Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback – Page 35

This is NOT “FIction”–Explosive Valuable Insights,

December 9, 2005

Thomas Graves

This is NOT a book of “fiction.” Although the author of necessity had to present it as such, it plays the same role for the world of oil, corruption, crime, and spying that Winn Schwartau's book “Terminal Compromise” played for information security and Y2K.

I am a former spy, lived overseas for twenty years as the son of an oil engineer and executive, then another ten as a spy and Marine Corps infantry officer. This book is REAL. This book is so good that it should be required reading at the Foreign Service Institute where we train our diplomats, at the clandestine training facility for the CIA, and at universities. We continue to send out to the world naive young white boys that have no clue about the real world.

This book *is* the real world. Do not be put off by the shipping time, something Amazon does when the book is not physically stored in the USA. I got my copy in less than 10 days, and it was worth the wait.

Two other books that complement this are Robert Young Pelton's “World's Most Dangerous Places,” and John Perkin's “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.”

2005/11/212009/12/04

Review: A War Against Truth–An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Misinformation & Propaganda

The Anger is Justified–Listen to the Conscience,

November 21, 2005

Paul William Roberts

I have just posted a list of books relevant to citizen evaluation of whether Dick Cheney should be impeached for dereliction of duty and high crimes and misdemeanors (lying to everyone including his ward, the President), and this book is on that list.

I agree with those reviewers that are put off by the seething anger, but I would also hasten to add that seething anger is exactly the right emotion with which to view the thousands of US dead, the tens of thousands of US woundeded including more amputees than ever before in history, and the billions of angry Muslims who see America as a rogue nation.

I am, with all humility and perhaps the good fortune of timing, the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction about global issues and national security. I take this book very seriously, and believe that everyone else should as well. Viewing my list “Books Relevant to Evaluating Cheney” will provide some helpful perspective. Two US Senators, and three major league Republicans have written books against Cheney, and this should carry some weight with the public.

This is a good book, worthy of everyone's consideration.

2005/10/302009/12/04

Review: Blood in the Sand–Imperial Fantasies, Right-Wing Ambitions, and the Erosion of American Democracy (Hardcover)

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Fast Read, Brutal & Riveting, A Call for Progressive Engagement,

October 30, 2005

Stephen Eric Bronner

This is an absolute gem of a book, one I was able to polish off in a couple of hours before Crossfire comes on. It is brutal and riveting, nothing less than a thoughtful manifesto calling for progressive engagement and a restoration of engaged dialog.

Here are a few of my summative notes that serve as a review of the author's key points, all of which I find to be admirable and well-documented:

1) US Democracy is in crisis, in part because the “Halliburton Administration” is comprised of several liars and thieves, among whom I would suggest Dick Cheney and Karl Rove are the worst. Their resignations, and the appointment of Senator John McCain as an ethical vice president, strike me as necessary.

2) The Democratic Party failed to understand that ideological passion and the Republican mobilization of their own base would more than crush the Democratic pragmatism, focus on the economic case, and a heroic but insufficient increase in registered voters. In essence, the Democratic Party relied on mobilization and failed to find its voice or its spine in 2000 and 2004. Even when the Democrats knew–as Greg Pabst documented–that the Florida election was stolen twice (one with the disenfranchisement of over 35,000 people of color, the second time with the rejection of over-count votes in pro-Gore countries–while revalidating them in pro-Bush counties), they failed to rise to the challenge.

3) The author is brutal in a very polite and professional way as he describes the origins of the neo-conservatives and their commitment to looting the commonwealth of the poor and middle class in order to fund wealth transfers to the already rich, and a larger garrison state with which to pursue imperial adventures.

4) The author provides a very helpful review of what Ghandi was trying to accomplish (see also my review of the DVD by that name) and what I took away from this chapter was that non-violence is not only moral, it is educational and pragmatic. It unites the oppressed and enlightens the oppressor.

5) In the chapter on reflections from a personal visit to Baghdad, the author makes it clear that on-the-ground eye witnesses could plainly see–as the UN inspectors saw and US Marine Scott Ritter said–that Iraq was no threat to the US. The educators also heard from taxi drivers and intellectuals who said plainly that the demise of Saddam would be welcome, but occupying forces would inspire a massive nationalist insurgency. How is it that neither CIA nor the White House heard these voices? We conclude that CIA has become stupid in its reliance of classified sources and fabrications from defectors seeking resettlement, while the White House is merely unethical.

