Review: The Dark Side

Abstract

THE DARK SIDE The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals Jane Mayer New York: Doubleday, 2008. 400pp, $18.95 paper (ISBN 978-0385526395)The attacks of September nth created a culture of fear and revenge in America, which led to a flouting of the laws and morals underpinning the country's conduct towards its enemies. This is the central theme of New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's The Dark Side. The book, which began as a series of articles for the magazine, chronicles the practice of torturing suspected under the Bush administration.At the centre of the story are Vice President Dick Cheney and a cast of other administration officials. From the immediate aftermath of 9/ n onwards, Cheney was in favour of authorizing the CIA to use a wide range of violent practices against foreign prisoners. We'll have to work sort ofthe dark side, if you will, he stated in an interview a few days after the attacks (9). He later told the US Chamber of Commerce that terrorists do 'deserve to be treated as prisoners of war* (79). Thereafter, an array of Bush administration lawyers worked to cloak these practices with a veil of legal legitimacy. Prominent among them was John Yoo, a conservative lawyer in the Justice Department's office of legal counsel.The US military and intelligence abuses at the military prisons of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are now well known. Mayer's book serves to flesh out the details of how these practices came to be authorized, and how, exactly, they were carried out. Not for the weak of stomach, Mayer's narrative relates many haunting stories of torture. She describes slapping, shackling, forced standing, sleep deprivation, constant white noise, nudity and humiliation, the use of dogs and leashes, hooding, forced anal suppositories, constant darkness, and the much -discussed practice of waterboarding. (After reading the book, I watched a short video of author Christopher Hitchens's experimental submission to waterboarding. Even knowing that his experience was voluntary and controlled - and that he escaped alive - I found the sequence terrifying.) Mayer also notes the extensive list of euphemisms that Bush and his subordinates used to legitimize these practices, including enhanced interrogations, robust interrogations, and special interrogations.She draws from an exhaustive list of sources, many of them anonymous, to trace her story. Included in her account are the lawyers, and one outspoken FBI agent, who sought to expose and challenge the Bush administration policies.At the root of the political issue are the Geneva conventions, the treaties signed after World War II that sought to regulate, among other things, the treatment of prisoners of war. The United States, she notes, was not just a signatory but also the custodian of these agreements (9). Bush and Cheney and their lawyers blatantly disregarded them, arguing that suspected were illegal enemy combatants who did deserve or require such protections. White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales paved the way for Bush to receive authorization to round up (and torture) suspected abroad as well (44).While the book does an excellent job of detailing the policy process surrounding the authorization of torture, readers looking for a broader political or philosophical analysis may be disappointed. …