Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 309 – Public Intelligence Blog

2004/09/122009/12/04

Review: Where the Right Went Wrong–How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency

Buchanan–and Nader–More Mainstream than Bush-Kerry!,

September 12, 2004

Patrick J. Buchanan

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

The most shocking aspect of this book, in a positive “eye-opening” sense, is that Pat Buchanan seems to be more in touch with what I as a moderate Republican believe, than anyone associated with the current Bush-Cheney Administration. Although he has some extremist views that I do not agree with, notably a desire to set back attempts to achieve racial equality, on balance his focus on avoiding elective wars, on eliminating the deficit, on reducing the size of government, on restoring state rights, and on putting the Supreme Court back in its place, all strike me as more “representative” than the views of the neo-conservatives, whom he attacks with eloquence and force.

There are some gems in the book that most people will enjoy because they are not being discussed. Chief among these is that the 2004 election is about the Supreme Court, and who gets to nominate as many as five new Justices. Fully enjoyable is the author's blistering critique of the Court, and the moral cowardice of the Congress in allowing the Court to take on powers of legislative review never envisioned by the founders. The author's quote of Lincoln is especially compelling on this point.

The author is also compelling in his discussion of the role that a common faith must play in keeping democracy alive. As the US foolishly strives to demand “secular democracy” in Iraq, something of an impossibility, the author is moving and thoughtful in showing that the decline of faith (and of the family) has harmed US democracy and its prospects.

Over-all the book is a litany of ills associated with an extremist Republican party run amok, funding Chinese weapons development at the same time that it exports jobs, funds the debt of loser nations while running up our own debt, etc. The author provides several lists of poor policy decisions that provide food for thought. Most troubling is the degree to which the USA is hostage to others for 72% of its medicines, 70% of its computer equipment, etc.

This is one of the few books I have encountered that covers both economic issues–the author is blistering on how “free” trade is not free, with fullsome detail on how we need *fair* trade–and national security issues. The author clearly understands that we are not winning the war on terrorism, only minor battles, and–in a phrase that especially moved me–that you cannot defeat a faith without a faith of your own. “To defeat a faith you need a faith.” I would refer the readers to Doug Johnston's Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik as well as Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.

Over-all, this book caused me to reflect on the reality that the two so-called “mainstream” political parties are no longer representative of America. Pat Buchanan is right–the moderate Republican Party with conservative values that I thought I was a member of has been hijacked and corrupted. At the same time, the same can be said for the Democratic Party, whose traditional values are now more ably represented by Ralph Nader. In brief, Americans are in limbo, lacking collective associations that truly represent their needs and concerns, and America is in need of a realignment of its grass-roots political organizations.

Super book, essential reading for anyone concerned about why the 2004 election is not a choice at all, only a pretense.

Estranged moderate Republican that I am, I grow more and more respectful of Patrick Buchanan. He saw this all coming. Little did we know.

Other books that add weight to his message:
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 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
Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Plus)
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart

2004/09/042009/12/04

Review: Blood and Oil–The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, True Cost & Toxicity, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Absolutely Extraordinary: Cheap Oil Equals Lots of Bloodshed,

September 4, 2004

Michael T. Klare

Edit of 20 Dec 07 to add links.

I have heard this author speak to groups of international intelligence professionals, and they take him very seriously, as do I. In many ways, his books complements the one by Thomas Barnett, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century except that whereas Barnett says that the military must go to war to make unstable areas safe for America, Klare points out that a) we don't have enough guns or blood to stabilize a world that we antagonize every time we deploy into an “occupation” mode, and b) cheap oil is going to be very very expensive in terms of American blood on the floor.

Although I have reviewed many books about both the problems within America and its policies, as well as books optimistic about the future of America and the world, I give credit to Klare and this book for finally forcing me to realize that our federal budget and federal policies, in relation to protecting America, are “inside out and upside down.” There is, and Klare documents this beautifully in relation to petroleum, a very pathological cycle that could be easily stopped. We insist on cheap oil, this leads to bloodshed and high oil prices; this comes back to lower quality of life for the workers, etc.

As Klare points out, the pipelines (and I would add the pipe to ship portals) cannot be protected. American policy makers are deceiving the public when they suggest they can stabilize the Middle East and protect cheap oil. Not only can the pipelines not be protected, but on America's current consumption path, according to Klare, the Gulf States would have to DOUBLE production to keep up with American demand.

