Taxi to the Dark Side

Not only is this the best movie I've seen this year, but it is, I think, the most moving documentary I have ever watched. Its structure is quiet, fair, and respectful, and its purpose does not condescend to partisan interests or ideologies; it keeps its focus exclusively on the human cost, and in this case, the tragic mistake, inherent in a policy that sanctions torture while denying the expediency and equity of coercion.

This is Dilawar, the documentary subject:

He's dead now, beaten to death--the military coroner determined that his legs had been "pulpified"--by American interrogators in Afghanistan after being falsely arrested for planning a missile attack on a U.S. army base.

Aside from its obvious humane handling of a very difficult matter, the film most impressed me with its restraint: not once does it flex any rhetorical muscle or work backward from a conclusion, seeking or constructing, or even inventing, as Michael Moore occasionally does, the premises that would produce a favorable argument. In fact, as far as I can tell, the film does not explicitly argue anything; it merely tells a story, traces its facts through the mechanism of military intelligence, and presents for public evaluation the free, full-dimensional figure of a country confused and at war.

After watching this, I felt physically ill, disgusted with American military and foreign policy. I was angry not because I had been told to be outraged, as is the case in so many political documentaries, but because the truth of the matter was so clearly outrageous, and our response has been so clearly indifferent, that to reconcile the implied and undeniable guilt of belonging to something with the intense desire to be free from what you belong to takes a Herculean effort we like to call "the noble lie." Never have I more wanted to exchange my privileged American citizenship for a rusty Iberian bicycle and some pescado.

The offer still stands, if anyone is interested.

Slothrop: Below are two given responses to terrorism. One is by the most powerful man in the world, the other is by an author of fiction. 

George W. Bush: "One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American Justice." 

David Foster Wallace: "Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea* one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?* In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?

In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Patriot Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and property safer—are they worth it? Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?"

FOOTNOTES:
1. Given the strict Gramm-Rudmanewque space limit here, let’s just please all agree that we generally know what this term connotes—an open society, consent of the governed, enumerated powers, Federalist 10, pluralism, due process, transparency … the whole democratic roil.

2. (This phrase is Lincoln’s, more or less)