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The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin

2007-02-12T16:57:00.000-08:00

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press (2004) 214pp. (OBT) ***

Most writers know their limits and work within them. But isn’t it the writer who pushes the proverbial envelope who we tend to learn the most from? Working from the margins, Griffin has attempted to do just that, to extend the consciousness of the reader. As he rightly notes, “it might seem prudent simply to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ If the suspicions are correct, however, these dogs are not sleeping, but are using the official story of 9/11 for various nefarious purposes, both within our country and the rest of the world.”(p. 160) Since the “official” 9/11 script seems to have already been written and archived, some might justly ask, why bother with a closer examination. Surely the American public had no role or say in the decision to make 9/11 the linchpin of U.S. foreign policy (a massive breakdown in national security if there ever was one). Just as we were unasked toward what purposes this tragedy could be manipulated, so must we demand of ourselves to seek the rigorous answers, not allowing those with ulterior motives to speak for us.
Interestingly, one area where Griffin chooses to take his investigation, is the U.S. Space Command. Rumsfeld was chairman of the commission to assess U.S. national security space management and organization, which subsequently published a report in the second week of 2001. The report, “recommended substantial changes, including the subordination of all the other armed forces and the intelligence agencies to the Space Force.”(p. 99) The report also stated the need for a “galvanizing” event like a “space Pearl Harbor.” Given this wider, trans-global/extraterrestrial agenda, one can understand why the American flag patches on the right shoulders of U.S. service personnel, would be backward. To the confused reader, this is simple, basic iconoclasm 101. Before you substitute one symbol for another, you first must make the symbol being replaced, lose all its meaning. Improper flag display is just such a method.
For his references and notation, Griffin is largely dependent upon Paul Thompson’s 9/11 timeline and Nafeez Ahmed’s War On Freedom. Notably absent from Griffin’s text is any mention of the possible hand of Israel or the Mossad in the attacks, as in the Israeli “art students” who were allegedly shadowing the 9/11 hijackers. Nor is there any mention of the anthrax letters, and while there are plenty of references to “the Big Lie,” there is no note of its originator and espouser, Leo Strauss. Altogether, these are fairly petty bones to pick over a work that overall is fairly complete. Griffin has boldly brought to light some of the undercurrents to 9/11, now it is up to you reader to connect the dots.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

2007-02-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States – W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2004) 567p. (S) **
Let’s, for a moment, take a page from the Karl Rove playbook; when attacking an opponent, don’t go after his weaknesses, go after his strengths. (How else is one to explain the temerity and audacity of a candidate of George W. Bush’s caliber [i.e. a deserter of the Air National Guard] making outrageous and shameless assaults on the military record of John Kerry, a decorated, two-tour combat veteran?) These days, one doesn’t have to wait long before yet another member of the Bush administration, yet again, reveres publicly the events of 9/11/01 – the raison d’etre of the Bush foreign policy, and some might argue, the raison d’etre of the administration itself. Perversely, for whatever self-serving reasons, the Bush administration has chosen to wear the 9/11 tragedies – the worst breakdown and failure of the national security system in our nation’s history – as a badge of honor. (Why Democrats aren’t focusing more of their resources on this neo-con “strength” leaves one a bit incredulous.) What makes the 9/11 attacks especially suspicious is their highly anomalous nature. To understand exactly how much of an aberration were the attacks (i.e. nothing like it has happened before or since), consider the following statistics: on any given day in the United States, there are 80,000 flights, 60,000 of which are civilian passenger flights. That’s an awfully lot of potential variables in a system, that in order to function, must be highly tuned and regulated, making one wonder just exactly how do four flights go missing within a two hour period? If the 9/11 hijackers, including four flight school students of mediocre ability, were really able to pull off the highly sophisticated 9/11 attacks without any external assistance, then one would rationally expect airplanes to be crashing into buildings, or falling from the sky in other terrorist scenarios, occurring with much more frequency.
The most relevant and important part of this report is its first 46 pages, as they deal directly with the actual events of “Terrible Tuesday.” In these pages so many contradictions abound that it is difficult to know where to begin. To start, why did it take Boston air traffic controllers 27 minutes to determine that American Airlines flight 11 had been hijacked? (Or, perhaps a more plausible scenario, why, when Boston air traffic control got on the phone to the FAA and NORAD, a busy or dead signal is all they got?) As this, AA flight 11, was the first plane to strike its target (the WTC North Tower), one could reasonably argue that the authorities’ response hangs on how it chose to react to this first flight deviation. Instead, the commission offers this blunt statement with no explanation, “Boston Center did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command.”(p.20) And again they make a similar statement: “The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocol.”(p.31) The report also claims that some NORAD personnel were less than honest in answering some of the commission’s questions. So the big follow-up question is why? In their end notation, the commission report writers give us a glimpse. “On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian.”(p.458) This is where the analysis of Michael Ruppert, author of Crossing the Rubicon, begins and becomes most helpful. Ruppert asserts that it is quite possible, that within the confusion of a military exercise that strangely enough hypothesized a scenario of hijacked aircraft (one can imagine that given this preposterous coincidence that personnel would become confused, operating at the nexus of reality and the virtual reality of a war game scenario), the attacks were able to have their success. According to Ruppert, in order for this to happen, there had to be complicity and facility at the highest levels of government. This is, of course, the most frightening scenario of all, an area in which the commission, not surprisingly, dares not tread.
Amazingly, at one point it is stated, “The 9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack.”(p.169) Also, there is this: “ . . . it cost al Qaeda about $30 million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11.”(p.170) Compare this to the CIA’s annual budget of $30 billion, 1,000 times that of al Qaeda’s. And Osama bin Laden is still unaccounted for? What, exactly, is wrong with this picture?
There is also the issue of semantics. “Calling this struggle [the “war on terrorism”] a war accurately describes the use of American and allied forces to find and destroy terrorist groups and their allies in the field . . . ”(p.363) This follows what on the same page the commission writes “terrorism is a tactic . . . ”(p.363) So which is it? How, exactly, does one prosecute a war against a tactic? Calling a war a “war on terrorism” makes about as much sense as declaring war on war. What is the difference between war and terror?
Then there is the laundry list of things that go completely ignored by the commission’s report. Here’s a sample: no where is Colleen Rowley (an FBI field agent in Minnesota) mentioned by name, nor is the promotion of Rowley’s superiors at FBI headquarters who obstructed and thwarted Rowley’s investigation, the collapse of WTC 7 and what might have caused it, Bush’s reaction to the news that a second plane had hit the WTC, the expedited removal of steel debris from ground zero before proper metallurgic tests could be done, the Israeli “art students” who shadowed the 9/11 hijackers, Attorney General John Ashcroft’s decision to stop using civilian aircraft in the days prior to 9/11, and the likely shootdown of United flight 93 over Pennsylvania. (Instead, the commission devotes an interesting six pages as to who has the authority to give a shootdown order.) In one case, the commission is outright erroneous when it writes that the special Saudi flights only began after the nationwide air traffic grounding order had been lifted. Many news reports have written that the flights did indeed occur while everyone else in America who was an air passenger was stranded at airports.
The final 65 pages of the report is devoted to policy recommendations (a nod to the Bush administration’s “suggestion” for the commission to be more “forward thinking”). These recommendations include more widespread use of biometrics for identification purposes and the creation of a “national intelligence director” position as well as a “national counterterrorism center.” Iran-contra convict, John Negroponte, has realized the national intelligence director position.
Since the majority of this report doesn’t focus directly on the 9/11 attacks themselves, preferring instead to use lots of filler in the background of U.S. counterterrorism policy and the history of the al Qaeda movement, and, of course, the just mentioned recommendations, one can easily envision this being a report that the administration would be well satisfied with. No wonder so many copies were rushed to print. Fortunately, there are plenty of other resources available for the curious and astute reader. Foremost there is Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon. No one to date has dared to put into print the accusation that the Bush administration had explicit complicity in the events of 9/11 themselves. Given how the attacks were such a tremendous aberration in terms of historical events in the linear continuum, it would seem that Ruppert’s conclusion is among the most rational. Better for the reader to reward Ruppert’s beyond courageous work by buying a copy of his book, than to drop $10 on what amounts to pretty much a whitewash, even with its 100 plus pages of fine print notation.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions – David Ray Griffin

