Rethinking Taxi to the Dark Side: On Torture and the Mystery of Cheney Not Being in Jail
I can't for the life of me figure out why Dick Cheney is still walking around free and -- even worse -- continues to get airtime so he can spew lies about the utter awesomeness of American torture and his outrage that anyone would dare question its legality. Cheney's latest claim is that any investigation into America's torture policies would be purely a "political act", which would magically exempt him from testifying or following the law if he didn't feel like it.
So I decided to take another look at Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning 2007 documentary about America's torture policies and how they led to the death of Dilawar, an Afghan taxi driver in his early twenties who was beaten to death by American soldiers in 2002 while being held at the prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Dilawar was never charged with a crime and had no connections to Al-Qaeda. Of the approximately 105 prisoners that have "officially" died while in US custody, Dilawar is one of 37 that have been classified as homicides.
Watch my review below. (I did this review for Brave New Films' now-defunct web show, Meet the Bloggers, back in November 2008, which might explain why it looks so different and lacks the silky-smooth delivery of my later reviews ;-).)
So when you hear Cheney say that an investigation into torture is only a "political act", think of cases like Dilawar's. Dilawar was not a fictional character created for a campaign ad or invented by democrats to make Cheney look bad. Dilawar was an actual person who was actually innocent and was actually tortured to death because of the policies of Cheney and the Bush administration. Just as there have been tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who have been arrested, mistreated, and held in nightmarish conditions, often without being charged or based on the flimsiest of evidence.
Just five days after 9/11, Cheney told Tim Russert during an interview on Meet the Press that the US government would have to "work through, sort of, the dark side. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world." What he really meant is that he was planning to sell his (and America's) soul by approving the torture, kidnapping, and killing of anyone -- guilty or not -- who was perceived to be a threat to American interests. And he would do it in our names.
If you see Dick Cheney out somewhere, please make a citizen's arrest. You'll be doing the country and the world an immense favor, and I'm sure countless people will sing songs, write stories, and make movies celebrating your heroic actions.
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ok ..if fine to point -out our mistakes [so called] mistreatment of terorist =[evil -men] .
WHY can n't you point out .. the Atrocities they the [terorist ] their evil deeds ! talk about torture
what was 911 ? car bombs ? violent act against women & children ? RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY
BUSH & CHENEY in that time shot they try-ed & did keep ALL OF US SAFE from another attack !!!
From the better late than never department:
No, they didn't.
How quickly you forget! Here's just _one_ example: Anthrax.
Remember that?
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Obama is not going to press for an investigation into the Bush/Cheney lead up to the war...it would derail all that he has planned for his first(and probably only)term. Unfortunately, many Americans and the rest of the world want to know ALL the facts about the lies and skullduggery of the Bush years and how we got into Iraq leaving thousands of young Americans and Iraqis dead and wounded. It's not going to happen tho....Cheney struts around laughing at even the idea of being held accountable for all of this......it's disgusting. Why there isn't more outrage about this is a profound puzzle.
There's a LOT of latent outrage. Our media hides it.
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While I find myself on the side of the author of this piece, it is important to recognise that many ordinary Americans believe that torturing anyone suspected in the 9/11 attacks was and still is justified. I know this from having talked to my neighbors here in Orange County, CA.
What one perceives as reality may depend largely on whether or not one has been to college, and whether or not one watches the news, or the fake news. Many people here are happy in their ignorance, and brag quite openly about watching nothing but fake news.
Right. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."
Ignorance is no excuse. Your neighbors suck.
Cheney LIED, PEOPLE DIED....
HAHAHA...
To expect the U.S. to hold their own accountable would be asking for much...
The U.S. is one of the worst law avoiding and breaking regimes in the world. They like to prop up regime's like Saddam's, Iran's or somebody else's but they need to look in the mirror first!
And the sad part is the sheep in the U.S. just keep on a chewing!
There's a vast invisible majority who are VERY upset with all this. A large problem is that our media hides it - the truth is very inconvenient for them...
Whatever can be said about waterboarding et al, it was not Bush Administration policy to beat prisoners to death. The man you speak of was not killed due to Bush policies. Our troops have killed prisoners in the past under other policies, as have other nations troops.
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Actually, as I recall, Dilawar died from a hemorrhage caused by repeated strikes to the legs, a tactic approved by the Bush administration. And his legs were so destroyed that even had he lived, he would've had to have his legs amputated. And if the Bush administration was upset about what was happening at Bagram, they wouldn't have had the officers at Bagram train soldiers at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib about effective ways to get intel out of prisoners.
Thank you for the courage to write about this, the things we would rather deny than face and take responsible action for justice.
rendition, torture, and murder.............it these horrors are not redressed they will be a stain on America for all of history
the mystery is only in the minds who don't understand how the system works
Glenn Greenwald had an excellent article on this just the other day about the cult of personality surrounding the Bush administration. And how the right has gone out of it's way to pretend it doesn't exist. Obviously it is still around to some degree or we would see those two in cuffs by now.
Bush, Cheney& Rumsfeld should be on trial in the Hague for war crimes. What's good for the goose you know the rest. Because of these 3 so many lives will never be the same, and not say all the lives lost then and still now. If their so sure of their actions and end results then let them prove it to us and the rest of the world. Till the USA starts holding it's self to the same standards we preach we will always look like the bullies we are. They say history will show them right, sorry we don't have time to find out if they were right or wrong because we need to know now for all to move foreword!
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I agree with your comment 1000%!
Sorry the U.S. is too high class to ratify the ICC Treaty, they do not mingle with the low life's like other countries around the world...
No ICC Treaty, no trial at the Hague!
Cheney is being protected by Obama and Holder. If they don't arrest him soon, they will be considered accomplices.
Obama works for the same filth that Cheney works for.
Hear, hear Jonathon!
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