Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform) – Page 46

2004/02/122009/12/04

Review: The Price of Loyalty–George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill

5 Star, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Biography & Memoirs, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Book Clearly Documents Shortfalls in Ideological Power,

February 12, 2004

Ron Suskind

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links for the brain dead (at bottom, duh).

This book is a fine summary of the shortfalls in the ideological exercise of power that chooses to disregard reality for forgo bi-partisan compromise.

The author, an award-winning Wall Street journalist, makes three points in his brief introduction: 1) the greatest threat to national security is that of *bad analysis* (not just secret analysis but bad policy analysis); 2) the book is not a kiss and tell memoir as much as an eye-opening warning of what happens when ideology is substituted for policy analysis; and 3) the book is based on nineteen thousand documents–virtually every document the protagonist O'Neil touched–and hundreds of hours of interviews with people who by their very consent to be interviewed were validating O'Neil's account. This book is a classic, and the moderate Republican counter-part to Morton Halperin's similarly revelatory “Bureaucratic Politics & Foreign Affairs.”

Although much has been made of how O'Neil is disparaging of the incumbent president, that is a minor aspect. The heart of this book is about the competition between two forms of governance: the one that is overseen by Dick Cheney, in which ideological assumptions create policy without regard to the facts and in favor of the wealthy few that contribute to the incumbent's political coffers; and the one that was characteristic of wiser Republican presidents, including Nixon, Ford, Reagan and papa Bush, in which a philosophy of governance seeks to find a balanced middle ground based on an interplay of facts and political preferences.

Summing the book up in two sentences: Bush-Cheney are about ideological victory at any cost, making policy in favor of their corporate crony base, without regard to the facts or the merits of any policy. O'Neil, and the winning candidate in 2008, are about a reasoned process for arriving at sound policy in the context of fiscal discipline.

This is an exciting book, and one that every moderate Republican will want to read as they contemplate joining with conservative Southern Democrats like Sam Nunn to create a new Fiscal Conservative Party. An early quote from O'Neil talking to Greenspan sums up the problem: “Our political system needs fixing. It needs to be based on reality. Not games.”

The book rewards anyone who actually reads it word for word with a number of gems.

1) The American economy is actually two economies. One embraces automation and is very productive as a result; the other relies on expert labor and having difficulty making gains.

2) Corporate tax contributions to national revenue have been halved from 1967 to 2000 [not addressed by O'Neil, but as the book “Perfectly Legal” documents, the tax code has become so corrupt that despite the enormous growth of the economy and the enormous profits being made by Halliburton et al, corporations are now escaping virtually all taxes, and this is a big part of why the US Government cannot cover its future obligations and growing debt.]

3) Iraq was the Bush-Cheney regime's top priority from day one. The very first National Security Council meeting was scripted to put Iraq in play, and the Director of Central Intelligence was a full collaborator in this endeavor, coming to the meeting with a variety of images (all subsequently called into question) that purported to make the case for Iraq being a threat requiring action. As O'Neil recollects in the book: “Ten days in, and it was about Iraq.”

4) The unilateralist character of the regime is also addressed. As this review is being written, the Administration is posturing about going after nuclear proliferators, which makes the O'Neil critique of the Rumsfeld approach to proliferation control all the more meaningful: “A traditional counterpoint, that international organizations and a web of economic and cultural interdependencies–as well as protective alliances–could help to control such deadly proliferation, is not mentioned in the six-page memo. The neoconservative view places little faith in such arrangements, or, for that matter, in diplomacy.” There it is again. The Bush Administration is about a big military stick motivated by ideology and not at all informed by any kind of inter-agency policy review process.

5) The book provides a very clear understanding of the pathologies of the Bush White House. The degree to which Rove literally shuts the Cabinet officers out and manipulates policy to appeal to “the base” of cash contributors is quite extraordinary. The degree to which Cheney manipulates letters from the Hill and other matters warrants its own chapter, titled “No Fingerprints.” The degree to which Lindsey, a loosely-educated ideological wonk in way over his head, leaks to the press to undermine the Secretary of the Treasury, is noteworthy.