Klare is also intellectually powerful in painting a future picture when China, Russia, and Europe are in armed competition with the USA for energy from Central Asia, Latin America, under the Spratley Islands, etcetera. As I read Klare's book, I was just shaking my head. Our policies on energy are delusional and destructive, and Klare is among the few that is providing an objective report to the public on this reality.

Klare is actually kind to the current Administration (Bush-Cheney), pointing out that they are no more or less corrupt than previous administrations going back to World War II. Cheap oil has become a mantra, and military power has become the unquestioned means of achieving that–along with supporting 44 dictators, genocide, state-sponsored terrorism (as long as we like them and we get the Jewish vote to boot).

I especially liked Klare's observation that cheap oil for the US is a major contributor to unemployment and destabilization within Arabia. Buying oil from Saudi Arabia subsidizes terrorism. Buying cheap oil from Saudi Arabia increases the number of unemployed who might be inspired to become terrorism. Hmmmm… At what real cost shall we continue to demand cheap oil?

Klare is also very effective in objectively criticizing the manner in which the US Administrations have integrated anti-terrorism initiatives with energy-protection initiatives. Bin Laden is still at large, but by golly, we have 200,000 Americans sitting on top of the Iraqi oil fields.

Klare joins Jim Bamford Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, Chalmers Johnson The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project), Derek Leebaert The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World and a score of other authors who have in one way or another alluded to the fact that we are now doing to China what we did to Russia after the Cold War: needlessly confronting them, scaring them, and pushing them to arm themselves. Klare focuses on our “occupation” of Central Asia, an area of direct concern and interest to China, but I would add our sending seven carriers to the Formosa Straits recently and part of the problem–reminding me of how we sent squadrons of nuclear bombers deep into the Soviet Union from the north, immediately following World War II, just to see how far we could get. WE started the arms race!

The book ends as intelligently as it begins, with emphasis on getting to a post-petroleum economy. Listing all the ways we could get there would be another book in itself, but we could start with neighborhood level solar power, more wind power, deep conservation (which must also apply to water), a gradual elimination of chlorine-based and petroleum-based industries, a turn toward self-sustainment across the board, and what Klare cites as his big three steps:

1) divorce energy purchases from security commitments—stop tolerating dictators and arming terrorist nations for the sake of cheap oil

2) reduce our reliance on imported oil, dramatically

3) prepare the way for a transition to a post-petroleum economy that includes conservation, hybrid vehicles, public transportation, the two-way energy grid that WIRED featured on its cover the same week Cheney met secretly with Enron…and so on.

Fool's gold at high moral cost. Klare makes it clear that if we do not heal ourselves from inside out, that no amount of guns, blood, or destruction will save us from the inevitable implosion of the unstable places where oil is to be found.

Special books read since then that carry the argument forward:
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition

2004/09/032009/12/04

Review: Exporting America–Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas

4 Star, Capitalism (Good & Bad)

Provokes, Overlooks, Inspires, Read Reviews First,, Then Buy,

September 3, 2004

Lou Dobbs

Edited 20 Dec 07 to add links.

I've said for some time now that Amazon is a virtual university, and that I consider the reviews of any book to be at least the equal of the book as educational material. This certainly applies to the reviews inspired by this provocative book by Lou Dobbs, and I give both the book, and the reviews, high marks when taken together.

It is clear that Lou Dobbs is both an intelligent patriot, and somewhat simplistic in his presentation. This does not diminish the value of what he has offered us, but we have to frame it in the right way: this is a one hour read, from Boston to DC, and needs to seen in the context of my other 1000+ reviews of national security non-fiction.

Dobbs does take on added importance, together with Stephen Flynn's book, America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism, because Dobbs helps us understand that we do not have a proper trade strategy nor a related demographic and employment strategy. To those who would say “let the free market do its work” I would point out that the free market would not raise national armies, collect taxes, or provide social security. Some things have to be done by the Nation and its State governments, and one of those “duties” is to conserve and enhance national power from “the bottom up”, meaning the population's ability to produce and to fight.

