Review: In My Time – A Personal and Political Memoir

3 Star, America (Anti-America), America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation
Amazon Page

Dick Cheney

3.0 out of 5 stars Here's the Documented View of Others, and Then Some,August 30, 2011

At three stars–everyone deserves to tell their side of the story, I am pleased to note that this is the ONLY review that is in the middle, all others being on the extreme of blind hate or blind faith.

These ten books serve as my alternative reading list on Dick Cheney and his regime–I believe that George Junior had the best of intentions and was played like a fiddle by Cheney, while also undermined by his own family and the two-party mafia.

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
My review extracts from the book and itemizes over 20 impeachable offenses, many involving the deliberate degradation of Colin Powell, all of which merit retrospective indictment, investigation, and public confession of the truth.

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
My review extracts core insights by this author on how Dick Cheney was able to make millions of smart people do stupid things.

The Bush Tragedy
I am among those who feel Bush Junior was well-intentioned and played like a fiddle by Dick Cheney, who overturned Presidential decisions without a qualm. He is a Walker and a misfit in relation to the Bush Crime Family, Dick Cheney was closer to the Bushes than their own black sheep son, and he knew it.

9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Three months prior to 9/11, Dick Cheney scheduled a national counter-terrorism exercise for “the day” and put the command center on the piers of New York City instead of using the existing Command Center in the World Trade Center. Nine nations warned us of 9/11 in advance; the FBI blew off two walk-ins, one in Newark, one in Orlando, and CIA conspired to not share key information with the FBI. In all of this, one man alone, orchestrated the mix of institutionalized ineptitude and high crimes and misdemeanors: Dick Cheney.

A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Dick Cheney made the most of 9/11–he certainly Let It Happen (LIH), but he needed 935 lies to fully exploit it for his own ideological ends–CIA, less George Tenet, got it right with the defecting son in law and line crossers. Tenet betrayed what little CIA has left in the way of integrity the way Cheney betrayed the Republic.

Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History
It started with Senator Phil Graham (R-TX) and came to its fullest depth of depravity under Clinton, but for Dick Cheney, this was the lesser criminal conspiracy–he did much more with military power to dishonor and deprive the Republic of blood, treasure, and spirit.

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict
My review extracts key facts for public consideration.

Grand Theft Pentagon :Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror
My review summarizes the manner in which the Bush Crime Family in particular, Cheney as their hit man, has used the Pentagon to steal trillions from the public treasury.

The Mafia, CIA and George Bush
One of the better books underlying an entire literature on deep secrecy, off budget gold-based funding, and other impeachable offenses.

Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
My fellow case officer tells one of the best stories around. Personally I would like to see the Saudis avoid what has happened in Egypt and is about to happen in Syria, but unless they listen, they are next. We have been enablers as well as abject subjects.

As the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, I would enjoy reading this book and picking it apart as Colin Powell has, but this is one book I will never buy for the reasons outlined above. It is quite enough for me to have Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell, and Condolezza Rice, among others, call into question the veracity of much of this book.

I offer as a gift to the public my book review lists, all of reviews I have written, all findable online by searching for the exact titles. The first two are summary of all the positive and negative books I have reviewed in the past eleven years on Amazon. Below those two links are some of the applicable negative sub-lists (also within the negative list).

I hope Dick Cheney lives long and prospers–I mean him no ill will and no retrospective punishment, but before he dies, I would like to see him indicted and forced to appear before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and to be subject to sustained interrogation by a real professional (no torture) to get all the facts on the table. As Bob Seelert, Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide has said so beautifully, “When things are not going well, until you get the truth out on the table, no matter how ugly, you are not in a position to deal with it.”

Relevant lists, search for exact titles on any search engine (all reviews lead back to their Amazon page):

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Positive)

Worth a Look: Book Review Lists (Negative)

Within the above negative list, see especially:

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corruption

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Dereliction of Duty (Defense)

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Disinformation, Other Information Pathologies, & Repression

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Empire as Cancer Including Betrayal & Deceit

Worth a Look: Impeachable Offenses, Modern & Historic

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Bankruptcy of US Economy, Federal Reserve Malfeasance

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Class War (Global)

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate & Transnational Crime

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Corporate Lack of Integrity or Intelligence or Both

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Religion

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on the War on Science

Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: “I am Willing to Testify” If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial

It is what it is, they are what they are, what we make of all that is up to us. Read and think for liberty and justice for all…including Dick Cheney.

Vote and/or Comment on Review

Review: Family of Secrets – The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)
Amazon Page

Russ Baker

5.0 out of 5 stars Tough reading, desperately needs charts and graphs and a proper web site,August 4, 2011

I sat down to write a review and realized that the top review is a very good summary, and has a number of comments that provide specific new information and also recommend two other books, so what I have decided to do, as a direct complement to the top review by Richard Cumming, is provide links to the other books mentioned in the comments, and then add some of my own. I strongly recommend all the comments on the review be read.

The book desperately needs social networking graphics and its own web site. Although the author, who sent me the book, has a web site by the book's title, it is focused on video clips and is not an extension of the book. Public intelligence is now at a point where all that needs to be known is large known, but it cannot be aggregated and made sense of for lack of a public intelligence ability to do data mining and data visualization in a very structured continuous manner.