2007-02-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions – David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press (2005) 339pp. (S) ***

In his follow-up to The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin has offered a critique of the 9/11 Commission Report itself. Apart from at times being tediously redundant in the minutiae of the 9/11 timeline, it is clear that it is Griffin’s intent to be as thorough as possible when broaching so momentous and incongruous an event as 9/11. In fact, Griffin openly acknowledges and embraces his limitations, as it would be quite impossible for anyone to cover every aspect of 9/11 in a single volume. This, however, does not leave the 9/11 Commission Report off the hook.
To begin with, Griffin first makes a vital distinction about who is exactly in charge of the commission. “ . . . [T]he commission’s investigation was essentially run by [executive director, Philip] Zelikow.”(p.7) Hence, from this point on, Griffin aptly refers to the commission as the Kean-Zelikow Commission (as opposed to the Kean-Hamilton Commission). With Zelikow’s strong personal links to members of the administration, his positioning within the commission in such a strategic leadership role, is indeed no small matter.
Griffin then raises the point that whereas the passenger manifests of the four 9/11 aircraft, were never publicly released by the airlines, and that whereas six of the nineteen hijackers named, later came forward to state that indeed they were very much alive, the identities of all the hijackers, and their true number, may in fact never be truly known. The fact that fifteen of the hijackers were said to be Saudi also raises an interesting point that does not go unnoticed by Griffin. “ . . . [S]ome people may suspect that [investigative journalist, Gerald] Posner is part of a plot to prepare the American public for a possible invasion of Saudi Arabia at some time in the future. [By making the ] claim that 15 of the hijackers were Saudi nationals, the U.S. government could argue, if and when it became convenient, that it had learned that the attacks of 9/11 had been planned and funded by the Saudi government.”(p.64) This is Griffin at his best, positing a likely scenario given the neo-con’s lust for infinite war and Arab blood.
In the second half of Griffin’s book, he analyzes each flight individually. Starting with American Airlines flight 11, most of Griffin’s focus is upon inconsistencies in the timeline itself, be it between initial reports and the Commission’s final draft, or be it how alternative analyses stack up. As Griffin wonders why Flight 11 wasn’t at least intercepted by military aircraft performing CAP (combat air patrol), he writes “(Bringing down a hijacked passenger jet [AAL Flight 11] over any part of New York City would likely, of course, result in considerable death and destruction. But can anyone say that taking that risk would have been worse than letting hijackers strike their intended target?)”(p.166) Well, how about any one who isn’t looking backward through the lens of 20/20 vision? While Flight 11 was still airborne, no one knew that its “intended target” was the World Trade Center. Imagine the liability to the U.S. government had Flight 11 been actually shot down over the skies of New York City. There simply would be no end to what would’ve surely been perceived as the act of a careless, trigger happy pilot. Likely this is why the commission’s “official” line is unable to allow that United Flight 93 was indeed likely shot down.
It appears that Griffin is of the mind that the FAA unfairly “took the fall” for the many blunders made on the day of 9/11/01. Indeed, there is this in the Commission’s report: “Boston Center [air traffic control] did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command.”(p.20) Yet at the same time, the commission recognizes that NORAD officials gave “incorrect” testimony regarding the response times to Flight 11. Between the two, FAA and NORAD, no one was ever reprimanded. Far from it, personnel directly involved in 9/11 negligence were actually promoted by the administration.
Finally, there is this: “Some critics of the official account of 9/11 believe that if we ever get a full account of how the attacks were able to succeed, we will see that a vital role was played by some military exercises, sometimes called ‘war games,’ that had been scheduled for that morning [on 9/11/01].”(p.268) This is exactly Mike Ruppert’s contention in Crossing the Rubicon, but strangely, Griffin opts not to cite him here. Only within the fog of “military exercises” could standard operating procedure be so grossly deviated from, neglected, and outright abandoned. Quite aptly, Griffin quotes Michael Parenti as saying “‘policymakers [sometimes] seize upon incompetence as a cover.’”(p.262) This is exactly what the 9/11 Commission Report is about. Citing failure at multiple levels of government with zero accountability is the record that the Commission leaves for baffled readers. Only until we fully understand what Operations “Vigilant Guardian” and “Vigilant Warrior” were all about, can the key to unlocking 9/11’s dark secrets be found. There are 80,000 flights a day, just within U.S. airspace alone, so that for four flights to go unaccounted for within a period of two hours, is a major anomaly in itself, one that couldn’t happen without significant assistance and complicity at the highest levels of government. This is the bigger picture that Griffin misses in his minute by minute breakdown of each flight.
Incompetence should no longer be allowed to be used as a “cover.” If someone is killed in an automobile accident that you caused, then there is a charge known as vehicular homicide. If 3,000 Americans are killed within a two hour window, then the least we should expect is a charge of negligent homicide, not, of all things, promotion of those directly responsible.

Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, and Big Oil: The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co. – Wayne Madsen

2007-02-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, and Big Oil: The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co. – Wayne Madsen, TrineDay (2006) 311 pp. (OBT) ***

Wayne Madsen claims to have taken the title for his book, “Jaded Tasks,” from the name of a military operation that in 2004 deposed Jean Bertrand Aristide from office as president of Haiti. “Jaded” is as good an adjective as any to describe the fortitude required to explore the depths that Madsen ponders. Whether it’s suspicious deaths that have been officially determined to have been “suicides or it’s taking a look at what is really behind U.S. foreign policy, Madsen is there with his forever skeptical eye
A few highlights from the book are as follows: on neo-con iconoclasm Madsen observes, “the destruction of longstanding national vexillogical and heraldic symbols is a major neoconservative precept.”(p.67) Is this why the American flag patch on the uniforms of U.S. service personnel is backward? It certainly makes one wonder.
Leave it to Madsen to take away the veneer and expose a politician for what he truly is. A case in point is Democratic Senator from Connecticut Joseph Lieberman who Madsen describes as “a neoconservative ally of [Paul] Wolfowitz.”(p.258) Finally the public has caught onto Lieberman’s game and now there is a serious primary challenger to his seat.
Sometimes it would seem that Madsen goes a bit overboard in his scrutiny, for example when he attempts to make a strained and contorted link between the death of Congressional intern Chandra Levy and 9/11. In other areas, like 9/11 itself, Madsen is actually short on skepticism. For the most part, he does not attempt to challenge the “official” line on 9/11, though he recognizes that “9-11 was a panacea for three countries [Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel].”(p.285) But in fact, more so than any party, 9/11 was a boon to the Bush administration, which has subsequently cited the attacks as its raison d’etre in not just the foreign policy arena, but its raison d’etre in general, period. For more plausible answers, the reader here would be advised to seek out the excellent writings of Michael Ruppert, for an alternative analysis to the tried and failed official 9/11 storyline.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil – Michael Ruppert

