A disgruntled New York filmmaker is accusing Discovery Communications of "political censorship." The broadcast group — which operates Animal Planet, TLC and a dozen other networks — is normally noted for gee-whiz forays into science and domestic curiosities rather than ideological entanglements.
But that makes little difference to Alex Gibney, director of "Taxi to the Dark Side," an Oscar-nominated documentary that chronicles the interrogation practices of the U.S. military; the film opened this weekend in select theaters around the country. Eight months ago, Discovery acquired rights to broadcast the film once its theatrical cycle is complete — but abruptly abandoned plans to air it, according to its maker.
"I am very disappointed and angry," Mr. Gibney said today.
He has described the film as a "searing indictment of the Bush administration's policy of detention and interrogation."
Perhaps it was too searing for Discovery to stomach. The film contains graphic images and darkly implies, according to Washington Times film critic Scott Galupo, that the American public might one day be subject to such treatment.
"You too might meet the same fate," Mr. Galupo wrote in his review.
Mr. Gibney, however, insists that the broadcast group is at fault.
"Despite initial misgivings, I sold U.S. TV rights to the film to Discovery because executives there convinced me that they cared about the film and my work and would give the film a prominent broadcast. Now, I am told that 'it doesn't fit into Discovery's plans,' and that the film's controversial content might damage Discovery's public offering," he continued.
"I am surprised that a network that touts itself as a supporter of documentaries would be so shamelessly craven. This is a film that, in an election year, is of critical interest to the viewing public. What Discovery is doing is tantamount to political censorship," Mr. Gibney continued. "This film takes a critical, yet even-handed look at our policies of interrogation in the global war on terror. In refusing to air the film, Discovery is perpetuating what has become the policy of this government: It is OK to employ torture, just not to show it."
Nonsense, says a source close to the situation.
"These statements are both premature and unfounded. A final decision on airing this film by Discovery Communications has not been reached yet," the source said.
— Jennifer Harper, national desk reporter, The Washington Times
Comments (10)
If we send prisoners overseas for torture, if we torture them at Abu Ghraib, if we torture them at Guantanamo, then we can torture them here, as we have done and are probably doing (http://hrw.org/doc/?t=global_prisons): Why defend the indefensible? Without the rule of law, what is left to defend in the Land of the "Free"?
Under the Military Commissions Act, anyone can become a prisoner (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=military+commissions+act). Habeas Corpus is dead. "It" has happened here in the name of freedom. Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Bad English, good advice. Read Melanie Klein and Melanie Wolf.
Every time we violate our best principles, the other side wins. No one will enlist to defend a police state.
Posted by Dr. Butler | February 9, 2008 11:46 AM
Want to know why this "documentary" hasn't been shown yet?
"This is a film that, in an election year, is of critical interest to the viewing public."
There you have it folks. This film is, by the director's own words, an attempt to affect public perceptions and opinions during an election year. That makes it propaganda and not a documentary.
If Mr. Gibney truly believes that this is a documentary and not propaganda, then the timing of it's release on the Discovery channel would be of little importance to him.
Good documentaries only inform the public about a given subject (like polar bears) and are, therefore, timeless. It wouldn't matter when a documentary airs. The information it contains is what's important, not the opinions of the director or producer who created them.
Propaganda, on the other hand, is very time critical. They attempt to persuade the public into accepting the opinion of those who create them as fact and they attempt to convince the public to accept only the public policies the propaganda offers as an alternative to what the it shows as bad policy.
The Discovery channel is not a public platform where anyone can express their opinion and attempt to influence public opinion. Propaganda has no place there.
Posted by Ray | February 9, 2008 11:56 AM
"No one will enlist to defend a police state."
That's right, and since we have an all volunteer military, we never will live in a police state. There is no draft, yet the military still recruits tens of thousands of volunteers every year to serve. How does that fact fit into your view of America? Are we in actually in a police state or is that just more propaganda?
BTW; Habeas Corpus is not dead, just ask a public defense attorney or a judge about that and they will straighten you out. Habeas Corpus is alive and well in America, but it does NOT extend to foreigners captured overseas and it never has. The individual rights as numerated in Constitution (like Habeas Corpus) doesn't extend outside the sovereign territories if the United States of America and it never has.
Posted by Ray | February 9, 2008 12:44 PM
Mr. Gibney's views are naive at best and, at worst, incredibly frightening. It is interesting that all the opponents of non-lethal methods of interrogation (such as waterboarding) always say that we shouldn't engage in such practices because, if we do, "the United States loses the moral high ground while also exposing American prisoners to similar treatment." If that's the case, then people like Mr. Gibney must answer the following question: If we had captured one of the 9/11 terrorists on 9/10 and we knew that he was involved in an impending attack on the United States, but we just didn't know where or when the attack was going to take place, should we have waterboarded this individual in order to find out the details of the impending attack? If the answer is "no," then we would still have lost 3,000 Americans on 9/11 simply because we wanted to retain possession of the "moral high ground" Mr. Gibney and people like him constantly whine about. It is interesting that people who take Mr. Gibney's view probably have never lost a loved one to an act of terrorism. I would like to see him sell his ideas of self-righteousness to any of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. Would any of those families have cared if Mohammed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, was waterboarded prior to the attack and gave up his information, thereby saving 3,000 American lives and billions of dollars in damages?
