We’ll Have to Work the Dark Side

“We’ll have to work the dark side.” – Dick Cheney, First Sunday after 9/11

And it appears that Dick Cheney meant every word considering all that has transpired between 9/11 and today. According to investigative journalist Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals the war on terrorism may have done as much political and social damage to the United States as terrorism itself.

In 1863 a general order issued by Abraham Lincoln prohibited the use of “physical or mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to inhumane treatment as a means of or aid to interrogation.”

One-hundred and thirty-nine years later, a three-tiered method of interrogation that defines "humane treatment" with “outrages upon personal dignity” permitted, amongst many other modifications to the concept of "humane treatment" was insidiously legislated under the radar and signed into "law" or lawlessness, undermining any moral authority we, the people had. This process progresses from yelling and deception -----> humiliation and sensory deprivation -----> the use of scenarios designed to convince the detainee that death or severely painful consequences were imminent for him or his family.

In November of 2006, "Congress passes the Military Commissions Act, which makes illegal several broadly defined abuses of detainees, while leaving it to the president to establish specific permissible interrogation techniques."

Tortuous timeline