Taxi to the Dark Side Page #2

Synopsis: Using the torture and death in 2002 of an innocent Afghan taxi driver as the touchstone, this film examines changes after 9/11 in U.S. policy toward suspects in the war on terror. Soldiers, their attorneys, one released detainee, U.S. Attorney John Yoo, news footage and photos tell a story of abuse at Bagram Air Base, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay. From Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gonzalez came unwritten orders to use any means necessary. The CIA and soldiers with little training used sleep deprivation, sexual assault, stress positions, waterboarding, dogs and other terror tactics to seek information from detainees. Many speakers lament the loss of American ideals in pursuit of security.
Director(s): Alex Gibney
Production: ThinkFilm
  Won 1 Oscar. Another 10 wins & 4 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.6
Metacritic:
82
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
R
Year:
2007
106 min
Website
444 Views


It was like 148 degrees(58 C) or so there and it was all concrete.

Abu Ghraib also had the infamous torture chambers and stuff left from Saddam's era.

I remember walking through those and seeing like fingernail marks on the walls,

And bloodstains, and guillotines and stuff like that.

It was a pretty surreal feeling.

We went to Abu Ghraib, I believe in July. July or August of 2003 to start that prison.

[PFC. Damien Corsetti, Mil-Intel, Bagram & Abu Ghraib] You put people in crazy situations, and people do crazy things.

And Abu was getting mortared every night.

These 120 mm. mortars killing prisoners.

The first time that happened, they should have evacuated those prisoners to somewhere else,

Because the prisoners weren't safe.

[SGT. Ken Davis, 372nd MP Company, Abu Ghraib] People were being told to rough up Iraqis that wouldn't cooperate.

We were also told that they were nothing but dogs.

Then, all of a sudden, you start looking at these people as less than human.

And you start doing things to them you would never dream of.

And that's where it got scary.

[US Chief of Staff, Richard Myers] It was only the night shift. There's always a few bad apples.

[Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense] It's been a body blow for all of us.

[Lt. General Ricardo S. Sanchez] This is clearly an isolated incident.

[General Geoffrey D. Miller] The conduct of a very, very small number of our leaders and soldiers.

In the wake of media attention surrounding Abu Ghraib,

the military began a series of investigations.

[Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Abu Ghraib, 2004] The people who engaged in abuses will be brought to justice.

The world will see how a free system, a democratic system,

functions and operates transparently with no cover-ups.

[Rear Admiral John Hutson, (ret) Judge Advocate General] The Secretary and others have said,

"Well, you know, we've conducted 12 investigations"...

Each and all of which were geared to looking downward,

Down toward Lynndie England and Graner, and not looking up.

The soldiers in the photos are military police, or MPs, whose job it was to guard and protect the prisoners.

In their statements, the MPs claimed that Mil-Intel, or MI,

Ordered them to weaken, humiliate, and break the prisoners for interrogation purposes.

[SPC. Tony Lagouranis, Mil-Intel, Iraq] Obviously, you know, what they were doing, in those pictures,

was not sanctioned by the Interrogation Rules of Engagement.

And they weren't interrogators. So yes, I did think that they were bad apples.

However, I also think that they were taking cues from Intel.

[SGT. Ken Davis, 372nd MP Company, Abu Ghraib] This reading report said it was happening in Afgan.

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Alex Gibney

Philip Alexander "Alex" Gibney (born October 23, 1953) is an American documentary film director and producer. In 2010, Esquire magazine said Gibney "is becoming the most important documentarian of our time".His works as director include Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (winner of three Emmys in 2015), We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (the winner of three primetime Emmy awards), Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (nominated in 2005 for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (short-listed in 2011 for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature); Casino Jack and the United States of Money; and Taxi to the Dark Side (winner of the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), focusing on a taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed at Bagram Air Force Base in 2002. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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