respectful film, one that honors the people who lived its story. I told my wife after seeing Bigelow's previous, Oscar-winning film, The Hurt Locker (2009), that it was the most faithful depiction of soldiers' lives in a modern combat zone I'd ever seen. I felt honored that someone took the time to tell our story, the story of a million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to tell it right.

Similarly, Zero Dark Thirty tells the stories of the countless  soldiers, sailors,  airmen, Marines, CIA officers, intelligence professionals, and special forces who have spent a decade hunting not just bin Laden, but all of al Qaeda and its murderous allies around the world. It is the most accurate depiction of intelligence work I've ever seen in a movie -- the painstaking detective work, the frustration, the dead-ends, the bureaucracy, the uncertainty, and the sudden life-or-death stakes. There isn't the slightest hint of James Bond or Jason Bourne here: even the SEAL Team Six raid is done slowly, methodically, with more professionalism than flare. If this were pure fiction, no one would see it because it would be too dull. Bigelow resists the urge to sensationalize, and in so doing she elevates the material and demands that we pay attention to, and think carefully about, what we are watching.

Good art tells stories, provides catharsis, shows how individual lives make up a broader story, teaches and educates, holds up a mirror for us and let us decide if we like what we see or not. That requires, of course, that we approach art with a sense of responsibility. We only hear what it is saying if we are listening for it and are willing to think carefully about it. Art demands an active viewer, listener, or reader; and it demands a response. Otherwise it is just images and sound --"sound and fury"-- that we pass before our senses to pass the time.  Watching Zero Dark Thirty that way would be disrespectful, and wrong.

The right response to this film is not anger at the filmmakers. It is, first, anger about 9/11, the wars, the death, and, for me, the casual ignorance among the vast majority of the population about the sacrifices borne by a tiny handful of heroes. I was angry most of all at al Qaeda, at Osama bin Laden and his hateful jihad, at Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi for murdering my friend. But the anger is muted by a pervading sadness: Zero Dark Thirty is a profoundly melancholy, grim film.

III.

Another response is to think carefully about the nature of war. Some critics claim Zero Dark Thirty is pro-torture for showing American personnel getting valuable information from detainees after waterboarding them and treating them roughly. Another, more experienced ex-CIA officer has criticized the movie for its inaccurate portrayal of the "enhanced interrogation" techniques. Several United States Senators weighed in to say the movie is inaccurate, which is a compliment of sorts. They hadn't bothered to comment on the accuracy of depicting Congress as full of stupid, slavery-loving crooks in Lincoln, after all.

The critics and the Senate are missing the point of historical dramatization. In the ten-year hunt for bin Laden, the United States did stuff, hard stuff, controversial stuff that was maybe on (or over) the line between right and wrong. Waterboarding, for better or worse, has become the most recognizable symbol of all that stuff. Bigelow's decision to include a scene of waterboarding in the movie is an accurate dramatization that the U.S. did stuff like that. If waterboarding itself did not literally provide the crucial link in the hunt for bin Laden, I am absolutely certain that  some of the stuff the United States did after 9/11 has been instrumental in preventing another 9/11 and keeping al-Qaida on the run.

Let me say that again. With all the weight of ten years of work in the Army, the CIA, and the White House, I am absolutely certain that there would have been at least one, if not more, successful, large-scale terrorist attacks on the United States without the "gloves-off" measures used in the last decade.

Is that just? Leaving aside nuance, let's just ask it straight:  are torture and assassination permissible tools of self-defense? Ultimately, the movie does not provide an answer, and I won't presume to offer a definitive solution in a movie review. On the one hand, the moral foundation of government is to defend its citizens and uphold order. A government that fails in its first duty is not worthy of the name. Paul writes in Romans 13 that the ruler "does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." If the death penalty is justified, and I believe it is, then so is hunting down and executing a war criminal. And if we can kill some, then we can certainly rough up others in the pursuit of good information about them.