6) In an overview of the geopolitics of the region, while the author does not fully examine the nefarious misbehavior and selfish refusal to help from the other Arab nations, all of which continue to refuse land or status to Palestinians, he provides a very interesting discussion of the possibility of Iraq being divided into three parts–one aligned with Turkey, another with Iran, and suggests that colonial borders should not be considered permanent–much better to accommodate, better late than never–to tribal and religious realities. He also maps the planned Israeli walls, and I can only say that I consider this a very effective exposure of the lunacy of the Israelis. Palestine should be divided in half, each half augmented by additional land from contributing adjacent states, and Jerusalem made an international city-state under a joint religion and United Nations council

7) The book concludes with a very thoughtful discussion of 9/11 and of democracy. I agree with the author when he says that 9/11 had a *basis* in the US support of the corrupt Saudis, of the Israeli persecution of the Palestinians; and of the continuing imperialist ambitions including what Al Qaeda, not the author, have called virtual colonialism. The author tells us that democratic dynamics require accountability, morality, and reciprocity, and pointedly suggests that the neo-conservatives that have hijacked the Bush Administration have replaced all three with know-nothing fundamentalism and a grotesque imperial ambition that is quite ignorant and quite craven in thinking that we can “take over” the oil and water of the Middle East, and continue to occupy any portion of it.

This book is elegant, solid common sense, capably presented.

2005/10/232009/12/04

Review: Imperial Ambitions–Conversations on the Post-9/11 World (American Empire Project) (Paperback)

4 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback

Call to arms for We the People (Intellectual Self-Defense),

October 23, 2005

Noam Chomsky

There are always gems to be found in anything that Chomsky offers (I agree with the Boston Globe's assessment of him as “America's most useful citizen”) but one can always be warned when the offering is interviews, double-spaced, over time.

In this instance, the Introduction is actually useful and I agree with David Barsamian when he describes Chomsky as an extraordinary distiller and interpreter of information, who represents all that intellectuals *should* be.

One aspect of the book that is new to Chomsky's writing is his clear and distinct appreciation for the freedom's that we enjoy in America. While we are all subject to the arbitrary declaration by the government that we are an “enemy combatant” with no rights, on balance Chomsky goes out of his way in this series of interviews to articulate his love for America and his appreciation of the privileges that attend one who is both a citizen and a tenured (now retired) professor.

As a long-time reader of Chomsky, I found some delight in his recollection of the beginnings of propaganda (in England, with the stated intent “to direct the thought of most of the world”) and I learned for the first time that Chomsky credits Walter Lippman with the phrase “manufacturing consent” that Chomsky used as the title of his most famous co-authored work.

Chomsky offers some fascinating geopolitical insights with his suggestion that the Trans-Siberian Railway might be extended to run down through North Korean into South Korea, and his views that ASEAN plus 3 (China, Korea, Japan) might rise to super-power status. I am especially taken with his view that China might be the power that saves America from itself, orchestrating a balance of power and sanity arrangement from that side of the world.

Chomsky returns to a familiar theme in this book, that of war crimes and the US being a very guilty party, but for the first time, I see Chomsky forgiving of the soldiers on the front lines, and even of their general officers, and placing all of the blame on the civilians that direct the military from the White House and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. This is new. I fully expect Americans to be brought up on war crime charges in the next ten years, and I expect the American public to support this when the evidence is presented in graphic terms.

Chomsky also returns to his theme of the US harboring terrorists and hence not being able to claim the high ground against other nations. I was impressed by how the Cubans gathered evidence on the Florida-based assassins and violators of US law, and how elegantly the Cubans presented this evidence to the FBI. I was dismayed but not surprised to find the FBI arresting the Cuban infiltrators rather than the assasins–this is the same FBI that has convicted fewer than five actual terrorists, each with an average jail sentence of 14 days, from thousands of arrests. So much for intelligent effective federal investigations.

The book concludes with a fascinating discussion of “intellectual self-defense” that is a call to arms for every intelligent American (we need to be concerned–that may only be about one fifth of us).