6) Rove's conspiratorial manipulation of Presidential policymaking led, in Bush's *first* State of the Union message, to the first known instance in which the president “said something that knowledgeable people in the U.S. government knew to be false”, this with respect to a $1.2 trillion calculation that was knowably false and enormously important to the bond market. This was nothing less than a precursor to future false statements by the president that can be attributed to an unprofessional policy process dominated by a few ideologues.

7) There is a very fine section on clean water and reliable electricity as the heart of saving the Third World, and we are treated to the contrast between a beltway bandit costing out a water network for one country at $2 billion, and O'Neil saying it could be done for $25 million. This vignette captured everything that is wrong with both Washington and the military-industrial complex.

This book is packed with gems, all of them useful to anyone seeking to document why Bush and Cheney are unfit to lead America. They broke most if not all of their promises to “the center”, and they are twice removed from reality: once on tax cuts and a second time on the doctrine of preemption in foreign affairs.

‘Nuff said. See my lists as well.

2004/01/252009/12/04

Review: The Life and Death of NSSM 200 –How the Destruction of Political Will Doomed a U.S. Population Policy

6 Star Top 10%, Budget Process & Politics, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class

Intense, Well-Structured, Mind-Glazing, Valuable,

January 25, 2004

Stephen D. Mumford

Although I have had this book in my possession for months, it kept slipping to the bottom of the pile because it is an excruciatingly detailed look at one very specific policy area–that of population. I was mistaken in thinking that the book was so detailed as to be boring or difficult to grasp.On the contrary, the author has done a superb job, in partnership with the publisher, in presenting a great deal of important information in a readable font size and form.

For me, the book is important in two ways. First, it tells me there is a person out there who really understands all this stuff in detail, and can help me rethink our national policy when the time comes that we have a sane White House willing to be serious about this vital long-term matter.

Second, it lists up front the various areas that impact on population policy (drawing on the Commission on Population Growth and the American Future) and is worth the price of the book for this superb list (each with a paragraph about the sub-policy area): Population Education; Sex Education; Child Care; Children Born Out of Wedlock; Adoption; Equal Rights for Women; Contraception and the Law; Contraception and Minors; Voluntary Sterilization; Abortion; Methods of Fertility Control; Fertility-Related Health Services; Personnel Training and Delivery of Services; Family Planning Services; Services for Teenagers; Population Stabilization; Illegal Aliens; Immigration; National Distribution and Migration Policies; Guiding Urban Expansion; Racial Minorities and the Poor; Depressed Rural Areas; Institutional Responses; Population Statistics and Research; Vital Statistical Data; Enumeration of Special Groups; International Migration; Current Population Survey; Statistical Reporting of Family Planning Services; National Survey of Family Growth; Distribution of Government Data; Mid-Decade Census; Statistical Use of Administrative Records; Intercensal Population Estimates; Social and Behavioral Research; Research Program in Population Distribution; Federal Government Population Research; Support for Professional Training; Organizational Changes; Office of Population Affairs in the Department of Health, National Institute of Population Sciences; Department of Community Development; Office of Population Growth and Distribution; Council of Social Advisors; Joint Committee on Population; State Population Agencies and Commissions; Private Efforts and Population Policy.

The author makes a very strong case for how, as his subtitle suggests, US population policy has been doomed by a lack of political will and the inappropriate influence of the Catholic Church and Mexico, in addition to strong private sector interests seeking low-wage workers while avoiding any associated social costs that are put on to the taxpayer.

I consider this book a primary reference that will be needed soon as America becomes more thoughtful and participatory democracy is restored. Population policy is fundamental. Missing from the official documents are serious discussions about citizenship, civics, ethics, morality, the restoration of the one-income two-parent family as the foundation for a strong nation, and the role that taxation policy can play in strengthening families while holding employers accountable for not making illegal immigration sustainable by hiring undocumented aliens.