On the other hand, Paul writes in Romans 12 "‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord." And we know that every human being has inherent dignity and worth in the sight of God as a creature made in his image. Maybe there are some things -- acts of revenge or humiliation -- that governments should not do under any circumstances. Perhaps the very same act -- like using an  "enhanced interrogation" technique -- is an obligatory act of self-defense and a damnable act of revenge at the same time for different people, depending on the state of their hearts. I confess after more than ten years I am less sure about these issues than ever.

Bigelow's film, by refusing to editorialize or tell its audience what to think about these questions, compels us to ask and answer them ourselves. In this sense it is fundamentally different than the other great post-9/11 film about terrorism, Steven Spielberg's Munich (2005), which ends on a preachy note with one character telling another that "there is no peace at the end of this."

IV.

The bulk of Zero Dark Thirty is a very good spy thriller. It ends, as we all know, as a war movie. The final sequence (this is not a spoiler unless you've been living in a cave), showing SEAL Team Six's assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, called to my mind the St. Crispin's Day speech in Shakespeare's Henry V:

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed / Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, / And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks / That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and spy -- and a good swath of the American population -- woke up on May 2, 2011, heard the news, and wished they had been there in Abbottabad. Zero Dark Thirty gives us the vicarious experience of having been there. Bigelow wisely underplays the climactic moment -- even refusing to show bin Laden on camera -- lest it degenerate into a Tarantino revenge fantasy. Even so, I confess it was gratifying. The finale offers a national catharsis  after a decade of frustration.

I recognize how bloodthirsty that sounds. But I don't think bloodlust is the only danger, or even the biggest danger, in relishing the climax of Zero Dark Thirty. Read the Psalms again and note how often David rejoices over his enemies' defeat. We spiritualize too much if we think these Psalms only apply to the "enemy" of temptation, or sin, or the devil. Sometimes we have actual human enemies who want to kill us, and defeating them is good. No man's death is occasion for a party -- the celebrations on the National Mall were unseemly -- but as I told my students the next morning, justice is good, and sobering.

No, a bigger danger, perhaps, is in cheapening the sacrifice, risk, and work of those who were actually, not vicariously, involved in the hunt. Some viewers will enjoy a fleeting and shallow sense of pride and pleasure before moving on with life. It may feel gratifying to watch it happen on screen, but take a moment to recognize that you didn't really do anything to make it happen. Watch and enjoy Zero Dark Thirty -- it is a very good movie -- but don't treat it like a cheap thrill.

In the closing months of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln called on the nation in his Second Inaugural "to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan." Here's an idea for a responsible approach to Zero Dark Thirty. Watch the movie, then donate the equivalent of your movie ticket, if not more, to the CIA Officer's Memorial Foundation. The Foundation provides educational support to the children of CIA officers killed in the line of duty. My friend left behind three of them.

Note: this blog entry was originally posted at Patheos.com.

April 20^th. That's the day activists are urged to cover towns and cities with posters exposing the atrocities of African warlord and International Criminal Court fugitive Joseph Kony.

The predominately youth-driven movement, Invisible Children, hit the cyber world on March 5^th. It spread like a marketer's dream. In just two days, the Kony 2012 video garnered more than 43 million hits. Traditional mainstream media, including CNN, NBC, and the Washington Post continue covering it. Now at 100 million plus views and counting, it has spread to at least 204 countries and generated about 3.6 million commitments from those pledging to take action in local communities.

Regardless of your opinion on its message or depiction of on-the-ground circumstances, Kony 2012 is a case study in the reach and influence of social media. It has the attributes that evolving digital technologies can employ to connect, inform, organize and motivate. But it also provides valuable insight for President Obama and his administration on ways to advance liberty and support oppressed people around the world.

Social media doesn't create ideas. Nor does it create political opposition in closed societies. But its ability to serve as an equalizer gives those in authoritarian countries one more avenue to hasten the changes they seek. U.S. leadership would go a long way in helping them realize those changes.