2007-02-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil – Michael Ruppert, New Society Publishers (2004) 674pp. (OBT) *****

Wow! For those who have been waiting, this is the book that delivers. Hands down, this is one of the most important non-fiction reads of the twenty-first century. From the criminals within the Bush Jr. administration who helped to bring us the 9/11 attacks, to the massive economic and social implications of “peak oil,” to Wall Street’s laundering of international drug profits, Ruppert takes an aggressive, no nonsense approach to subjects that most dare not touch. His targets, the greatest halls of power on earth, make Ruppert’s work “beyond courageous” as one author, Chellis Glendinning has noted. Truth tellers at the vanguard of the alternative media are seldom rewarded for their early displays of intrepidity and courage. It is only months, or often years, later that they are finally vindicated, when the mainstream finally catches on.
Who is Mike Ruppert? Ruppert is a retired LAPD detective and the founder and editor of From the Wilderness, a printed newsletter and fromthewilderness.com. He is also the subject of the video The Truth and Lies of 9/11, a recorded speech that he gave at Portland State University in November of 2001. Ruppert has been sounding the alarm about “peak oil” long before the term came into vogue. He is, at present, self-exiled in Venezuela
That said, there is one small disappointment, however, regarding the title of Ruppert’s work. The initial title of Ruppert’s book was to be: America’s Descent into Fascism at the End of the Age of Oil, and is unfortunate that he does not pursue the fascism theme more. For instance, Ruppert notes that “in his [George W. Bush’s] January 2003 State of the Union speech, George W. Bush referred to the evils of the twentieth century as ‘Hitlerism, communism, and militarism.’ He could not bring himself to say fascism, because he is – by definition – a fascist.”(p.15) Particularly given events like the 2003 California recall measure, Texas gerrymandering, the advent of “touch screen” paperless ballots, and other developments designed to bring about, strengthen, secure, and expand single-party rule. (This reviewer should note, though, that given the results of the 2006 mid-term elections, it is no longer accurate to say that the Republican party has a sole lock on federal power as they did during the previous five years. This isn’t to say that the executive branch doesn’t still continue to wield power in an abusive and autocratic fashion.)
Be that as it may, this is indeed Ruppert’s masterstroke. Clearly it is a product of years of intensive and committed research. The scope of the analysis is indeed vast, but he still manages to pull things together in a coherent manner that is meticulously documented (with some forty pages of small print endnotes). For those familiar with his fromthewilderness.com website, however, some parts may appear redundant, as he quotes frequently and at length from the site. The style and train of thought is a bit choppy at times, undoubtedly yet understandably due to the tremendous time constraints Ruppert may have been under as he sought to incorporate the deluge of information, the volume of which only seems to increase exponentially, daily. 2004 being an election year must have placed upon Ruppert added demands and pressures to get his book to print prior to the November presidential election
In his opening pages, Ruppert comes out swinging. Here are two examples: “But on this larger explanatory foundation, the evidence will inexorably prove our case: that the United States government not only had complete foreknowledge of the attacks of September ll, it also needed them and deliberately facilitated them, and even helped plan and execute them using techniques long understood in the world of covert operations.”(p.15) Then there’s this: “Knowing what we all know about the deceptions used to ‘sell’ the occupation of Iraq, can we afford to not question the multitude of contradictions, lies, falsehoods, and cover-ups surrounding the events of 9/11?”(p.15) If I could beg the reader’s indulgence for a moment longer, whereas no one but Ruppert himself can best express his own ideas, I will continue with a few more extended quotations. With regards to “peak oil” – the point at which half of the world’s oil supply has been exhausted – Ruppert writes (building on the writings of former Carter National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard) that “Whoever controls the oil in the Eurasian continent . . . will determine who lives and who dies, who eats and who starves.”(p.29) And then: “The United States has chosen to address the problem of peak oil in the most brutal, venal, and shortsighted way available: by using military force to commandeer what remains of the world’s rapidly vanishing fossil fuels.”(p.47) And there is also this shocker: “A great many analysts understand and have written, that one way to prolong inevitable [oil supply] decline is by the creation and management of recessions, which inevitably reduce the demand for oil.”(p.32) Also with great relevance to U.S. access to Eurasian fossil fuel supplies, Ruppert observes the economic bleeding of Russia during the 1990s. “ . . . throughout the 1990s, what was forfeited was Russia’s ability to function as a nation, to feed its people and especially to support its military . . . when the time came for the U.S. empire to militarily occupy Central Asia and surround the oil fields of the Middle East, Russia had grave economic and military problems to deal with.”(p.90) Ruppert then posits: “An urgent question is whether or not there was a correlation between decreasing reserve estimates from the Caspian Sea and increased terror activity from Al Qaeda.”(p.96-97) Also cited by Ruppert is the importance of Saudi Arabia: “One must remember that Saudi Arabia is the ultimate prize in the war for oil.”(p.139) He then contends, “ . . . that if the [Saudi] kingdom becomes unstable, having [U.S.] military resources out of the country, but close enough to launch immediate attacks, is a way of protecting them [the Saudi rulers] from sabotage or attack if the anti-American sentiment felt by most of the Saudi populace is unleashed.”(p.150) One might add that it may be the Bush administration’s intent to destabilize the Saudi monarchy (after having pulled up stakes of its bases in country), in the hopes of taking over the prized Saudi oilfields for themselves. No one seems to remember that it was ostensibly fifteen of the nineteen of the 9/11 hijackers that were Saudi (interestingly, none were Afghani, Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian, nor North Korean). So the administration may simply well be waiting to reintroduce this fact at a more opportune, strategically advantageous, time. (But here, Ruppert writes: “One of the most misleading spins perpetrated by the U.S. media was to tell the world that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. No! Fifteen of the 19 had Saudi passports. Many were from other places all over the Middle East.”(p.577))
Even for all of Ruppert’s thoroughness, there are still a few things that go missing. Surprisingly, given the density of the work (600 pages) there is still a considerable amount left out. Ruppert graciously concedes this point in his conclusion, emphasizing that it is his intent to only include that which would be provable in a court of law and that for the sake of time and resource constraints, that he had to confine the scope of his work in some manner. What follows is a brief list of a few of the things that might have helped Ruppert to better bolster his arguments: 1) might have referenced event where a man piloted a single engine aircraft onto the White House lawn during Clinton’s tenure, 2) how altogether anomalous the attacks of 9/11/01 were (nothing like it previously, and especially nothing like it since – given a highly hostile foreign policy in the Middle East) (to give Ruppert credit, in his video, The Truth and Lies of 9/11, he does make brief mention of the anomalous nature of the attacks), 3) Air Traffic Control statistics from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association: (i.e. 80,000 flights per day in the U.S., 30,000 alone being commercial passenger aircraft), 4) Bush cousin who headed a company that was responsible for the security of the World Trade Center, 5) why Clinton didn’t initiate the “war on terror” during his two terms – possibly using the take-down of TWA flight 800 as a possible precipitating event, 6) no mention of the D.C. sniper case and the diversionary role it fulfilled during a period of a critical Congressional vote – to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002, 7) no mention of the suspicious death of British scientist David Kelley, 8) the woman involved in procuring fake identifications for some of the hijackers who just happened to die en route to court, 9) possible controlled demolition of towers and how there may have been explosives present in the buildings – with ear witness accounts, 10) CEOs who had offices at the WTC got a day off from work on day of 9/11/01. These are just a few of the points that could have used further elaboration. This is not to nit-pick, but is done so only in the interest of creating a more thorough account of the 9/11 attacks. Overall, however, Mike Ruppert must be highly commended for his courageous efforts. He has put to paper what few even dare utter verbally. Crossing the Rubicon is as apt a title as there is. Writer, reader, nation, and world alike have all collectively crossed a rubicon, whether we choose to believe it or not. Once the reader is done with this heavy tome, his perception of the world we live in and share, will not be the same.