According to an interview of former CIA Director George Tenet on "60 Minutes," which took place on April 29, 2007, aggressive questioning (or waterboarding) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced information that saved lives, lots of lives, although the CIA is not disclosing what information it got from Mohammed. When Scott Pelley of CBS asked Tenet, "When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ended up in the hands of CIA interrogators, what did he say?" Tenet replied, "I'll talk to you guys when you take me to New York and I can see my lawyer." Terrorists know that they can use our own legal system against us in order to withhold critical information about future terrorist attacks. Tenet went on to say that, "I know that this program [of "enhanced interrogation techniques," as the CIA calls it] has saved lives. I know we've disrupted plots." Scott Pelley then said, "Let me ask the question this way: why were enhanced interrogation techniques necessary?" Tenet replied, "Cause these are people that will never, ever, ever tell you a thing. These are people who know who's responsible for the next terrorist attack. These are hardened people that would kill you and me 30 seconds after they got out of wherever they were being held and wouldn't blink an eyelash." Mr. Gibney needs to answer whether or not reading known terrorists their Miranda Rights would be enough to stop the "next terrorist attack" that Tenet was talking about. The entire interview can be seen at : http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/25/60minutes/main2728375.shtml
People like Mr. Gibney also usually argue that engaging in waterboarding would expose American prisoners to similar treatment. I wish that were the case, because waterboarding is a non-lethal form of interrogation. Ask Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, or any of the American soldiers who were captured in Iraq by Al Qaeda how they were treated by our enemies. You would find the conversation a bit one sided because all of those individuals were beheaded. So much for getting a quid pro quo from our enemies if we display humane treatment to terrorists. Mr. Gibney probably wants to apply Geneva Convention rules to people who don't care at all about the Geneva Convention, let alone want to enforce its principles.
People like Mr. Gibney usually rant on that If we are to use extreme interrogation techniques against enemy combatants, why not have the police employ them with criminal suspects in this country? This is the usual canard put forth by most of the academic liberal left, who really believe that everyone in the world is entitled to the same legal rights as an American citizen. Since when did known foreign-born terrorists who were captured overseas (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) qualify for rights under the US Constitution, the same rights that every American citizen is entitled to? Mr. Gibney probably thinks that terrorists who are captured overseas and work for Al Qaeda should be treated in the same way we treat street-gang members in Los Angeles. As far as we know, there have been only three instances when waterboarding has been used and none of those instances occurred on US soil or were used against US citizens. Remember, none of the Al Qaeda terrorists who were subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" ever died. That certainly isn't the case of the individuals who have been subjected to the "tender mercies" of Al Qaeda. And there is a big, big, difference between utilizing these techniques against a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some gang member who robs a liquor store in Los Angles, and Mr. Gibney knows it.
But to imply that, by using non-lethal techniques of interrogation, we are treating terrorists the same way Al Quaeda treats its prisoners is not only false but an insult to those individuals in our government who are given the eminently distasteful task of imprisoning and interrogating these hideous people.
Mr. Gibney, and people like him, think that utilizing enhanced interrogation techniques is an "all or nothing" proposition. He thinks that just because it is justified in some extreme instances against some hideous foreign-born killers that it's going to be used all over the United States. It's the old "slippery slope" argument. Perhaps one way to avoid this from happening is getting a Federal Warrant whenever an individual is to undergo such interrogation. The noted lawyer and legal scholar Alan M. Dershowitz has suggested just such an idea. In an editorial to the San Francisco Chronicle dated January 22, 2002, Dershowitz said, "In my new book, 'Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age,' I offer a controversial proposal designed to stimulate debate about this difficult issue. Under my proposal, no torture would be permitted without a 'torture warrant' being issued by a judge. An application for a torture warrant would have to be based on the absolute need to obtain immediate information in order to save lives coupled with probable cause that the suspect had such information and is unwilling to reveal it. The suspect would be given immunity from prosecution based on information elicited by the torture. The warrant would limit the torture to nonlethal means. It may sound absurd for a distinguished judge to be issuing a warrant to do something so awful. But consider the alternatives: Either police would torture below the radar screen of accountability, or the judge who issued the warrant would be accountable. Which would be more consistent with democratic values? "
Why not be honest about who we use these enhanced interrogation techniques against? Why not get a Federal judge to decide that, in some very specific and limited cases, extreme measures can be taken in order to obtain information that could save millions of people? To say that no such instances will ever exist is just denying realty. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed proved that the "ticking time bomb" scenario does exist and George Tenet confirmed that.