2004/01/172009/12/04

Review: Winning Modern Wars–Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire

5 Star, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, War & Face of Battle

Ideal Primer for General Public, Satisfying on Key Points,

January 17, 2004

Wesley K. Clark

Much of this book is a blow-by-blow account of the recent US invasion of Iraq, with generally complementary comments about the performance of the US military.National security professionals will have every reason to skim most of the book, but they would be very unwise if they failed to read it. On balance, the author comes out as the only Presidential candidate who actually has deep experience in modern war, in managing very large complex coalition operations, and in handling the nuances (Bush has said he does not do nuances) of complex European relationships such as characterized his tenure as commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, during which time NATO dramatically expanded to embrace the Eastern European (Partnership for Peace) nations and the Mediterranean Dialog nations.

A few key points on the author's perspectives that satisfied me:

1) He understands that reconstruction cannot be successful unless internal security, stability, and legitimacy are established first.

2) He emphasizes the urgency of operating with other nations in strong alliances, not only to be successful in unilateral operations, but in avoiding competing crises elsewhere.

3) He is very critical of the manner in which the Bush Administration represses participatory democratic discussion of the threat and the new strategy. America was “shut out” from both the facts and the discussion in the path to war on Iraq.

4) He is sensitive to the enormous damage that America's arrogance (as reflected in the actions being done “in our name”) is doing to our interests abroad. He notes, interestingly, that there is a huge difference between the messages carried by the US versus the international media (and implicitly, in our public's unawareness of that difference).

5) He is accurate and insightful in expressing concern about two simultaneous failures of the Bush Administration: first, failing to prosecute the war on terror instead of the sideshow in Iraq, and second, failing to actually make America any safer here at home.

6) He helps explain how the Bush Administration got off track by reminding us that missile defense, energy, and the Chinese incident with the US naval reconnaissance airplane all consumed the early months of the new Administration.

7) He provides useful perspective on the *considerable* challenges of terrorism that faced Germany (Baader-Meinhof), Italy (Red Brigades), Spain (ETA), England (IRA), Greece (November 17th group), Turkey (PKK), and other nations including Israel. He notes that these were defeated by constructive law enforcement campaigns, not unilateral military invasions. I found this section of the book to be extraordinarily mature, worldly, and sensible.

8) His account of the early planning process for the war against Iraq (never mind the policy process that misled America) slams Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for being disruptive and unprofessional, resulting in “an irregularly timed patchwork process that interspersed early-deploying units with those needed later, delayed mobilization, hampered training, and slowed overall deployments considerably.” One example: 4th Infantry Division spent 45 days at sea *after* they arrived.

9) He provides incisive commentary on the failure of both Turkey and Saudi Arabia to provide much needed ports and airheads for the war. [Although General Clark refrains from making this point, the best minds at the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute have publicly noted that we won more as a result of Iraqi incompetence than US effectiveness.]

10) There are many small signs throughout the book that General Clark is a strategist. As one who feels that John Boyd is a hero whose work must be honored in our future deliberations, I was glad to see the author emphasize the value of leadership and training over technology.

11) The author corrects existing doctrine and advances the thinking by pointing out that the air supremacists were correct but not in the way they expected. Air versus C4I was not the decisive factor in the Iraq war, but rather air in support of ground forces, something the Air Force hates to do but the Marine Corps has always understood.

12) On page 79 he discusses how a B-1 bomber was dispatched to attack a reported place where Saddam Hussein might be, unleashing two 2,000 lb. bombs. This is so sadly a repeat of the Afghan story, where a B-2 bomber was called in against 18 men in a cave, that we want to highlight it. We have a heavy metal military unsuited for manhunts or gang warfare.

13) If there is one weakness in this book, it is that it glosses over the many information and intelligence deficiencies that characterized the planning process, the operational campaign, and the post-war peace and reconstruction endeavor.

