Just as I was flipping over the Oscars, the nominations for Best Documentary was on.
And the winner was Taxi to the Darkside.
What an incredibly sad, outrageous, and infuriating true story. My blood boiled as my wife and I watched in horror. It was one thing reading about these cases over the years, but watching this depiction of what our Administration did to this man was just unreal.
Brief synopsis from the movie website (emphasis mine):
By probing the homocide of an innocent taxi driver at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, the film exposes a worldwide policy of detention and interrogation that condones torture and the abrogation of human rights. This disturbing and often brutal film is the most incisive examination to date of the Bush Administration's willingness, in its prosecution of the "war on terror," to undermine the essence of the rule of law. The film answers a key question: what happens when a few men expand the wartime powers of the executive to undermine the very principles of which the United States was founded.
Well it's whatever Dick says is what happens:
"We've got to spend time in the shadows, in the intelligence world," Cheney said on Sept. 16, 2001. "A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies if we're going to be successful. It is a mean, nasty, dangerous, dirty business out there. And we have to operate in that arena."
Indeed.
Yet our Congress either writes Sternly Worded Letters or yawns.
Congratulations to the filmmakers, cast, directors, and every one involved in this story. May his death not be in vain.