Mayer, Jane. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. New York: Doubleday, 2008. 392 pages.

As this is being written, in September 2009, it is much too early to know how this story will evolve. Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that the issue of torture would be pursued by a special counsel, John Durham. But President Obama doesn't like the idea, and CIA director Leon Panetta is circling the wagons against an investigation, even though Panetta was anti-torture at the time he was appointed. Needless to say, every Iraq hawk on the op-ed pages loves the idea of torturing prisoners, or at least prefers no investigation of clear violations of international law. On the other hand, Obama is not in a position to ask for Holder's resignation over this issue without losing a huge amount of credibility. And it will look bad if Durham goes after only a few low-level cowboys, because they can easily claim that they were "just following orders."

Whatever happens, this book is the one to read for background on this issue, even though more documents have come out since it was published. Dick Cheney is fingered as the key player in promoting torture; he managed to intimidate anyone who opposed his methods in the war against terrorism. A handful of too-clever administration lawyers did his bidding by coming up with phrases that showed why international law was irrelevant in the current context of terrorism, and why torture isn't really torture after all.
ISBN 978-0-385-52639-5

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