With this extraordinary film director Alex Gibney makes a convincing and well researched case against the acts of torture, abuse and humiliation committed by the U.S. military against political prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

A major sub-plot is the story of Dilawar, an Afghan taxi driver who ended up dying from injuries suffered while he was held in Bagram, a former Soviet prison coverted into a U.S. detention center for suspected terroists. However, the film explains how Dilawar was actually an innocent man turned in by an actual terroist seeking to throw investigators off his trail. One expert explains how only about 1% of the detainees are actual terroists and that the vast majority were not even arrested by the U.S. military. But rather were turned in by Pakastani and Afghani bounty hunters seeking financial compensation.

The numerous forms of abuse inflicted on these foreign detainees is depicted in gruesome detail. The methods of torture included not only water boarding but various means of sexual humiliation such as having women’s panties placed on their heads, forced masturbation and female military officers caressing them while whispering “your mother is a whore” into their ears. The ultimate goal was inflicting a complete mental, physical and emotional breakdown on the prisoners. Other tactics used were sleep depravation achieved by handcuffing detainees to the ceiling for days at a time and the sort of brutal physical assaults that led to the death of the innocent Dilawar.

Of course, it was the low ranking soldiers who ended up facing punishment when these acts of illegal abuse were discovered. But the film makes it very clear that they were simply following orders handed down from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Particularly at fault were chicken hawks Cheney and Rumsfield. In fact, it was Cheney himself who gave this doc its title when he referred to how the U.S. must go over to the “dark side” in its military and intelligence methods.

The film concludes with a powerful statement from the director’s father Frank Gibney. He describes how, as an military interrogator in World War II and the Korean War, he and other officers were required to follow a strict code of conduct that respected the human rights of prisoners. But with this new “dark side’ policy the U.S. miltary is instead following the tactics of the Communists, Fascists and even the Spanish Inquistion. They are not only ignoring the rules laid down by the Geneva Convention, but even the U.S. Constitution itself – which guarantees all prisoners the right to counsel and a speedy trial. These “dark side” tactics are not those of the United States of America that I love and believe in. Instead they are those of politicians lacking a moral compass which all Americans of conscience, liberal and conservative, should be ashamed of.
Rating: 5 / 5

Having seen “Taxi to the Dark Side” nearly three weeks ago at a private screening in midtown Manhattan, my mind is still reeling from the harsh, brutal images of torture committed by United States soldiers against suspected terrorists and irregulars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This may be the most important documentary film on the “War on Terror”, and while it is a liberal polemic film, it does an effective job of arguing its case by showing its graphic images, instead of having someone like filmmaker Michael Moore seen onscreen ranting and raving. The central saga which runs through the nearly two-hour long film is the last taxi ride of a young Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, an innocent bystander who was picked up by American troops, tortured, and died from his severe injuries at the American detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan.

“Taxi to the Dark Side” deserves the ample recognition it has earned, and may be remembered as a superb documentary film in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow’s “Harvest of Shame”. But it isn’t perfect for the following reasons. First it accepts as gospel truth, the fact that most of those being held by American soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba are as innocent as Dilawar was. Second it lacks more insightful analysis from the likes of noted military defense attorney Eugene Fidell, who represented my cousin, former U. S. Army chaplain James Yee (Much to my amazement, Yee’s filmed testimony was not included at all in the final cut of this film.). Will “Taxi to the Dark Side” change the opinions of many? Hopefully it will force those who’ve seen it to ask serious, probing questions about inhumane treatment of prisoners by some American soldiers, and perhaps persuade them to convince the Federal political leadership in Washington, D. C. to act more aggressively to avert similar instances of prisoner mistreatment in the future.
Rating: 5 / 5

This is a fascinating documentary that shows how the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration allowed the torture and murder of detainees to happen (and they should be held accountable for this), but I found it disturbing how the makers of this documentary portrayed the military personnel who were actually responsible for the death of Dilawar (and were held accountable) so sympathetically. Yes, the rules of Bagram were not clear and the personnel were not properly trained, but beating a person to “a pulp” (the way the coroner described Dilawar’s death) is beating a person to a pulp. No matter what the context, each individual knows right from wrong and is responsible for his or her individual actions.
Rating: 4 / 5