Corruption – Page 39 – Public Intelligence Blog

Opens with Summary, Good Series, Underestimates Cheney,

September 8, 2006

Sidney Blumenthal

By virtue of being an organized series of past short columns, most two pages to three pages in length, this book may be off-putting to the average reader, but for either insiders or those who care deeply about moral legitimate governance, this is a real page turner.

The author renders a valuable service in providing an original 23 page “tour of the horizon” that captures many but not all of the impeachable offenses of the Bush-Cheney team. In Florida, for example, his emphasis is on Bushophiles stopping the recount, not on the fact that Greg Pabst broke the story BEFORE the election that 35,000 people of color had been disenfranchised by Jeb Bush in a calculated plan to cheat the American public out of an honest election.

As someone who has read most but not all of the books covering this era (it merits comment that in its radical being, the Bush-Cheney Administration has inspired more books of the moment than any other previous President, as best I can tell), I found the collection of essays logical, reasoned, relevant, and depressing. This is a litany of high crimes and misdemeanors that demands the question: why hasn't this pair been impeached? The obvious answer is because they own Congress, which has abdicated its roles at the first (Article 1) branch of government, the less obvious answer is because the public has become both ignorant and inert, the worst nightmare of Thomas Jefferson and Justice Branstein combined.

A few highlights along the trail:

Intelligence wars, with Cheney first trying to intimidate the CIA, then ignoring it.

Cheney killing the policy process, ruling by dogma.

Rice negligent & incompetent, as well as disloyal to Scowcroft, subversive of Powell, and ultimately the “butterfly of the State Department.”

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence betraying the people's trust and its responsibility, the majority concealing and delaying accountability.

Bush leveraging religions, creating the first major violation of the Founding Fathers' insistence on a secular state with tolerance of all religions.

Government in crisis, Bush-Cheney at war with the professionals.

Iran, not US, winning in Iraq.

Bolton as a “neo-primitive” (for the cognoscenti, the author renders gifted turns of phrase at every turn).

Catholic Church as a neo-fascist extreme right element more in harmony with the Bush regime than any protestant might imagine.

The invisible shrinking president seeking to uphold a doctrine of presidential infallibility.

The summary at the beginning of the book is alone worth the price of the book, and takes this collection of insightful and well-sequenced essays from four to five stars.

My one thought in putting the book down was that the author may have been unduly kind to Cheney. If one reads the The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 it is clear Cheney has mounted an internal coup d'etat and is NOT briefing Bush, is actively WITHHOLDING from Bush critical information, and appears to be deliberately REVERSING decisions by Bush made in Cabinet sessions and the over-turned in the dark. The full story on Cheney's machinations remains to be told.

EDIT of 10 Dec 07: We now know that Dick Cheney is a nakely amoral person and has committed 25 documents acts of commission or omission that in my judgement demand that he be impeached. See, in addition to One Percent Doctrine, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency. My review there items 23 act, the other two are in One Percent Doctrine.

The book has an index, mostly of names.

2006/08/092011/10/22

Review: The Broken Branch–How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Politics

Amazon Page

Helpful to Anyone Planning to Vote in November 2008,

August 9, 2006

Thomas E. Mann

I have long understood the original terrible sin of Congress, the obscene corruption. I did not understand party line corruption (forcing Members to vote the party line instead of for their constituents until I read Tom Coburns Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders.

This book helped me understand that the third sin is that partisan politics have turned Members into (the author's term) “footsoldiers for the President” and thus a complete abdication of their role as the Article 1 (i.e. first) branch of government.

This book helped me understand that it is the long-serving Members who are often shaking down lobbyists and extorting funds from people, not the other way around, where bribes are offered by the lobbyists.

I read this book after reading David Broder's article in the 8 August 2006 issue of the Washington Post, an article entitled “Contempt for Congress” and summarizing the utter disdain that the Governors–both Republican and Democratic–have for most Members. The Congress is indeed broken and dysfunctional. There is a tide sweeping against all incumbents, regardless of party, in this year.

Hence, as Congress reconvenes on 5 September for one last session ending in early October, it could be quite fruitful for as many voters as possible to read this book and Tom Coburn's book, and demand of Congress two things in this next session: Electoral Reform, and a Public Intelligence Agency independent of both the President and Congress. We have a window for reform. This book is one of two pillars for those who wish to “raise the roof.”

It is vital that the 100 million voters who have “dropped out” of the broken partisan political scene come back in 2008.

