As noted, the rise of the spoilers would have had less impact without an abdication of leadership by governments that traditionally hold themselves forth as defenders of human rights. No government bears greater blame for this abdication than the United States under President George W. Bush. As is widely known, the Bush administration chose to respond to the serious security challenge of terrorism by ignoring the most basic requirements of international human rights law. Its decision, made not by low-level "bad apples" but at the highest levels of government, was to "disappear" suspects into secret detention facilities run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where their detention was unacknowledged, subject them to torture and other abusive interrogation including "waterboarding" (mock execution by drowning) and various "stress" techniques, and detain them for years on end without charge or trial at Guantanamo.