Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture Hardcover – October 24, 2017

Mark Fallon's new book is the story of one man's journey towards bitter illumination. It is also the story of a nation's journey into a moral abyss.Fallon was a top counterintelligence official and investigator, someone who believed in patriotic idealism, who discovered a core of thuggery inside the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus. From 2002 to 2004, he was a top official for the government's Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF). Rather than turn aside (something repugnant to him), he tried to intervene against the barbarism of torture. What he encountered was the corruption of institutions to which he otherwise had been loyal, which he had served for decades. The book is the story of what he experienced and what he felt driven to do.But this book also has a metastory, manifested in the form of words, sentences, paragraphs and ultimately pages of redactions. The repeated blackened lines of typeface represent the arm of that same torturing government Fallon opposed reaching into the reader's own personal universe, that sacred connection between reader and author. The shadow of the evil that conjured up torture, and then acted to protect it, seeps into the realm of the reader him or herself.As anyone who has studied the torture issue for some time can readily see, many of the redactions are embarrassingly stupid, including censorship of names that were recorded in otherwise declassified government documents, or openly reported by the press. But other redactions are serious and frightening, such as the attempt to still hide the full story about the torture of Mohammed Al Qahtani, the so-called 20th hijacker.Mark Fallon is a congenial author, and he wishes to convey some of the shock and outrage he felt as the full implementation of the CIA's torture program unfolded, born out of the government's embrace of modern psychological and psychiatric forms of control over human behavior, and spread into the military.I wouldn't look to this book for a full history of how that all took place, nor does the author pretend to present such a history. His is the account of a whistleblower. His former position inside Guantanamo and corridors of the Defense Department apparatus provides a unique and invaluable perspective of just how the torture policy spread and how it was covered-up.In the end, Fallon witnesses the bureaucratic institutions to which he pledged fealty fatally infected by the virus of torture. His is a harrowing journey, and one that, it is clear from the narrative, haunts him still.Along with books recently written by former detainees themselves, this book by someone on the other side of the interrogation booth is essential reading. I think the torture scandal is even far deeper and darker than even Mark Fallon presents it -- and his is a pretty dark portrayal -- but U.S. readers in particular must understand the courage it took for some of the government's most loyal and idealistic officials and servants to confront those in power with the truth of their crimes.I believe that the torture policy began far earlier than after 9/11, and was inimitably linked to long-time policies of war and conquest. It's current manifestation was itself a logical extension of the "war on terror." From that standpoint, one can see Fallon's battle against torture, and others like him (some of whom he discusses in the book), is important and certainly courageous, as the people they come to oppose are seriously dangerous, with a great deal of power behind them.Rather than the sense of failure that haunts Mark Fallon -- many times he bemoans the fact he could not actually stop the full torture program -- his moral awakening at a dire time in history is a triumph of the human spirit.The confrontation with the urge to torture goes back centuries now, to Voltaire and the French Enlightenment, and on to Nuremberg, to those who organized ad hoc tribunals against Vietnam War crimes in the 1960s, to citizens in North Carolina today trying to bring their own state government to account for its collaboration with CIA torture, and many, many more. The latter include those I've known in the psychology profession who have fought to end collaboration with torture and war crimes in their own profession.The fight against torture is something that has unfolded over generations, and sadly, I've come to realize, will take generations more to win. But what Mark Fallon and others like him achieved was significant. Some of the torture was cut back. The policy dragged out of the shadows and exposed in public. It is not so easy for the torturers to operate as before.In the end, Mark Fallon's book is a document about a significant time in our history. Every partisan of human rights and liberty will want it on their bookshelf.

As a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), Mark Fallon took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Unlike many others in the government who pledged a similar oath, Special Agent Fallon lived up to that exacting standard during a time in America when the Constitution was under attack not by foreign enemies, but by senior members of the U.S. military, Intelligence Community, Congress, and the Executive Branch.This is a story of a true American hero (although Mark modestly does not see himself in that light), an operator with decades of law enforcement, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism experience under his belt when al Qaeda launched its horrific attacks of September 11, 2001. His life would not be the same afterward. But while he expected the demands of running major counterterrorism and investigative operations, he couldn't have anticipated that the larger battle would be fought over the nation's soul or that it would be the moral cowardice of many within our own government that would present the greatest test of his storied career.From his unique vantage point as the deputy commander of the Criminal Investigative Task Force (the unit established to oversee the investigation of terrorism cases, with many involving individuals detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba), Mark offers a compelling tale told in lucid and gripping detail. His is arguably the most comprehensive and systematic account of the nation's rush to the dark side of mistreatment, indefinite detention, and torture. And he shows exceptional courage in identifying the individuals—many in senior positions and most with little or no expertise in interrogations—who designed, promoted, managed, and protected the systematic employment of torture as a tool of statecraft.Since the U.S. Government has been unwilling to hold these people accountable, Mark's book provides a much-needed definitive account that every citizen should read. And it is far more than a chilling chronicle of the recent past; it is also serves as a stark warning of what could easily occur again with another major attack on the American homeland.I recommend you clear your calendar once you you begin reading this book as you are unlikely to put it down. I also recommend that, once you've finished this book, you silently express gratitude that a man of Mark's character relentlessly fought to support and defend our Constitution when few even knew it was under attack.

I have plenty of friends that are authors, but I don't always write a review. This one deserves it and not because I know Mark Fallon. While I was in the FBI he was already legendary. If you wanted to get anything done at NCIS he was the the man. By the book, loyal, for him his loyalty to the constitution was part of his makeup. And those agents that I knew that worked with him said as much. This book is a brilliant look at a man who served in the front lines of the hot and cold wars and he did so with integrity. When reports started filtering back that the military was using what amounted to torture, we knew that Mark Fallon would stand up to the American thugs, and he did. This is a book that needs to be read, because the techniques that he objected to should make you cringe, but what really should make you scream is how so many inept people thought torture would make people tell the truth when in fact all torture guarantees pain, and yes a lot of useless, time consuming babble. If you want to know how this dark period in our history started and how it was carried out. Read the book. The only heroes in the war on terror are those adhered to that which we fight for and swear allegiance to, the constitution, everyone else that tried and tarnished on the constitution for the sake of national security, the same argument the Gestapo used, were on the wrong side of history and the law. Mark Fallon was there, he was the good guy, one of the few, and if you dont read this book then shame on you forever if you talk on a subject you know nothing about. He was there. He does know what he is talking about. This book will make you proud, there are those who have a true allegiance to the constitution - an honorable man, a humble man, with a chilling story worth your time. Read the words of a real American hero. Joe Navarro.