We had better understand that we are waging a new war here. We are fighting people who just recently used two mentally handicapped women in Iraq as suicide bombers to kill dozens of civilians in an open-air market. We are dealing with people who see our Western legal system as means by which to escape justice, not as a deterrent. Finally, we are dealing with people who wouldn't lose a night's sleep if they saw an American city go up in a nuclear fireball because of their actions. In fact, they would celebrate such an event. But what Mr. Gibney and people like him are basically getting at is that they would rather see us lose New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, La Vegas, or some other large American city to a terrorist attack just to prove that we are morally superior to the terrorists. I certainly am not prepared to see millions of Americans die just to prove that point.
Posted by Libertyship46 | February 9, 2008 9:27 PM
Where are the documentaries on Darfur, Kenya and the atrocities in Africa? How does relativism compare cutting off peoples limbs and summary executions to waterboarding, high air conditioning, loud music and naked pictures? At least start with proven real torture. Also, when did the U.S. Justice system take global precedence? Habeas Corpus is a sovereign right of the U.S. Constitution? The rest of the world would really take exception if we attempted to redefine our sovereign law as multilateral law. If we used Taliban law, the GITMO guys wouldn't even be around.
Posted by Larry Stone | February 10, 2008 9:19 AM
Hello! We are at war here! Against people who want to kill us! Political censorship? Give me a break! What about the Discovery channel exercising its right to pick and choose the material it wants to air?
Posted by Tim | February 11, 2008 9:47 AM
Re: Libertyship46's comments.
I wonder what leads Dershowitz to think that any Federal Judge would ever accept the responsibility of allowing anyone to be waterboarded?
Since many/most Federal judges are liberals, you'd never get one of them to agree!
Posted by lilliana | February 11, 2008 10:04 AM
A few months ago I visited the Torture Museum in Rudeshiem, Germany. It was part of a high school field trip and I took the students there to see what torture was. Living in America, with the Constitution drafted by our founding fathers, we have lost the sense of torture in our everyday experiences. When the Declaration of Independence was drafted, the penalty for challenging the king was to be drawn and quartered. To get a fairly antiseptic view of what this means, check out the last few scenes in Braveheart. The Torture Museum had many interesting devices for punishment -- except when applied to obtain confessions, most torture was applied as an alternative to incarceration. The gruesome death was part revenge and part deterrent. Death could come fast or slow but, in most cases, it was coming (and perhaps wished for). They showed the equivalent to waterboarding -- it involved overfilling one's stomach with water and it was fatal. There were some tortures that, I guess, were too gruesome to include such as "loud music" and "scantily clad women." Somehow these didn't make the cut. Nor, for that matter, did CIA waterboarding. The al Qaida handbook of torture, however, did make the cut. I'm sure our European ancestors would have had lots of fun dreaming up new ways to inflict pain if they too had electric drills. My point is simply this, I believe that the typical American doesn't have a clue what real torture is and if he's told that it's being subjected to naked woman or having to listen to Lawrence Welk music 24/7 then he'll be inclined to believe it. The fact is that for the rest of the world, those on the receiving end of torture usually do not survive. In contrast I do not recall that I have heard of any terrorist in US custody dying due to maltreatment. In fact, the reports are that they are getting fat in Cuba. As for a documentary -- I'd opt for a "fair & balanced" one, let's drag out Abu Grab and Gitmo as well as the terror houses in Iraq before we liberated it from Saddam and the AQIR terror houses now. Let's see interviews with the chunky terrorists in Cuba and with the Iraqis rescued from AQIR terror houses by BRAVE US soldiers. Nobody in the media ever seems to find the victims of our enemies but they fall over themselves to talk to bloodthirsty terrorists who find it uncomfortable to be a guest of the US. Let's tell both sides and then the public will be able to judge for itself if we're really as bad as the other guys. If you're only telling one side then you have an agenda, particularly when you have to ignore the overpowering evil on the other side to make your point.
Posted by Jim W | February 11, 2008 1:23 PM
No one seems to be picking up on the fact that "Discovery ACQUIRED the rights to broadcast the film..." That means that our "disgruntled New York film maker" was PAID by Discovery for those rights. Censorship??? What a joke! If anything, he should be viewed by the liberals who would agree with him as a "sell-out to BIG BUSINESS". He sold it. It doesn't belong to him any more. It's not his!
If Mr. Gibney were truly interested in getting his message out he would have went the route of PBS, which usually stands at the ready to broadcast propaganda under the guise of documentary. Oh, but wait, that wouldn't have paid as well. Mr. Gibney needs to keep his mouth shut. His hypocrisy is further undermining his credibility.
Posted by Pete Johnson | February 11, 2008 2:05 PM
Forget about habeas corpus, forget about the Constitution, forget about 9/11 revenge. What's important is fair and equal treatment under the law for all human beings until proven guilty. Those of you that advocate or justify torture for non-Americans are nothing more than animals pretending to be Americans. I'd like to see each and everyone of you subjected to waterboarding, then let's see how eager you are to subject others to torture. If you've never experienced waterboarding, then you have no opinion on the subject, otherwise, you'd know just how immoral this technique is. From: retired military, SERE school graduate
Posted by Don Perrin | February 13, 2008 11:38 AM