The Dark Side

by Jane Mayer

book data

497 ratings, 4.31 average rating, 188 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		45%
4		43%
3		9%
2		1%
1		1%

edit

published

July 15th 2008 by Doubleday

binding

Hardcover, 335 pages

literary awards

Ambassador Book Award for Current Affairs (2009); PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction 2009 Finalist; J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize (2009); Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism (2009)

isbn

0385526393 (isbn13: 9780385526395)

description

A dramatic and damning narrative account of how America has fought the
"War on Terror"

In the days immediately following September 11th, the...more

[close] A dramatic and damning narrative account of how America has fought the
"War on Terror"

In the days immediately following September 11th, the most powerful people in the country were panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to combat terrorists and strengthen national security were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington, used the crisis to further a long held agenda to enhance Presidential powers to a degree never known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional protections that define the very essence of the American experiment.

THE DARK SIDE is a dramatic, riveting, and definitive narrative account of how the United States made terrible decisions in the pursuit of terrorists around the world-- decisions that not only violated the Constitution to which White House officials took an oath to uphold, but also hampered the pursuit of Al Qaeda. In gripping detail, acclaimed New Yorker writer and bestselling author, Jane Mayer, relates the impact of these decisions—U.S.-held prisoners, some of them completely innocent, were subjected to treatment more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition than the twenty-first century.

THE DARK SIDE will chronicle real, specific cases, shown in real time against the larger tableau of what was happening in Washington, looking at the intelligence gained—or not—and the price paid. In some instances, torture worked. In many more, it led to false information, sometimes with devastating results. For instance, there is the stunning admission of one of the detainees, Sheikh Ibn al-Libi, that the confession he gave under duress—which provided a key piece of evidence buttressing congressional support of going to war against Iraq--was in fact fabricated, to make the torture stop.

In all cases, whatever the short term gains, there were incalculable losses in terms of moral standing, and our country's place in the world, and its sense of itself. THE DARK SIDE chronicles one of the most disturbing chapters in American history, one that will serve as the lasting legacy of the George W. Bush presidency. [close]

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | compare prices ($8.24)…

new topic
discuss this book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Torture and The Dark Side: Interview with Jane Mayer	1	3	12 days ago, 12:11PM
The PBC Minute: Jane Mayer (video)	1	2	12 days ago, 08:51AM

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Best Non-Fiction (non biography)

350 books | 524 voters

Best Books of the Decade: 2000's

791 books | 3421 voters

More lists...

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,304)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

12/21/08

brian rated it:

there’s something i call ‘generational narcissism’ which is basically the naive belief that one’s generation is special and different and unique for no other reason than that one is part of it. there are a few varieties:

1) new-age generational narcissism: the belief that the ‘universe’ (that vague overused and totally unhelpful term) has destined some serious astronomical, astrological, apocalyptical and/or spiritual kind of paradigm shift to occur in one’s time. i.e....more

Like this review? yes (22 people liked it)

38 comments

05/18/09

Mike rated it:

Read in May, 2009

Sheesh. What Brian said. What many say -- this is a precise, unshowy, utterly-persuasive account of the development and failures of Bush's (or is that Cheney's?) torture policies. I'd read much of this work in The New Yorker, but the effect of the integrated narrative is as compelling a critique as you could find.

I'm fascinated by the recent rumblings of the newly-visible Dick Cheney, stomping about cable news to assert out of the corner of his mouth that torture works, that it's ...more Sheesh. What Brian said. What many say -- this is a precise, unshowy, utterly-persuasive account of the development and failures of Bush's (or is that Cheney's?) torture policies. I'd read much of this work in The New Yorker, but the effect of the integrated narrative is as compelling a critique as you could find.

