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-- ....humiliating and degrading treatment;"-- sentencing or executing detainees "without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees....recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples;" and
-- assuring wounded and sick are cared for.
New Yorker Writer Jane Mayer's New Book: "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals"
Mayer's book reflects what the ICRC reported and is now common knowledge except for more grim details and personal accounts. Prior to its release, the publisher's promotion commented:
"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 Queda. In gripping detail...Jane Mayer relates the impact of these decisions - US-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" recounts the fallout from the above administration documents and more. It reveals high-level contempt for the law to advance an imperial project. The story is gripping and comprehensive. It's about an American gulag throughout the world where mostly innocent detainees are held secretly outside the law and subjected to ritual abuse, humiliation and excruciating torture - day after day repeatedly. Some don't survive. All who do remain scarred for life.
Mayer states that decisions were taken at the highest levels - to make "torture the official law of the land in all but name," and it's no longer secret. Her evidence is compelling and comes from military officers, intelligence professionals and other conservative Bush appointees - "hard-line law-and-order stalwarts in the criminal justice system" who came forward nonetheless, and apparently for good reason.
Unlike past lawless periods, this time is different given the menu of what occurred post-9/11: an array of
-- illegal aggressive wars and the possibility of others;
-- police state laws enacted;
-- extremist Executive Orders;
-- similar National and Homeland Security Presidential Directives; military orders and signing statements;
-- "unitary executive" authority assumption granting unlimited presidential powers;
-- lawless and pervasive spying on Americans;
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