2006/08/092009/12/04

Review: Fiasco–The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Hardcover)

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Amazon Page

Extraordinarily Good Review, with Sadness of Deja Vu and Silence of the Lambs,

August 9, 2006

Thomas E. Ricks

There are other vital books to read, not least of which is James Risens State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration and Jim Bamford's A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies and Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq as well as The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. There are lesser books as well, such as Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. On balance, of all the books I have read, this is the best and easiest to read chronicle and teaching device.

Everyone preparing to vote in November for the gutless Congress that betrayed America and failed to maintain either the power of the purse or the power to declare war, should read this book.

And when future politicians who were military commanders that failed to speak up (“the silence of the lambs” as the author notes) ask for your vote, laugh in their face.

There are leadership heros in this book–General Zinni of the Marine Corps, General Shinseki, who told the truth to Congress and was fired for his trouble (as was General Clapper, who said that the national agencies could be cut free from defense). Garner and the Army generals were on the right track, until Garner was fired for doing the right thing (trying to accelerate the turnover of authority to the Iraqis and the exit of Americans).

There are also villains. Chalabi gets his due share but in my view the author underestimates Chalabi's influence on Cheney, and Chalabi's treasonous representation of Iranian interests.

Rumsfeld is documented over and over as one massive ego completely uncaring of inter-agency effectiveness or accomodating to reality.

Edit of 10 Sep 06: the author appeared on a Sunday talk show today, and pointed out that it was Paul Bremer who gave the Iraqi insurgency everything they needed: 1) leadership, with his order to ban Bathists from responsible positions; 2) guns and volunteers with his order to disband the Iraqi military and police; and 3) finances, providing Iran with exactly the right opportunity to further its interests. It can be said that Bremer has done more damange to America than Bin Laden–what an obituary that makes!

This is a superb chronicle of who shot John, when, and how. The headings for each section of text are brilliant. When I first got the book I flipped through it and read only the headings, and they were as compelling and concise of summary of our botched endeavor in Iraq as one could want.

If you buy and read only one book from among all those I have mentioned, this is the book to buy.

2006/06/162011/10/22

Review: Hostile Takeover–How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government–and How We Take It Back (Hardcover)

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Amazon Page

Serious Book for Serious People,

June 16, 2006

David Sirota

I bought and read both this book, and John Stossel's Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel – Why Everything You Know is Wrong This is a serious book for serious people. Stossel's book is full of trivia and generally a waste of time.

This author focuses on the substance of taxes, wages, jobs, debt, pensions, health care, prescription drugs, energy, unions, and legal rights, and he does it in an engaging methodical manner that discusses the issue, highlights in turn myths, lies, and half-truths, and then ends with proposed solutions, all of them sensible.

It merits comment that this book is endorsed on the back cover by many people I respect from Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming to Bill Greider Who Will Tell The People? : The Betrayal Of American Democracy and The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy to Jim Hightower Thieves in High Places: They've Stolen Our Country and It's Time to Take It Back.

The bottom line is clear: the U.S. government at the political level, whether Republican or Democratic, is completely corrupt. Every Congressman and every President, every Senator, have so many conflicts of interest as to be incapable of representing the people honestly. Congress no longer represents the people. Let me repeat that: Congress no longer represents the people. They are either bribed by special interests or forced to follow the party line. See, with reviews: Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It; The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy); and Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders.

This author ends with a sensible bottom line: engage from the bottom up, and push for public financing of elections (I would include free television time from the PUBLIC airwaves), and until then, contribute to honest politicians who will forego campaign contributions.

The Unity '08 movement established by Hamilton Jordan proposes to field an Independent candidate fully funded by the people. As Joe Trippi and Howard Dean demonstrated, the people CAN out-spend and out-vote the corporations if they have a mind to. Jordon is half-way to the right answer–the rest of the answer is a Democratic President, a Republican Vice-President, two new Deputy Vice Presidents (John McCain for national security, overseeing Defense, State, and Justice, and Bill Bradley for everything else), and a COALITION cabinent. Separately a NON-RIVAL party has been created, the Citizens Party, to post a transparent national budget that is also balanced, and to engage voters from ALL parties in support of one single public interest issue: electoral reform in 2007, in time for an honest election the extremist Republicans cannot steal as they stole in 2000 via Florida and in 2004 via Ohio.

Lest anyone doubt the depth of this book's documented concerns, see my review of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office by Dave Lindorf and Barbara Olshansky, and also How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok by constituional lawyer Gleen Greenwald.

