Soon after the photos of Abu Ghraib werereleased, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the U.S. Congressthat theworld should "watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and withthe scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our ownmistakes andour own weaknesses."
The Secretary went on to appoint adizzying number of investigation teams -- more than two dozen. Each wastasked with an isolated aspect of the abuse to investigate. None ofthem lookedat the big picture. "The problem is that they have created a patchworkofinvestigations and a lot will fall through the cracks," warned retired2-star Admiral John Hutson in an interview with the New York Times.While theinvestigations netted several bad apples (seven junior soldiers went tojail inconnection with Abu Ghraib), many of the policies (and policymakers)that madetorture possible are still in place.
Taxi to the Dark Side, a documentary film about Dilawar, anAfghan taxi driver who was tortured to death by U.S. forces, turns overstonesDepartment of Defense investigators avoided touching.
Alex Gibney, the filmmaker, interviews theguards who beat Dilawar; they kicked him so hard that his legs"pulpified" according to one medical examiner. Their comments arerevealing. They did it, because that is just how they operated and thatis whatthey thought they were supposed to do. They didn't do it because theythought Dilawar was guilty. Indeed, they thought they had "the wrongman."
And here is where the film goes furtherthan former Secretary Rumsfeld was ever willing to go. It explores whatledmore or less average Americans to think they should torture a detainee,or tobe more exact all the detainees.
Many of the root causes lie with afundamental misunderstanding on the part of administration decisionmakersabout the efficacy of torture. In a particularly illuminating -- and verycreepy -- sequence, Gibney interviews Alfred McCoy, an author who hasresearched the CIA's use of torture.
Many of the same techniques that were usedon Dilawar (and in other instances of abuse such as Abu Ghraib) stemfrom amanual the CIA put together in the 60s. As it turns out the manual isbased on the research of a psychologist from Canada (of all places). Itjumps towild conclusions based on limited studies he did with students. Forexample,this is the genesis of the idea of subjecting detainees to sleepdeprivationand sensory deprivation at the same time. But as the psychologisthimselfexplains (in old video dug up by Gibney): depriving someone of sleepfor 72hours combined with sensory deprivation often leads to psychosis.People becomeincoherent. They hallucinate. Everything they say is unreliable.According toDepartment of Defense documents, the Army subjected one suspectedterrorist to 49days straight of this regimen.
Perhaps one reason the former Secretary ofDefense, the Vice President and others have gotten this sospectacularly wrongis that they have not reached out to seasoned interrogators to solicittheirviews on how interrogations ought to be performed. About two-thirds ofthe waythrough the film, Gibney introduces Jack Cloonan, a 25-year veteraninterrogator with the FBI. Cloonan looks directly into the camera andexplainshow he broke suspected terrorists and other bad guys for the FBI. Itwasn't by shooting them in the leg, or breaking their fingers. It was bytalking to them and appealing to their self-interest. Cloonan's approachmay not land him a role on the FOX show "24", but it gets results.
Gibney, the filmmaker, has done hishomework. He is interested in harder questions than simply, "who didthis?" He wants to know why and how it could be done better. And, inthisway, the film is both thoroughly depressing (you want to cry thelast time you see Dilawar's picture flash on the screen) and at the sametime offers a sliver of hope. Because what makes Taxi so compelling andwatchable is that it doesn'tjust document the abuse, it begins to point to a better way.