I watched this film tonight. I can honestly say, for the first time in my life, I’m ashamed to be an American after viewing this. And not just because it happened, but because it came from the top. Because of the pain and suffering we have caused so many innocent people. Because our congress, after this happened, passed the Military Commissions Act. Because we’ve told the world it’s ok to torture and the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply to our war on terror. Because our former Secretary of Defense gave the go ahead to torture. Because he is such a disgrace to the human race. Because the lower ranking soldiers went to jail and the architect of this torture was given a medal. Because we are no longer the world’s leader in human rights issues, but a country who abuses them. Because we have allowed this administration to take us down this oh so dark road. Shameful…..shameful…..shameful!!! If you get the chance, view this film.

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” a new HBO documentary produced and directed by Rory Kennedy, daringly approaches a scandal that hardly anyone wants to see reexamined — least of all, one can safely assume, the Bush administration and the Pentagon.

The reason is not just that what happened at Abu Ghraib is, to understate in the extreme, unpleasant. The documentary says it’s also because this breakdown was not so much nervous as inevitable — and not so spontaneous, having been sanctioned by the top brass, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Skillfully and sparingly told without a narrator, with only occasional on’screen captions to help the narrative along, the film brings to life a sadly shameful moment in recent American history and does it without histrionics. But Kennedy (youngest of Bobby Kennedy’s offspring) might have erred at the outset of her film by inadequately establishing the national mood that helped make Abu Ghraib possible: the understandable sense of shock, outrage and violation we all felt after the insane 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The visual reminders of those attacks consist of photographs and footage that show only physical destruction, the ghostly and ghastly remains of buildings. There doesn’t appear to be a dead body in sight, almost as if the atrocities committed were extreme examples of architectural criticism. That weakens Kennedy’s case. The photos she shows from Abu Ghraib are very explicit and, unlike the versions shown in newspapers and on television in 2004 when the story broke, uncensored.

Read more here and here.

H/T Bat for sending me the articles!