America’s “War on Terrorism" – Michel Chussudovsky

2007-02-12T16:50:00.000-08:00

America’s “War on Terrorism” – Michel Chussudovsky, Global Research (2005) 365pp. (OBT) ***

For the already jaded reader, Michel Chussudovsky provides little relief. In America’s “War on Terrorism” nothing is at it appears on the surface. At the root of the U.S. “war on terror” is economic lust for diminishing global resources, principally gas and oil. (See also Forbidden Truth by Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie.) From the picture that Chussudovsky paints, rarely is it the occasion when the CIA is not behind nefarious plots and terrorist organizations and the distinctions between the Clinton and the Bush II foreign policies are few and far between. Such broad stroked overgeneralizations are hardly helpful when the reader is attempting to attain a more nuanced and balanced perspective.
From the former Soviet Central Asian states to the Balkans, Chussudovsky sees an American hand in backing radical Islamic movements, even the Chechen rebels. The intent is to destabilize these states as a precursor to exploiting their natural resources. Chussudovsky even describes a November 2001 American airlift of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters out of the combat zone into the safety of Pakistan, the ostensible purpose being that the U.S. would need enemies for another day in order to propagate and continue its “war on terror.”
Chussudovsky also describes the psychological warfare on the homefront in the form of the department of Homeland Security’s color coded warning system and its use of elevated “code orange.” Often the peculiar timing of these elevated alerts belay political motives. Once particular incident cited by Chussudovsky is the London 7/7/05 bombing, where he recounts that for the exact time and place of the actual bombings, virtual exercises simulating just such a scenario of bombings in the London underground had been planned. The coincidence is more than uncanny.
In his final pages, Chussudovsky drops this bomb: “ . . . Bush’s National Security Doctrine is a continuation of that formulated under the Clinton administration in the mid 1990s . . . ” Funny how this reviewer does not recall a war of aggression policy (a.k.a. preemptive war) under Clinton, nor does he recall things like “extraordinary rendition,” torture a la Guantanomo Bay and Abu Ghraib, unwarranted domestic surveillance, and the like. Perhaps his memory is faulty, but having lived though the 1990s – a decade that was certainly not without its flaws with respect to U.S. foreign policy – primarily the expansion of “free trade” – he believes it safe to say unilateral war as since advanced by the United States, was not part of the picture.

The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis – Bob Fitrakis

2007-02-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

The Fitrakis Files: Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis – Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Alive Publishing (2003) 246pp. (OBT) ****

In Fitrakis’ opening pages, there is this: “The happy-face fascism of our New England preppie turned faux Texan is routinely accepted by a compliant populace.”(p.2) Thusly, Fitrakis aptly describes the current administration that is reigning over the twilight of American democracy. No wonder that we find a defiant Fitrakis, poised against the grain of a soft-spined corporate news media, in championing the indignation and rights of millions who were disenfranchised during the 2004 presidential election. But that is another book.
In Spooks, Nukes, & Nazis, Fitrakis has assembled a collection of his work that roughly spans the last ten years. Though some might jump to the charge that the news subjects are fairly parochial, it is to Fitrakis’ credit that he ties what is happening locally in central Ohio, into wider considerations and contexts. Hence, we learn of a school that is built over an old military weapons facility, that had a role dating back to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. Fitrakis also takes us into a closer examination of the neo-fascist, extreme right of groups like the Aryan Nation and World Church of the Creator and its threat to civil society and the broader implications for the country as a whole. And by uncovering the rich history of a CIA backed (and at one time, an outright CIA owned) air cargo company – Southern Air Transport, we are given a look into many of the tentacles of such an operation, from Air America to Iran-Contra.
Fitrakis’ populist approach is at its best, though, when he takes on the Bush administration directly. In Bush’s address to the U.N., he quotes Bush as having said: “‘Our principles and our security are challenged today by outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law of morality and have no limit to their violent ambitions.’”(p.132) To which Fitrakis’ astute analysis comes this: “The U.N. needs to realize that Bush’s statement is a Freudian slip – a self-confession about the real terrorist network that surrounds him in Washington, D.C.”(p.132) How many times can the reader think of, that when hearing an administration official so eloquently wax over our nefarious and ubiquitous enemies, has the idea come to the fore, that, yes there they go again, speaking of themselves? Hats off to Fitrakis for his no holds barred investigative journalism, a style that isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. It’s an assurance to the democracy to have his voice pounding at the door of power.

The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty – Jim Marrs

2007-02-12T16:46:00.000-08:00

The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty – Jim Marrs, The Disinformation Company, Ltd. (2006) 482pp. (OBT) ***

After waiting more than two and a half months for an Amazon.com book order (Inside Job by Jim Marrs), only to have the order summarily terminated for what I can best estimate as vague and irrational reasons, this reviewer has come to the conclusion that this will be his last order with Amazon.com. In the meantime, I was able to find the Terror Conspiracy at Powell’s Books, un updated version of Inside Job, with plenty of new content. Fortunately, it took only about a week or two for this order to be fully processed and delivered.
For those familiar with any other of Jim Marrs’ works, particularly Rule By Secrecy, you know that Marrs can be exceedingly conspiracy minded, though it is always interesting to read of groups as varied as Skull and Bones, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Bildebergers, The Trilateral Commission, and the Masons. Now, Marrs brings this alternative history sensibility to The Terror Conspiracy. In his opening pages, Marrs cites the peculiar coincidence of military “war games” on the morning of 9/11/01: “ . . . It appears likely that plans for staging a variety of war game exercises [on 9/11/01] were designed to be so distracting that they may well have contributed to the success of the actual strikes.”(p.13) And then there’s this: “ . . . It was no surprise that the [9/11] Commission’s report called for a number of sweeping changes in government structure and policies – all without exception aimed at gathering more power to a centralized authority armed with vastly increased budgets.”(p.168) There’s also this astute observation: “ . . . Both Bush’s neocons and Muslim terrorists operate from the same ideology – both believe the end justifies the means and that people must be frightened into accepting religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state.”(p.260) And again: “‘This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration,’ said Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch . . . ‘They don’t believe the American people or Congress have any right to information.’”(p.238-39) And finally: “‘[Conservative] does not describe the Bush administration at all,’ added [Michael] Ventura, [of the Austin Chronicle]. ‘They ignore Congress almost completely on crucial issues; they feel no obligation to inform American citizens of the White House’s deliberations or even its policies, whether or not national security is at stake; they concentrate tremendous power among the very few. That is not conservative. There is only one word that adequately describes the bent and preference of George W. Bush’s White House: totalitarianism.’”(p.342-43)
With the exception of an appendix piece written by Barbara Honegger, there isn’t a lot that is terribly new in Marrs latest work. What Marrs does do well, though, is to bring together otherwise disparate pieces of information and events to form a coherent narrative. The evidence that the 9/11/01 attacks were an “inside job” now seems overwhelming. Marrs must be commended for his efforts in being among the bold and the few to raise his voice in print against an increasingly fascistic entity (a.k.a. the administration of George W. Bush).

