The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals | 
| Author: Jane Mayer
Publisher: Doubleday
List Price: $27.50
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Rating:  39 reviews
Sales Rank: 55
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
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
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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 34 more reviews...
 Screened from the eyes of the world: torture in the dark dungeons of American gulags July 15, 2008
Yesh Prabhu, author of The Beech Tree (Plainsboro, New Jersey)
314 out of 343 found this review helpful
Of the nearly two dozen books published so far that describe and document the nefarious deeds of George Bush's administration, Jane Mayer's book, "The Dark Side" , is perhaps the most thoroughly researched, meticulous, impressive, and deeply disturbing. It is also gripping and highly readable.
I am convinced that what Woodward and Bernstein's book "All the President's Men" did to the Nixon administration, Jane Mayer's book "The Dark Side" will do to George Bush's administration: blow away, like a piece of straw, the last sliver of credibility that the few remaining supporters of George Bush desperately cling to. "We don't torture", said the President, and Jane Mayer has responded with this book, as if to say: "That is a lie".
Although many of the incidents and details narrated in this book have been well known for quite some time, what is remarkable is the thorough and painstaking manner in which the author has arranged them together, as if she were connecting the haphazard dots and linking them together, to create a clear, convincing, and devastating picture. She has included a significant amount of new information also. Reading this book will make the hair on your nape stand up, as if electrified, and shock you to the very core, and leave you speechless.
The book is full of passages based on well-documented facts that will stun the readers and shake their conscience. For example, she has written that: "For the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment U.S.-held captives, making torture the official law of the land in all but name."
The International committee of Red Cross wrote a secret report about the torture the prisoners were subjected to, under the supervision of the CIA at the prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and gave a copy to the CIA. Jane Mayer wrote: "The Red Cross document warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.", and she states emphatically, "The International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were `categorically' torture, which is illegal under both American and international law". The book states that Abu Zubaydah was subjected to water-torture("Waterboarding") as often as ten times a week, and up to three time a day. The CIA shared the report, later, with President Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
It is quite shocking to learn that almost half of all prisoners tortured were found to be innocent of harming the United States in any way, and were eventually let go, without being charged of any crimes, and after spending more than five years in jails. The author has written: "The analyst estimated that a full third of the camp's detainees were there by mistake. When told of those findings, the top military commander at Guantanamo at the time, Major Gen. Michael Dunlavey, not only agreed with the assessment but suggested that an even higher percentage of detentions -- up to half -- were in error. Later, an academic study by Seton Hall University Law School concluded that 55 percent of detainees had never engaged in hostile acts against the United States, and only 8 percent had any association with al-Qaeda."
Reading this book will make you stop and think and wonder how a small group of people in the White House could wreak so much havoc around the world, and tarnish our reputation. This is an extraordinary, thought-provoking, riveting and frightening book.
This might be too scary for you to read... July 26, 2008
J.H. (Beaverton, OR)
53 out of 64 found this review helpful
As of late, I've read three books on the Bush Administration. The first was What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, the next wasThe Bush Tragedy, and now this. With Bush's administration finally ending (I'll willingly admit to being a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat), I thought it was time to read some early "look backs" of this presidency gone so wrong. The first book allowed me to see the inner workings of the White House, while allowing me to see, if briefly, the human Bush. The second book explained some possible patterns and trends in Bush's psyche by examining his family tree. Out of all three, the one that has absolutely scared the politico out of me is Jane Mayer's astounding new book "The Dark Side".
This book is an examination of how the Bush presidency, in many ways, used the war on terror as a subversive tool to start to undermine the basic civil rights we had in this country up until then. Starting with that horrible day we all remember, we see Cheney in action, who apparently had been expecting some country wide issue that would require him to work from a "shadow government" base near Camp David. As the World Trade Center buildings came down, Cheney was stationed in the White House bunker, commanding everything as well as he could. Fear instantly pervaded the adminstration, deservedly so. Anthrax popping up in letters and people dying from it made Cheney sure that America was under attack and it wouldn't stop.
