what i'm watching: taxi to the dark side
We watched "Taxi to the Dark Side" last night, or tried to, anyway. I only got about halfway through.
Torture is the one deal-breaker for me. I watch and read about and hear about all manner of horrors, but anything about torture will give me nightmares and worse. Even the suggestion of torture in a fictional film is enough to make me leave the room. Descriptions of torture perpetrated by the United States, funded by USian taxpayers' dollars, is too much. (One of those invasions and subsequent torture chambers is staffed by Canadians, too.) Twice I had to pause the movie to unclench my stomach and cry, then finally I told Allan he should watch the rest on his own.
I'm going to assume there was nothing in the second half of the movie that I don't already know. Bagram, Abu Ghraib - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Gonazales - the Torture Memo - the Nuremberg Trials - the Geneva Conventions - the United States Empire. It's an excellent and important movie, but on the other hand, I wasn't learning anything, only remembering. We need to remember. I know that. But I also know my limits.
About a third of the way through, a US soldier who participated in the torture in Bagram Prison says: "Sometimes I feel that I should have gone with my own morality, more than what was common."
Sometimes I feel that I should have gone with my own morality...
Look how we punish soldiers who go with their own morality! They are not allowed to leave the military, they are hounded and beaten up and persecuted, they are court martialled, they are imprisoned. They are treated like criminals, when they should be welcomed as heroes!
A soldier who finds his own morality against the pressure of violent groupthink is society's only bulwark against the horror of torture.
Canada, Let Them Stay!
Torture is the one deal-breaker for me. I watch and read about and hear about all manner of horrors, but anything about torture will give me nightmares and worse. Even the suggestion of torture in a fictional film is enough to make me leave the room. Descriptions of torture perpetrated by the United States, funded by USian taxpayers' dollars, is too much. (One of those invasions and subsequent torture chambers is staffed by Canadians, too.) Twice I had to pause the movie to unclench my stomach and cry, then finally I told Allan he should watch the rest on his own.
I'm going to assume there was nothing in the second half of the movie that I don't already know. Bagram, Abu Ghraib - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Yoo, Gonazales - the Torture Memo - the Nuremberg Trials - the Geneva Conventions - the United States Empire. It's an excellent and important movie, but on the other hand, I wasn't learning anything, only remembering. We need to remember. I know that. But I also know my limits.
About a third of the way through, a US soldier who participated in the torture in Bagram Prison says: "Sometimes I feel that I should have gone with my own morality, more than what was common."
Sometimes I feel that I should have gone with my own morality...
Look how we punish soldiers who go with their own morality! They are not allowed to leave the military, they are hounded and beaten up and persecuted, they are court martialled, they are imprisoned. They are treated like criminals, when they should be welcomed as heroes!
A soldier who finds his own morality against the pressure of violent groupthink is society's only bulwark against the horror of torture.
Canada, Let Them Stay!
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