State of Denial: Bush At War, Part III – Bob Woodward

2006-11-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

State of Denial: Bush At War, Part III – Bob Woodward, Simon and Schuster (2006) 558pp. (S) **

Truth be known, I was very hesitant to cover this book. Woodward’s two previous efforts, Bush At War and Plan of Attack, are two outstanding specimens of the hagiographic stenography that when it really mattered, unquestioningly allowed the Bush II administration to get away with as much as it has, both in the past and continuing to do so to date. In this sense, Woodward really performed a grave public disservice, the results of which we are very much dealing with to this day.
So perhaps feeling a whiff of civic responsibility and remorse, Woodward has made this latest attempt to perhaps redeem his public image and clear his conscience. (And now that George W. Bush’s approval ratings are down into the thirties, clearly Woodward has sensed the changing national winds, making criticism of the administration now the safe, don’t stick your neck out, play.) State of Denial is far from the scathing indictment of an administration gone badly wrong, that it could be. For instance, the reader will observe that there is no discussion of war crimes and international courts, mechanisms designed to best reckon with wayward, renegade rogue nations and the leaders that guide them. Also ominously omitted, is the “Downing Street memo,” the nail in the proverbial coffin that closes the case solid that Bush and Co. were dreaming of war in Iraq as early as mid-2002 (and according to some sources, even earlier than this). Instead, we read of things like “arrogance” and “incompetence,” descriptions designed in their own way to leave war aggressors off the hook.
There are plenty of instances of neo-con zealotry, like when “corrections” were made to the transcript of a candid public statement to the press made by interim Iraq leader, General Jay Garner, to include praise for the INC (Iraqi National Congress) and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi. Garner also objected to en masse “debaathification” (extrication of personnel that were members of Saddam’s ruling Baath party) of the armed services and police, but neo-cons in the Pentagon like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith held firm on this point, thus giving pink slips to hundreds of thousands of men with guns with plenty of time to stew over the unpleasant conditions they believed to be caused by the occupation. To this, Bush’s response was, “We need to play on a sense of nationalism that will motivate Iraqis to cooperate with us to exclude the foreigners. The irony of the commander-in-chief of an occupation force of approximately 130,000 heavily armed foreign troops saying they should play on Iraqi nationalism and convince the people of Iraq to ‘exclude the foreigners’ seemed to go unnoticed.”(p.247)
Even in his criticisms of Bush, Woodward still manages to get his jabs in on the vanquished John Kerry: “Kerry, swimming in the past, defending his Vietnam and Senate service, never explained how he would use the power of the presidency. Bush had made it clear. He had used the power to go to war, and he was not going to back down.”(p.332) – and – “Overall, Kerry appeared uncertain and indecisive, while Bush succeeded in presenting himself in the campaign as tough and consistent.”(p.339) For the informed public, we can attribute these “appearances” to boatloads of campaign cash that financed the shameless tactics as practiced by none other than “boy wonder” Karl Rove. How else to explain the former cheerleader cum chickenhawk/deserter-in-chief, coming across as “tough and consistent” in opposition to a two-tour, decorated Vietnam veteran? Bush Jr. and his public persona is one of the biggest shams of the modern era. The fact that Woodward unquestioningly plays into the Rovian ruse does not speak well to his judgment nor to his intelligence.
In one poignant instance, Woodward describes the process of consideration of speechwriter Michael Gerson as to what should be included in a speech. Woodward writes, “So trumpeting democracy in the State of the Union might appeal to Iraqis”(p.373); a suspiciously, quasi-treasonous statement, whether he is conscious of making it or not since the State of the Union address is expressly designed to inform a domestic constituency of the state of the nation, and by all means, not as a mechanism through which to appease foreign interests.
At one point, in response to seeing a severely injured soldier, Bush is modestly self-referential as he calls himself “the most powerful man in the world.”(p.437) In another instance, Bush laments that there are no leaders in Iraq: “Where’s George Washington? Where’s Thomas Jefferson?”(p.447) The sheer idiocy of applying historical western figures to a contemporary situation in an eastern nation almost surpasses in ridiculousness the hubris-soaked statement aforementioned. Woodward also describes Bush as keeping a “terror scorecard” as well as having an appetite for enemy body counts, despite the reluctance of his generals to satiate a hunger that for them is far too uncomfortably reminiscent of the Vietnam era.
In the final pages, Woodward describes a restless White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, eager to get off the Bush/Cheney train. “Card was enough of a realist to see that there were two negative aspects to Bush’s public persona that had come to define his presidency: incompetence and arrogance.”(p.456) As Woodward spreads plenty of ink on the idiosyncrasies of defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it would seem that no one in the administration better embodied this duality than him. But while this may be true, Woodward leaves the reader hanging, never bothering to elaborate on the highly destructive consequences of said “incompetence and arrogance.”

The Mafia, CIA and George Bush: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest Financial Debacle – Pete Brewton

2006-09-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

The Mafia, CIA and George Bush: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest Financial Debacle – Pete Brewton, S.P.I. Books (1992) 418pp. (S) ***

This book is mistitled. Since its central focus is the Savings and Loans bank scandals of the 1980s, a more apt title would have been to simply use the second part of the title (The Untold Story of America’s Greatest Financial Debacle) as the main and only title. By throwing in the “Mafia, CIA and George Bush,” the unsuspecting reader is much more inclined to be drawn to a book that for the most part has very little to do with George H. W. Bush. Sure, there are passing mentions of Bush, but more ink seems to have been devoted to his son, Neil, who served as a director on the board of Silverado Savings and Loans, that eventually went bust. There is also brief citations of George W. and Jeb Bush.
Clearly Brewton has done a tremendous amount of research for this book. To the average reader, the myriad and plethora of names and relationships is truly mind boggling, which often left this reader overwhelmed. What appears to be a more central figure in Brewton’s story is a Houston business tycoon named Walter Mischer, a character who gets far more mention than Bush. For those looking for a work where Bush Sr. is the central figure, they would do far better to consult Russell Bowen’s The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed.

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty – Kitty Kelley

2006-09-05T21:10:00.001-07:00

The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty – Kitty Kelley, Doubleday/Random House, Inc. (2004) 705pp. (S) ***

This voluminous work by Kelley seeks to dig up the dirt on the Bush family dynasty. However, one of the most striking details is not George W. Bush’s notorious cocaine use, but how the politics of his grandfather, Prescott Bush, differed with that of his own and his father’s. According to Kelley, Senator Prescott Bush (Republican from Connecticut) voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy, voted against energy deregulation despite strong pressure to do otherwise by his son in the oil business, George H. W. Bush, and in 1956 Prescott Bush even campaigned in favor of civil rights. (However, what Kelley fails to mention is how a bank, Union Banking Corporation, under which Prescott Bush was a director, was cited in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy act for its business dealings with Nazi Germany.)
The progressive values of patrician Bush differ sharply with those of son George H. W. Bush who Kelley describes thusly: “His core beliefs were irrelevant. All that mattered was winning.”(p.515) This moral ambiguity comes into stark relief when one considers that as a U.S. Representative, George H. W. Bush was a supporter of family planning, a stance he quickly abandoned when he became Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1980. This political expediency seems to have been not just the hallmark of George H. W., but of his son as well. The latter generation Bushes also have become known for ruthless and dirty campaign practices, whether it be George Sr.’s “Willie Horton” television advertisement, or the slandering of Senator John McCain in the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina by front groups and PACs so as to ensure “plausible deniability” for Bush Jr. These lowball tactics from the Atwater/Rove school of dirty politics, unfortunately have again and again proven their effectiveness. When will the American electorate wake up and start seeing through the smoke?

Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy – John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney

2006-09-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy – John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney, W.W. Norton and Company, Inc. (2005) 211pp. (S) ***

In the closing pages of their book, Nichols and McChesney cite a twenty-first century truism (actually a truism that was probably applicable in other times as well): “Campaign finance reform is a first cousin to media reform.”(p.187) In other words, those with the bigger war chest are at a distinct advantage to flood the airwaves with mendacious mud, thus increasing the likelihood that it will stick. Candidate and president George W. Bush is as striking an example of this phenomenon as anyone. Given his poor oratory and penchant to misspeak, one would think that the media would have a field day with such a public figure. But Bush, as the candidate who has consistently outspent his opponents, seems oddly immune from such criticism, further using his resources as hush money to quiet potential negative media coverage. According to Nichols and McChesney, who cite Bob Woodward as their source, Howard Dean was the candidate who Karl Rove most feared (ostensibly because of his unbending opposition to the Iraq invasion and occupation). But Dean, who received a deferment during the Vietnam war, would seem like a ripe target for Rove’s hyper-nationalist mud machine, especially given how Senator John Kerry, a decorated combat veteran, was so outrageously slandered. With respect to Kerry, the authors write, “John Kerry was uniquely ill-suited to be the presidential nominee of a major party in 2004.”(p.125) This reviewer must strongly disagree with this statement. John Kerry’s record as combat veteran, the only one among all the Democratic candidates, was the strongest card to show up the inadequacy of a chickenhawk/deserter president. Again, we come back to the money, money to buy slanderous adds by the “Swift Boat Veterans” and the ludicrous “Stolen Honor” “documentary.” Other measures may have had smaller budgets, but nonetheless clearly demonstrated the desperation of the right. Consider that during the 2004 Republican national convention in New York City, band-aids with miniature purple hearts on them were being distributed, apparently in a mocking gesture towards all those who have been wounded in combat. Such puerile and shameless ignorance is really quite astonishing – indeed, far beyond the pale.
One instance not cited by the authors where a big checkbook played a significant role, is in the period immediately following the 2004 presidential election. Instead of hearing about the many voting “irregularities” of the election just passed, the public’s attention was absurdly derailed by the corporate media to focus on the projected 2008 race with conjecture that Hillary Clinton might head the Democratic ticket. It was if the RNC itself had nominated Clinton, knowing how much of a lightening rod she is for many American voters. Whatever the case, it was a classic diversionary tactic, with the corporate media dutifully taking its cues from Republican “talking points.”
Perhaps the most egregious example of media abuse is the “Dean scream.” Surprisingly, the authors write, “we are not objecting to the media being tough on Dean.”(p.124) Does “being tough” include incessantly re-running a two-second clip in a twenty-four news cycle, of an unglamorous moment in order to ridicule a candidate and torpedo any chances of him gaining the nomination? Again, the big money was talking. Dean was perceived as being too far outside Washington’s narrow margins, so his campaign had to be effectively halted. Indeed, campaign finance reform must be the first priority.

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count – Steven F. Freeman and Joel Bleifuss

2006-07-27T14:08:00.001-07:00

Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count – Steven F. Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, Seven Stories Press (2006) 265pp. (S) ***

Recently, Robert Kennedy, Jr. wrote an extensive, thoroughly documented, piece for Rolling Stone magazine on the probable theft of the 2004 U.S. presidential election. Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen, was also published this year (2006). While some may genuinely comment that such analyzes are far too little too late, one must nonetheless appreciate these efforts to get the truth out, no matter what the timing. (It must also be noted that the principle author, Steven Freeman, wrote online immediately following the election, pointing out the wide discrepancy between exit poll figures and the official tallies.)
Essentially what Freeman and Bleifuss do is extrapolate their findings from these sets of numbers: the 2004 exit polls (prior to there being “adjusted” as to better match the final tallies), the 2004 official tallies, and the 2000 official tallies. There are, of course, other sets of numbers (like opinion polls), but it is these three that are principally cited by the authors. For those who like mathematics and statistics, Freeman and Bleifuss offer a bevy of charts and graphs, so as to better supplement their argument. The numbers, at times, are a bit overwhelming, but the reader can easily see the need for an in depth analysis of these numbers, if the authors are to succeed in making their points. This is the general conclusion that they come to: “National exit polls [in the 2004 U.S. presidential race] indicate that Bush suffered a defeat in the popular vote by approximately 7 million votes, a margin of about 5 percentage points. On the other hand, the official story of Bush’s 3 million vote victory is simply not substantiated by the data. The only conclusion consistent with the data is that the 2004 U.S. presidential election was stolen.”(p.296) Need we say more?

Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth – Joe Conason

2006-07-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth – Joe Conason, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press (2003) 245pp. (S) ***

Big Lies was part of the tidal wave of works that constituted the class of 2003. That served as an answer to some of the more obnoxious screeds of the right, served up by the likes of Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. It’s really unfortunate that this democratic return volley came as late as it did, that there weren’t more books like J.H. Hatfield’s Fortunate Son and Rick Abraham’s The Dirty Truth, works that sought to expose George W. Bush’s gubernatorial record and his failures as a businessman in the private sector. Now, we can only imagine how many other prospective voters such publications would have reached, even given the nasty (yet brutally effective) Bush information suppression machine.
What Joe Conason seeks to do is to explode some of the myths of right-wing ideology that have subsequently been filtered down through the corporate media, to finally become unquestioned truth. In discussing perceived media bias, Conason hits it on the head when he writes: “Complaining constantly about [liberal] bias [in the media] serves to intimidate journalists, enforce demands for favorable coverage and privileged access, and ultimately, to maintain the overpowering influence that conservatives now enjoy.”(p.34) It’s simply amazing what constantly crying victim can accomplish (even when your party controls all three branches of the federal government).
Where Conason goes wrong, however, is when he writes the following: “After two years of skewed tax cuts, destructive deregulation, and social regression, nobody doubts Bush’s conservatism.”(p.176) (Nobody, that is, except perhaps many conservatives.) Well, what is exactly conservative about passing tax cuts that break the treasury and land the federal government right back in deficit spending? One can advance several arguments as to why George W. Bush is not a conventional conservative. Among them to be included: the launching of war of aggression upon a weak and for the most part defenseless foe (that for the record, never attacked us), using a justification of disarming said foe of his imaginary weapons of mass destruction that have yet to manifest themselves, the trampling of civil liberties via statutes of the USA Patriot Act and warrantless wire taps, by a man whose 2000 campaign mantra was “I trust the people, not the government,” and finally, the adoption of a reckless fiscal policy that has only grown the deficit and the overall debt. This is just a start, but whatever the case, there is abundant evidence to suggest that at heart, George W. Bush is not a genuine conservative, whatever one may think bout his ability to be “compassionate.”
Because his book was published in 2003, Conason is unable to devote much of his analysis to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nor is he able to summon sufficient amounts of skepticism with regards to the Bush administration’s official line on the events of 9/11. (Again, without having the benefit of time, at one point, however, he quotes Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political consultant, “we can go to the country on this issue [the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent ‘war on terror’] because they [American voters] trust the Republican party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America.”(p.192) Never mind that the source of this quotation is a shameless chicken hawk, who is completely comfortable in helping to spin a war of aggression to the American people, a war predicated upon one of the worst national security and defense breakdowns in U.S. history while he was in power, furthermore, a war he knows he will never personally fight in, nor will members of his family. How do they keep getting away with it? Conason cites two truths: “In political campaigns, a lie backed by enough money effectively becomes truth.”(p.78) and “Appearance matters more than substance in contemporary [American] politics . . . ”(p.90) Though the cynicism is overwhelming, these two statements best explain how George W. Bush continues to beat the odds. The bigger the budget, the more shit that will fly and stick. What a sad, sad reality, indeed.

