The Dark Side Book Report

The Dark Side Book Report

Book Report:

The Dark Side: the inside story of how the war on terror turned into a war on American ideals, by Jane Mayer.

How Bush’s administration embraced the practice of torture after 9/11:

Functionalist perspective:

_ despite several warnings of an impending attack from foreign intelligence sources as well as our own; the administration never quite understands the threat, caused by human errors such as misunderstanding and miscommunications.

_ The CIA and FBI didn't share critical information. The system of government blundered. It tells how people failed. How agencies failed.

__ Bush and Cheney's publicly stated goal in the "War on Terror" was to protect America when the attack of 9/11 “was all preventable”, said Cloonan.

Symbolic Internationalist perspective:

_ Terrorists, they said, were outside the body of law, beyond the protection of the Geneva Conventions. They could be tortured. The nightmare CIA secret "torture" program sent detainees to Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Jordan, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan for torture.

_ Lawyers played the key role in providing the `golden shield' of legal immunity for all manner of horrific acts in the quest for `actionable intelligence'. Lawyers, especially government lawyers, are supposed to tell their clients `no' when a proposed action crosses the line into criminality. A handful of lawyers, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, and Addington in particular, always gave their bosses the answer they wanted, `yes, we can torture, spy, kidnap, hold secret prisoners in secret prisons without charges'. A few lawyers within the administration did resist. When Jack Goldsmith the newly ajppointed head of the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel discovered John Yoo's secret `torture memo', he moved successfully to get it revoked. Less known is that after Goldsmith left under extreme pressure, a new memo authorizing torture was issued by Steven Bradbury. Most other lawyers either caved in to Addington's bullying...

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