There is a related concern: when goods are created by foreign workers earning $1 per hour, instead of US workers earning $15 per hour (as discussed on page 11), two bad things happen: the first is that the goods tend to be less lasting in nature–more throw-away products that thus consume precious metal, plastic, etc (this is less applicable in IT, where Indian programmers cost 1/10th and are as good or better than US programmers); and second, they have to be transported, using tons of oil and other fuels. These are called “trade-offs.” I'm not an economist, but I do believe that in a limited growth natural environment, and in an unstable world, it makes sense to localize or regionalize as much of your agricultural, light manufacturing, and energy production as possible. Sustainable environments range from local to global, but they start with the local.

The author spends some time identifying and negating twelve “myths” associated with outsourcing jobs, and I for one find these valuable, and would consider any politician unable to address the points that Dobbs makes to be unqualified to be President (I am mindful of the possibility that no one qualified to be President might actually be able to earn the nomination).

Finally, and this is a criticism of Dobbs, I think he misses the main point, and it is one that is made very ably by Peter Peterson in “Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It as well as others writing about democracy: there is no single issue or challenge facing America that could not be more ably addressed if the people were informed and engaged and actually had the power to vote on the matter. Although Dobbs notes, as does Peterson (who is Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and hence no liberal), that corporate America, and the two “main parties”, no longer represent America or American labor or the American voter, he does not focus on this as the core issue. This in my view *is* the key issue. When Dobbs asks America to vote on CNN, as he did last night, and the only issues he presents are a few foreign/defense versus economic/health issues, I ask myself: what doesn't he understand? These are dog on dog issues. The “dog-catcher” issue in America is this: does our vote count, not only in politics, but in the workplace? The answer is NO, and around that answer, we should be building a popular revolution that demands a Constitutional Convention and a completely open election in 2006. We need to churn Congress, join labor unions, and take back the power.

Newer books by Lou Dobbs, with reviews:
Independents Day: Awakening the American Spirit
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War onthe American Dream and How to Fight Back

Other books that complement his earnest populist investigative journalist campaign to be an advocate for We the People:
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart
State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back
The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism: How the Financial System Underminded Social Ideals, Damaged Trust in the Markets, Robbed Investors of Trillions – and What to Do About It

2004/08/292009/12/04

Review: American Soldier

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Military & Pentagon Power, War & Face of Battle

Earnest Officer Covers Bush, Rose-Colored Glasses, Useful,

August 29, 2004

General Tommy Franks

Edit 20 Dec 07 to add links.

Tellingly, the book opens with Sun Tzu on the importance of the art of war to the state, and fails to reflect, at any point in the book, the more vital Sun Tzu observation that “the acme of skill is to defeat the enemy without fighting.”

The author is justifiably proud of being able to take down Iraq with half the troops and half the armor and artillery needed in Gulf I. If you read this book in conjunction with Stephen Flynn's book on “America the Vulnerable,” where he cries out for 16,000 more Customs inspectors, you can see US national security is “inside out & upside down”–in the 21st Century we need half the uniformed military troops and half the military “hard power” acquisition, but we have failed to understand that we need ten times the manpower and ten times the acquisition within homeland security–we are still lying to America about this contradiction, one reason why I chose to tie these two books together with complementary reviews–Flynn is nothing short of brilliant as a counterpart to Franks.

Among the little gems in this book:

Franks got purple hearts in Viet-Nam only for the wounds that sent him to the hospital–minor wounds not requiring evacuation were ignored. What a contrast with Kerry! Page 114.

In the 1970's, when the information revolution was just started, artillery units did not have their own communications. Franks rightly earned a reputation as an innovator by buying CB radios such that his artillery pieces moved as if they could read the mind of the operators they were supporting. Today, not only has the information revolution largely passed by the intelligence community, but the “rest of government” including state and local law enforcement, and private sector partners vital to national security, are in precisely the same position, in the year 2004, as was military artillery 30 years ago. Page 125.

When General Franks was selected in the early 1990's to lead the creation of the 21st Century force, I find it absolutely riveting and fundamental that intelligence was not one of the domains or building blocks of the Army (one reason why the Stryker fraud was so easily perpetuated on Congress and the public). Page 173.

As of 2002-2003, Service “parochialism”, Service chiefs and staffs out only for themselves and their service, and completely unwilling to work jointly or even worse, procure systems and capabilities that worked jointly, remained the single largest cancer within DoD. Page 207, page 288, and passim.

