In a segment of the film, we see Carl Levin showing off a redacted email he received on the torture policy. He talks about what the administration might be hiding. Yet, all too characteristically, he offers a wry smirk and makes no mention of what he as a member of the legislative branch plans to do to end this wartime power the executive has claimed.
Taxi is a haunting and horrific film not just for the graphic and gross undermining of American principles and values that are exhibited but because it presents us with a reality that many Americans are afraid of.
The political reality presented shows John McCain, a man who was tortured, standing up for American principles and values by demanding an end to our policy of torture. His confrontation with Alberto Gonzales is refreshing. He is presented as a savior up until the point at the end of the film where it is mentioned that in order to avoid political suicide, he went along with a recent act passed and signed by the president that condoned torture.
The failure to courageously stand up is characterized as a result of a scheme the Bush administration created to pin McCain in a corner. Knowing full well that he wanted a shot at the White House, they made sure he would support their policy or else face political and personal attacks. McCain, remembering what happened to him in 2000 when he ran against Bush, agreed to play along.
McCain isn't the only politician that backed down and who has failed to oppose the torture policy properly. All the remaining presidential candidates have as well. That fact is horrific because it presents the idea that this policy has no end in sight.
The presentation of McCain alongside the soldiers in Iraq who were interrogators at Bagram Air Force Base, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo Bay shows that the success of the policy has been achieved because the people creating it, amending it, and implementing it have been intimidated and forced to support such a heinous policy or else.
Soldiers on the bases were intentionally not given direction so they could be court-martialed as “a few bad apples” and not threaten the futures of people like Donald Rumsfeld or Alberto Gonzales who visited the bases and checked in on the interrogations of prisoners regularly. Zero direction was also part of the plan to keep military generals from facing discipline.
The very idea that this government supports its troops is turned on its head when you see the soldiers emotionally broken down and left with no promise of a future being interviewed. You realize that anyone who joined or joins this war or the military will not gain anything from it whatsoever. Everything sold to those enlisting is a lie.
That to me was the most infuriating part of this movie. From “a few bad apples” to Walter Reed to lack of body armor to the unacceptable interference of private contractors in the lives of our soldiers over in Iraq, why would anybody want to serve this country ever? It’s not like you will be appreciated. And if you aren’t going to be appreciated, if all you are going to get is a couple days of recognition on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, than why serve this imperial empire? Why help advance capitalism if all you are going to get is a paycheck towards college education?
It’s not worth it. It's not worth it to go over and be part of a malicious experiment to abuse and circumvent the Geneva Conventions. And since this film offers no hope that our policymakers and politicians will get their act together and end this illegal war of terror which fuels and allows the torture policy, it is my plea to people considering enlistment in the military to reconsider so that this war of shock and awe and torture will come to an end and so that any future blowback America might experience may be averted.
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