This is something of a quickie book, not at all as substantive as Chomsky's usual works, but with many gems never-the-less. Certainly worth buying and reading.

2005/10/192009/12/04

Review: Dogs of God–Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors (Hardcover)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Religion & Politics of Religion

Historical Evaluation of Money, Religion, State Power, and Evil,

October 19, 2005

James Reston Jr.

There are no doubt many histories that will enlighten us as to the relationship between the rise of the State, its need for money, its use of the Inquisition to rob Jews and raise money, the role of religious intolerance of heresy, and the manner in which evil accompanies conquest. For myself, this book is more than enough, and it provides an elegant easy to read overview of the larger context in which Columbus discovered America.

I am reminded by this book of the arrogance of Spain (where my roots go to Catalan in the 17th century on my mother's side), as Columbus was sent with edicts in Spanish, and it was assumed that any natives that could not understand the Spanish edicts, read in Spanish, were consequently heathen and fair game for enslavement. So did Columbus bring to America not just slavery, but genocide as well.

The author excels at showing the human side of history, the manner in which craven banal human weaknesses wreak havoc on civilizations, tribes, and nations. There is one point in which I am reminded of the power of courtiers, and another in which the same courtier uses homosexuality as a means of subduing a king–both are all too close to reality today. In short, this book has lessons for us today, both in seeing how dangerous our fundamentalist religious extremists are in waging armed crusades lacking in contextual balance, how dangerous courtiers with too much power can be; how vulnerable nominally powerful rulers can be when they suffer from deep and unresolved inner conflicts (e.g alcoholism and nascient homosexuality), and how deeply the historical antipathies might lie within Islam against the West.

The relationship between evil, intolerant religion, weak kings and powerful courtiers, and suffering peoples of all faiths, is compelling depicted in this book–history is brought forward in a truly excellent manner. We learn, or we repeat.

Can anyone justify the Inquisition or the Crusades? Is it possible to denounce individual terrorists while embracing 44 dictators, many of them practicing genocide, others supporting the looting of their entire commonwealths? Could we not have spent the last trillion of our common wealth more wisely?

I put this book down thinking to myself, like Old Man River in Porgey and Bess, life and history move on, while the powerful continue to hold sway over the fortunes of their peoples. It is somewhat depressing to realize how little humanity has learned about relations among peoples since the 1500's.

2005/10/032009/12/04

Review: Imperial Grunts–The American Military on the Ground (Hardcover)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Military & Pentagon Power

Admiring of Grunts, Deep Between the Lines Slam on Washington,

October 3, 2005

Robert D. Kaplan

Most important in this book is Kaplan's documentation of the fact that transformation of the U.S. military is NOT taking place–Washington is still enamored of multiple layers of rank heavy bureaucracy, the insertion of very large cumbersome task forces in to every clime and place; an over-emphasis on technology; and a lack of appreciation for the urgency of providing security, food, water, and electricity IMMEDIATELY so as to start the cycle of counter-insurgency information collection from volunteers. The author is brutal in his indictment of the bureaucracy for failing to provide the linguistic skills, four years after 9/11, that are far more important to transformation than any weapons system. He is also brutal on the delays in approving operations in the field that are associated with layered bureaucracies that come with joint task forces, and completely detrimental to fast moving tactical success at the A Team level.

Key here is the conclusion that American power can only be exercised in a sustained way through discreet relationships at every level from neighborhood and village on up to provinces and tribes. The emphasis here is on discreet, humanitarian, tangible goods and services including security. When America introduces major forces, it spikes resistance and delays the achievement of its very objective. What jumps out is the need to change how the US achieves its presence around the world. The author recommends a change in the State Department model of embassies focused on countries–State tends to be co-opted country by country and loses sight–if it ever had it–of regional or tribal nuances. The author also recommends a sustained peaceful presence at the provincial and village level around the world, through a combination of modern civil affairs and humanitarian assistance cadres and retired military given leave to choose a place they get to know and stay there to finish out their careers and then be “on tap” for retired reserve plus up.