I'm fascinated by the recent rumblings of the newly-visible Dick Cheney, stomping about cable news to assert out of the corner of his mouth that torture works, that it's had some results that have mattered. Mayer's book serves as a damning refutation, but I guess I'm not surprised that Cheney would get to air his opinion--cable news has a genetic flaw, where airing two sides is necessary for the best dramatic tension, even if one side is batshit crazy. (See, e.g., any number of discussions on global warming, or the lifework of Alan Abel.) I am surprised that Mayer's and other's refutations don't get much airplay, isn't as dramatically interesting as Cheney's assertion. In short, I think we have a gut-level (cultural? psychological?) assumption that torture probably should work. That it would produce information.

That interests me--where does this assumption come from? I don't know how many conversations I've had with relatives who'll say, oh, well, of course torture is wrong, but you have to do it sometimes, it is after all effective when time's tight. How does such a belief get normalized, become so ingrained into our baseline assumptions of how people behave? Why would we assume that torture works, and have to be given evidence otherwise?

I'm also fascinated by how torture has crept into the pop vernacular, in fictions of many stripes. I'm no 24 fan (I just don't like television that demands I watch every week, like I need more obligations), but I gather that the show's been flirting with the usefulness of dropkicking Genevan conventions to get to the ticking bomb for years now. I'm more of a horror film fan, and there has been a marked uptick in what some call torture porn of late. (I started a conversation with myself, 'cause my friends won't watch this stuff, at a movie blog--see here, if you're interested.) These fictions get at something not just about the internalized notion of torture's efficacy, but a conflicted cultural fascination with the dedicated inflicting of pain on others.... e.g., what is it about the dark side that is so seductive?

(less)

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

3 comments

07/26/08

Paul rated it:

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Paul by: Democracy Now!
recommends it for: deluded Republican automatons

Well, I finished the book. Quick read, and most of it I had read already in the pages of The New Yorker. Still, it is nice and convenient to have Jane Mayer's articles all in one continuous narrative. The book, needless to say, is quite harrowing. There is no doubt that the American Government is torturing. Bush, Cheney, et alia have all admitted as much, only they don't, of course, use the word "torture", thinking like little school kids if they avoid the word they'll also avoid ...more Well, I finished the book. Quick read, and most of it I had read already in the pages of The New Yorker. Still, it is nice and convenient to have Jane Mayer's articles all in one continuous narrative. The book, needless to say, is quite harrowing. There is no doubt that the American Government is torturing. Bush, Cheney, et alia have all admitted as much, only they don't, of course, use the word "torture", thinking like little school kids if they avoid the word they'll also avoid punishment. Instead, they use euphemisms, all too familiar to us now, like "Enhanced Interrogations Techniques" or "Dunking" (as if waterboarding were something you do at a carnival). One of the useful services that this book performs is to describe in stomach-churning detail what those Orwellian Euphemisms are masking, and it is nothing other than torture and cruelty upon the defenceless. Bush, Cheney, Addington, and Yoo (whose pseudo-legal paeans to dictatorial power were used to justify the unconscionable) are obvious war criminals, and I hope to God they someday are treated as such.

By the way, the administration will often use the ticking bomb argument to justify the use of interrogation methods specifically proscribed by the Army Field Manual. Everyone knows this argument now because of the popularity of that piece of fascist propoganda, known as 24. There is going to a massive terrorist attack in the next few minutes, if not seconds. You have caught an important member of the plot who has the 411 on how to stop the attack, but he's not talking. The sound effects of a ticking digital clock are only getting louder. What do you do? You inflict severe, intense, anguishing pain upon the motherfucker until he sings, human rights be damned because human rights will only get entire cities with their innocent populations destroyed. So, the Bush Administration says pretty much that if we don't use these extraordinary interrogation methods, i.e. torture, we will have another 9/11. And many people find this argument credible just because they think Jack Bauer is way cool.

