I found this book to be disappointing. Sorrows of Empire, by the same author, is better than both this book, and his first book in the same theme, “Blowback.”
This is as good a current review as any, with respect to America's unilateral militarism and the corruption associated with the military-industrial complex. It ends appropriately with a focus on the lunacy of trying to “dominate” space, something the Chinese just demonstrated is impossible with their successful destruction of a satellite in space, from the ground.
The book, as some other reviewers suggest, very uneven. There are many other books I have read that go well beyond this one, such as Chomsky's books, “War is a Racket,” “The Cheating Culture,” “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” “The Soul of Capitalism,” and so on (see all my lists).
The final chapter highlights the recurring themes across the three books:
a) The use of Executive secrecy to avoid Congressional and public oversight
b) The illegal Executive “signing statements” and other renunciations of explicit legislative mandates
c) The degree to which special interests, and especially special interests from within the military-industrial complex
d) The vulnerability of the US economy, which now focuses largely on military production while out-sourcing most other manufacturing
e) The Enron-style accounting that characterizes the Pentagon, which in my personal view is a sophisticated means of stealing money from the indidividual taxpayer, and transferring it to the major corporations and the banks behind them
The book ends with a mix of resignation and hope. Americans can choose, in 2008, between Empire and Democracy. It is doubtful that Bush and Cheney will be impeached. The degree to which the public has ignored all the evidence commonly understood by the 9-11 Truth Movement, and all of the evidence about White House manipulation and fabrication of intelligence with respect to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, is quite troubling.
The Author Hits It Out of the Park–Video is Spectacular,
March 2, 2007
Eric Hufschmid
This is one of the best 9-11 books (with its own video) and I am persuaded by this author and others that 9-11 has not been properly investigated, and that there has been a major cover-up. The video is very powerful, very detailed, very thoughtfully narrated, and carries this book and this author to the very top of the list of reasoned and thus authoritative contributions.
Unlike the other 9/11 books I have reviewed, this book, which is letterhead size, is a brilliantly compelling collection of color photographs, color diagrams, thoughtful calculations, and plain text in two columns. The book and the DVD represent, in my opinion, the single best personal effort, and the single most credible case, to the effect that 9-11 was a huge scam on the American public.
The book, and the DVD, are *exhaustive*. There is no better word.
I especially like the author's discussion of the Oklahoma City bombing as a preview of a diversion (the truck bomb versus two airplanes) combined with controlled demolitions. Unexploded bombs are reported to have been found at the Federal Building, with news clippings. The author also covers the destruction of a wedding hall in Israel, and the downing of an Egyptian airplane, as rehearsals for 9-11.
I personally believe that the WTC were brought down by controlled demolitions planted by order of Larry Silverstein, but I am not certain if his action was done in partnership with Rudy Guliani and Dick Cheney, or on his own. The author does not mention the aspestos problem facing Larry Silverstein, for that I recommend viewing the DVD “Loose Change” as well as “9/11 The Press for Truth.”
I also believe that the evidence strongly suggests that the Pentagon was hit by a missile fired by the US, and that there has been a massive cover-up.
I am relatively certain that 9-11 was allowed to happen, and that the majority of those who died–over 80%–died by order of Larry Silverstein, with or without the explicit protective consent of Dick Cheney.
I am quite certain that the 9-11 Commission was a deliberate cover-up, and that Controlled Demolition, all of the WTC security people, the insurance executives, and key Pentagon officials have not been properly investigated.
One day these monsters will be held to account. I have to say, on the basis of all that I have read, viewed, and thought, that it is not Bin Laden that has brought down the Republic, but rather Dick Cheney. Our most fearsome enemies are domestic, not foreign.
Bottom line: the political leadership of America can not be trusted and are almost certainly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors (see my lists on holding Cheney accountable, and on impeachment guides for citizens).
I agree with those that suggest that the author goes over the top sometimes, but I will also be quite explicit in saying that I think Alex Jones is a very important part of the patriotic truth movement, and all that he does is in my view at least 80% vital to improving public intelligence in the public interest.
This book plays out a theme that relates the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma with 9-11, and I read through it at the same time that I was watching the DVD “Painful Questions” which actually had news clips about additional unexploded bombs being found in the Federal Building after the fact.
I am increasingly frustrated as I read so many of these books, each with vital tid-bits, many of which I can see correlating with one another, but yet no one anywhere has cut the spines off all these great books, digitized them, and created a visual diagram that makes sense of all this.
One thing I am certain of: the White House and Larry Silverstein are both hiding information from the public, and one day we will have proof of the degree to which elements of our own government allowed 9-11 to happen and went the extra step of helping to murder thousands of Americans solely and exclusively to manipulate a mandate for combining a police state at home with a unilateral ;militarism-terrorism abroad.
