Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Director:

Alex Gibney

Writer (WGA):

Alex Gibney (written by)

Release Date:

13 June 2008 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

An in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002. |

Plot Keywords:

Afghanistan | Human Rights | Military | Torture

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 7 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Alex Gibney	...	Narrator (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Brian Keith Allen	...	U.S. War Soldier
Moazzam Begg	...	Himself - Torture victim (as Moazzam Beg)
Willie Brand	...	Himself - Military police
George W. Bush	...	Himself (archive footage)
Dick Cheney	...	Himself (archive footage)
Jack Cloonan	...	Himself - former FBI agent
Damien Corsetti	...	Himself - Military interrogator
Thomas Curtis	...	Himself - Sergeant, military police
Greg D'Agostino	...	Soldier
Carlotta Gall	...	Herself, New York Times reporter
Tim Golden	...	Himself - New York Times reporter
Gita Gutierrez	...	Herself - Attorney
Scott Horton	...	Himself - President of the International League for Human Rights
John Hutson	...	Himself - Rear admiral, retired
Maan Kaassamani	...	Detainee
Eric Lahammer	...	Himself - Military interrogator
Carl Levin	...	Himself - Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee
Alfred W. McCoy	...	Himself - Professor of political history
Alberto J. Mora	...	Himself - General Counsel of the US Navy, retired
Anthony Morden	...	Himself - Sergeant, military police
Karyn Plonsky	...	Soldier
Jack Reed	...	Himself - Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee (archive footage)
Clive Stafford Smith	...	Himself, lawyer
Lawrence Wilkerson	...	Himself - US Army colonel, retired
Tom Wilner	...	Himself - Attorney
John Yoo	...	Himself - US Department of Justice

MPAA:

Rated R for disturbing images, and content involving torture and graphic nudity.

Runtime:

106 min | Finland:53 min (TV)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:13 | USA:R | Canada:R (British Columbia) | Canada:18A (Ontario) | Canada:14A (Alberta/Manitoba) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:13+ (Québec)

Company:

Jigsaw Productions

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008) (TV)

Pointing out serious problems does not make this film Anti-American

There is something you need to know about this film: it is not about real insurgents or terrorists or about real soldiers, and it is certainly not an anti-American film.

It is about how senior military and civilian officials demand results from their subordinates, even if the results are to be obtained by unconscionable, immoral, and illegal means, up to, and including, torture and murder. The fact that many of these results - what the military like to call "the mission" - are faked or just wrong is of no particular concern to them. Naturally, you'll never find a document signed by any of those officials advocating torture and murder. The most you'll ever find is a reference to "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture). And if a detainee dies, the senior officers and officials always benefit from "plausible deniability" and claim that it must be the fault of junior "bad apple" troops. If terrorists are murderers, some of our own troops have certainly engaged in murder, too. To reveal this is not anti-American; it's just a simple fact. Because the troops often do it in a group they think they're not murderers. Just as, I imagine, someone who participates in gang rape does not consider himself, individually, to be a rapist.

While most Military Police (MP) troops are fighting hard on the ground every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, one group of troops which this film examines are those Military Police who are used as prison guards. The other troops examined in the film are some military intelligence ("MI") troops employed as interrogators in prison camps.

If you don't know already, Military Police are usually despised by their own troops. If you give a soldier special power over his fellow soldiers he will often abuse it. I still recall an Australian friend of mine mentioning that many of the Aussie "Red Hats" (MPs) who sailed for home after WWII never made it back; their fellow troops threw them overboard.

The old saw about military intelligence being a contradiction in terms is never more apparent than in the case of interrogators. When you hear the word intelligence here you must forget all about spies, codes, and the stuff of James Bond novels. The interrogators of MI are an example of soldiers who are ill prepared, in general, to carry out work that would normally take years to master. They are mostly low-ranking enlisted men and women, privates and sergeants, almost none of whom speak with any proficiency the language of the detainees they're interrogating.

So, imagine the scenario: senior officials demanding intelligence, no matter how it's obtained; unqualified interrogators using whatever means they can think of to satisfy their superiors' demands; and MP prison guards who have the power of life and death over their detainees, with almost no restrictions on what they can do to them. Behind all this is the unwritten understanding that if something goes wrong, the troops will probably not be prosecuted. God help the innocent person swept up into this sadistic, bureaucratic system. But as we all know, if you've been arrested, you must be guilty. Right?

The elephant in the closet in all this is the Central Intelligence Agency, an organization that regards itself as above law, morality, and civilized behavior. It gets away with much of what it does by having the military, foreigners, and contractors to do its dirty work for it. And when somebody has to take a fall, well, that's what privates and sergeants are for. If your kids are MPs, interrogators, or just in the military, advise them always to watch their backs around those people.

This may be a disturbing film for civilians, but it won't include many surprises if you've served in the armed forces, or on a police force, or in a prison. Those are the people who know about this, but they're not about to tell you. No wander the USA has pulled out of the War Crimes Treaty. But what officials do not want to admit, even to themselves, is that war crimes are war crimes, no matter if you're a treaty signatory or not.