But this is complete bullshit for at least two reasons: 1) It implies that 9/11 happened because of our bleeding hearts, and that's false. It happened because of massive incompetence (which I am inclined to think was deliberate). 2) If we were really worried about the next imminent attack, then we would be using totally different torture techniques. Most if not all of the "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" that the Bushies insist are keeping us safe were designed to extract confessions and not information about imminent events. If you want information about imminent attacks, you don't put a guy in a cell and deprive him of sleep or blare ear-splittingly loud music at him for weeks, if not months, on end. You want the information before his partners in crime get wind of his capture and change their plans. Therefore, you want information as quickly as possible. Sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, disorientation, etc. all take weeks to work (if they work at all, that is), and you like Jack Bauer have only seconds. This ticking bomb argument cannot justify the use of the long term torture techniques that we are now using.

In fact, nothing can. They don't even produce reliable confessions. Even if they did, no court--except, perhaps, Bush's kangaroo military tribunals--would accept them. The only reason why we are using these "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" is because we are really sick fucks.

(less)

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

29 comments

08/02/08

Maggie rated it:

"He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process becomes a monster himself." - Friedrich Nietzsche

In reaction to Britain's brutal treatment of American prisoners of war, George Washington vowed that this new Democracy would "take a higher road." Thus, the U.S. military doctrine was born, based upon the belief that "Brutality undermines military discipline and strengthens the enemy's resolve, while displays of humanity could be used ...more "He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process becomes a monster himself." - Friedrich Nietzsche

In reaction to Britain's brutal treatment of American prisoners of war, George Washington vowed that this new Democracy would "take a higher road." Thus, the U.S. military doctrine was born, based upon the belief that "Brutality undermines military discipline and strengthens the enemy's resolve, while displays of humanity could be used to tactical advantage." Since its inception, this doctrine has certainly been tried, sometimes quite strenuously, but it has remained a fundamental tenet of American government since our country's birth. Remained, that is, until the events of September 11, 2001.

The attacks of Al Qaeda spun America into a state of chaos and fear, and in this atmosphere came the decision to abandon some of our country's most fundamental beliefs. Hell-bent on revenge and terrified of further attacks, White House officials deemed it necessary to throw out the old rule book in favor of their own set of rules. Despite evidence that torture only produces uncooperative prisoners and questionable information, the Bush Administration felt certain it was the only way to stop further acts of terrorism. Surrounding themselves with lawyers charged with seeking out the legal loopholes that would grant the military carte blanche, it was in these dark days when a new doctrine was born - one which ignored the Article 5 Tribunals, The Geneva Convention, and the Constitution itself in favor of arresting, detaining, torturing, and even killing anyone with suspected connections to terrorism, no matter how tenuous those connections may have been.

On January 27, 2005, President George W. Bush, speaking to a New York Times reporter, said, "torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that torture." But while speaking these words, thousands of prisoners were currently being held without due process in one of America's "black sites," Gulag-like prisons hosted by as many as eight countries, including Afghanistan; Iraq; Cuba; and, allegedly; fledgling democracies such as Poland and Romania. Inside these ghost prisons lurked a secret horror show of abuse where "enhanced interrogation" techniques such as waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures were often applied by untrained and unqualified guards to prisoners who may or may not have had any information to give. What little information was gained was either false or forever clouded by suspicion due to the method in which it was obtained, and in hindsight it's this false information procured by torture that mistakenly connected the events of 9/11 to Iraq.

Perhaps "essential reading" is a distinction too easily granted to too many books, but after reading Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, it struck me that this is a case when it is certainly appropriately-applied. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Mayer provides a non-partisan narrative of how America lost its way in the aftermath of September 11th. Resisting the urge to infuse her own commentary, Mayer lets the events spanning from the attacks of September 11 to the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal speak for themselves, lending the narrative an unmistakable air of credibility. Of course, this also makes the story all the more repugnant.