It's no secret that fostering democracy and freedom isn't high on the president's agenda. Those ideals were not part of his 2009 inaugural speech. Secretary of State Clinton notably omitted democracy in her confirmation hearings, saying the three "Ds" of U.S. foreign policy were limited to defense, diplomacy, and development.

More recently, the Obama administration was largely absent in rhetoric or action on events ranging from the Arab Spring to the continuing Chinese crackdown on political dissent to widespread irregularities in Russia's March presidential election. As the president has worked to distance himself from anything associated with his predecessor, opportunities have been lost to empower reformers in global hotspots.   

Today's digital technologies can support democratic political movements in ways not seen before. Unlike communication methods and techniques of just a decade ago, social media makes it easy to connect, rally around a common cause, and empower people with what they need to collaborate.

If the Obama administration chooses to elevate liberty as a valued American export, Kony 2012 offers several guiding principles. Here are just a few.

First, the power of moral clarity. In his 2004 book, The Case for Democracy, Natan Sharansky dissects the chasm between free societies and fear societies. In articulating this "moral clarity," Sharansky, a former Soviet political prisoner who champions the universality of human rights, looks at the tendency over time of free peoples to lose sight of what divides freedom from fear, open from closed, and tolerant from oppressive. True to his analysis, many in today's foreign policy apparatus, as well as many opinion leaders, have lost a collective grip on moral clarity.

Kony 2012 visualizes the face of evil on one side and those who suffer its consequences on the other. It's a stark reminder of the fundamental freedoms and human dignity shared by all.

Understanding and embracing moral clarity -- free versus fear -- is a simple step. It's easily regained, by this administration or a future one, in a world that desperately needs it.

Second, the power of a single idea. Kony 2012 isn't burdened by diplomatic-speak, realpolitik, or convoluted posturing. It's articulation of a straight-forward vision of what the future can and should be. Stop the brutality of Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army in Central Africa, in particular the abduction and abuse of children. It's made straight-forward and personal with part of the story told through reaction of the narrator's son, Gavin.

It brings to mind President Reagan's signature call to rid the world of communism, which intellectual elites derided as naïve up until the day of the Soviet Union's collapse and the Berlin Wall's destruction.

The causes of Soviet communism's fall fill lengthy textbooks. But activists and reformers in former authoritarian countries credit Reagan's singular, repeated, and passionate articulation on the right of self-governance as inspiration. Imagine how social media could have accelerated the changes that eventually swept Central and Eastern Europe, just as they could elsewhere in the world today.

And, third, the power of a call to action.

Authoritarians fear social media because they can't control the message. Given the opportunity to communicate and connect, activists and reformers wanting a better future for themselves and their country will call for change and how that change can be achieved, just as they did in 2011 in Tunisia, Syria and Egypt using Twitter, Facebook, and smartphones.

Kony 2012 told viewers exactly what they could do to help in three easy steps. More than 3.5 million signed up.

At a recent Washington conference, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio described the role the internet and social media could play "in empowering the Cuban people to reclaim their country from the Castro tyranny." He's right.

Brian C. Keeter has provided communications assistance to democratic activists and observed elections in Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. He served at the Department of Transportation in the Bush administration, and is currently director of public affairs at Auburn University.

Nouri al-Maliki appears close to a deal that will put Iraq's Shi'ia parties in power. After seven months of political wrangling, it would be tempting to believe that any government formed by Iraq's squabbling political leaders is progress. It is not.

The political slate that garnered the most seats in the parliamentary elections, Ayad Allawi's non-sectarian bloc, ought to have had the first shot at forming a government. Prime Minister Maliki's manipulations of electoral commission findings and superseding of judicial decisions accrued that advantage instead to his second-place finish.

Even with the advantages of incumbency in a system newly empowered and without strong legal constraints, Maliki has been unable to cobble together a coalition. Other parties fear a "soft coup" of Maliki consolidating power and have been unwilling to join a government with him as prime minister.

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