Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 275 – Public Intelligence Blog

2006/06/262009/12/04

Review: The One Percent Doctrine–Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Hardcover)

6 Star Top 10%, Education (General), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics

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Impeaches Cheney, Demeans Bush, Crucifies Rumsfeld and Rice,

June 26, 2006

Ron Suskind

In the context of non-fiction literature, I consider this book to be the co-equal of Graham Allison's classic, “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.” It joins Bob Woodward's “Bush at War” and the more detailed James Risen's “State of War” as core references. This book specifically and clearly documents three facts:

1) Vice President Cheney is impeachable for dereliction of duty and obstruction of due process in government as well as many violations of international and domestic law. While I do not see the President as quite the puppet some represent him to be, he is certainly childish and petulant and angry at his father (page 107: “I'm not going to be supportive of my father and all his Arab buddies.”) Cheney and his neo-cons nurtured the young President's inclination to “unleash” Israel against the Palestinians, and Cheney is specifically impeachable for not providing the President with a copy of the Saudi Arabian memorandum of grievances that preceded a summit at the ranch which was of MAJOR importance to the entire Middle East situation. The author excels at showing how Dick Cheney has “experimented”, from President Ford onward, with specifically NOT briefing the President, ostensibly to give him plausible denial but in this instance, more as a means of Cheney's deposing Bush as the actual head of State.

2) I cannot take the second step of suggesting that Bush himself is impeachable on the basis of this book. What I see–and the author excels at social-psychological insights across the entire text–is an insecure young man with excessive faith in his gut instinct, loosely-educated, hostile about experts and especially mature experts like Brent Scowcroft, and all too eager to prove his (inadequate) manliness by being belligerent and often a bully. “Bring it on.” The author of this book combines analytic insights into the character of the President, with detailed discussion of the degree to which the White House completely ignored the policy process to “do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide.” On the basis of this book, one can conclude that Cheney should be impeached and Bush still needs a good spanking from his father. In this context, the author provides a memorable quote on page 227, “America, unbound, was duly led by a President, unbound” and also “free from conventional sources of accountability.”

3) The third major focus of this book is the combination of incapacity of the CIA and the FBI and the Pentagon in evolving to deal with the post-9/11 challenges. The FBI comes off as the most inept, consistently unable to do its job on the home front. Rumsfeld is next in line for condemnation, and while the author is very professional in his review, he quotes Rumsfeld as saying that “every CIA success is a DoD failure,” and he quotes then Vice President Nelson Rockefeller as considering Rumsfeld to be “beneath contempt.” One can only be stunned as the six years going on eight of having a government that is BOTH “out of control” AND inept. The CIA, and George Tenet, are featured as the least incompetent among the three. At a minimum, they did find and track Bin Laden over a week as he fled Afghanistan and the Pentagon refused to put US troops into Afghanistan's border region; and they did get other aspects right in relation to the policy debate that was not allowed to happen. The title of the book refers to the Vice President's decision that even a 1% probability of what he chose to emphasize, was sufficient to eliminate the policy process and all standards of evidence, sufficient to close out all reasoned debate.

There are a number of gems in this book that merit note:

1) Cheney was responsible for both intelligence and terrorism from day one of the Bush Administration, and was clearly derelict in his duty in ignoring both.

2) The book clearly lays out how the Administration's obsession with Iraq sidelined all CIA warnings including the 6 August warning and others. Bush is quoted in the book as having dismissed the last CIA briefing team, which made a frantic attempt to alarm him, as “OK, you've covered your ass now.” Boy kings as “enfant's terribles!”

3) The book captures in detail the incompetence of the CIA and FBI as a general rule. On one page, the author quotes the Vice President as chewing out both agencies, saying “You don't cooperate for shit.” On another page, he quotes George Tenet as telling the assembled Allied intelligence chiefs, “We don't know shit.”

4) The author provides a superb review of successes in one area, following the money, but ends on a down note because now Al Qaeda and everyone connected to the financial support of Al Qaeda has gone “offline” to use couriers and cash. As the author says, we are now, again, deaf and blind. In passing the book puts Western Union out of business in the Arab world, at least among those desiring to do illegal transactions. In this context the author makes it clear that First Data volunteered to help, and confirms that the Bush Administration decided with great deliberation to ignore the FISA court and its *exclusive* mandate from Congress.

Other tid-bits:

1) CIA had the mastermind of the London bus bombings in its sights, but put him on a no fly list rather than help the UK track him.

2) Al Qaeda chose NOT to go after nuclear targets with the 9/11 bombings, “for fear it would go out of control.” This suggests a reasoned enemy.