The author does not fail to give the current Administration and its operational arms (including intelligence) credit for successes against terrorism in 2002 (incidents fell by half, key people killed and captured). This is appropriate, and provides a good lead-in to his very detailed critique of how we are failing in the war on terrorism, the second half of his book. This can be generally summed up, in his words, with “We needed new thinking, and we needed to retarget our intelligence and adjust our means…” What I find most fascinating about the second half of the book is that the author is clearly charting a sensible course that is equi-distant from the incompetent neglect of the Clinton Administration, and the lunatic militarism of the Bush Administration. He makes specific reference to the now-public plans of Rumsfeld and his aids to follow up the attack on Iraq with attacks on Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. This is what we have to look forward to if there is a second Bush Administration.

The author provides enough in the way of specifics (buying in, for example, with an explicit reference) to Joe Nye's views on the importance of using soft power in the context of multinational strategies for peace) to be very reassuring that his national security strategy, once fully developed, would be summed up with one word: balanced.

2003/11/302009/12/04

Review: Breaking the Real Axis of Evil–How to Oust the World’s Last Dictators by 2025

6 Star Top 10%, America (Anti-America), Congress (Failure, Reform), Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Philosophy, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Single Most Important Work of the Century for American Moral Diplomacy,

November 30, 2003

Mark Palmer

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links and new comment,

New Comment: In my view, this is the single most important work of the century with respect to American moral diplomacy. I note with concern that under Bush-Cheney “Failed States” have increased from 75 in 2005 to 177 in 2007. We've lost our mind, and our morals, as a Nation.

Ambassador Mark Palmer puts to rest all those generally unfair stereotypes of Foreign Service Officers as “cookie pushing” softies who fall in love with their host countries and blame America for any flaws in the bi-lateral relationship. With this book he provides an inspiring model for precisely what every Foreign Service Officer should aspire: to understand, to articulate, and then to implement very great goals that serve democracy and help extend the bounty of the American way of life–moral capitalism and shared wealth–to every corner of the world.

This is a detailed and practical book, not just visionary. It is useful and inspiring, not just a personal view. It is also a damning indictment of fifty years of US White House and Congressional politics, where in the name of anti-communism and cheap oil America–regardless of which party has been in power, has been willing to consort with the most despotic, ruthless, murderous regimes in the history of mankind. Still alive today and still very much “friends” of the U.S. Government are dictators that think nothing of murdering millions.

There has been some improvement, offset by an increase in partly free countries. From 69 countries not free at all in 1972 we now have 47. From 38 countries partly free in 1972 we now have 56, many of those remnants of the former Soviet Union. Free countries have nearly doubled from 43 to 89, but free and poor is quite a different thing from free and prosperous.

The level of detail and also of brevity in this book is quite satisfying. On the one hand, Ambassador Palmer provides ample and well-documented discussion of the state of the world, on the other he does not belabor the matter–his one to two-paragraph summative descriptions of each of the dictatorships is just enough, just right.

He distinguishes between Personalistic Dictatorships (20, now less Hussein in Iraq); Monarch Dictators (7, with Saudi Arabia being the first in class); Military Dictators (5, with US allies Sudan and Pakistan and 1 and 2 respectively); Communist Dictators (5); Dominant-Party Dictators (7); and lastly, Theocratic Dictators (1, Iran).

Ambassador Palmer makes several important points with this book, and I summarize them here: 1) conventional wisdom of the past has been flawed–we should not have sacrificed our ideals for convenience; 2) dictatorships produce inordinate amounts of collateral damage that threatens the West, from genocide and mass migrations to disease, famine, and crime; 3) there is a business case to be made for ending U.S. support for dictatorships, in that business can profit more from stable democratic regimes over the long-term; and lastly, 4) that the U.S. should sanction dictators, not their peoples, and we can begin by denying them and all their cronies visas for shopping expeditions in the US.

The book has an action agenda that is worthy, but much more important is the clear and present policy that Ambassador Palmer advocates, one that is consistent with American ideals as well as universal recognition of human rights. Ambassador Palmer's work, on the one hand, shows how hypocritical and unethical past Administrations have been–both Democratic and Republican–and on the other, he provides a clear basis for getting us back on track.

