Taxi To The Dark Side (Alex Gibney, 2007)

I've seen Alex Gibney's other documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005), on that one I felt he tried his best to keep his political leanings shielded. He attempted to show the true story of Enron and how such an egregious acts. I have also seen Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (2008), which I thought was awesome.

Taxi to the Dark Side is an impeccably made documentary.
It really shows how the fog of war and attempting to do what is right can go so wrong. I was surprised that there was never a reference to that famous Stanford psychology experiment where they randomly assigned people to either be guards or prisoners and within a few days the guards were abusing the prisoners which in turn caused an uprising. That seems to be VERY similar to what when on in prisons of Iraq.

The political spinners tried to play it off as a couple of bad apples. I happen to believe that, given the right conditions, people are going to do things they never thought they would in the "real" world. It is the fear of repercussions that keep us humans sane. If there are no rules, I would imagine things would turn out to be similar to Lord of the Flies.

In the case of the Iraqi prisons, it turns out that guards were given very little training and were expected to get information from prisoners. Of course, they were to "follow" the Army Field Guide, unfortunately, there were unusual circumstances in Guantanamo that lead the upper officers in Iraqi to believe they could use the same tactics. When in reality, they could not.

Next thing you know. We have pretty effed up ish going on.

Photo on the left: Gitmo.
Photo on the right: Stanford.
Eerily similar.