Like most politically aware Americans, I remember being confused at how an attack by a Afghan-based terrorist cell could lead to a war in Iraq, was aware of the goings on at Guantanamo Bay, and was appropriately shocked when the Abu Ghraib story broke, but reading the finer details of these events alongside their causes and effects was both eye-opening and overwhelming. But though unpleasant, this is a story that demands to be heard, especially now when elections can and should be used to bring events such as these to light. Mayer's story is gripping, intensely troubling, and an absolutely necessary reminder of why we Americans deserve better leadership. I'd strongly encourage each and every one of you to read it.(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

07/19/08

Bill rated it:

Read in August, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

John Adams famously described the American government as one of "laws, not of men." In eight years, the Bush Administration has reacted to the attacks of September 11, 2001, by turning that dictum on its head in their zeal to ensure that another attack does not occur on their watch. In particular, the President's confidence that he is a "good man," has led him to embrace the advice of a ruthless cabal within the United States government whose first article of faith is that ...more John Adams famously described the American government as one of "laws, not of men." In eight years, the Bush Administration has reacted to the attacks of September 11, 2001, by turning that dictum on its head in their zeal to ensure that another attack does not occur on their watch. In particular, the President's confidence that he is a "good man," has led him to embrace the advice of a ruthless cabal within the United States government whose first article of faith is that there are no limitations on presidential power in a "time of war."

Jane Mayer's excellent book on the prosecution of the so-called "War on Terror" is a "must read" not primarily because it reveals new information: many of the facts have already been exposed in the nation's media, including in some of Mayer's own articles for the New Yorker. Rather, this book adds two essential dimensions to the national debate on the government's actions. First, it describes the political and legal decisions of the White House, the Vice President's Office, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, and the Attorney General to reinterpret, and subvert, the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the criminal statutes of the United States with horrific consequences. Second, in describing those consequences, it paints a far more vivid picture of the gruesome consequences of the torture policy than the press's usual glib invocation of "water boarding."

As the book describes, Vice President Dick Cheney's unprecedented ability to control the flow and content of information to the president, coupled with the weight his advice has been given, put him in a unique position to guide the direction of the Administration's policy toward "enemy combatants" captured on the battlefield or subsequently abducted. With Cheney's aide David Addington as the architect in chief, the administration concluded, under the cover of John Yoo's memoranda from the Justice Department, that any limits on the president's power to order torture — whether law or treaty — could be set aside on the grounds that they were subordinate to the president's constitutional powers as Commander in Chief. On the basis of a superficially plausible theory, generally rejected by expert opinion, that the most effective way to obtain information is to inflict a maximum of pain, the Administration provided the C.I.A. with authorized methods of torture, many of which had hitherto been acknowledged in the United States and elsewhere to constitute war crimes. To the extent these failed to achieve results, the Administration pushed for the infliction of more pain. To the extent its actions were opposed or questioned, the Administration made demonstrably false claims about the effectiveness of its illegal methods in obtaining actionable intelligence. To the extent that military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General's office and other lawyers risked their careers to restore the rule of law, the seasoned bureaucratic infighters in the Vice President's office, particularly Addington, fought back ferociously.

Mayer is no less thorough in describing the hair-raising consequences of the Administration's legal decisions. In constructing their refined programs of systematic cruelty, the C.I.A. and the military drew upon the military's training programs developed to counter Chinese Communist "brainwashing" and the C.I.A.'s massive experiments on the effects of prolonged sensory deprivation during the Vietnam War. Impressed by the ability of the Communist regimes to force false confessions from prisoners at show trials in the 50's, the military had researched Communist torture programs in depth in order to train its soldiers to resist as much as possible through its Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) program. In a diabolical twist, the C.I.A. and the military used the lessons of the SERE program to devise an affirmative program of torture designed to extract information from detainees. The fact that torture techniques had proved useful in the past primarily for forcing false confessions does not seem to have given the C.I.A. much pause. Combined with the C.I.A.'s own research into the effectiveness of sensory deprivation in creating total mental breakdown and introducing a schizophrenic state, these techniques were used to inflict a maximum of pain on detainees in the expressed hope of extracting information and (usually unexpressed) hope of exacting revenge. In reading the book, one gets a full sense of the brutal consequences of these techniques in combination, and the savagery with which our government's interrogators redoubled the pain they inflicted when they did not get the results they wanted. To the extent there were any limits on the suffering our intelligence service imposed, those limits were cast aside when the C.I.A. delivered detainees through "extraordinary rendition" to the secret police of Arab dictatorships such as Egypt and Syria.