I agree with his proposition that we should have a new Undersecretary for Democracy, with two Assistant Secretaries, one responsible for voluntary democratic transitions, the other for dealing with recalcitrant dictators. Such an expansion of the Department of State would work well with a similar change in the Pentagon, with a new Undersecretary for Peacekeeping Operations and Complex Emergencies, my own idea.

This is a very fine book, and if it helps future Foreign Service Officers to understand that diplomacy is not just about “getting along” but about making very significant changes in the world at large, then Ambassador Palmer's work will be of lasting value to us all.

Forthcoming on Amazon in February and also free at OSS.Net/CIB:
COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, edited by Mark Tovey with a Foreword by Yochai Benkler and an Afterword by the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, Prime Minister of Canada. I have high hopes for all of us finally getting it right (Winston Churchill: “The Americans always do the right thing, they just try everything else first.”) Now is our time to get it right. We can start by electing Senator Barack Obama as our forward-thinking always listening open-minded President.

2003/11/142009/12/04

Review: Hegemony or Survival–America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project)

4 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform)

Apex of Moral Critical Thinking,

November 14, 2003

Noam Chomsky

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to restate importance of this work and add links.

UPDATED to comment on Hugo Chavez at UN.

Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart, together with the leaders of Brazil, China, India, and Indonesia, among others, brought reality to America with the United Nations presentations. It is noteworthy that not a single member of the General Assembly disagreed with their harsh assessments of the Bush-Cheney regime. I reviewed this book before it was made popular by Chavez, and I will say just two things: 1) order it now, it is worth the wait; and 2) Bush-Cheney may not be interested in reality, but reality is assuredly interested in us. It's time the public realized that Chomsky, not Bush, is the real deal.

Yes, Chomsky tends to be repetitive and to rehash old stuff, so take away one-star. However, and I say this as the #1 Amazon reviewer of non-fiction about national security, to suggest that Chomsky is ever anything less than four stars is to betray one's ignorance and bias. He adds new material in this book, and perhaps even more importantly, he delivers this book at a time when America is faced with what may well be its sixth most important turning point in history (after independence, the civil war, two world wars, and the cold war). How America behaves in the 2004 election is going to determine whether the Republic deteriorates into a quasi-totalitarian and bunkered society with a lost middle class and a gated elite, or whether we restore the world's faith in American goodness, moral capitalism, and inclusive democracy.

Chomsky brilliantly brings forth a theme first articulated in recent times by Jonathan Schell (The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People) by pointing out that the *only* “superpower” capable of containing the neo-conservative, neo-totalitarian, neo-Nazi militarism and unilateralism of the current Bush Administration is “the planet's public.”

Chomsky updates his work with both excellent and well-balanced footnotes and an orderly itemization of the arrogance, militarism, contempt for international law, arbitrary aggression, and–Bible thumpers take note–proven track record for supporting dictators, Israeli genocide against Palestinians, and US troop participation in–directly as well as indirectly–what will inevitably be judged by history to be a continuing pattern of war crimes.

Chomsky, past master of the topic of “manufacturing consent” now turns his attention to the manner in which the Bush Administration is attempting to establish “new norms” that, if permitted to stand, will reverse 50 years of human progress in seeking the legitimization of governance, respect for human rights, and collective decision-making and security.

He is especially strong on documenting the manner in which US aid grows in direct relation to the degree to which the recipient country is guilty of genocidal atrocities, with Colombia and Turkey being prime examples. The case can be made, and Chomsky makes it, that the US arms industry, and US policies on the selling and granting of arms world-wide, are in fact a direct US commitment to repression, genocide, and terrorism sponsored by one big state: the US. He is most interesting when he discusses the new US approach to repression, the privatization of actions against the underclasses of the world.

Morality plays big with Chomsky, who brings new ideas in with his discussion of moral asymmetry and the lack of moral integrity in US decision-making. Sadly, the US public is too busy trying to survive the abuses of the Bush-Cheney regime, and do not realize the crass immorality of all that is being done “in their name.”

Chomsky reminds us that George Bush the Second pardoned a known international terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, because of his ties to the extremist Cuban-American community that his brother Jeb Bush is so dependent upon for support.

