Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

USA 2006 / 77min. Arabic with English subtitles.
Director Rory Kennedy / Producer Rory Kennedy, Liz Garbus, Jack Youngelson

The familiar and disturbing pictures of torture at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison raise many troubling questions: Why did torture become an accepted practice? Did the U.S. government’s policies facilitate it? To what extent has Abu Ghraib damaged America’s credibility around the world?

Director Kennedy investigates the psychological and political context in which it occurred and pulls no punches using startlingly candid interviews with perpetrators, witnesses, and victims to pose to us the premise that given certain circumstances, typical boys and girls next door are capable of committing atrocities. Post 9/11 and faced with a whole new type of war, the Bush administration justified intelligence gathering at any cost including disregarding established international conventions preventing torture and abuse. Acts of torture previously associated only with the world’s most repressive dictatorships have redefined America from being the protector of human rights to that of a perpetrator of torture.

Brought to us by premiere cable broadcaster HBO, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib demands that we re-examine the essence of our humanity in the wake of the challenge to the very core of our fundamental values by the threat and fear of terrorism.

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