Review of Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) by Walter M — 13 May 2010

"Taxi to the Dark Side" is a highly insightful documentary that starts with the relatively simple incident of an Afghan taxi driver dying in custody at Bagram Army Base on December 5, 2002. While by now we may think we know most of what we can about torture and detainee abuses in the 21st century, the movie does a highly effective and disturbing job of connecting the dots, first by connecting the abuses at Bagram, first exposed by a pair of intrepid New York Times reporters, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. This proves that they did not just happen in a vacuum and were systematic in function, being the result of orders coming from the very top which would override any moral qualms the soldiers might have by dehumanizing their prisoners.(In the resulting investigations, only enlisted men would be charged with crimes.) This would also include Guantanamo Bay where prisoners have been held without trial and access to habeas corpus and lawyers which are some of the cornerstones of a free society.

It is not just the causes that interest director Alex Gibney so much but also the effects down the road. Because prisoners are routinely tortured, any information gathered will most likely be either useless or outright lies, with grave results possible. There is an example of friendly interrogation given by an experienced interrogator which proves how truly effective this approach would be by comparison. In the end, a lot of people who would have been sympathetic to the United States may now be susceptible to being fanaticized and we can already see some of this happening.