This is yet another of the many excellent books from Pregressive Press, with lots of details and lots of common sense.
My only regret is that despite the many excellent blogs and websites surrounding the 9-11 lies and deceptions, there is still no single sense-making facility that could “rack and stack” specific individuals like Dick Cheney, Rudy Guliani, and Larry Silverstein such that the public could demand, and get, indictments and grand jurys and everything else.
I sought this book out used because it was recommended to me by a very smart person thinking about the decline of governments and the rise of the corporation.
Salk was the originator of the concept of “Epoch B” leadership, in which the emphasis shifts from things to thoughts.
Since it is no longer readily available, I will highlight the three charts that conclude the book:
1) A ladder with feedback loops with the following circles stacked above one another: Ecology, Society, Individual, Physiology, Molecular Biology.
2) Epoch B characteristics: Values and Behavior in Equilibrium instead of Growth & Expansion; Technology balancing between Agricultural and Future Industrial (True Cost/Natural Capitalism); Environmental Carrying Capacity Stable and Declining rather than Increasing; and Low Growth Raates instead of High.
3) Finally, in triangles within a circle, we have the Exnvironmental Opportunities and Limitations articulated through the Social, Policial, and Ecnomic sides of the largest triangle. Within that triangle, we have Education, Religion, and Socioeconomic Conditions as the factors impacting on the individual. The intermediate triangle has Behavior, Attitudes, and Values surrounding the smallest triangle, which is labeled Bio-Evolution.
The bottom line on this book, as with Will and Ariel Durant's “Lessons of History,” is that the endgame is about morality, legitimacy, reconcilation, and balance.
5 stars on its chosen focus, 4 for lack of larger context,
March 1, 2007
Martin van Creveld
Martin Van Crevald is one of a handful of military scholars without peer–others I hold is such regard include Colin Gray, Max Manwaring, Steve Metz, and Ralph Peters.
In relation to its chosen focus, the lessons of combat and the changing face of war, this is a capstone book unlike any other, and it will be a long-standing classic in the field, useful as both a primer for those new to the strategic study of war, and for those long in the tooth wishing to reflect back with what comprises a survey of both the literature and the century of war.
The conclusion is daunting. Like Will and Ariel Durant, and Clauswitz, the author concludes that the primary determinant of victory is not mass or technology, but rather the moral factor. Being “in the right,” being on one's home ground, being supported by many others because of solidarity in “being right,” is to money and technology and hubris at 10 to 1 if not 100 to 1.
The conclusion, and the work as a whole, are also slightly disappointing, not because of any imperfection in what is included, but because the book ends where I wished for it to begin. The author notes that asymmetric opponents can only be defeated by either deep precision intelligence that is by definition non-official in cover and native in capability; or pre-emptive attacks that nail all the key individuals early enough to prevent the insurgency from gaining momentum.
This book is most valuable as the epitaph for the military-industrial complex in America, but sadly, this Administration not only does not get it, they are expanding the walking dead model into Homeland Security, with the full acquiescence of the largely witness Democratic majority in the House of the Representatives.
The movie War Games like Gandhi (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition), got it right. The only way to win a war in today's era is to not fight it at all. General Al Gray, USMC, then Commandant of the Marine Corps, got it right in 1988, writing in the American Intelligence Journal (Winter 1988-1989), about the need to focus on revolutionary and terrorist-spawning conditions, the urgency of funding “peaceful preventive measures,” and the importance of open source information.
Twenty years later, the Americans are giving lip service to “stabilization and reconstruction” while making a complete fiasco of both Afghanistan and Iraq. No less than $12 billion in cash courtesy of the Federal Reserve in New York, has gone missing from Iraq.
There are other works that I recommend in addition to this one. On the counter-insurgency side there is The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century as well as Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam; see also my varied lists including the asymmetric war list. At the higher level of making peace I recommend Ambassador Mark Palmer's superb Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025; Robert McNamara's DVD The Fog of War – Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara as well as the DVD Why We Fight; and Blight & McNamara, Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing, and Catastrophe in the 21st Century as well as William Shawcross's Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords and a World of Endless Conflict. One last recommendation: Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emerging Concepts for the Future.
Brains, not bullets; belief systems, not weapons systems; are what the current and future conflicts are all about. America is way behind the power curve, and all current public intelligence indicators suggest that America will sink to British levels of non-influence, while Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, and Veneuzela–and some Wild Cards such as Malaysia, South Africa, and Turkey, “take off” and leave us behind.
Martin Van Crevald is the ultimate scribe of war, and he has closed the era of big war with this superb overview.
The Intelligence Communityās Neglect of Strategic Intelligence
Commonly misunderstood, we neglect it at our peril. The architects of the National Security Act of 1947 would be greatly surprised by todayās neglect of strategic intelligence in the Intelligence Community.
Sorrows of Empire is Better,
Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,