Jane Mayer's compelling work thus documents not only how vital, and how fragile, is the rule of law, but also reminds us of the terrible consequences that ensue when it breaks down.

(less)

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

add a comment

07/13/08

David rated it:

bookshelves: international-affairs, law, middle-east, politics

Read in August, 2008

This book makes my blood boil. These people, who not only authorized torture, but encouraged it, have disgraced our country and screwed up our struggle against jihadism. It is a story of incompetence and arrogance, centered on the Vice Presidency and the VP's grey eminence, David Addington.

Notable in the book are the stories of honorable men with military and conservative backgrounds who could not stomach what was going on and resisted it.

Also notable is the argument that...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

12/05/08

Will rated it:

bookshelves: military-and-intelligence---non-fic, non-fiction, terrorism, the-bush-administration

Read in December, 2008

The title comes from Dick Cheney’s vow to go to the “Dark Side” in the battle against terrorism. There is a wealth here of drill-down detail about the mechanisms by which America abandoned the constitution in favor of a unitary, imperial president (and really vice president) who believes that l’estat est moi.

I have read a fair number of books that delve into the Bush administration and nowhere have I seen the comprehensive depth Mayer has given to her examination of how Americ...more The title comes from Dick Cheney’s vow to go to the “Dark Side” in the battle against terrorism. There is a wealth here of drill-down detail about the mechanisms by which America abandoned the constitution in favor of a unitary, imperial president (and really vice president) who believes that l’estat est moi.

I have read a fair number of books that delve into the Bush administration and nowhere have I seen the comprehensive depth Mayer has given to her examination of how America has traded its soul for a false sense of security.

Although she does not make any comparisons of this sort (I mean any time the word Nazi is mentioned, the notion that follows is automatically dismissed) one notion that popped into my head was that so many of the dark players here seemed to get off on the idea of torture, regardless of the extant analysis, even from their own people, that it is counterproductive. I was reminded of embrace of cruelty that came became the norm in that prototypical horror-state.

David Addington emerges as one of the real scary guys, Cheney’s attack dog. These people would have been right at home with the dark forces of yesteryear.

Great detail is offered re the impact of the Office of Legal Counsel and how the people there were at the center of the attack on long-standing American principles.

Mayer notes the place of the USA in the history of international rules concerning treatment of captured enemies, beginning with Washington’s humane treatment of Brit prisoners at a time when the Brits treated captured Yanks like animals. She points out the beneficent impact of such rules on our own people, noting how the Nazis treated captured Americans. And she cites the impact (positive) of the USA on the 1949 Geneva accords.

She offers portraits of those who tried to fight against the darkness within the government, and how they were ignored, attacked, crushed, driven out. This is a powerful, detailed depiction of the rotten core of a bad apple, and should be a must-read for every American.
(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

11/19/08

Dr. Carl Ludwig Dorsch rated it:

bookshelves: human-ways

We had high expectations of this work, which though perhaps unfair, were disappointed. Hoping for a fierce and well ordered indictment, though indictment there was what we all too often found ourselves upon was a more-or-less (given the inherent difficulty of access) complete, but often scattered, episodic and anecdotal tour of the federal legal bureaucracy as it dealt with the possession and interrogation of captives in the G.W. Bush administration’s “War on Terror.” Here ...more

We had high expectations of this work, which though perhaps unfair, were disappointed. Hoping for a fierce and well ordered indictment, though indictment there was what we all too often found ourselves upon was a more-or-less (given the inherent difficulty of access) complete, but often scattered, episodic and anecdotal tour of the federal legal bureaucracy as it dealt with the possession and interrogation of captives in the G.W. Bush administration’s “War on Terror.” Here are sips and hints of the niceties of the private arguments, worries and justifications the final effects of which Mr. Kafka has so well earlier described.