Over the course of the middle of the book Chomsky addresses the competing models for national development, with Cuba prominent as an alternative model that the US has sought to destroy, as the US worked very hard to destroy Catholic “liberation theology” because of its temerity in believing that the poor should be protected against repressive governments and their American corporate paymasters. Chomsky is correct, I believe, when he states and documents that the US model of capitalism has pathologically high rates of inequality and poverty (even CNN has noticed–as I waited for an airplane in Salt Lake City, a bastion of common sense, the lead story was the collapse of the US middle class).

Chomsky moves from his discussion of exceptions to US capitalism to a discussion of the importance of regional differentiation, and this is of course in direct competition with the US view that the world should be a homogenized generic variation of the US culture, with one big difference: 80% of the benefits for the US, while the rest of the world shares the left-overs.

Chomsky agrees with Dr. Col Max Manwaring and other mainstream strategists (see my review of The Search for Security: A U.S. Grand Strategy for the Twenty-First Century when he identifies the legitimacy of governments, and the sanctity of human and civil rights, as the two litmus tests for determining if balance and fairness exist in a society. By this measure, the US is now failing.

The book begins to conclude with a semantic discussion of terrorism, what is terror, who sponsors terror, and here Chomsky draws on both his linguistic and historical background to make the case that the US is the primary sponsor of terrorism in the world (something both the Indonesian and Malaysian leadership would tend to agree with), and he notes that the US, in a bi-partisan manner among the elite, has consistently been hypocritical about terrorism. Nelson Mandela, and his resistance party, were labeled terrorists by the US for many years.

Are we in a passing nightmare, or the beginning of a renaissance? The jury is still out. I personally believe that John McCain would have been a vastly superior president that this lightweight bully that we have now, with his out-of-control neo-conservatives, none of whom ever served in uniform and some of whom–as with Dick Cheney–were active draft dodgers. However, I also believe that both John McCain, and Dick Gephardt if he were to be elected, are too close to the “business as usual” crowd of beltway politicians capitalized by beltway bandits. In other words, Howard Dean would not have been possible without the excesses of George Bush Junior. God does indeed work in mysterious ways, and I pray that the American public will both read Chomsky, and understand that they represent the only super-power that can restore legitimacy, sanity, comity, and prosperity to the American Republic. Down with the carpetbaggers–El Pueblo Avansa–EPA!.

Recent books supporting the moral intelligence of Noam Chomsky:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart

2003/11/082009/12/04

Review: Lost History–Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’

4 Star, Censorship & Denial of Access, Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), History, Misinformation & Propaganda

Corruption & Mendacity of White House, CIA Failures in Central America,

November 8, 2003

Robert Parry

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links.

This book is a real gem. It outlines a tale of both corruption and ideological mendacity within the White House, and of ignorance and unprofessionalism with the Directorate of Operations in the Central Intelligence Agency. As one who served on the Central American Task Force at the time, and as a clandestine case officer focused on these matters, I find it especially fascinating that I, from the inside, was truly unaware of the degree to which we were engaged in direct support to a band of contras characterized by drug-running, money-laundering, corruption, rape, torture, routine murders, and perhaps worse of all, total incompetence and ineffectiveness.

There are two aspects of this book that truly stand out for anyone who is committed, as I and most CIA employees are, to the concept that “the truth shall make you free.”

First, as the title suggests, there is a “lost history” that is unavailable to the American people. The author is not alone in making this charge. The editors of the history of the Department of State have on several occasions complained, both publicly and privately, that an accurate history of the foreign relations of the United States of America cannot be written without more complete disclosure of our various covert operations. Indeed, Derek Leebaert's book The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World, Jim Bamford's book Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, and Sterling and Peggy Sterling's book Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold, among a number of others books but these three reviewed by me on Amazon and being the most recent and best documentary efforts, all show that America has paid a *huge* cost, a cost running to trillions of dollars in deceitfully mis-spent dollars and lives, for clandestine and covert activities that have inspired enmity, often nurtured environments of genocide and war crimes (Sudan today, for example, given a “bye” for its nominal counter-terrorism support), and spawned vast war profiteering enterprises at the same time that we nurture and encourage dictatorships such as those in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, both of which are protecting Bin Laden, his family (which we allowed to escape from the US rather than taking them hostage–a White House accommodation to its Saudi paymasters), and other terrorists. America needs to understand the truth about such matters, and this book helps.