A third theme in this book, one that Ralph Peters also makes in “NEW GLORY,” is that a lot of these countries are NOT countries and should not be countries. Many borders imposed by colonialism are simply lunatic when taking into account historical and geographic and related ethnic realities. It *makes sense* to have regional summits that re-locate borders in a manner that respects historical, geographical and cultural realities, and to do so with a massive Berlin Airlift/Marshall Plan application of the benefits of peace. Ceding southernmost Thailand and the insurgent southern part of the Philippines to Malaysia, and establishing an Indonesian-Malaysian Muslim Crescent, makes sense. Similarly, in Africa and in the Middle East, there is good that could come of a deliberate recalculation of borders.

A fourth theme, and I share his admiring view of Special Operations and the Marine Corps, is that of the separation of the military ethos of service and dedication to mission, from that of the Nation at large, where Tom Friedman in “The World is Flat” declares that we are suffering from a new generation that is, in a word, apathetic. We need to return to universal service, with options for serving in the Peace Corps or the local constabulary at home. America has lost its civic integrity.

A fifth theme, one that corrected a misimpression I have shared, was of the rather special nature of the National Guard elements of the U.S. Special Forces and the Army civil affairs teams. They come out in this book as being among the best of the best.

Sixth, I found the author's field appreciation of citizen militia in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and elsewhere to be quite illuminating. Washington is wrong to rush the transition to a centralized Army in places where tribes and militia still hold sway and can be used to provide provincial stability. We ignore the possibilities of unconventional indigenous forces at our peril.

Seventh, as on page 230, the author highlight those occasions when our unconventional warriors point out that Toyotas are better than Humvees, commercial cell phones are better than military communications alternatives. Across the book, a few good men and women with independent authority and cash resources to do instant compensation and instant aid authorization come across as vastly superior to Washington-style contracting and major joint force insertions.

Eighth, throughout the book, force protection mania is killing us and gutting our counter-insurgency potential. This comes out especially strongly in Colombia, where A Teams are forbidden to go tactical with the forces they are training, and are limited to training within safe encampments only. Force protection is a modern variation of the Soldier's Load-we are so nuts about force protection and heavying up that we are shackling our troops and our small unit leaders and completely avoiding the military value of “fast and furious.”

Ninth, national and military intelligence are not meeting needs of front-line grunts. Bottom-up intelligence collection, including passive collection from observant civil affairs teams and foot patrols, is what is really working. We appear to need a whole new concept of operations and a whole new doctrine for field intelligence, one that floods areas with non-official cover and overt personnel, one that puts analyst and translators heavy-up into the front lines.

Sidenotes include great admiration for SOUTHCOM, accustomed as it is to getting along with the short end of the stick; and derision for PACOM, “twenty years behind the times, afraid of messy little wars and of a transparent humanitarian role for SF.” The author regards the Global War on Terror (GWOT) as a convenient “set up” for a future war with China, not something I agree with but evidently a perception within the military that has specific outcomes from day to day. Other side notes include a brutal indictment throughout of “Big Army” and also of the US Air Force which is obsessing on more super-bombers and unwilling to fund what really works well, long-haul transports, AC-130 gunships (Puff the Magic Dragon), and more air controllers in the field with the grunts.

Super book! NOTE: I have the sense that some in the SF community have taken an intense dislike to Kaplan, and vote against the review as a way of voting against Kaplan. Fair enough, but for what it's worth, the review is a good summary intended to be helpful to all in appreciating what I take to be some pretty useful themes.

2005/09/292009/12/04

Review: Democracy Matters–Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (Hardcover)

6 Star Top 10%, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy

Nobel Prize Material–Extraordinarily Thoughtful and Articulate,

September 29, 2005

Cornel West

I found this gem in the Tampa Airport bookstore and bought it for the title, not realizing that the author was the world-class professor that Larry Summers disrespected.

This is, easily, Nobel Prize material. The reflections of Professor West are extraordinary, and they are well-presented with a wealth of both names and carefully selected quotations from the works of others that make this book both a tour of the horizon, and a bright shining light on the topic of democracy and how to save the American democracy.

As I absorbed this superb material over the course of flying from Tampa to DC and into the evening, I felt that on the one hand, Professor West was truly gifted at singling out and embracing the best literary, religious, and musical talents, and that I was receiving, in the course of a single book, a course on thoughts of others that mattered to democracy. My other thought, once reminded of his dust-up with Larry Summers, was how extraordinarily courteous this author is, in identifying the very destructive tendencies of extremist Christianity, extremist Judaism, and extremist Islam. This is a man who is both innovative and polite.

