First-Rate Cover Story Great Human Interest, Service Loyalty, February 6, 2008
Stephen Johnson
EDIT of 9 Feb 09: There is evidently a very strong community of submariners, mostly officers, none of whom were in service at the time the incident happened, most of whom have little intelligence experience and very small libraries, who feel they and only they are qualified to judget between the two books. My two reviews stand. Normal people will find the other book much better in terms of trying to get to a reasonable semblance of the truth. Better yet, skip both books and go right to those I list below.
This a superb individual effort using normally available materials. It fully merits five stars because it can be bought and read simultaneously with Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion, which leverages Freedom of Information demands, direct invesdtigative journalism (HUMINT), and the end of the Cold War which produced a treasure trove of valuable primary materials. If you buy only one book, buy the other one but I find reading books in twos and threes is more interesting.
Amazon ate my earlier review, probably because they did not like all the links I included to make the point that while Patrick Buchanan is dead on target as an individual minds, there is a *huge* convergence of public opinion from left to right that boils down to this: government is broken, from war criminals in the White House to doormats in Congress abdicating their Article 1 responsibility to balance the power of the Executive.
I regret the loss of my detailed review, here are just a few of the notes from the flyleaf:
+ Insufficient focus on Cheney, but does correctly evaluate Wolfowitz as a madman.
+ Tars Bush's ideology as a “false God”as “modernity's Golden Calf.”
+ Respect Gore Vidal in citing “perpectual war for perpetual peace.”
+ Opens book with excellent discussion of the cost of lost wars and the mismantling of artificial nations (there are 177 failed states today,up from 148 in 2006 and 75 is 2005.
+ This may be the most credible and thoughtful author on the subject of treason in modern times. He explicitly accuses corporate chiefs who favor globalization and “transnationalism” with being traitors to the Republic.
+ He states that Islamic militarism is not a threat to America. I agree.
+ Pages 153-154 provide a brilliant articulation of seven reasons why China is not a threat to the US.
+ I note: “This is the epitaph for the village idiot.”
This book is more of a scholarly work and has eye-glazing detail. However, as best I can tell, this is the single best and most carefully documented book, with the stellar advantage of having as a co-author the Honorable Bill Hendon, who is not only a former Representative (R-NC) but was on the POW/MIA beat while there.
I am very very very angry. Our politicians, both Republican and Democratic, have betrayed us all, and this brings me to tears, betrayed the honorable warriors who became POWs or were MIA in Viet-Nam.
There are several points that grab me:
Over 1,500 POWs still known to be in Viet-Nam and probably alive.
Viet-Nam had a clear strategy for capturing AND KEEPING ALIVE our personel in order to charge the US for reparations after the war was inevitably won by the Vietnamese
The authors explicitly suggest that Senator John McCain has been fully witting of the reality of how many have been left behind, and complicit in our federal government's deliberate decision to abandon them rather than pay Viet-Nam the compensation they appear to fully merit given our violation of the Geneva Convention and our intrusion into the civil war between North and South.
I hold the authors of this book, and the excrutiating detail that they have assembled, in the greatest regard.
It is now clear to me that the Federal Government as it is now constituted, cannot be trusted. We need Electoral Reform, open books, and an end to secrecy.
To the right is the current mass paperback cover that is available. Below is the cover of the original hard-copy, and a guest review (Amazon is deleting top reviewer's old reviews to make room for new reviewers, we missed this one when creating this web site to counter that “lost history”).
Amazon Page
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning Expose Of Government DesertionOf Its Vietnam Vets!
May 20, 2002
William Stevenson, Monika Jenson-Stevenson
Review by Barron Laycock “Labradorman”
This is a book that should make ordinary American citizens exceedingly sad and angry. Although some may argue that its message is old news, and certainly very dated information, the horror and outrage it should occasion is neither old nor dated. For what the authors contend, and go on to impressively prove, is that our national government deliberately and maliciously betrayed its own soldiers trapped as Prisoners Of War (POWs) in Vietnam, abandoning them in favor of a quick and otherwise painless exit from the war in Southeast Asia. This, as the authors argue, is a truly devastating indictment of the Nixon administration, and one for which they cannot be forgiven.
