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| The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals | 
| Author: Jane Mayer
Publisher: Doubleday
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy New: $13.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (56 reviews)
Sales Rank: 156
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.7
ISBN: 0385526393
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931
EAN: 9780385526395
ASIN: 0385526393
Publication Date: July 15, 2008
Release Date: July 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 Crimes, lies and videotape September 3, 2008
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant", U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, so Jane Mayer's stunning new look at the Bush administration's secret torture program inverts that quote into the perfect title of her book..."The Dark Side". In fact, she might have subtitled it, "Total Eclipse". It's bad enough that the president (so easily led as some in the White House have surmised) surrounded himself with one of the poorest teams in presidential history, but then he let the lawyers run it...David Addington and John Yoo, to name the two most influential ones. All of this under the secretive guise of the biggest "vice" of all...Dick Cheney...and you end up with an administration that thinks itself not only above the law, but that it IS the law.
Mayer probes the set up as to how Guantanamo Bay came into being in its current state and how Abu Ghraib was the beginning of the end of secrecy in the Bush White House. She follows the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani, (detainee number 063 at Guantanamo), the so-called "twentieth hijacker", as well as Manadel al-Jamadi, whose quick arrest and subsequent beatings in American hands left him dead within hours. But perhaps the saddest of all cases was that of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who was detained and tortured for months because his name bore a resemblance to a similar name on a terrorist list. Completely innocent, Masri has never fully recovered after his release.
The side show to all of this is the brutal infighting that took place in Washington. The Pentagon, CIA and FBI provided a trifecta of outsized egos and non-cooperation. With the White House added, it was a powder keg of a mix. As Mayer points out, it was the shamelessness of these people who went about trying to deny torture while knowing it was being carried out. That is the essence of "The Dark Side". But in it were those who tried to let in the light...Alberto Mora, Jack Goldsmith and James Comey....conservatives all, but with a strong core of decency.
As this pitiful administration creeps to a close it will become more evident in the coming months and years how disastrous this post-9/11 time has been. Hijackers reduced the twin towers to rubble but the Bush White House reduced the country in its response. One can only hope that when we look back on this time, the phrase "a government of laws, not of men" will have seen to have been twisted into a gross aberration.
a rule of men, not laws September 2, 2008
I'm the author of Prepared for Rage: A Novel, about an Islamic terrorist who tries to blow up the space shuttle. There are interrogation scenes at Guantanamo, and I was so dreading the research for them. I really didn't want to have to learn about waterboarding.
A funny thing happened on the way to researching the Gitmo scenes. Every source I found, either on line or in the library, said the same thing: Torture doesn't produce good intel. The person being tortured will say anything to make the torture stop. The way to get good intel is to talk to the subject, to listen to them, to coax them, cajole them, flatter them, befriend them. Trick them. I can't tell you how relieved I was, and I promptly invented a honey trap instead.
Then along comes Jane Mayer's The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, and suddenly I'm in the middle of a horror show somewhere between the Spanish Inquisition and Nazi doctors in WWII concentration camps. People are being kidnapped and tortured by the CIA under cover of the executive privilege of the president of the United States. Surprise! No good intel is being produced, either.
I gave it five stars for content, but I can't say you'll enjoy reading this book. I felt sick while I was reading it and I still feel a little sick now. But it's a book that should be read, at the very least as a cautionary tale as to just how far things can go wrong when nobody's watching. There are heroes, though, like David Brant, the head of NCIS, Alberto Mora, Counsel to the US Navy, the FBI agents who refused to have anything to do with the torture, and all those administration attorneys who, while they were hired because they had the correct conservative credentials nevertheless knew that kidnapping and torture is wrong, unconstitutional and unAmerican, and who fought the good fight against this program, some of them from the beginning, and some of whom were fired or forced to quit because of it.
It's the victims who stay with me, though. Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri, literally innocent bystanders who will never be the same again after their treatment at the hands of the CIA.
This book is also difficult to read because of the sheer weight of detail beneath which it almost founders. I can't believe Ms. Mayer got this many people to talk so freely to her. I kind of got the impression that they'd been dying to talk to somebody. The least we can do is listen to what they have to say.
The Dark Side September 2, 2008
Frightening. Did I say frightening?
I had read most of what Ms. Mayer writes in her book by reading The Emerald City, The Assassin's Gate, and all of the others. But they were either diaries, or for short periods of time, or focused on just one aspect of this C-4. Ms. Mayer took the long view and tied many of the strings together. It's easier to see now that the war was rigged by the Administration. That they purposefully, yes, purposefully mislead the nation and the Congress, for the most part in their arguments for attacking Iraq. I never thought that I would say the word impeachment with regard to the Bush Administration, but that is definitely in the front of my mind now. Too bad they have to leave their rented apartments in four and a half months. It will deprive us of the ability to pursue this.
Here is a question someone asked me recently: Are the 4000+ US dead, 30000+ US wounded and over 100,000 Iraqi and Afghani civilians killed balancing off the number of innocent civilians that were killed in the Towers by Al Qaeda? I do not know the answer, but I will say that this book definitely changed the way I felt about my god-child going over for her second tour, and her brother's tour, and her husband's second tour.
"The Dark Side" August 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bought it as a gift. Arrived in a timely fashion and in great condition. Thank you.
 Torture: True or False August 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
There is no question the Bush-Cheney group are responsible for the implementation of torture as defined under the Geneva Conventions.
When the order from Gitmo arrived in Iraq, un-trained and even more so, un-accountable contractors used the techniques used and authorized by Rumsfelt to inflict not only pain and suffering on innocent people, but moreover, a lifetime of "payback" mentality towards US forces in Iraq. That said, some of these innocent people who were detained and perhaps tortured were the ones who laid IED's of EFP's to kill or maim our troops.
Bush, Cheney, Feith and others should be held accountable for their decisions and actions. Good book..factural and to the point..
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