The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Peter Frankopan

On top of that come extra-judicial renditions, torture on an institutional scale and drone strikes against figures deemed—but not necessarily proven—to be threats. It says a great deal about the sophistication and pluralism of the west that these issues can be debated in public, and that many are horrified by the hypocrisy of the message of the primacy of democracy on the one hand and the practice of imperial power on the other. So appalled were some that they decided to leak classified information that laid bare just how policy was created: pragmatically, on the hoof and often with little thought about international law and justice. None of this showed the west in a good light—something felt keenly by the intelligence agencies themselves, which have fought to keep reports of the nature and extent of torture classified, even in the face of direct challenges from the U.S. Senate itself.