3) Brent Scowcroft produced a plan for intelligence reorganization that was sensible, and that was blocked by Cheney, who also blocked the 1992 intelligence reform effort.

4) Condi Rice is crucified in this book for a broken NSC process and lack of gravitas.

Book ends with Deuteronomy 16:20, justice twice, once for ends, one for means. This book fails the Bush Administration on both counts.

2006/06/262009/12/04

Review: Speaking Freely–Trials of the First Amendment (Paperback)

5 Star, Censorship & Denial of Access, Civil Society, Democracy, Information Society

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From Pentagon Papers to NSA Wiretapping: NYT and Freedom of the Press,

June 26, 2006

Floyd Abrams

As I write this revieThe One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11w, CNN is reporting that the Bush Administration is threatening the New York Times with prosecution for revealing the NSA wire-tapping program that by-passed the FISA court, which has the EXCLUSIVE mandate to review all such intrusions. The Bush Administration is evidently ungrateful about the fact that the NYT stupidly held back on the story until after Rove could steal the election from Kerry by encouraging the Ohio State Secretary committing criminal acts in twelve districts. At the same time, there is also a moronic proposed amendment to the Constitution to prohibit the burning of the American flag in protest.

“Speaking Freely” is an extraordinary book that documents, over and over again, why our national security lies not only in force of arms but also in, quoting Judge Murray Gurfein (June 1971), a “cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitious press (that) must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.”

The Cheney-Bush Administration is moving toward totalitarianism, and appears seriously stupid (another of those ideological fantasies) in believing that they can cover up their ineptitude by censoring the press.

See my reviews of The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11; How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok and The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office to better understand what other authorities are saying about the lunacy of this position. These two guys are a combination of impeachable (mostly Cheney) and laughingstock (mostly Bush) who have leveraged the extremist Republican machine to steal two presidential elections and violate so many international and domestic laws as to be richly eligible for a public tarring and feathering.

This book, “Speaking Freely,” is a massive vaccination for the public against the disease of “state secrecy” that is used to cover up incompetence, inpropriety, and high crimes and misdemeanors richly deserving of impeachment.

Please note that the law suit of the New York Times for “blowing” NSA's capabilities is actually a cover-up for the fact that we are going deaf and blind because Al Qaeda is not stupid–they have been moving “offline” since 9-11, and the Administration is preparing to pretend that their failure to be effective against Al Qaeda is the fault of the New York Times.

Floyd Abrams may well be one of the most valuable Americans in modern history. He defended the NYT in the Pentagon Papers, and won. Today, the NYT should rely on the sensibility of the people to defend them. Deep in his book, Counselor Abrams makes the point that journalists MUST have the freedom to listen to sources “off the record,” and he places the burden for protecting secrets on those who choose to leak them for whatever reason.

I am reminded that the incumbent President is the “leaker in chief” who seems to make the law suit his needs. As one Constitutional lawyer has stated, he has the power neither to interpret the law nor make the law. It is George Bush, and his string puller Dick Cheney, who are “out of bounds” and richly deserving of impeachment.

For additional perspective:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back

2006/06/262009/12/04

Review: No Logo–No Space, No Choice, No Jobs (Paperback)

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Consciousness & Social IQ, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

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Modern Manifesto in Defense of Citizen Public Against Corporate Fascism,

June 26, 2006

Naomi Klein

EDITED 22 Oct 07 to add some links.

Preliminary note: there are some really excellent reviews of this book that I admire and recommend be read as a whole.

Although I have reviewed a number of books on the evil of corporate rule disconnected from social responsibility such as democratic governance normally imposes, books such as Lionel Tiger, “The Manufacture of Evil,” and more recently, John Perkins, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and William Greider, “The Soul of Capitalism,” this is the first book in my experience to actually focus on the pervasive process of branding and the spread of corporate control (into schoolrooms and chambers of governance), and also focus, with great originality, on the emergence of an active citizen-based opposition to corporate dominance.

In terms of lasting effect, the most important value of this book to me has been the identification of the World Social Forum as a “must attend” event. I plan to do so.

The bottom line in this book, at least to me, is that government has failed to represent the public and sold out to special interests. The author notes how the US helped derail a United Nations effort to establish, in 1986, a transnational oversight body to help avoid the “race to the bottom” and develop standards of equal opportunity and human rights for labor. Other books, such as “The Global Class War” have focused on the emergence of a global elite that works together to exploit the public and the workers, and that is a part of this story.

The author is very forceful in singling out Microsoft as an exploiter of temporary labor, and goes on from there to highlight both the sweatshops overseas and the “temp” gulags here in the USA, not least of which is Wal-Mart, where other books give us great detail.

