Taxi to the Dark Side

An Afghan taxi driver takes three passengers for a ride in 2002, and he never comes home. Instead he was tortured to death by Americans at Bagram, and then those soldiers went on to Abu Ghraib. "You've always got people in the military who are just this side of the Marquis de Sade," says a colonel. According to this documentary, 105 people have died in US custody "over there," and 37 have been ruled to be homicides.

A lawyer who is interviewed about the Guantanamo mess says habeas corpus is the essence of the law. And Congress tried to strip it away, several times. Here's my rule of thumb: if you're scared to ask whether you're holding the right guy, you've probably got the wrong guy. And speaking of rules of thumb, if you get an interview technique from the Khmer Rouge (waterboarding), it's probably a bad idea.

I found it personally offensive when some talking heads started blaming "24" for its "nonsense" and ridiculous ticking-bomb scenarios and frequent depiction of torture. Here's my final rule of thumb for this post: if you're taking issue with the best show ever, you're taking issue with the wrong show. And Jack Bauer will want to talk to you.