Taxi to the Dark Side
By Thoreau
Against my better judgment, I watched Taxi to the Dark Side. All it did was make me very, very angry. I should have listened to my wife. I did, however, learn two things that I will highlight:
1) Prior to seeing the documentary I was unaware that Bagram Air Base is a former Soviet base. What the hell is wrong with them? I’m not shocked that the US government would do these things, but I’m surprised that they’d be so brazen as to do these things in former Soviet sites (just like the “black sites” in Poland turning out to be former KGB sites). I figured that their anti-Soviet impulses would be strong enough that they’d at least do it somewhere else, so they can lie to themselves. Then again, they tortured in Abu Ghraib, so I guess I shouldn’t be shocked.
2) I knew that Dilawar was innocent, and I had heard that Afghan warlords were turning over innocent people for bounties. What I didn’t realize was that the warlord who handed him over was in fact the one launching the rocket attacks that Dilawar was framed for. That’s quite a racket: Launch an attack, hand somebody over to the guy you attacked, collect a bounty, then do another attack, hand over another guy, lather, rinse, repeat.
Shit like this makes me wonder if the Truthers have a point. If an Afghan warlord can do it, why can’t Cheney?
Comment by Mithras —
October 26, 2008 @ 9:45 am
Dick Cheney would end up shooting one of his own guys in the face with a rocket launcher.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 26, 2008 @ 9:50 am
“Prior to seeing the documentary I was unaware that Bagram Air Base is a former Soviet base. What the hell is wrong with them? I’m not shocked that the US government would do these things, but I’m surprised that they’d be so brazen as to do these things in former Soviet sites”
Thoreau, Bagram was one of two major airports in Afghanistan, the other being Kandahar. It’s not the sort of thing that can be duplicated from scratch without taking many years. They couldn’t suddenly build an alternate by use of magic. There was no “somewhere else” in Afghanistan. There are no other sites that get people to the same site. They built all new building and such, but moving them further down the road wouldn’t have served any particular point. Places are where they are. Your complaint doesn’t make any geographic sense. It’s like saying they should have built another Kabul, because the Soviets occupied it.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
October 26, 2008 @ 11:44 am
Gary’s right, though of course the point is that you’d think (if you were naive and expected the US to live up to its own professed ideals) that we wouldn’t invade a country and then start torturing people. Where exactly we torture people doesn’t matter that much, and there are good pragmatic reasons for using the same locations as previous torturers.
Comment by Thoreau —
October 26, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
I agree that any location can serve well, but I guess that I figured that they’d at least need to be able to tell themselves that they’re different, so they would do some sort of ceremonial purging. For instance, even the Soviets knew better than to use Auschwitz for their crimes in Poland: Better to display the site of the former occupier’s crimes so you can thump your chest about how awful the former occupier was, and then do your crimes somewhere else. Yet we went right ahead and set up torture chambers in Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and some KGB sites in Poland.
Comment by kid bitzer —
October 26, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
yeah, though i remember my dad expressing the same incomprehension and exasperation at the fact that the u.s. army troops arriving in berlin in ‘45 moved into the former gestapo headquarters.
his point wasn’t, and mine isn’t, ‘oh no, amerikkkans are nazis as well as soviets!!”
it’s just like thoreaus: like, dudes, could you have at least one thought for optics?
but maybe gary’s right. when it comes to real estate, it’s location, location, location. the bad guys just had good taste in locations, and had it before we did.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 26, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
I’ll agree with DJ agreeing with me.
The point is that we shouldn’t have been locking people in cargo containers, and torturing them. Not that we had to use the airport that was already there. That’s all.
Comment by Jon Hendry —
October 26, 2008 @ 7:10 pm
I’ve heard that Kabul is supposedly surrounded by mountains. If so, I’m not sure how closely. But geography might have limited the usable locations for airports in the vicinity. There might not be a good third spot available.
It’s more offensive that they supposedly put black sites at other former-Soviet Union bases in other countries.
Comment by albatross —
October 26, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
To be fair, if you’re in the market to buy (rather than build) a torture camp, I suppose ex-KGB sites do make up a pretty big part of the market in Europe.
The whole topic is surreal. What the f–k happened to my country?
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
October 26, 2008 @ 10:19 pm
All this aside, I can recommend the Hostal Kabul in Barcelona, for anyone looking to backpack Spain &/or the Mediterranean.
http://www.kabul.es
Comment by Iron Lungfish —
October 27, 2008 @ 10:19 am
What the f–k happened to my country?
Less than one would imagine, I think.
Comment by Al Gore —
October 27, 2008 @ 11:02 am
Oh, come on. You guys know I would have done all that stuff too, because there’s no real difference between us and the current crop of Republicans.
Tee Hee, Ain’t You The Dickens?
Comment by Brian —
October 27, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Al Gore: A-Bomb in Japan; Vietnam, East Timor and Afghanistan (Carter Administration and Charlie Wilson)Central America (Carter started this fun and games,a lbeit the Rethugs ra,ped it up))
Comment by Joe Strummer —
October 28, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
I watched Errol Morris’ new documentary on Abu Ghraib with my wife a week before watching Taxi to the Dark Side. I feel like Taxi to the Dark Side was better, but was so depressed by both experiences that I didn’t take enough time to focus on the quality of the filmmaking.
Comment by BruceR —
October 28, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
For the record, I’m in Kandahar and almost every Afghan army officer above the rank of Captain that I’ve met is some form of Soviet-era retread. Captains and NCOs are mostly new model army types, but all the senior leadership joined in the mid 80s or earlier. That’s the national army we’re building up to hold off the Taliban: people should make no mistake that it’s ever been anything else.
Comment by Dave Bell —
October 30, 2008 @ 6:59 pm
It’s the ten-rupee jezails that matter.
In Afghanistan it’s always bee the ten-rupee jezails.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 31, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
“For the record, I’m in Kandahar”
BruceR wins the thread.