Bin Laden's attack on the Cole “had the force of a cruise missile.” Page 220. See my review of Paul Williams, “Osama's Revenge”, where the bottom line is that individuals now have the power to deliver both nuclear and cruise missile effects inside of America, but our national security investments and priorities remain “upside down” and fail to protect us from an “inside out” perspective.

Both defense department and U.S. intelligence community counterintelligence and intelligence relevant to force protection failed miserably in the closing years of the 20th century. We were blind in part because we relied on Yemen to tell us about threats, rather than being able to penetrate groups in Yemen directly–hence the “surprise” of the USS Cole attack being so successful and so unconventional. Page 224.

Throughout the book there are references to capabilities that avoid discussing time lag issues–cruise missiles that take 2-6 hours to get to the target, B-2 bombers that take 40 hours to get to the target, all easily detectible. In my view, General Franks paints an overly positive picture of our “hard” capabilities, in part because he glosses over or ignores time-space-detection-avoidance issues that are vital. Pages 245, 259, and passim. This also applies to the movement of Special Operations Forces into denied areas. Page 296.

Rumsfeld evidently believed that invading Afghanistan would “finish” Bin Laden. How wrong was he? Page 285.

Franks and the U.S. leadership evidently believe that Special Operations Forces are “hidden” at K-2 Air Base in Uzbekistan. I personally think they will be rolled over and massacred at some point in the near term (2-4 years). Page 286.

Franks is brilliant in his creation of a Lines of Operations versus Target Slices conceptualization, this is the single best page in the book, a real keeper. Page 339, illustrated 340.

Franks fell for the myth that money will buy loyalty and action among the tribes of both Afghanistan and Iraq, a completely erroneous view. Page 332. He also fails to mention that Rumsfeld allowed 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda to be evacuated from the Tora Bora trap by Pakistan, with Rumsfeld's active permission (out of naiveté). Page 377.

Troubling to me is Franks' blindness to the cost, both in dollars and in opportunity cost (time, space, pol-econ, etc.) of using very expensive and very ineffective hardware to achieve marginal results. His approach to warfare is almost mechanical in nature, eager to send waves of aircraft against Stone Age tribal positions, without regard to cost and effect. Pages 379-381.

Regional commanders-in-chief need to manage U.S. Intelligence Collection requirements, priorities, and capabilities. This one hit me with “wow” force. I actually agree, provided that the regional CINCs become inter-agency in nature. We are at war forever, and placing clandestine and technical collection as well as open source intelligence collection assets under CINC operational control makes sense to me, especially if DoD finally steps up to the plate and creates an intelligence component commander [this does NOT undermine the need to move NRO, NSA, and NGA out of DoD and into the DCI's management authority.] Page 234. Later on he alludes to the need for CINC budgets, and I agree–we need to change Title 10, and strike a better balance between acquisition and budget authority for type and regional commanders. Page 397.

My summary: Intelligence failed, heavy metal military did what it was asked to do under solid operational leadership, we are still losing strategically and in the long-term.

Better books:
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose
Battle Ready
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)

2004/08/292009/12/04

Review: America the Vulnerable–How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us from Terrorism

5 Star, Congress (Failure, Reform), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Threats (Emerging & Perennial)

“The” Book on Domestic Security,

August 29, 2004

Stephen Flynn

Edited 20 Dec 07 to add links.

Some will say this book aids the enemy, pointing out with shocking clarity the extreme vulnerabilities of our transportation, communications, and other core systems. I happen to agree with the author's core point, as Thomas Jefferson would agree: politicians will continue to ignore these vulnerabilities and lie to the public until the public achieves its own appreciation of the threat.

This is a double-spaced book, an easy read from Tampa to Dulles (2.5 hours), and well-worth any thinking person's attention. For those who disparage this book as “gloom and doom”: go back to your vodka martinis.

THE fundamental point of this book, and one that I happily endorse on the basis of my other 493 reviews of national security non-fiction, is that how we spend the federal tax dollar is completely out of balance. We are spending $500 billion on a “hard power” military that can barely contain terrorism, crime, genocide, revolution, and war between states, while we are letting our states and cities go begging, and refuse to fund just 16,000 Customs inspectors, among other vital initiatives.