Presumably one should not expect a volume admittedly rooted in a dozen or more long-format periodical pieces written over 5 years’ time to read with the focus or structure of a formal brief, and indeed it does not. At times in fact, we could not escape the feeling of having been thrown into a slightly breathless spy novel, but of the legal governmental sort. And at times it oddly seemed that Mr. Cheney’s most egregious fault may have been his lack of a law degree.

If one remains under the misapprehension that the US federal government, acting from the highest levels, does not only systematically and on a global scale brutally kidnap, torture, and likely murder as a matter of conscious policy but then also simultaneously lie about and legally justify the same, we would recommend reading of this work. If however one awaits a conclusive “J'accuse” on the US government’s 2001-2008 captive policy (as we do), The Dark Side, not surprisingly, falls a bit short.

The book is, however, an illuminating glance at the meaning and methods of “rule by law” in the most explicitly legalistic national culture of the 21st century – and perhaps the most extensive, coherent and fully ramified legal ecology in all of human history thus far.

For instance: surprisingly little of the consideration described in the volume occurs in the courts. Largely we are witness to argument and deliberation within the nests of lawyers within, among other venues, the various separate and multiple legal offices of the Justice Department, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the offices of the President and Vice-President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the US Army, Navy, the various Judge Advocate General's Corps, the CIA, the NSA, the NSC, the DIA, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, etc. The populations involved seem enormous: it could be supposed that the number of lawyers and staff of the entities cited number in the many thousands. And it is worth remembering that these represent a mere sliver of the federal executive legal enterprise…

As Publius Mauritius is once noted to have said: “Truly until that day when all possible men, animals and works of the earth, and all possible intercourse amongst them, according to their vital qualities, have been fully enumerated, the work of the law has barely begun.”

(Mauritius, On the Persians, IV 348-9)

- Carl and Louisa Dorsch
(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

12/08/08

Map rated it:

Read in December, 2008

Required reading for every American. Jane Mayer documents how a handful of people in the Bush Administration changed the moral course of America and tarnished our global reputation in the name of "keeping us safe." Benjamin Franklin said that those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserver neither liberty nor safety. Well, that's pretty much where we are at. Yes, there have been no more attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11. But that "safety" was not a product of torture. Jus...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

02/25/09

Diane rated it:

Read in February, 2009

recommended to Diane by: thelibrarything.com

I heard and read about some of the main facts written in this book, but when Jane Mayer put the story altogether I became even more sickened by the administration's (Cheney and Addington's's) authorization of the capture and torture of suspected terrorists, keeping them without charges of crimes in order to keep their illegal activities secret in Guatanamo and other hidden torture sites throughout the world. (When the stories leaked out, they then attempted to grant immunity to themselves and th...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

01/24/09

Jens rated it:

Read in January, 2009

This is a page turner. Well written, and reasonably well organized. And juicy. I knew quite a bit of it from listening to interviews with the author, but it hadn't sunk in in the same way. I enjoyed remembering where I was when a piece of news broke, or a decision was handed down (particularly Hamdan), and reading about the background.

Of course, now Obama's in, and Bush is out so there's less need to read this material, right? </strawman>

You know these peopl...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

10/25/08

James rated it:

Read in January, 2009

I found in this book a great deal of often scattered information. Much of it I was already familiar with from other people's investigations of the torture policy of the White House and of clandestine U.S. interrogation research since WWII. The book did little to pull together Ms. Mayer's discoveries or provide a coherent narrative. I found myself creating a timeline to keep track of who knew what when, said what to whom when, etc. It may be a book helpful to military and presidential historians,...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

07/25/08

Jennifer rated it:

Read in September, 2008

For me, Mayer's book brought to mind a line from Yeats (one of my favorite poets)..."The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." In this case, it's Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and a host of other White House appointees whose dogmatic belief that coersion and torture are the only way to extract information from alleged terrorists (despite hard evidence to contrary - the best evidence we got out of anyone came from FBI interrogators...more For me, Mayer's book brought to mind a line from Yeats (one of my favorite poets)..."The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." In this case, it's Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and a host of other White House appointees whose dogmatic belief that coersion and torture are the only way to extract information from alleged terrorists (despite hard evidence to contrary - the best evidence we got out of anyone came from FBI interrogators, using old-fashioned police work, criminal investigation, and a rapport-building interrogation technique).

