If you’re undecided about whether or not the presidency of George W. Bush is one of the worst nightmares in American history, then you may want to check out Alex Gibney’s “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a deeply disturbing documentary that may convince you that the real Axis of Evil is Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld.
If Gibney’s film is to be believed — and with so much convincing documentation, including eyewitness accounts, there’s no reason to think that it’s not — Bush and company are, at best, complete imbeciles. At worst? Well, you decide.
At the center of Gibney’s Oscar-nominated film is Dilawar, an innocent 22-year-old Afghani taxi driver apprehended and — five days later — killed during his interrogation by American MPs and intelligence officers at the notorious Bagram prison.
Using the murder as a touchstone for a far more complex inquiry into the administration’s culpability in crimes against humanity — the sort of crimes one generally associates with thugs like Pinochet, al-Bashir and Bush family friend, King Abdullah, Gibney follows a trail of torture through Abu Ghraib and Gitmo that leads all the way up to the Oval Office.
The deeper Gibney digs, the angrier you become. But what really eats at you is how a nation that once prided itself on being above the use of torture and oppression has become the world’s biggest bully under Bush’s command.
Most shocking is that a lot of the people sounding the alarms are not liberal Democrats, but staunch right-wingers once loyal to Bush. Including some of whom resigned in disgust over the administrations whacked out ideas in regards to the war on terror.
Cheney’s “dark side” philosophy, of course, has been a disaster. Not only has it lost the United States the support of some of its closest allies, it’s also bred more hatred among Muslims, which, according to the film, has boosted terrorist recruitment.
And what have we the people gained? Judging by “Taxi’s” array of talking heads, absolutely nothing. If anything, it’s drawn us into a war that threatens to drag on for decades; a war largely predicated on false information provided by terrorist suspect Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who after being subjected to water-boarding, fabricated a connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein — information that Secretary of State Colin Powell took to the U.N. as justification for the 2003 invasion.
There, of course, was no follow-up to determine if al-Libi was actually telling the truth, which he wasn’t. He said what he said so that his captors would simply stop torturing him.
Someone who was telling the truth was Dilawar, the innocent cab driver. His American interrogators, many of whom were interviewed for the film, were even convinced he did nothing wrong, but that didn’t stop them from using a lead pipe to beat his tibias to what the coroner’s report called a “pulpous” state.
Listening to Dilawar’s captors is unsettling, but it’s clear they are the scapegoats in a deadly interrogation policy that was clandestinely handed down by a commander and chief who made sure the 2006 Military Commissions Act included a provision that automatically excludes him and the members of his administration from being charged with any war crimes.
Hearing about what’s going on in these U.S. holding facilities (humiliation, sleep deprivation, beatings, even rape) is devastating. But seeing it is even more unsettling, as Gibney comes baring dozens of stomach-turning photographs taken inside Bagram and its spawns at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Photos that show prisoners, the majority of them guilty of no discernable crime, stripped of their clothes, their rights and their dignity as soldiers force them to masturbate for their enjoyment, or tie them up like animals with their arms restrained high above their heads.
They are photos you won’t soon forget. Ditto for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” which like Gibney’s last documentary, the Oscar-nominated “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” saves its greatest contempt for the people at the top.
Rated R. “Taxi to the Dark Side” contains disturbing images, and content involving torture and graphic nudity.
