The Card Counter: More than a Tale of Gambling

Imagine you join the military with the high ideals of protecting American lives. Instead, the military hires a private contractor to train you in interrogation methods that basically equates with torture under the guise of “saving” Americans. Then, you become so hardened to the immorality of torture and are further encouraged to find creative ways to dehumanize prisoners in order to extract information. The lines of morality become so blurred you can no longer find them. And in a moment where your sense of right and wrong is so completely lost, you take photos with your torture victims, espousing “pride” in what you are doing in order to justify the inhumanity and immorality of your own acts.

The 2021 film The Card Counter directed by Paul Shrader tells this story with fictional William Bell, played by Oscar Isaac, as our ex-military interrogator. However, the story is reminiscent of several “scandals” where the US military engaged in questionable behavior, including the 2011 scandal when members of the 5th Stryker Brigade dubbed “the Kill Team” stationed near Kandahar in Afghanistan took photos with Afghan civilians whom they murdered. We can also compare this to the My Lai massacre that occurred within the scope of the Vietnam War. And probably even more so, this film speaks to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal from 2003. This prison held detained Iraqis from 2003 to 2006, and photos emerged of US military personnel torturing these detainees. In fact, our story highlights interrogation methods used at Guantanamo Bay and how these methods were “perfected” for use at Abu Ghraib as Bell explains his experiences during the film in a powerfully emotional conversation.

The film is a powerful statement on morality of warfare and rules of engagement. If we look deeper into The Card Counter we can see how necessary it is to make those who create and implement the torture machines responsible for their actions, and, in fact, that is the point. While the actors themselves should be held accountable, and our hero in The Card Counter does time in Leavenworth for his questionable interrogation methods as documented by the photos. But the ones who implement these tactics, train these interrogators, and design the interrogation methods are largely untouched by the law. In other words, they are not held accountable for their actions in teaching and advocating torture as an acceptable interrogation method.

After My Lai came to light in the early 1970’s, only Second Lieutenant William Calley was charged, prosecuted, and found guilty. However, even in Calley’s case, his sentence was commuted to parole by then President Richard Nixon. Another Second Lieutenant worked alongside Calley in leading the troops to the village at My Lai, but he was not convicted of any crimes. Captain Ernest Medina, who led the assault and prepped his troops to avenge earlier deaths, was not held accountable, nor was Major General Samuel W. Koster who oversaw the mission. In fact, according to Christopher J. Levesque of the New York Times, “The ambitions of the senior officers in the 23rd Infantry Division helped create the environment in which the massacre unfolded and was hidden from scrutiny. General Koster viewed his command as a temporary stop on his way to higher rank — commanding a division in combat was another box to check. The division public affairs officer, Lt. Col. Charles Anistranski, remembered General Koster being furious over the results of My Lai because the official body count of 128 Vietcong killed, but only three weapons recovered, reflected poorly on his leadership.” Then we also have Lieutenant Colonel Barker and the brigade commander Lt. Col. Oran Henderson who worked to cover up the incident along with Medina and yet only Calley went to trial.

The Afghanistan story of the 5th Stryker Brigade is also problematic not only in the actions of the soldiers but also in the way the events are told. In fact, the “Kill Team” is often dubbed a “rogue unit” meaning that the 5th Stryker Brigade was not authorized to act as they did. Of course the military would not officially authorize the murder of Afghan civilians, but the training of these soldiers, the failure to vet psychological issues, and the horrors of the war itself created the atmosphere for yet another massacre. Accountability needs to go higher than Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs and the 11 soldiers under his command who were convicted of varying levels of criminal activity. After the first murder, Specialist Adam Winfield had a conversation with his father expressing horror at the actions of “Kill Team.” Winfield’s father made several complaints to the US Army, but these complaints were ignored. An investigation determined that officer accountability in this case was not warranted leaving the blame on the soldiers themselves even though the system likely created the “Kill Team” mentality of vengeance. Further, reports of “Kill Team” murdering civilians went largely ignored by the Army’s upper ranks until the photographic evidence was leaked by Rolling Stone forcing the Army to act.

We have to look at the Iraqi prison scandal as this is William Bell’s story. We may see William Bell as Eric Fair who wrote a memoir detailing his time as a prison interrogator at Abu Ghraib. Fair says in an interview with NPR: “"We hurt people, and not just physically. We destroyed them emotionally, and ... I think at the very least it's a just punishment for us that we suffer some of those consequences, too….. My behavior towards Iraqi detainees did not meet the standard that I had simply been raised on. It was not the way that I should've behaved. There are long discussions about why those things happened ... and how difficult it was to sort of break from those expectations of being a soldier — but none of that matters. I made horrible mistakes. ... I have a responsibility to confess those things openly." The tactic used by Fair and other interrogators were considered legal by the United States government, but Fair concludes the tactics were in fact torture, and it weighs heavily on his conscience. Just like in The Card Counter, Bell struggles with making peace with his time as an interrogator. Bell also meets Cirk Baufort whose father also worked at Abu Ghraib but couldn’t come to terms with his actions and took his own life. Cirk blames Major Gordo, a private contractor who trained these military men in interrogation techniques, but was not charged with any crimes when the unorthodox tactics came to light. Fair worked as an interrogator in Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, employed by a private company under contract to the military. Just like in The Card Counter, the private contractor in Fair’s account was not held accountable for training these interrogators in the violation of basic human rights.

While an excellent story told by director Paul Shrader, with phenomenal acting by Oscar Isaac and the supporting cast, the moral here is so important to open discussions on accountability at all levels, especially when these actions violate the basic human rights of others, and the training virtually makes one act immorally. As we can see through our own United States military history, there is a pattern of behavior here that needs deep scrutinization to break this cycle. Thank you to Paul Shrader for not being afraid to tell this story without glamourizing our military or the private contractors they hire, and for promoting proper accountability.