However, it is more than that. It is also a bizarre story of men left behind for the sake of political expedience and due to a number of highly classified clandestine operations, which were purposely kept from the American people. The story line begins with the sad saga of a young ex-marine who escaped from Vietnam on the late 1970s and claimed to have seen a large number of fellow American servicemen still being held by the Vietnamese. However, he was quickly charged with desertion and collaboration with the enemy, in what seemed to be a desperate effort on the part of governmental officials to bury both him and his story of American prisoners as deeply as possible from public view. From here the plot takes a number of bizzare twists and turns.
As the authors began to investigate the young marine's story, layers of deception, half-truths, and active censorship began to emerge. What they finally uncovered was an amazing tale of official deception from the highest levels in government, and also a very well organized and relentless abuse of official governmental power. This book reveals convincing evidence of American soldiers and sailors deliberately abandoned for political expedience, and of families torn apart by these acts. It also raises quite provocative questions concerning the very nature of democracy, and the corruptibility of ordinary men given such power. Similarly, they show how the use of claims of national security were used to derail efforts to learn the truth, and of an active conspiracy to keep the public from discovering the truth.
There are many of us who have long believed that Nixon and Kissinger made a pact with the devil himself in order to to extricate the United States fro the ongoing horror of Vietnam. What is truly mind-boggling is to discover just how right we were to suspect that they, and many others in the government since that time, would take such drastic action as they have to conceal these facts and to evade the truth. This is a worthwhile book, and one that demands to be read. I hope you can approach it with an open mind. Its arguments and the evidence associated with it are, in my opinion, very convincing. Enjoy!
I would normally give a book like this four stars because it is a collection of speeches entered into the Congressional Record over a 30-year period with no overview. I give it five stars because of the integrity and consistency of the author, and because he is the only person now running for President that has a completely serious book available for review.
I was disappointed that there was no strategic overview touching on each critical foreign policy region or each of the high-level threats to humanity such as depicited by the Earth Intelligence Network in support of the Transpartisan Policy Institute, but my disappointment is tempered by the realization that the author, in citing Thomas Jefferson on the dedication page, to wit: “Peace, Commerce, and Honest Friendship with All Nations–Engangling Alliances with None” (First Inaugural Address, 1801) makes it clear that it can indeed be “that simple.”
Throughout the book the author touches on truly fundamental themes:
1) Restoration of the Constitution as the fouindation for all Congressional and Executive policies, budgets, and decisions.
2) The importance of avoiding the cost of foreign adventures while investing in domestic needs for education, infrastructure, energy independence and so on.
3) The importance of having a currency backed by real wealth, not the fabricated wealth used by the banks to enrich themselves at our expense.
4) The importance of civil liberties, sound decision-making, and ethics
I'd like to see this honest man win and be President. His integrity and intelligence are absolute, something no other candidate can claim. However, unless he can pick a transpartisan Cabinet in advance of the election, and guide that Cabinet in producing a balanced budget that eliminates our multi-trillion unfunded future obligations, he will be no better than the others, and even at a disadvaantage, because voters hear platitudes. They need to see real policies with real budget numbers, or they will not see the difference between this author and the others in tangible terms they can appreciate.
This book is a perfect counter-point to They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby. I review that book also, and recommend both books to every American, just as I recommend the books below that document how the Saudis have bought the Bush Family and the Republican and Democratic parties, neither of which represents We the People.
I would normally remmove one star because the author is a bit over the top in blaming everything on the Zionists and the Neo-Conservative servants, but I went with five stars to offset the mindless rapid Zionists (I hold moderate Jews in total respect). The same week that WIRED Magazine had a cover story on a new two way sustainable energy grid, Dick Cheney was meeting secretly with Enron and Exxon. Iraq happened because Dick Cheney wanted it to happen, the Zionists provided the lies, and the Congress and the media both were intimidated into ignoring General Tony Zinn, General Shinseki, and others including myself, who said quite clearly that this was an insanely bad thing to do with an incalculably high cost.
Over-all this is an extremely welll-researched, well-written presentation of fourteen chapters that are logical and thoughtful and absolutely meritorious of full consideration.
I was very surprised to read, very carefully, two chapters dissecting two of my personal heros, Sy Hersh and Noam Chomsky, and must confess that the author provoked in me thoughtful concern and reflection. I trust Sy and Noam, but the author is so well-organized that he causes me to realize that everybody has multiple levels of agenda, and that we must all take greater care in discriminating our sources of information.
