But the ephemera of politics and dogma fade into the background as the director fiercely aided by his lead actor, Vincent Gallo creates a sort of feral cinema, in which a captured combatant, beaten and jailed and enduring rendition to an unnamed European country, manages to escape.

NEWYORKER: Essential Killing

For example, when someone is maybe a combatant but has been captured and executed after capture.

NPR: Inside Baghdad's Overflowing Central Morgue

During her confirmation as solicitor-general, she agreed with a Republican inquisitor that America is at war with terrorists, and she appeared to agree that an al-Qaeda financier captured in, say, the Philippines, can be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant.

ECONOMIST: The Supreme Court