Mayer traces the development of the infamous Bybee/Yoo torture memo and the establishment of a policy of "enhanced techniques" in interrogation (i.e., waterboarding), as well as the valiant efforts of many military, Justice Department, FBI, and Pentagon attorneys to reverse course and put a stop to what they saw as cruel and inhumate treatment at best, and outright torture and war crimes at worst.

While Cheney, Yoo, and Addington basically put the Constitution through a shredder and throw the Gevena Conventions out the window, it's the protests of many loyal Republican attorneys that I found most heartening. The uniformed military attorneys in particular understood the damage that these interrogation and detention policies (black sites, Guantanamo) had on American's standing in the world, and our ability to bring any accused terrorist to justice.

This, combined with Kafka Comes to America, truly brings to light the damage that we've done to our country's values over the last 7 years - largely out of paranoia (there was some serious bunker mentality going on) and fear - and these things aren't actually making us safer (again, we mostly get false confessions from the CIA's "enhanced" techniques - there's a euphamism for ya).

I think reading this seriously made my blood pressure go up, but this, Wax's book, and seeing Obama speak yesterday made me realize just how much work we've got to do as a country to restore what is we've always stood for - and how important that is.

Now, I'm off to read a book about an adorable library cat to restore my faith in the world.

(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

12/25/08

Marcus rated it:

bookshelves: political---economics

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: We have to work the dark side, if you will. We’re going to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies.

I remember when VP Cheney made this statement in late 2001. It gave me pause at the time and I wondered what he meant. Jane Mayers book shows where The Bush Administration took the i...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

06/19/09

Stop added it

Read the STOP SMILING interview with author Jane Mayer

Lift Every Voice
By James Hughes

(This interview originally appeared in the third annual STOP SMILING 20 Interviews Issue)

After millions embraced Barack Obama on election night in Chicago, though still weeks before the record crowds that flooded the National Mall and its tributaries became flyover country for a departing president bound for Dallas dormancy, I spoke with author Jane Mayer about the range of emo...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/10/09

Katie rated it:

Read in January, 2009

This book is a look at the Bush administration's response to the attacks on September 11th and the repercussions it had worldwide. And it's infuriating. The lack of logic in argument, the shoddy legal scholarship, the denial of any level of open inquiry, and, above all, the complete disregard for basic human rights had my blood boiling. I think I would be prepared to surrender all of my other principles if I believed any of it worked. But it didn't. It backfired. Which is of course the pro...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/22/09

Bill Delaney rated it:

Read in December, 2008

OK, It's a whole new ballgame. The president can dance, romantically, even sexually, with his elegant wife - no more antiseptic (bush) or grotesque (clinton) pas de deux' depressingly roaming our collective unconscious...and his depth, and humor, and he can write. And so on. The only good thing about the depth of the mess we're in is that if we werent so screwed obama could never have been elected.
But for anyone who wants to know more about the depth of the previous administration's incompe...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

12/31/08

Jason rated it:

Read in January, 2009

I started this book on January 1 with the goal, which I succeeded in doing, to finish it by the 20th (today is the 19th). I've read quite a few books on the Bush Administration but this by far the most appalling and disgusting of all of them. However, I do feel it is essential reading. The laws present as of now in our country completely shred the Constitution which, if I'm not wrong, the President swears to uphold and protect. It's also not fair to point all fingers at Bush as he was manipulate...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/04/09

Geeta rated it:

bookshelves: research

Read in January, 2009

This seems a fitting book to read at the end of Bush years. I finished it the day before Obama announced he was closing Guantanamo.

