Taxi to the Dark Side Page #15

[Moazzam Begg, Detained at Bagram and Guantanamo] I was kidnapped, abducted, forced into prison,

tortured, and threatened with further torture, without charge. Without trial.

Even many soldiers had said to me afterward,

"Wasn't it hell when you weren't a terrorist when you came in here, by the time you leave,

I'm sure you would be because of the way you've been treated."

[Jack Cloonan, Counterterrorism Task Force] I think there's a certain level of prejudice

that this religion, and the people who have hijacked it,

have such a disregard for life, that we turn around and say,

"If they think so very little of life...and clearly 9/11 exemplified that...screw them!" Anything goes."

[Tim Golden, New York Times Reporter] It's not surprising that at the end of all this, Dilawar, the victim, was really lost.

I mean, Dilawar was almost invisible in the trials. I mean, you never saw pictures of him.

Nobody ever mentioned this man's wife and child who were left without a husband and father.

He was not part of the picture at all.

[Tim Golden, New York Times Reporter] There's a lot of other people out there who are going to run into this system unless it's fixed.

And you only need one to sort of remind yourself of what it's capable of.

[Alberto Mora, former Navy General Counsel] American values are premised upon the notion of human dignity, and the sanctity of the individual.

To allow for cruelty to be applied as a matter of official policy,

is to say that our forefathers were wrong about these inalienable rights.

[SPC. Tony Lagouranis, Mil-Intel, Iraq] Americans obviously want to believe that we're somehow more moral than the rest of the world.

For some reason we have a real strong desire to feel that way.

And I think that's eroding. I don't really know what effect that's going to have on us.

And I think a lot of people have just decided, "Well, you know, it's different now after 9/11.

We can't be good anymore. We have to get tough."

And so we'll have to see what that does to us.

What do you say?

[SPC. Tony Lagouranis, Mil-Intel, Iraq] I think that's bullshit, frankly.

I mean, I think that we still need to try and be as good as we can be.

[Frank B. Gibney] I find it utterly inconceivable that our highest officials...

Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney...would not only countenance torture but would actually advocate it.

That really destroyed my faith in the American government.

Because through World War II and the Korean War, where I also served,

We had the sense that we were on the side of the good guys.

You'd always get justice from the United States of America.

People would get decent treatment. And there was a rule of law.

We never forgot that. That behind the facade of wartime hatreds,

There was a central rule of law which people abided by.

It was something we believed. It was what made America different.

Produced & Narrated By Alex Gibney

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