Zero Dark Thirty - Interrogation Insights and Unexpected Connections
Maya: [to Ammar, referencing the [[w:2004 Khobar massacre|2004 Khboar massacre]
After we kept you awake for 96 hours, you gave us names of some of your brothers and saved the lives of a lot of innocent people.
Dan:
Which is the smart thing to do, you're starting to think for yourself. Eat up! You earned it!
Dan:
So you flew via Amman to Kabul to hang out with your uncle? Mukhtar.
Amar:
How did you know that?
Dan: [[w:Peshawar|Pesh]
I told you man, I know you. Alright, you got me - flight manifests. It must've been pretty fucked up for you guys after 9/11. What did you do after the invasion and before you went back to ]?
Ammar:
After 9/11 we had to choose: fight, to protect our turf - or run.
Dan:
You chose to fight.
Ammar:
I wanted to kill Americans. We tried to get into Tora Bora, but the bombing was too high. We couldn't cross.
Maya:
Sorry, who is the "we" in that sentence?
Dan: [casually, but annoyed]
I can go eat with some other dude and hang you back up to the ceiling.
Ammar: [[w:Abu Hamza Rabia|Hamza Rabia; [w:Midhat Mursi|Khabab al-Masri; [w:Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti|Abu Ahmed]
], ], and ].
Maya:
Who's Abu Ahmed? I've heard of the other guys.
Ammar:
He was a computer guy with us at the time. After Tora Bora, I went back to Pesh - as you know - and he went North, I think, to Kunar.
Maya:
What's his family name?
Ammar:
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti
Maya:
Abu Ahmed means father of Ahmed," it's a kunya. Ammar, I know the difference between a war name and an Arabic name.
Dan:
She got you there, dude.
Ammar:
I swear to you both: I don't know his family name. I would have never asked him something like that. It's not how my uncle worked. My uncle told me he worked for bin Laden. I did see him, once, about a year ago, in Karachi. He read us all a letter from the Sheikh.
Maya:
A letter?
Dan:
What did it say?
Ammar:
It said: "Continue the jihad. The work will go on for a hundred years.
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.
Zero Dark Thirty - Confrontation and Power Dynamics in Interrogation
Dan:
Right now, this is about you coming to terms with your situation. It's you and me, bro. I want you to understand that I know you, that I've been studying you for a very long time. I could have had you killed in Karachi. But I let you live so you can I could talk.
Ammar:
You beat me when my hands are tied. I won't talk to you.
Dan:
Life isn't always fair, my friend. Did you really think that when we got you, I'd be a nice fucking guy?
Ammar:
You're a mid-level guy. You're a garbage man in a corporation. Why should I respect you?
Dan:
And you're a money man. A paperboy! A disgrace to humanity! You and your uncle murdered three thousand innocent people. I have your name on a five-thousand dollar transfer via Western Union to a 9/11 hijacker; and you got popped with 150 kilograms of high explosives in your house! And then you DARE question me?!
Quotes sourced from Wikiquote (© Wikiquote contributors), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Modified for formatting/length.