The other major value of this book is its examination of how the White House, first under Reagan and now under Bush junior, and personified in the activities of one Otto Reich (Reich and Rove are exemplar representatives of the neo-Nazi and neo-conservative aspects of the Cheney-Bush regime), has violated various US laws and values by running psychological operations and media campaigns against its own public. Especially distressing has been the manner in which the National Public Radio (NPR) has been “brought to heel” by threats to cut off its federal subsidies if it fails to accept the lies of the Administration and actually reports truthfully to the public. The Associated Press (AP) is also shown in this book to have subverted the truth and conformed to the falsehoods and propaganda line being purveyed by the Reagan Administration against the American people. The New York Times is specifically cited, on several occasions, and publishing false and misleading information, not because its employees lack ethics (as has recently been the case) but because the NYT is part of the “establishment” and all too eager to betray its readers by publishing the party line from a corrupt White House.

Usefully, the author documents a General Account Office decision on 30 September 1987 that the “white propaganda” of Otto Reich and the Public Diplomacy Office in the Department of State amounted to “prohibited covert propaganda activities” against the US media and the US public. Under Bush Junior the Administration has added blatant lies and manipulated intelligence to its repetoir, and continues to manage covert propaganda against the American people.

Among the most interesting sub-themes the author documents are how Richard Nixon undermined the Vietnam peace talks in order to prevent Johnson from successful resolution, and how Reagan's team undermined the Iran hostage negotiations to prevent Jimmy Carter's ability to resolve that in time for the election. In both cases the Republicans violated the law and engaged in actions that amount to treason–to a betrayal of the public trust. Now fast forward to the recent stories about how Richard Perle was a principal in the Bush Administration's refusal to accept an offer from Saddam Hussein to help in the war on terrorism, allow full US inspection teams, and otherwise give us everything we wanted except his head and the right to loot Iraq. American soldiers are dying today–and a bill we cannot pay is being run up–in Iraq because of Republican treason and Republican lies and Republican propaganda against the American people.

Another important point that this book documents is the sorry reality that CIA analysts cannot trust the CIA clandestine operators to tell them the full truth, and that the US public cannot trust the White House to tell it the full truth (apart from blatant propaganda). The truth in America has been subverted, distorted, and *buried*. As others have documented (see my review of Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq), the American people are, if they are avid searchers for the truth, able to see only 10% of the facts and undistorted information available to Europeans and Asians.

The book has some flaws–a rotten index, some repetition caused by integrating old and new material–but I rank it as essential reading for anyone who would like to understand how we got ourselves into an unjust war with Iraq, how an extremist Republican Administration was able to do Goering proud by manipulating the American Congress and the American people and the United Nations with a “platform of lies.” We have lost history, we have lost ethics, and we are on the verge of losing America and that for which it stands.

2003/10/282009/12/04

Review: Dude, Where’s My Country?

4 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics

Great Detail, Lacks Index,

October 28, 2003

Michael Moore

Although there is some repetition from “Stupid White Men” and there is a clearly a hot publishing trend in pushing out “liberal left outrage” books, the level of detail in this book on specific things that have gone wrong and specific lies and misleading communications from the Bush Administration make this an extraordinary reference work. Michael Moore has done the Democratic's political research for them.Unfortunately, the book suffers from no index. Had the publisher taken one man-week to do a decent index of specific topics and statements that the author has superbly researched and foot-notes, this book could have moved a Nation–as it stands, it will merely incite the already upset.

Do buy the book–the details are wonderful and every American needs to understand the degree to which most public statments and most public reports about the Administration's policies are outright deceptions.