As Americans, we turn to our government in times of crisis to quickly handle the problem.
The problem wasn't their fear, ultimately, it was the unfortunate decisions made at this time that would send our country into a civil liberty tailspin. Cheney long since believed that our presidency had been weakened by Nixon's administration, not because of Watergate, but because of a series of laws passed by Congress that he thought ultimately weakened the president. Cheney saw the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to regain the power of the presidency, seemingly to go as far as suggesting that our president has absolute power (didn't George Lucas do a series of movies about a person wanting absolute power?).
Being a prime presidental confident, Cheney manages to convince Bush to make a series of decisions early on that ultimately would infringe on our basic civil rights: domestic spying, advocating torture, bypassing Congressional oversight on the war on terror, to name a few. Mayer goes into detail about all of these movements, and the effect of these decisions had on people in and out of our country.
Clearly, in reading Mayer's book, she is clearly not a fan of the Bush administration. However, the reading is literally so scary that you forgive that immediately. Bush, a novice on domestic aggression issues, gives Cheney the power to conduct the war on terror, agreeing to support all of his decisions. Mayer introduces us to some new players in this governmental travesty, and her clear writing never becomes so overburdened with names that I was confused. Her chapters on the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisoners debacle are absolutely horrifying.
Bush and Cheney's publicly stated goal in the "War on Terror" was to protect America. Ultimately, our position in the world has deteriorated, and we are only making other countries more angry with the "either you are with us or against us" dogma. It's certainly frightening, but it's important the truth comes out now, lest we make the same mistakes.
Read Frank Rich's NY Times OpEd 7/13/08 - Must Read Book July 15, 2008
R. Cohen (Stamford, CT USA)
51 out of 82 found this review helpful
For a great view of how this book layers into the Bush Administration's approach to the presidency and how to run it go to the NY Times website and read Frank Rich's Op Ed piece from 7/13/08. Says it all.
 The First Amendment at Work July 19, 2008
James Felix (New York, NY)
46 out of 395 found this review helpful
I thank god that I live in a country where we have so much freedom that we are free to distribute enemy propoganda. I'm saddened by the fact that so many people are so eager to do such a thing.
The basic problem with this book is that it lowers the bar on what qualifies as "torture" so far that it robs the word of its meaning. That and the fact that the author accepts the assertions of people who are trained to claim they were tortured... trained to say that because our enemies know there is no shortage of people like Ms. Mayer who are so eager to believe them and help them undermine our national defense.
But really, why bother with this book? If you're considering buying it then you're already convinced that George Bush is at least the worst person in history, if not the very incarnation of evil. Do you really need to read yet another book to reaffirm a belief held with such religious conviction, no matter how divorced from reality or perspective it may be? On the other hand if you support the war then your reaction to reading this will either be a) disbelief or b) an uncaring shrug that the people trying to kill us were made uncomfortable. So either way this book will have no effect on you.
I expect the comments to start shortly after I press "publish". Fine. But please, if the only thing you have to offer is to brainlessly parrot the words "neocon" and "right wing" then you may as well not bother.
Well organized and researched. July 20, 2008
W. P. Strange (Williamstown, MA United States)
45 out of 61 found this review helpful
One reviewer said that there is no point reading another book about the things the Bush administration has done since 9-11. Why? Is it because they cling to the hope that it is ALL lies, or do they think that if it is buried in the dung heep of history that no one will notice? Yes, there are a lot of books "bashing" Bush, but they are well deserved, even if the end result is that nothing will or has been done to fix things. That is the sad part of it.
But "The Dark Side" so far is the best of the books describing the errors this administration made after 9-11 and continues to make and will continue to make right up to the election and next January. This book will open eyes, but sadly will change nothing. If those die hard Bush supporters will now admit the truth, and come out of the dark, then maybe it will all be worth it.
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