A review by jcschildbach
The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer

5.0

This book is "must" reading for anybody who really wants to know what was going on during the "war on terror" under the Cheney Administration, oops, I mean Bush II Administration. I remember a lot of the mainstream media coverage of the allegations of torture, and of the various legal wranglings that took place around the issues covered in this book--and realize now just how shallow most of that coverage was. Mayer goes into deep detail about who drafted what policies and laws, as well as the consequences of those policies and laws--with some rather graphic descriptions of torture that took place against alleged terror suspects--including some who were not known to have any connections to any terrorist groups, or to otherwise have shown any indication that they might know anything about terror plots. The book is truly disturbing in terms of just how far Cheney was willing to push the law and attempt to take control of powers well outside the purvue of the President, much less the Vice President. What is even more disturbing is how he pulled in a group of appointees to assist him in deliberately mangling legal reasoning to justify his wish-list of illegal spying, detainment and torture. It was heartening, though, to realize that there were a number of people within all branches of the government and the military, including numerous people who identify themselves as conservative Republicans, and even members of the Bush Administration, who stood up to try and prevent the abuses, and then to try to overturn the abuses, and then to try to correct the abuses, all while Cheney and his team attempted to gut any reforms, and continually drafted new opinions, policies, and laws stating their behavior was legal and they could not be prosecuted no matter what anybody else said, whether that anybody else was Congress, the Supreme Court, etc., etc. Mayer makes a highly political and complicated chain of events an exciting read.