Going to the Dark Side and Other Lies

Going to the Dark Side and Other Lies

Peter Schultz

            I am currently rereading Jane Mayer’s excellent book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, the title of which is a reference to Dick Cheney’s assertion after 9/11 that it would now be necessary for the United States to go to the dark side in combatting our terrorist enemies.

            But this idea of “going to the dark side” is a lie because it suggests that Cheney/Bush, et. al., are going to a place, out of necessity, that is part of the traditional American political order. That is, the implication is that this “side,” although rarely visited, is a part of the traditional governmental arrangements in the United States. But this is a lie. Cheney/Bush, et. al., are not going to a part of our traditional governmental arrangements but are building what they hope will be an entirely new and very different set of governmental arrangements. And this is supported by Mayer’s observation that Dick Cheney has been working on this agenda for some years, even decades now, as evidenced by the minority report he wrote for the Iran-Contra investigation, as well as Cheney’s long-standing concern with what is called “Continuation of Government” or “COG.”

            The same lie is being told when Cheney/Bush, et. al., imply that their actions instituting what Mayer calls the “New Paradigm” are being undertaken out of necessity. Rather, these actions are for these people desirable rather than necessary. And the difference is important for understanding what is going on. For clarity’s sake, think of our traditional governmental arrangements as a garment. The argument from necessity suggests that what is going on is that something additional is being added to the existing garment, that something being made necessary by events like 9/11. But the argument from desirability suggests that what is going on is the creation of a wholly new garment. The latter of course raises or should raise all kinds of questions, such as whether the new garment is a republican or a royalist/monarchical one. But, as Mayer points out, these are the kind of questions that never got raised in the aftermath of 9/11 and that the Cheney/Bush regime did not want raised. And because they did not want them raised, they pretended that they were concerned with the constitutional bona fides of their proposals. But their constitutional arguments are merely meant to disguise what is in fact a radically different kind of government than the one created in 1787.

            Mayer is correct then to argue that the war on terror constitutes “a war on American ideals.” But care should be taken here as well because that war, the one on terror, is just the convenient excuse that is being used to try to create a new political order, one that is quite unlike the order created by the constitution of 1787. So, if the war on terror were to end, it would be naïve to think that the attempts to sabotage our traditional governmental arrangements would also end. They would not.