I learn for the first time about “culture jamming” and the rise in activists who seek to out corporations, I am reinforced in my view that corporate facism is rampant in America, and I am much taken with the quote on page 325, from Utah Philips, to the effect that those killing the earth have names and addresses.

I am inspired by the author's discussion of “selective purchasing” as the ultimate means of bringing corporations to heel. WIRED Magazine has explored how bar codes can be used to connect potential buyers to all relevant information. Whereas before I have advocated information about water and oil content, now, instructed by this author, I believe it should be possible to also acquire information about labor content (hourly wages, benefits or not, cost paid to labor for the item) and source of capital.

Over-all the book discusses the broken relationship in the triad between the people, the government responsible for representing them, and the corporations that exploit them as consumers and employees and stockholders. I put this book down reflecting on how much power individuals actually have, and how little they know about how to use it.

2006/06/262011/10/22

Review: Being Right Is Not Enough–What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success (Hardcover)

4 Star, Politics

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Useful High-End Book on Strategy for the Center-Left,

June 26, 2006

Paul Waldman

I bought this book together with “The Good Fight” by Peter Beinart. While both books have their utility, neither is as good as Joe Klein in “Politics Lost.” Waldman gets five stars to Beinart's four mostly because he is much more readable, has many useful tables including an analysis of the states where extremist Republicans as well as extremist Democrats are weak, and his book is generally focused on the left of center middle and the caring citizen as opposed to policy wonks that Beinart addresses in his book.

Page 111 is a very fine diagram of the issue columns that the Democratic Party simply does not address responsibly nor–a theme throughout the book–courageously. Over-all the book does a very fine job of defining the distinctions between conservatives and progressives, as well as the distinctions between what conservatives stand for and what they say, and what progressives stand for and do not say.

The author spends most of his time comparing conservatives to progressives (code for left of center liberals) which is something of a pity because he appears to have a very well developed sense of the issues and what the center and left-center can and should stand for.

There are two bottom lines in this book, and both of them make eminent sense to me:

1) Don't bring a knife to a gun-fight. The author points out in detail how inept and weak and unfocused the Democrats are at every stage of the political game beginning with high school and collage political clubs.

2) Stand for the public, for the individual taxpayer, for the blue-collar worker, the working poor, the lower middle class. The author stresses that this is a fight between those who respresent special interests and believe the government role is to liberate the marketplace (code for allow the looting of the Commonwealth) and those who should be representing the masses of individual workers and taxpayers.

The author takes a long view and believes that it will take a great deal of time to recover from the total abdication to the extremist Republicans. While this nice in principle, the book does not focus as well on what it will take to win over-whelmingly; for that we recommend Joe Klein's “Politics Lost.” On the issues, Matthew Miller's “The Two-Percent Solution.”

On a personal note, I would add that the author's focus on “Being Right is Not Enough” is perfectly consistent with my own view that “Vote Democratic Is Not Enough.” Rove and Cheney have demonstrated, twice, that they can steal Presidential elections that are close–through Florida in 2000, through Ohio is 2004. Even if every liberal-progressive adopted the ideas in this book, they would not be enough. We need a multi-party focus on electoral reform and crushing the extremist Republican thieves (I am a moderate Republican), crushing the special interests, and restoring the Republic to the public—a Republic of, by, and for the People, not Corporations.

2006/06/262009/12/04

Review: The Good Fight–Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again (Hardcover)

4 Star, Politics

Wonk Writing for Wonks–Not for Normal People,

June 26, 2006

Peter Beinart

I bought this book together with Paul Waldman's “Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn from Conservative Success,” and between the two, would certainly rate this one as being the most detailed intellectually, but that is a flaw as well as a virtue. My eyes glazed over, between the fine print and the fine points.

Without any way disagreeing with the author's belabored and detailed commentary, I would boil the book down to two bottom lines:

1) Liberals also known as Progressives must restore their communion with the PUBLIC and draw the line between conservatives supporting corporate fascism, and the public interest focused on equal opportunity for INDIVIDUALS.

2) Deep in the book is the other bottom line: the Democratic Party has completely lost its mind and heart and its connection with the blue collar white worksrs (as well as other folks that one author would call the “working poor”).

This is a very serious book, and it will help the intellectuals among the left of center elite understand their failure, but this book is not going to win any points with the labor unions, the working poor, or the broader coalition of Independents, Reforms, Greens, Libertarians, and — my own proclivity — moderate Republicans.