A few notes from the margins of this heavily under-lined and annotated work….

1) There is marvelous deliberate aliteration throughout the book, with many pages having the resonance of poetry. This is gifted articulation and reflection, hand-crafted communication of the highest order. “Superb artistry of words” is my note on page 27.

2) Professor West is absolute correct to highlight the fact that America is built on genocide against the Native Americans, and slavery of the Africans, and remains in denial of these core realities. Then fast forward to America's support of 44 dictators, its virtual colonialism, its immoral capitalism, it schism between rich and all others–I am reminded by Professor West of Nelson Mandela, and write in the margins: America needs two “Truth and Reconciliation Commissions”–one for what we have done to our own Native Americans, Americans of African descent, and to the working poor, another for what we have done to the rest of the world.

3) Thoughout this book run the themes of prophetic or embracive Christianity, love versus materialism, nurturing versus imperialism. Most interesting to me is the consistency of thought between Professor West and that icon of the leadership literature, Margarent Wheatley. Both understand the extraordinary importance of dialog and openness and the need to share information and perspective, in sharp contrast to the ideologues in the White House that call General Anthony Zinni a traitor for questioning the false facts that led us into an unjust and prohibitively expensive war in Iraq. Dialog, not force, is the way to spread democracy.

4) On page 104 I have the annotation “THIS IS THE MESSAGE!” and “WOW!!!! If Karen Hughes wants to succeed as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, she has only to read this book and memorize page 104. Professor West is stunningly brilliant in both his assessment of America's vulnerabilities from its inherent hipocrasy, and in his evaluation of the faith-based democratic message that has real possibilties in the Middle East and elsewhere. Page 137 is also essential to Karen Hughes–Professor West is incisive in understanding that Western democracy has no chance in the Islamic world; that we must undermine the repressive autocratic clerics; and that we must help Islam modernize on its own terms–Islamic democracy will not look like Western democracy, but it can be democratic.

5) The author is just down-right superb in evaluating the Jewish condition, and the insanities of America's wasteful and counter-productive generosity toward extremist Jews who receive 33% of all our foreign aid, $500 per Israeli (against 10 cents a year for Africans). He is brilliantly coherent when he suggests that we should continue to spend these sums in the Middle East (Egypt gets 20% of our foreign aid) but put our money on the side of indigenous democratic movements, not the autocratic extremists on both the Arab and Israeli fronts.

6) Professor West gently slams Salman Rushdie and V. S. Naipaul while introducing the reader to the wealth of insight and passion in the literature from the African Islamic world.

7) The entire book, in its brilliance, coherence, and insightfulness, is a spanking of Larry Summers, one of Harvard's least qualified Presidents, but on page 189 ff the author addresses Summers directly, and his account of the encounters has the ring of truth. Tenured at Yale and Princeton as well as Harvard, with more publications to his credit than most of his peers, one puts down the book with appreciation for the author's condemnation of the sell-out of universities to greed and corporate grants, and one can easily choose to respect the author over his antagonist.

There are numerous other books I have reviewed here at Amazon that bear witness to Professor West's thoughtful and balanced critique of American imperialism and the loss of our democratic ideals here at home. Princeton is fortunate to have this great mind return to its busom, and one can only pity Harvard for violating its motto and allowing a white supremacist (who does not respect women either) to eviscerate their prophetic Christian and Black Studies faculty.

This is an absolutely grand piece of reflection, ably presented, with enormous respect for the views of others and very delicate manners in the discourse of disagreement. Very few books have aroused in me a passion such as this one has–Bonhoffer would say it is the passon of the black Church. I would say that this one man truly represents all that could “be” in the American democratic tradition. He merits our affectionate respect, embodiying as he does the thought that struck me early on in the book: life as religion, religion as life. In God We Trust, and damnation to those lawyers that seek to remove God from our Republic's identity. One can separate the church from the state, but one cannot separate religious faith from the foundation of democracy–it is as water is to cement, an essential ingredient for a lasting construct.

Category: Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback

Review: Bulletproof