For a list of 23 documented high crimes and misdemeanors by Dick Cheney,see my review of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

2006/04/042009/12/04

Review: A Farewell to Justice–Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History (Hardcover)

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Sufficient to Impeach the Warren Commission; CIA Now Proven Complicit,

April 4, 2006

Joan Mellen

Edit of 11 Dec 07: Since I wrote this review, another book has come out, Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History and it conclusively documents two points:

1) JFK was assassinated by a Cuban exile team trained by CIA to assassinate Castro, that used their training against JFK, ostensibly for the Bay of Pigs mess. CIA then covered this up.

2) JFK was warned by Bobby that there were strong indications of a plot to kill him, and JFK himself blew it off, entrusting his safety to a Secret Service with no idea a professional CIA hit team was coming in.

As a former clandestine case officer for the CIA who served in Latin America and also lived in Viet-Nam during the ten coups, one of which killed Ngo Dinh Diem, I picked this book up with some trepidation.

It is an exhausting review, a truly incredible accomplishment for a single human being without any visible corporate resources for doing machine processing or visualization of all of the information.

Here's my bottom line as a 54-year old with over 30 years government service:

1) The Warren Commission, like the 9-11 Commission, blew it and mis-served the nation. They are retrospectively impeachable for dereliction of duty.

2) The Central Intelligence Agency, and Ted Shackley in particular, have a lot to answer for, and continue to lie and withhold key documents from the American people. We need the moral equivalent of a truth & reconciliation commission on covert action–I thought the Church Commission had done some of that, but clearly there is more to be done.

3) We clearly do not have a government that is capable of being consistently honest, at the same time that we have thousands of dedicated government employees who have no idea what the “cowboys” are doing. The recent outrage over CIA renditions and torture are all too familiar for those who have studied the Phoenix assassination program in Viet-Nam, or the JMWAVE efforts against Castro that blew back against John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy.

4) The time has come for the people to arm themselves with open source intelligence. I want to cut the spines off all these books that are creating new revelations and new detail, put it all in a machine, and makes some sense out of it. We are a few years away from that point, but the day is coming, and when that day comes, we need to hand down some public indictments, including posthumous indictments, and begin to set the stage for honorable governance and ethical intelligence.

This book may not be completely accurate–it tends to assume the worst of CIA at all points–but it is assuredly enough to persuade me that US intelligence has much to answer for, and the Warren Commission *should* be retrospectively impeached.

For those who under-estimate the value of history, see Robert Parry on Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'(Ted Shackley played a big role there as well, allegedly running guns to Central America, drugs back through America to Europe, and cash from Europe home), and also the complaints of the official Department of State historians, who are outraged that the CIA will still not release documents from the 1960's without which we cannot properly evaluate our foreign policy misadventures in retrospect.

2006/03/292009/12/04

Review: American Theocracy–The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

5 Star, Corruption, Economics, Misinformation & Propaganda, Religion & Politics of Religion

Brilliant integration of oil, debt, religion, Bush, and crime,

March 29, 2006

Kevin Phillips

This is a five-star book that offers up two very serious values:

1) There is no other author who has written in such depth, over the course of four books, on the Republican party, the Bush dynasty, and the inter-relationship between the religious right and corporate wealth. This Republican is as serious an analyst as any that can be found. he joins Clyde Prestowitz, Paul O'Neil, and Peter Peterson as “go to guys” for when Senator John Edwards forms the American Independence Party and breaks away from the idiot Democrats and the Clinton mafia.

2) The author has done his homework and very ably integrated, with all appropriate footnotes and index entries, three broad literatures, two of which I have read multiple books on (oil and debt), one on which I have not (radical US religion–fully the equal of Bin Laden and suicidal terrorists, these folks just send others to do the dying for them).

So I have to say, given that this is a serious book by a serious author, why so many obviously loosely-read individuals writing short dismissive reviews? I have to conclude he has touched a nerve. When I used to appear on NPR, before I was kicked off for condemning Israeli lobbyists and suggesting that the common Arabs (the real people, not the sadistic opulent corrupt House of Saud or the other dictators) never got a fair shake from the US, I would get hate calls and mail from what I now realize were know-nothing radical right-wing religious nuts. We'd get into the issues, and I would ask, “what books have you read on this?” only to be told, “There is only one book that matters, the Bible.”

Well, this author has helped me understand where the Bush constituency comes from: these are the folks that graduated from rote reading of the Bible to the “Left Behind” fiction series. They are the intellectual equals of the Islamic kids learning to be suicide bombers by reciting old Arabic they don't understand.