2006/06/202009/12/04

Review: Seven Sins of American Foreign Policy (Paperback)

5 Star, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Information Society, Military & Pentagon Power, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Instant Classic, for Students and Experts Alike,

June 20, 2006

Loch K Johnson

In 1983, Dr. Loch Johnson, arguably the Dean of the intelligence scholars who is also unique for having the deep insights that could only come from service on BOTH the Church Committee in the 1970's and the Aspin-Brown Commission in the 1990's, published “Seven Sins of Strategic Intelligence in World Affairs (Fall 1983, v. 146, no. 2, p. 176-204). I still remember that article, which informed me as a (then) clandestine case officer, and helped inspire my own critical reformist writings over the years.

This book is a completely new work on a grander scale and the seven sins (listed in the editorial information) are applied to foreign policy in all its forms.

The following quote reflects the rich content of the book:

“A foreign policy initiative is considered questionable (‘sinful') if it is based on a false or sharply limited understanding of the region of the world it pupports to address; if it violates the bedrock constitutional tenet of power-sharing between the legislative and executive branches of government; if it too quickly or unnecessarily resorts to forcein the resolution of global disputes; if it runs counter to the established norms of contemporary international behavior accepted by the world's democracies; if it signals a withdrawal from the international community; if it exhibits a lack of concern for the basic human needs of other nations or projects a haughtiness in world affairs indicative of an imperious attitude toward others.”

The rest of the book, including useful figures showing successs and failures across diplomatic, military, economic, and covert action fronts from 1945 to date, fleshes out the above quote in a very thoughtful manner.

Interestingly, deep in the book, the author points out that ignorance of global reality by the public is directly related to their choices of elected officials. If they are disengaged and uninformed, they will elect individuals who give short shrift to global affairs. I am reminded of the number of Senators and Representatives who used to brag that they did not have a passport “because nothing that happens abroad matters to my constituents.” Those individuals are still in office.

I know the author, who in his courtly manner and gracious ability to discuss all sides without rancor, while still being harshly critical, represents all that is good about informed academics who are also, from time to time, called on to serve the Nation. I put the book down thinking that this author would make a magnificent Secretary of State.

2006/06/162011/10/22

Review: How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok (Paperback)

Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics

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Fine Book by Constitutional Lawyer, Read with “The Case for Impeachment”,

June 16, 2006

Glenn Greenwald

This is a fine book, by a constitutional lawyer, and it focuses largely on how the Bush White House had violated all of the constitutional provisions with respect to checks and balances. On page 79 the author says, after a lengthy discussion, that “the president possessess the power neither to make laws nor to interpret them.” That is of, course, the heart of the matter.

An earlier quote (page 15) sums up the why: “Unbridaled extremism and contempt for the legal limits imposed by Congress and the Courts.”

The author does a fine job of quoting from the Federalist Papers to illustrate just how severe are the violations of the intent of the Founding Fathers by the incumbent President.

This book, which ends with an Epilogue on Iran and the fact that the incumbent President is using the terrorism card to justify any action anywhere, does not make the case for impeachment as ably as another book (see below). It focuses mostly on the NSA wire-tapping.

I strongly recommend this book be bought and read together with Senator Robert Byrd's Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency and The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office by Dave Lindorg and Barbara Oshasky.” Below is an extract from my review of the latter book:

BEGIN EXTRACT The Republicans set the stage for hard-ball when they actually impeached President Clinton, not for having oral sex with an intern, but for lying about it. This book lists ten specific documented reasons for impeaching President Bush:

1. Stole Florida election in 2005.
2. Lied on Iraq to Congress, the Public, and the United Nations.
3. 9-11 Cover-Up and Obstruction of Justice.
4. Violated Rights of Citizens including Habeas Corpus.
5. NSA Program to Listen to Citizens without Warrant.
6. Violated International Treaties Including Geneva Convention.
7. Actively Encouraged, as a Policy, Use of Torture.
8. Gross Negligence on Hurricane Katrina.
9. Iraq Contract Corruption–Bremer “Lost” $8 billion in cash, sole source awards, and gross negligence in managing the peace.
10. Stole Ohio election in 2004.

This book is not just an indictment on the specifics, it is also a very useful primer for citizens on the purpose and process of impeachment. END EXTRACT.

Both books, together, make it clear that any time the American people want to force Congress, on threat of not being re-elected, to impeach this President, he is toast. The question then arises, are *enough* citizens paying attention?

Sometime after reading this book, I read three books that focus on the failure of Congress:
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we need to dump virtually every single Senator and every single Representative, demand an Electoral Reform Act, and end the ‘wnnier take all” nonsence for both the Congressional leadership positions and the Cabinet. Transpartisan leaders with a balanced budget, that's the ticket!