Taxi to the Dark Side
Reviewed by James Slone
On December 5, 2002, shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan, a 22-year old farmer turned taxi driver named Dilawar was arrested by Afghan militia on the way to Khost. Falsely accused of aiding in rocket attacks against US forces, he was handed over to American military intelligence at Bagram Air Base, where he was detained for interrogation. But instead of being asked questions, he was repeatedly shackled to the ceiling of his cell, deprived of sleep and forced to stand for hours at a time. Six days after his detainment, he was found dead in his cell. His autopsy revealed that the cause of death was blunt trauma caused by multiple beatings. The US soldiers charged with his protection had pummeled his legs into pulp.
“Taxi to the Dark Side” is an ugly, close-up examination of the use of torture as an intelligence gathering tool since September 11, 2001, as well as the tortured logic used to justify it. As pointed as it is enraging, the documentary—written and directed by Alex Gibney, who co-wrote and directed “Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room—uses Dilawar’s murder at the hands of US soldiers as an entry point into the mindset that allowed US policymakers to treat the Geneva Convention like toilet paper and its “wartime” prisoners, especially those held without charge, like subhuman chattel.
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