A bomb went off, and we looked away. The medieval tableaux of Abu Ghraib did manage to shock us for a while. Then, some people were punished, and we convinced ourselves that was all of them.
According to the Global Views survey, in 2010, 42 percent of Americans were in favor of "using torture to extract information from suspected terrorists." This is 6 points higher than in 2008; 12 points higher than in 2004. Could this become a majority soon? Are these people who have seen and remember those photographs? Have they reconciled themselves to such scenes? Could I? "Taxi to the Dark Side" is an exceptionally meticulous documentary that takes the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by interrogators at Bagram base in 2006, and puts it in the context of American anti-terror policy. It shows young soldiers with no training in interrogation, given vague instructions and strong expectations of results - and when the story goes public, they are hung out to dry. One interview, one document at a time, the fog of legal and moral ambiguity is dispelled, until televised denials by administration officials shrink to nothing next to a stark red pillar of human suffering.
Maybe our culture won't let us believe that the good guys can do such things to innocent people. The detective throws down his badge and solves the case outside the system. He hits a man in the face; he gets a name. He pistol-whips another man; the man is reluctant, and he gets shot in the leg. A bartender gets dunked into dishwater. He almost dies, but gives up his contact.
There was ambiguity in movies like The French Connection, but at some point, the detective stopped ever being wrong. This documentary makes a compelling suggestion that popular entertainment has helped spread the idea of justified and reliable torture.
Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary, and nobody saw it. It barely made a quarter of its budget. That's really too bad. It's a good idea for citizens to see it, then think about whether they believe that everything's OK.
According to the Global Views survey, in 2010, 42 percent of Americans were in favor of "using torture to extract information from suspected terrorists." This is 6 points higher than in 2008; 12 points higher than in 2004. Could this become a majority soon? Are these people who have seen and remember those photographs? Have they reconciled themselves to such scenes? Could I? "Taxi to the Dark Side" is an exceptionally meticulous documentary that takes the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by interrogators at Bagram base in 2006, and puts it in the context of American anti-terror policy. It shows young soldiers with no training in interrogation, given vague instructions and strong expectations of results - and when the story goes public, they are hung out to dry. One interview, one document at a time, the fog of legal and moral ambiguity is dispelled, until televised denials by administration officials shrink to nothing next to a stark red pillar of human suffering.
Maybe our culture won't let us believe that the good guys can do such things to innocent people. The detective throws down his badge and solves the case outside the system. He hits a man in the face; he gets a name. He pistol-whips another man; the man is reluctant, and he gets shot in the leg. A bartender gets dunked into dishwater. He almost dies, but gives up his contact.
There was ambiguity in movies like The French Connection, but at some point, the detective stopped ever being wrong. This documentary makes a compelling suggestion that popular entertainment has helped spread the idea of justified and reliable torture.
Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary, and nobody saw it. It barely made a quarter of its budget. That's really too bad. It's a good idea for citizens to see it, then think about whether they believe that everything's OK.