This is the single best book I have found that points out that in the era of asymmetric warfare, where non-state actors have both explosive and nuclear-biological-chemical power at their disposal, it is the “soft targets”, the non-military infrastructure targets, which will be most attractive to the “sleeper” agents of Al Qaeda and others. Washington continues to deceive America about its vulnerability, and about Washington's feckless irresponsibility in failing to redirect funds from hard power only relevant to fighting major states, to a combination of homeland defense of soft targets, which is this book's focus, and soft power projection such as Joe Nye recommends in his various books, but especially The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone,

The author's first line is a block-buster: “If September 11, 2001 was a wake-up call, clearly America has fallen back asleep.” He is right. I deal with those responsible for the “Global War on Terror” and most of them are working 9-5, spending half their day gossiping or browsing the Web. [This is still true as of 20 Dec 07, besides which, terrorism is a tactic, you cannot make war on a tactic].

In my view, the author, a former Coast Guard commander and also a National Security Council staff member, is right on target when he says that the Pentagon is guilty of an “escapist” perspective in thinking they can defeat terrorism “over there.” It was this point that caused me to both buy this book in an airport, and to review it concurrently with General Tommy Franks' book American Soldier General Franks is both a superb officer, and a naive escapist, and reading this book drives that point home in a way that would make any intelligent person pleased to have spent time with the author.

There is a “seam” between our homeland security and our overseas capabilities, and there is no one in charge of any coherent program to decide how best to protect BOTH our neighborhoods AND our overseas investments.

This is a nuanced book, one that makes the point that security must become as embedded as safety has been, and the further point that security properly embedded is actually PROFITABLE! He's right. Green lanes for containers that have proper GPS and content authentications will SAVE dollars by saving time. Bio-chemical detection across all herds and food supplies will detect “natural” threats such as we have seen with SARS, monkey pox, bird flu, West Nile virus, etc.

Finally, security and openness can help reduce fraud, especially import/expert tax fraud, where containers loaded with priceless equipment are mis-labeled as low-cost machinery, or vice versa, an advanced form of money laundering that is costing the U.S. taxpayer over $50 billion a year in lost tax revenues.

Of the 1000+ books or so that I have reviewed here at Amazon, this book easily makes it into my top ten list of books relevant to getting national security right in the near term. Beyond five stars.

2004/08/252009/12/04

Review DVD: Gandhi (1982)

6 Star Top 10%, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, DVD - Light, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Leadership, Religion & Politics of Religion, Reviews (DVD Only)

Basic Introduction to Achieving World Peace,

August 25, 2004

Ben Kingsley

Edit: The core point below is that clashes of millions of adherents of different religions, i.e. Catholic versus everyone else, Muslim versus Hindu, are not new, and the past does indeed demonstrate that force of arms is an ineffective means–indeed a pathological means that makes it worse–for addressing such schisms. Gandhi, and Gandhi alone, has shown the way with proven success at the level of Nations and Peoples.

9-11 focused some of us, but not enough of us, on the monumental issues of war and peace such as have not occurred since World War II–the Cold War being, as Derek Leebaert documents so well in “The Fifty Year Wound”, a false war, one with enormous costs to all mankind.

I bought this video recently–having seen it many years ago–to refresh my memory on the essence of Gandhi and his proven concept of non-violent resistance. The DVD capped several years of reading in the non-fiction national security arena (see my other 470+ reviews on war and peace), and has proven to be the ultimate primer as well as the ultimate Master's Seminar.

This is the movie to watch if you want to get down to fundamentals; Gandhi's three basic lessons of war and peace as shown so beautifully here are these: 1) the only devils are in our own minds; 2) the separation of Pakistan and India, like the separation of Palestine and Israel, violated the civil order between Muslims and Hindus, and destroyed all that Gandhi had achieved: peaceful coexistence of peoples within a single nation; and 3) in the end, after great pain, truth and love inevitably triumph.

Although I was tempted to fast-forward to the current six-front 100-year war between radicalized Islam and militarized America on the one hand, and between impoverished billions and corporate America on the other, I paused to reflect on the past first. It was the Spanish who first committed genocide against the American Indians, who expelled the Muslims and then the Jews, who sponsored the Inquisition and the Crusades. It was the British who stupidly pitted Muslim against Hindu in their attempts to assert their imperial will–nothing makes them look as stupid as the movie's coverage of how the “Empire” forbade the locals to take salt from their very own sea: the Indian Sea.