Continue reading “Review: Family of Secrets – The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years”

Review: Pathology of Power

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Threats (Emerging & Perennial)
Amazon Page

Norman Cousins

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Detailed Exposure of Power Killing Intelligence, July 30, 2011

This is a new edition of the book, and so very timely. If I had the money to give one book to every American, this would be it, followed by TYRANNICIDE The Story of the Second American Revolution and my all time God Bless America favorite, The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen.

Here is the author's opening statement:

“Connected to the tendency of power to corrupt are yet other tendencies that emerge from the pages of the historians:

* The tendency of power to drive intelligence underground;

* The tendency of power to become a theology, admitting no other gods before it;

* The tendency of power to distort and damage the traditions and institutions it was designed to protect;

* The tendency of power to create a language of its own, making other forms of communication incoherent and irrelevant;

* The tendency of power to spawn imitators, leading to volatile competition;

* The tendency of power to set the stage for its own use.

Continue reading “Review: Pathology of Power”

Review (Guest): The Illusion of Victory – The True Costs of War

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Security (Including Immigration), Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Ian Bickerton

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant overview of the results of modern conflicts,May 26, 2011

By Tim Johnson (Fremantle, Australia) – See all my reviews

Although I loved Bickerton's excellent book, I did find it a demanding read; chapters one, two and three is not material that a general reader like myself often encounters in the contemporary media: the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 is not a conflict that is considered in accounts of the reasons for contemporary conflicts but the more so that it need be. Far too often the entrails of conflict are not considered and much modern commentary about conflict virtually implies that the event had few if any antecedents implying that it just happened spontaneously. I believe that Illusion of Victory puts that idea away and that seems not to be the author's thesis.

Continue reading “Review (Guest): The Illusion of Victory – The True Costs of War”

Review: Tremble the Devil

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle
Amazon Page

Anonymous [US counterterrorism analyst]

NOTE:Ā  Free Online, Table of Contents

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Five Stars–Epic, Poetic, Startling, Reasoned, June 11, 2011

I have been totally absorbed with this book, and I HATE electronic books. At the age of 58, if I can't hold it and flip back and forth and quickly check the index, and so on, it's just not a book. This is why I have encouraged the author, whom I know and respect enormously, to offer this book as an Amazon CreateSpace soft-cover hard-copy. It should certainly be translated into Arabic, Chinese, and other languages. This book goes into my top ten percent “6 Stars and Beyond.” See the others at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog, under Reviews (middle column).

Right up front, let me give the author and this book my highest praise: both have INTEGRITY. Integrity is not just about honor, it's about doing the right thing instead of the wrong thing righter, it's about being holistic, open-minded, appreciating diversity, respecting the “other.” There is more integrity in this book than in the last thousand top secret intelligence reports on Afghanistan, all full of lies and misrepresentations.

Continue reading “Review: Tremble the Devil”

Review: Grand Strategies — Literature, Statecraft, and World Order

6 Star Top 10%, Civil Society, Culture, Research, Democracy, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, History, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Amazon Page

Charles Hill

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 5 Stars–Can Frustrate, But Righteously Broad, June 9, 2011

I am sympathetic to those who are critical of the author, as I myself was frustrated at many points and also I confess feeling very ignorant about many of the literary works that were mentioned. However, and despite a rotten index and the lack of a syntopicon or annex with literature and politics and economics at least, side by side, this is for me beyond 5 stars, a category where no more than 10% of my reviewed works can be found (at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog).

It is true the book is not so much about grand strategy in the classical political science or military sense, but for that I recommend Colin Gray's Modern Strategy. The book also does not address the impoverished nature of the nation-state system or how to build civilizations. There I recommend Philip Allott's The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State and Richard Spady's The Leadership of Civilization Building: Administrative and civilization theory, Symbolic Dialogue, and Citizen Skills for the 21st Century.

Read to the bitter end this magnificent book is both an indictment of the nation-state system, and an ode to the role of literature as a foundation for understanding and enhancing civilization and relations among peoples rather than nations.

Continue reading “Review: Grand Strategies — Literature, Statecraft, and World Order”

Review (Guest): Brain Trust — The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s Disease

02 Infectious Disease, 07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atrocities & Genocide, Censorship & Denial of Access, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Earth Intelligence, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Government, Impeachment & Treason, IO Sense-Making, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)
Amazon Page

Dr. Colm A. Kelleher

5.0 out of 5 stars As a neurologist, I found it frightening, November 21, 2004

By Stephen Wong (Pennsylvania, USA) – See all my reviews

As a trained neurologist working at a school of medicine, I thought I had a fairly good understanding of BSE and its human counterpart, nvCJD. But clinical knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle.

Drawing upon epidemiologic, forensic, political, medical, scientific, and historical sources, the author has provided a truly chilling account of the importation of prion disease samples from the small cannabalistic Fore tribe in New Guinea for U.S. animal experimentation in the 1950's and '60's, with credible links to the current epidemic of animal prion disease in North America (CWD or chronic wasting disease, TME or transmissible mink encephalopathy, and BSE), as well as the current epidemic of Alzheimer's disease in developed countries (i.e., those eating mass-produced livestock). The author also speculates that the cattle mutiliations in North America in the past few decades may have been programs designed for the surveillance of prions within the nation's food supply.

Some disturbing points made in the book are:

Continue reading “Review (Guest): Brain Trust — The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer's Disease”