If you do not have the time or money to buy all the other books I have reviewed, spanning emerging threats, the lack of strategy and the inappropriate force structure, the anti-Americanism that we spawn, the corruption of Wall Street and the shallowness of white collar law enforcement, the end of cheap oil, the end of free water, the rise of pandemic disease, the coming date with destiny when the 44 dictators we support are overthrown and the US pays the price for its long-term nurturing of all but three of them….this book brings a lot together. It avoids only two really important topics: the environmental implications such as covered by TIME Magazine in the 3 April 2006 cover story on Global Warming; and the minutia of how America is no longer a real democracy–not only do most voters not vote, but once elected, most Congressman are corrupted immediately by lobbyists.

The author, who is uniquely qualified to sum this all up in this book because of his three prior books centered on the Bush Family, oil, and wealth, does a tremendous job of outlining how oil money ultimately bought the White House and Congress. If you have time for two other books, I recommend Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil in which a former LAPD investigator makes a case for indicting Dick Cheney for fabricating the march to war on Iraq under the delusion that we would get another ten years of “cheap oil” and Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy in which it is clearly documented that both Congress and the White House knew in 1974-1975 that Peak Oil was over, and they concealed this for another 25 years in order to keep the bribery coming–this was nothing less than a treasonous betrayal of the public interest worthy of retrospective impeachments for all concerned. The books by moderate Republicans Prestowitz (Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions) and Petersen (Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It) should be read as well as Brand Hijack : Marketing Without Marketing which is about why Paul O'Neil quit the Bush Administration–he realized that ideological fantasy and Dick Cheney had displaced a reasoned policy process, the Cabinet, and Congressional concurrence…..

This is a very bad time. This book is as good as any at setting the stage for intelligent people to campaign and vote in 2006 and 2008.

EDIT 7 Dec 07: Since I wrote this review, several gems are newly available:
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Plus)
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

and on and on and on….

2006/01/122009/12/04

Review: Conspiracy of Fools–A True Story (Hardcover)

5 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Corruption

Inspired detail on corporate stupidity and dishonesty, government incapacity,

January 12, 2006

Kurt Eichenwald

There are some superb reviews here that I will not replicate. Here are a few things that jump out at me:

1) This author sets the gold standard for investigative journalism and non-fiction authorship. 1000 hours of interviews, 200 three-ring binders, and a gifted ability to communicate extremely complex issues. Perhaps more pointedly, the author shows what a good solid investigation can produce in the way of facts and context and understanding, to the point that one wonders why the government cannot do as well.

2) This book confirms the author's earlier findings as documented in “The Informant,” to wit, the government does not take enforcement seriously, and lets very bad people off with very minor sentences. When combined with the books on “The Cheating Culture,” or “The Soul of Capitalism,” or “Rogue Nation,” what we see is a complete break-down of ethics in business–Wall Street business, not Main Street. Enron, and then WorldCom, are the poster children of greed run amok. The profligacy of Enron is quite amazing—they paid 25% to 100% above the industry average in salaries, and made huge deals with falsified projections of future profit that were used to hemorrhage tens of millions in cash bonuses to key Enron managers.

3) Neither Arthur Anderson nor the government did their jobs. Arthur Anderson “sold out” and as the author concludes, deserved to die a corporate death penalty for its malfeasance. The government, for lack of deep economic understanding among key staffers, allowed itself to be manipulated into opening the door for Enron to cook its books.

The level of detail in this book is extraordinary, and I find that it softens my view of Ken Lay and others in a substantial way. One can see how they were drawn in, how the context led them to make bad uninformed decisions, avoid due diligence, avoid holding corrupt officers to account. This is a deeply human story, full of failings at every turn.

I put the book down reminded of the Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) scam that stole billions from the public, and then the series of scams outlined in this book. To that one can add the very negative findings outlined in “Crossing the Rubicon,” where the author documents $3 trillion stolen by Wall Street from Main Street and the public.

It is possible to conclude that between the illicit profits of the overtly criminal gangs in the US, and the illicit profits of the covertly criminal Wall Street high-flyers, that the USA is as close to being a narco-crime state as is Colombia or Afghanistan. We have a superficial semblance of order and freedom and good living, but it is a Potemkin Village. We are being hollowed out as a Nation. This book is as close as I have seen to a medical diagnosis of all that is wrong with Wall Street and the very large corporations.

Category: Corruption

Review: How Bush Rules–Chronicles of a Radical Regime

Review: The Broken Branch–How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)

Review: Fiasco–The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Hardcover)

Review: Hostile Takeover–How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government–and How We Take It Back (Hardcover)

Review: A Farewell to Justice–Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History (Hardcover)

Review: American Theocracy–The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

Review: Conspiracy of Fools–A True Story (Hardcover)