Abuse of Power

The Road to Guantanamo (4/5 stars)

This is the story of three British citizens who travel to Pakistan for a marriage and end up in a world of trouble. They decide while they are there to visit Afghanistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks and were present when the United States began its attack on that country. This is the story of how they are mistakenly identified as Taliban sympathizers, first by the Northern Alliance fighters, then by the United States military.

The story is told in three different ways: news footage, interviews of the principal subjects after the fact, and re-enactments of the events that the people involved experienced. The three facets are interwoven very well, we see news footage claiming the capture of terrorists spliced with the re-enactments and interviews of the subjects that show just how absolutely absurd it was that these unfortunate men were mistaken for terrorists in the first place. While they were in Pakistan for a legitimate reason, a marriage, no one would believe their story and they were relentlessly accused of collusion with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, first in Afghanistan and then in the Guantanamo Prison in Cuba.

The fact that they shouldn't even need a legitimate reason for being where they are at all is an important aspect here, just because they were in Afghanistan at the wrong time and happened to be Muslims does that make them terrorists? There was no evidence against them whatsoever, and yet they were held for an extended length of time without charge, and even upon release the government never admitted that they had made any kind of mistake. The pain and humiliation depicted in the re-enactments is frightening, and while I already knew about this story, seeing it on screen makes me ashamed that I live in a country that is committing such atrocities against completely innocent people. Innocent until proven guilty only applies if you are on United States soil, apparently, as well as abuse standards, which is why the actual Guantanamo prison is probably not on United States soil in the first place.

This is a very compelling story of what can happen to people when power is abused, and it would be better if everyone knew what this country is doing. Can you imagine if someone broke a news story with something very similar happening to a US citizen on US soil? Havoc would break loose probably. Most people are turning a blind eye to this, as they are to most things the government is doing these days. It makes me wonder if there are just so many negative stories coming out that people are desensitized to it all, and no one really has the capability to be surprised or enraged anymore.

The movie does a good job of telling the story as best it can, I would rate it higher but I found some of the acting in the re-enactments to be fairly sub-par and unbelievable. Not because the people portraying the US military personnel were over the top, which I would believe, but that they just weren't very good actors. If they had done a better job with this aspect of the film then I would have liked it even more. In any case, awareness of this issue is important and the film should be seen.