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An international prize winning activist, several times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, has called for an International Ban on Torture. Dr Inge Genefke, speaking at the 12th World Congress on Pain happening this week in Glasgow, has urged more than 45 countries to sign the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Yet the world’s wealthiest and most powerful nation, our very own United States, continues to practice and condone torture on an international level as part of the so-called Global War on Terror. Congressional oversight of the Bush Administration-led torture policies has failed primarily because the White House has continually resisted requests for documents. Astoundingly, in the last six months of the current Administration, the Senate Judiciary Committee still does not have access to important records of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) relating to interrogation, detention and torture. The fact that US soldiers routinely torture prisoners has become so normalized in our society, that it is a non-issue in this year’s election even though most people know it happens. But Alex Gibney’s seminal documentary, Taxi to the Darkside goes in-depth into the torture and death of one young Afghan taxi driver very early in the Afghanistan war.

GUEST: Alex Gibney, whose documentary won the Academy Award for Best Documentary this year. Alex Gibney is the award-winning film maker whose earlier credits include The Trials of Henry Kissenger, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.