007. Taxi to the Dark Side

Stomach the trailer here
Taxi to the Dark Side is a documentary that tries to understand the circumstances that led to the death of Dilawar , a taxi driver that along with his 3 passengers was captured and sent to Bagram, an air base where suspects of terrorism were held. There his head was covered and he was submitted to stress positions and severe beatings to the legs until his body gave out. Dilawar died in Bagram. He was 22 and had a daughter and a family that were given a death certificate in a foreign language and no real explanation of what had just happened. The worst part is that Dilawar is not an isolated case.

Taxi to the Dark Side explores the American policy on torture and it is a really eye opening documentary that while graphic and at times very difficult to watch, is essential to understand if the human race ever wants to better itself.

Throughout the movie , vaguely familiar scenes of dehumanization of suspects in Abu Ghraib are shown and peppered with interviews of former soldiers (most of which were discharged), its the sort of stuff we saw on the news and decided maybe its best if we changed the channel. We hate torture, it disgusts us but lets not ruin our dinner by paying it too much attention. I think this sort of attitude passive allows this sort of intrinsically human, disgusting behaviour to carry on unchecked. You need to want to throw up. You need to hate humanity a little for what its capable of. This is the gasoline that lights the fire.

I think its easy to look at this documentary and conclude "Those Americans are awful people." You have people that are almost caricaturesque in appearance and fit the role of villain perfectly. From Yoo to Rumsfeld (who is quoted as saying "I stand 10 hours a day, why do terrorist suspects stand only 4."), these are the people that are destined to fill all circles of hell. Regardless of how easy it may be to cast them as the dark side, the USA are not alone in doing these awful things. They were using old torture chambers that belonged to Hussein. Canada is currently investigating claims that Canadian soldiers also took part in similar scenarios. Tony Blair gets called "war criminal" more often than he gets called Tony Blair. And the list goes on and on. I don't think the US, nor those military people responsible should get to wash their hands of what they did, but to simplify the situation is to minimize its real effect and that's the last thing families of victims, such as Dilawar's would want right now.

As a side note, I was actually pretty ecstatic about how fundamental to this investigation journalists were. It's definitely something that I considered when choosing my new career path and I find it inspiring. As difficult as it may be to be the first to see these things, its necessary and it changes lives and the world. So go journalism!

Recommended, definitely recommended. You need to know and see this and let that disgust motivate you to do something about these sort of things.