Now I fast forward to our current circumstances, with special reference to Jonathan Schell's “Unconquerable World,” perhaps complemented by Clyde Prestowitz' “Rogue Nation” (the US), and Chalmers Johnson “Sorrows of Empire”–and the other 470+ books relevant to war and peace today. Bottom line: boy, have we screwed this up. First off, invading Afghanistan made Al Qaeda stronger, not weaker. Second off, invading Iraq has made America weaker, not stronger, and inflamed the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Africa, the Pacific Rim, and the Muslim populations in the Americas.

We need a Gandhi. I cannot think of any modern leader who is even close, although the current Pope has certainly tried. This movie depicts, in terms stark and relevant, the opposite of 9-11–the clash of mobs driven by ideology or religion, completely oblivious to the core facts that Gandhi tried to teach: non-violence, love, truth, the Golden Rule. All else is evil.

If you have time for just one serious DVD, this is it.

2004/08/132009/12/04

Review: Osama’s Revenge–THE NEXT 9/11 : What the Media and the Government Haven’t Told You

4 Star, 9-11 Truth Books & DVDs, America (Anti-America), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad

Third of Three “Must Reads” on Bin Laden and Threat to USA,

August 13, 2004

Paul L. Williams

This is the third of three books that I am reviewing today and that I strongly recommend be read by every adult in America. The first two, in order of priority, are Mahmood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror and CIA Anonymous Executive Analyst, Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. I should add that terror is a tactic, not an enemy, it is impossible to win a war against a tactic.

What this book does is piece together all of the English-language reports over the past ten years or so regarding the probabilities and specifics of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's having acquired several forms or portable nuclear devices. Although some reviewers have slammed this book for being fictional, they do not know what they are talking about. The FACTS are that the Soviet general officer responsible for the 100 suitcase nuclear bombs designed for Spetznatz use, some pre-positioned in the USA, has said publicly, in writing, and on more than one occasion that 66 of those are unaccounted for.

I took one star off for excessive reliance on two secondary sources, both excellent but never-the-less cited too often, and the commensurate lack of attention to foreign language materials that could have deepened this study considerably, especially when one takes into account the CIA executive analyst's comments in IMPERIAL HUBRIS regarding the straight truth-telling that can be found in Bin Laden's Arabic-language postings. “Nuclear hell storm” is out there (the author does cite this), and we had better take this more seriously than our government has.

The author opens with a notional “letter to America” from Bin Laden that is based on Bin Laden's actual statements (as itemized in IMPERIAL HUBRIS) and is alone worth the price of the book. If we don't take a long hard look at ourselves and correct the misbehavior that is radicalizing over a billion Muslims, we will not (not!) win this war.

The author does a really fine job, not just of amassing and stringing together a coherent story of Bin Laden's likely possession of nuclear capabilities, but also of showing the inter-relationship between the Afghanistan drug fields that the U.S. Government has stupidly allowed to flourish, the Pakistani production facilities that take the opium to a “Number 4” level of quality, and criminal organizations as well as corrupt governments everywhere that facilitate Bin Laden's operations. The roles of Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan (especially Pakistan) in facilitating the storage, refurbishment, and technical maintenance of the purchased nuclear elements are covered in a manner that persuades me–this is a very real threat.

The book is a useful compilation of both mistakes by the US, and events taking place from 2002-2004, and it ends with full translated copies of the 23 Aug 96 Fatwa and the related 23 Feb 98 World Islamic Statement. Within the book are some extracts from Al Qaeda training manuals, one portion of which make it clear that the “sleepers” now in the US are specifically forbidden to go to mosques or appear Islamic in any way.

Bottom line, totally consistent with the other two books I recommend: the US needs to meet Bin Laden's reasonable demands, and redirect its focus from occupying Islamic countries toward cleaning up its own homeland. [I realize that calling Bin Laden's demands “reasonable” in going to infuriate many people, but I have to say, based on all three books taken as a whole, that all three authors agree on this point, and they have persuaded me. We cannot win if we persist in supporting 44 dictators, occupying Muslim lands, demanding cheap oil at the expense of the Muslim populations, and supporting an Israel that is racist as well as terrorist in nature toward the Palestinians. It is what it is–the sooner we stop deceiving ourselves, and demand that our government get back to the ideals of moral capitalism and truly representative democracy, the sooner we have a chance to avoid this “nuclear hellstorm” that I believe this book credibly documents as a very real possibility.]