Movie-Taxi to the Dark Side

This winner of the 2007 Oscar for best documentary is disturbing and disgusting, but important for Americans to watch. Important because it shows us the consequences of the actions we allow our government to take.

The title derives from a taxi driver, and man in the wrong place, arrested as a suspect in the missile attack in Afghanistan. He was not arrested by American authorities, but by Afghan warlords who were later themselves implicated in many attacks on Americans. These warlords would then arrest people and turn them over to us saying there was evidence these innocents were bad people. The taxi driver was then imprisoned at Bagram and killed by American soldiers. The "dark side" of the title comes from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who is shown saying that we have to go to the dark side to fight these people.

And Taxi to the Dark Side examines what the dark side means. And it is disgusting and anti-American. It would not a stretch to say that the actions of our government are on a par with the worst dictators on earth. The torture that was condoned and encouraged, the dehumanization of people that were totally innocent of wrong-doing. It is deeply disturbing that we did this---because America is a country by the people and for the people. We are all complicit.

I am sure I will now be on some sort of watch list for writing this, but there will be a special place in hell for Dick Cheney and his warmongering friends...Gonzalez and the like. They are the worst of us...and they tried to make us all like them.

This movie needs to be watched...as I said...it is disturbing...deeply disturbing. But if we want to do better, if we want to be a better people and a better country, we need to know our sins. What we allowed is a sin, and this movie throws our sin in our face. Will we be better, or will we follow the road that Cheney is paving...to hell?