Congressman Jim Moran, who represents my district, has personally said that Zionish have too much influence on Congress, and I agree. Tom Moran has been a very good representative, and he speaks the truth.
Here are some books and a DVD that can put the totally unacceptable Zionist influence on the USA in a larger context:
Validates my choice to oppose Cheney & attack on Iran
September 3, 2007
Howard Zinn
Earlier today I reviewed The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America by Peter Dale Scott, and coined a new term of praise, “erudite patriot.” That was one of many reviews from my long recent trip to the Middle East that I could finally post.
I would never have anticipated that in reading this book today, I would not only encounter a second “erudite patriot,” but that my somewhat anxious decision to directly and repeatedly focus public attention on the high crimes and misdemeanors of Dick Cheney, would be so elegantly validated with a firm grounding in public resistance to tyranny and amorality.
The author, an eminent historian, is the people's historian. He alone has documented the many times in which public resistance brought odious government programs to a stop.
Although a collection of past essays, this book actually reads fast and well as a survey of the fundamentals empowered by historical example and accuracy. I was strongly reaffirmed in my beliefs by this book, reinforced in my relatively recent commitment to bringing Cheney to justice.
The author, unique qualified to do so, informs us that people have resisted before, that the osmosis of truth ultimate swings the public, and as the book title suggests, no government can resist an aroused public.
The author suggests, and I agree, that impeachment of Cheney first, is essential. Our government has lost all legitimacy in my eyes, and I would resist arrest by this goveernment to the death of them or I, after first attempting to persuade the good-hearted people sent to arrest me that they should disobey the illegal order to arrest me, and live to see their families that night.
Every single essay in this book is moving, intelligent, cogent, and relevant to the greatest crisis our Republic has ever faced. The author's review of our greatest betrayal, of the wounded from Gulf I and Gulf II (he does not mention that unlike Gulf I, Gulf II produced 16 instead of 6 wounded for every death, and we have 75,000 amputees across the land, lives shatted by Dick Cheney's lies, by Paul Wolfowitz's lies, by Donald Rumsfeld's idiocy and arrogance).
The author is compelling in stating that war is the enemy, and one is reminded of the outcome of War Games: the only winning strategy is not to play at war for profit or any other reason.
The author is compelling in cataloging the litany of lies by our Presidents, and the manner in which our Founding Fathers designed the government to protect the rich and enslave the poor.
The author is compelling in pointing out that we must all question authority, and that the one thing we should all recognize now is that we can unite and be invincible, non-violently invincible, in demanding dignity, justice, and liberty for all–not just all Americans, but every person on the planet and especially those repressed by the 44 dictators, 42 of whom are Bush-Cheney “allies.”
The author is compelling in damning the hypocrisy of this Administration, and I will tell everyone for a fact that below the White House level, most political appointees are shocked, scared, scared, angry, and hopeful that America will impeach the idiot-in-chief and the thief-in-chief. I am an estranged moderate Republican, and I never, ever, imagined that the Republican Party would become the runner up to global crimes so grotesque and extensive that only Hitler and his genocide against the Jews rate above it.
The author is compelling in calling for new new ways, for waging peace instead of war, for undertaking a general strike (I even thought the time has come to make all our tax payments to an escrow account instead of to the existing hijacked government).
I stand with the author in commiting to non-violent opposition to this totalitarian and amoral White House. Non-violence works. All that We the People need to do is withdraw our obedience. I really like the idea of a general strike, and I respectfully suggest to one and all that if America attacks Iran with Israel, that is the day when we should all go on indefinite general strike, and not return to work, nor pay taxes, until all US forces are withdrawn from the Middle East.
Under existing law & regulations, the above statement could be interpreted by Bush-Cheney as giving comfort to the enemey, and I could be arrested and all my property confiscated. That is how low this Republic has gone.
I must say, Howard Zinn's brilliance and integrity have bathed me with a warm glow of confidence in We the People. I feel protected, reinforced, encouraged, renewed, heartened by his wisdom. With such great minds as his speaking out, I am confident We the People will prevail.
You must, absolutely, buy this this book, read it, and recommend it to others. Other books that I have reviewed and recommend:
30 years of speeches, straight common sense