My father used to call W. a spoiled brat, and Mayer's book makes it clear how American law and ideals were subverted, circumvented, and rewritten to please the brat-in-chief. The bully behind all this was, no surprise, Dick Cheney, and his henchmen, I mean, lawyers. Every schoolyard bully needs some extra muscle, and in this case Cheney had help from A...more

Like this review? yes

4 comments

05/31/09

Ed Smiley added it

Read in June, 2009

I kept putting it off. I knew this book was disturbing. I was familiar with her findings, had been aware of a lot of corroborating material, and had heard her interviewed.

It was very disturbing and engrossing too. In her afterword, she thanks her family for putting up with her endless discussions of torture, you can see how it can get under your skin. This book hooks you, as it does not wish to merely document, but lead us to an understanding of what was, not only a case of excess,...more I kept putting it off. I knew this book was disturbing. I was familiar with her findings, had been aware of a lot of corroborating material, and had heard her interviewed.

It was very disturbing and engrossing too. In her afterword, she thanks her family for putting up with her endless discussions of torture, you can see how it can get under your skin. This book hooks you, as it does not wish to merely document, but lead us to an understanding of what was, not only a case of excess, but beyond any moral qualms, something deeply counter-productive, and yet driven by panic and an instinctive but unreflective rejection of anything not thought to be tough.

Central to the story (and I think it is one of her strengths in this work that she points this out) are the lawyers--and the creation of a consitutional monster--secret law. That is a set of extraordinarily flimsy legal briefs were made secret, so that actors could be assured that whatever they were told to do was legal. Apparently these followed a chain from Dick Cheney, to the vice-president's counsel, David Addington, who effectively dictated their content to the office of legal counsel in the DOJ.

A lot of revelations, especially if you have not been following events. If you have, you may have said to yourself, "I suspected that..." Known innocent prisoners were continuously abused, while top officials in Washington dithered, not wanting to release them, lest the abuse be exposed. Another, that prisoners were tortured to produce evidence to support the war in Iraq, a prime example how coerced testimony is not very accurate. Or perhaps that is the point, as the techniques were based on the techniques of Stalinist Russia to produce false evidence in the show trials, and by China to elicit false confessions from American prisoners in Korea. In many cases the most innocuous sounding "enhanced" techniques were massed together and endlessly repeated, turning the total effect into torture, even if the individual components, might arguably not be.

She describes not only how we went wrong, but how many people, some surprisingly hard-core security conservatives fought against the tide for what they thought was right, and this is an aspect of the book that prevents it from being a complete downer about the moral struggles in difficult times.

I highly recommend this book to any one who wishes to be better informed. So when you are ready, take a deep breath and take the plunge. She handles this topic thoughtfully and with extraordinary craft.(less)

Like this review? yes

add a comment

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 65 66 next »

recent status updates | recommend it | blog it

combine
other editions (5)

More editions...

quotes from this book

"Few would argue against safe-guarding the nation. But in the judgment of at least one of the country's most distinguished presidential scholars, the legal steps taken by the Bush Administration in its war against terrorism were a quantum leap beyond earlier blots on the country's history and traditions: more significant than John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, than Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, than the imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Collectively, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argued, the Bush Administration's extralegal counter-terrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained, and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history." More quotes...

groups with this book

other books by Jane Mayer

Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas (Hardcover) by Jane Mayer

Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988 (Paperback) by Jane Mayer

Speaking of Journalism: 12 Writers and Editors Talk About Their... by William Knowlton Zinsser

More…

title link
avg rating
small image
med image
large image

The Dark Side

book data

new topic
discuss this book

friend reviews

lists with this book

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,304)

blog this book

combine
other editions (5)

popular shelves

quotes from this book

groups with this book

Audio books on iTunes

other books by Jane Mayer

The Dark Side

book data

new topic discuss this book

friend reviews

lists with this book

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1,304)

blog this book

combine other editions (5)

popular shelves

quotes from this book

groups with this book

Audio books on iTunes

other books by Jane Mayer

new topic
discuss this book

combine
other editions (5)