The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception – David Corn

2006-07-27T14:06:00.000-07:00

The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception – David Corn, Crown Publishers/Random House (2003) 337pp. (S) ***

While another book on the deceptions of George W. Bush may seem like overkill, David Corn proves that the meticulous documentation of these prevarications, mendacities, and distortions, still has its place. Whether it be selling his tax cuts, himself as a candidate, Social Security “reform,” or an invasion of Iraq, duplicity has been Bush’s main standard. The common formula seems to be this: strike your opponent low, but with enough distance so as to ensure “plausible deniability,” while all the while posturing yourself as being above the partisan fray. This “Rovian ruse” has become a tried and tired strategy of the Bush White House. And sadly, to this point, such practices seem to have served team Bush all too well, even with astute writers like David Corn calling them out on their devious game.
Another method employed by the Bush regime, involves the creation of a climate of crisis to advance policy ends. Such cases in point include, again, Social Security “reform” (i.e. Social Security is about to run out so therefore we must act now), judicial nominations (i.e. an unacceptable level of vacancies), and , of course, the sale of his Iraq invasion (i.e. “mushroom clouds,” etc.). Again, these are tactics that have served Bush all so very well, so much so that their repetition should be a giant warning signal to Americans who are again and again being sold this false bill of goods.
Lastly, Corn asks, “Does Bush believe his own lies?”(p.320) While he doesn’t answer the question directly, either way, Corn believes, the lies have an equally detrimental impact. Take, for instance, the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Corn notes that one of the reasons Bush proclaimed for initiating an unprovoked war of aggression, was so that weapons of mass destruction wouldn’t make their way into the hands of terrorists. Then Corn cites the looting of Iraqi nuclear facilities in the chaotic aftermath of the U.S. invasion. Did radioactive materiel find its way into the possession of terrorists? We may never know.
On an aside note, this reviewer must express his disappointment with David Corn, who in the follow-up to the 2004 U.S. presidential election, pooh-poohed any notion that the election was stolen. I believe both he and The Nation have done this country a great disservice in dismissing the possibility of underhanded tactics by the right in that critical election. When a closer evaluation of that election was called for, the readers of The Nation instead got a frenzied dose of self-recrimination for the left, when in actuality the only mistake of the Kerry/Edwards campaign was their failure to follow-up the widespread irregularities in Ohio with legal recourse. Apart from that, the Kerry/Edwards ticket ran an honorable race, especially in contrast to the low-ball practices of the Bush/Rove campaign machine. If the left is to win any elections again, it must first stop blaming itself in post-election mortems, and start addressing the abundant fraud, deceit, and vote manipulation on the right, beginning with an in depth analysis of the paperless, touch screen voting machines. Thanks to the likes of John Conyers, Bob Fritrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Mark Crispin Miller, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Steve Freeman this story is finally being told and getting out
Corn devotes plenty of ink to the invasion of Iraq, but still, there are some things that he neglects. For instance, what did Saddam Hussein ever do to the U.S.? Sure he invaded a neighboring theocracy twenty-five years ago and ten years later, a monarchy, but aside from the effects upon U.S. oil interests, where’s the beef? (Or was it because he had decided to trade his oil in euros?) Just like a decade and a half ago during the run-up to and during the first Gulf War, Americans today hear a lot of talk about “liberation.” But how does a foreign entity go about “liberating” a monarchy and its subjects, while all the while keeping said monarchy intact? Bush talks about installing “democracy” across the Middle East, but when did a democracy ever arise at the point of a gun barrel of foreign, occupying troops, let alone in a region of the world where democracy is not familiar to its history? Given this, it would seem that what Bush & Co. really want in Iraq is another Saddam Hussein type figurehead (i.e. dictator), who in name only, is not Saddam Hussein. (However, so far the Bush administration seems to have only succeeded in inadvertently creating a Shiite quasi-theocracy.) While all the pre-invasion reasons have collapsed (Saddam’s alleged possession of WMD, Al Qaeda links to the Iraqi government) for being the frauds they are, Bush is left with “democracy,” a causus belli rarely heard in the run-up to the invasion. By the way, why shouldn’t Saddam Hussein have possessed WMD (WMD that was in part supplied to him by the U.S. – just ask Donald Rumsfeld who visited him twice – once in 1983 and again in 1984), especially in the face of a foreign, hostile aggressor such as the U.S. (a country that singularly has the largest stockpile of WMD on the planet and holds exclusive company to the fact we are the only ones to have used a nuclear device on a civilian population)? The best of all scenarios, though, would be a WMD free Middle East, that would include Israel. In the meantime, the U.N. was handling the situation competently, overseeing the disarming of Iraq, thus making the policy of "pre-emptive" invasion superfluous, unnecessary, and wholly catastrophic. Sure Saddam Hussein has a nasty history of using such weapons upon his foes and his own citizens alike, but hey, Franco bombed his own people too. (I don't mean to sound cavalier. This is not to say that bombing is not a morally reprehensible act. It is. This is only to say that bombing one's own citizens is not unprecedented. The horrible and atrocious acts of Saddam Hussein can claim many things, but one of them is not originality.) The point is, there are plenty of ruthless dictators in the world, but as long as they’re kept in their box, by that ever rational principle we know as deterrence, then reasonably there should be no trouble. (Is there any room left for reason in the post 9/11 hysteria?) For what is more important to a dictator than maintaining his own power; so why would he jeopardize that with a half-cocked, suicidal shot at the largest super-power in the world? What, then, is the real reason we find ourselves presently in Iraq? According to former CIA man, Ray McGovern, it’s OIL (Oil, Israel, and Logistics). Enough said.

Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) – Mark Crispin Miller

2006-06-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) – Mark Crispin Miller, Basic Books/Perseus Books Group (2005) 364pp. (S) ****

Three days after the 2004 election, this reviewer wrote the following regarding some of its prominent features:
1) A large turnout during an incumbent's "re-election" bid (I still use the term loosely, but cautiously when addressing the 2004 election), historically is an indication of voter dissatisfaction with the incumbent's first term performance.
2) Wide discrepancies between exit polls and final vote tallies in critical precincts are a red flag to the possibility of vote manipulation and fraud. (Yes, and the media assault on the validity and accuracy of exit polls, I believe to be part of the on-going effort, inspired by the administration, to sow the seeds of doubt in any mechanism that challenges the results they don't like [i.e. an iconoclastic endeavor that's target has been the "liberal" media, and is now the integrity of the elections infrastructure itself, the last stumbling block to fully realized, un-checked power]).
3) The "moral character" (and remember who we're speaking of here) factor is a fabricated myth designed to inform/instruct the American public how we are SUPPOSED to now perceive our "leader". When did you hear of the "character/morals" issue being polled PRIOR to the election? In an economic downturn, wartime where the draft looms on the horizon, worsening domestic conditions w/ re. to health insurance access, diminishing education funding, and eroding environmental protections, not to mention the barge loads of lies, disingenuousness, dissembling, and out right deceit that's been all par for the Bush course, in a country where voters typically vote their "pocketbooks," leaves one just a bit incredulous when hearing of the twenty percent "morals character" vote. The "morals" vote makes about as much sense as Bush having a "mandate" when his challenger captured more votes of any presidential candidate, second only to Bush. Of course, I can not discount the possibility that there may be strange a-doings in Dixie, indeed.
4) Ohio has been one of the hardest hit states with re. to job losses under the Bush agenda (I think to the tune of a quarter million lost). Gut intuition tells me that in the manufacturing belt, where most of Ohio's neighbors went blue (with the exception of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana, where for whatever reasons [cultural taboos, Christian fundamentalist irrationality, a poor education infrastructure that makes the populous vulnerable and susceptible to disinformation campaigns], wedge issues reign supreme), and where more of the population resides in the manufacturing, union based north, and where people were waiting in line for up to ten hours to vote, Ohio went to Kerry. But then add to the mix the fact that the Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft, is a Republican, that his Secretary of State (Kenneth Blackwell) was a member of the CHENEY/bush re-election apparatus, and that a year and a half ago CEO of Diebold and CHENEY/bush fund-raising pioneer Walden O'dell pledged his intent to "deliver Ohio for Bush," and you have just a few cases of rank conflict
of interest - to put it nicely. It stinks, it stinks bad.
5) This one is the real kicker. Upwards of 45 million American voters (of a total of 115 million) voted on touch-screen, paperless voting machines - no physical confirmation, no paper, no trail, no fingerprints, no sanity, just, what has become the key-note of the Bush era, "faith". It's the perfect crime. These machines were employed in thirty states.
So given all this, with all the indicators against him that have proven historically accurate, Bush captures an unprecedented "victory" (i.e. gaining more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history). I guess this is more of the "up is down, black is white, earth is flat" type of inverted, anti-Enlightenment "thinking" we've come to expect in the post Florida 2000, Bush era. I'm not buying it, and those of you who still believe in the integrity of science, in reason, logic, and truth - the bedrock of Western civilization, shouldn't either.
The good news is that Bev Harris at www.blackboxvoting.org is leading the charge with one of the largest FOIA actions in history, to get access to these machines, crack them open and get a good look at those unseen, internal "irregularities". If I weren't so broke myself, I'd be soliciting contributions on their behalf, but I thought just by getting the word out, this may give some of you solace.
Of course, things are very serious (yes, it is textbook fascism, as I've been saying since the 2002 mid-terms, or "theocratic fascism" if you prefer, when you allow for the fundamentalist fanaticism of "Christian reconstructionists" [Mike Malloy's term] - or is it deconstructionists?, or perhaps more accurately, revisionists), but I thought I'd try to get out some good news, especially knowing that one of the left's tendencies is to beat up on itself with recriminations and "what ifs" (I find counterpunch.org to be one the most insidious, perpetually negative, and unhelpful examples of this, enough so for me to seriously question their funding base). In my opinion, John Kerry and John Edwards ran a fine campaign, honorable and gentlemanly, especially when given they were up against some of the most shameless, loathsome, tactics I've ever witnessed (hey, the cat's now out of the bag, the "architect" was finally acknowledged and saluted, PUBLICLY), and all of you who volunteered with the campaign or the GOTV effort can feel very proud. To quote again Mike Malloy on Air America, "IT'S THE MACHINES!" We did nothing wrong and gave our best. Fifty-five million Americans can't be wrong!”(11/04)
Today, the only addition I’d make is that like Florida 2000, Fox News was the first to call Ohio for Bush. Déjà vu all over again, indeed. A year later, much of the above is recognized by Miller as well as his making additional observations. In his first chapter, “The Miracle,” Miller cites Bush’s low approval ratings, polling lower than Kerry, prior, and for sometime, to election day. He also notes that several prominent Republicans, like the genuine, fiscal conservatives that are nowhere to be found in the Bush II administration, publicly endorsed Kerry in many of the nation’s editorial pages. Additionally, many newspapers that had endorsed Bush in 2000, changed their position in 2004 by backing Kerry. Lastly, Miller notes the strong unity within the Democratic party, especially when compared to a fractious right where “cultural” evangelical rightists uncomfortably sat next to more moderate, fiscal conservatives, the kind, as just stated, that was more likely to back Kerry, having absolutely no representation within the Bush administration. Given this, could Kerry really have lost a fair election? If anything, the 2004 presidential election can be best characterized as an aberrant event, and as Miller declares, oddly, all the anomalies seemed to singularly favor Bush.
A part of Miller’s approach is to explore, for lack of a better word, the “cultural” elements of what is known to most people as the neo-conservative right. In this breakdown, he notes two examples; the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings to the Supreme Court and the personage of Tom Delay. “The ‘defensive’ drives for Thomas and Delay anticipated the Republican campaign to deny the party’s theft of the 2004 election – in its vast subversion of American democracy, the culmination of the party’s prior paranoid campaigns.”(p.79) A large part of this denial, is the psychology of victimization that prominently plays in right-wing circles, so that whatever is done in the name of politics, it is justified because the self-conceptualization is of being of the lesser party. The other psychological aspect in play here is “projection.” “Here [is] Republican projection at its purest – for as we have seen, the disingenuous ‘pre-emptive strike’ was, is, and will always remain the central tactic of the regime’s military policy and domestic politics, the two being therefore often difficult to tell apart.”(p.111)
Then there is this master stoke from Miller: “The aim [of the evangelical right] is not to master politics but to annihilate it.”(p.81) This is the iconoclastic mission as noted by this reviewer previously. The idea is not to play within the rules of ordinary political discourse, but to exceed the boundaries of propriety and in so doing, cast doubt on the very legitimacy of the political structure itself. One example of this is how Bush himself is perceived by his fanatical base. Surely, he is not viewed as a mere mortal civil servant, pulling a check supplied by the taxpayer, but instead he is seen as someone other than, be it someone divinely appointed to office, as Bush himself has hinted, or as someone whose role approaches that of the demagogue who can do no wrong. This fact alone, that a fanatical base by definition in any democracy, will always have no more than a minority status, informs the reasoned reader that Bush could not have possibly legitimately won the 2004 election. It is only when this fanaticism, seizes power and maintains it, that history informs us a democracy is transformed into something else, i.e. theocracy, autocracy, fascism.
Miller has put together and written an excellent book. He has assembled many examples of Republican abuse, far too many to cite here in a cursory review. In his book, he is performing an invaluable service to a public that needs to wake up soon if America is to be prevented from descending into the hellish throes of totalitarianism. Few writers today have the guts to call a spade a spade, fearful of the possible repercussions what a spineless group of chickenhawks, in their sadistic, powermad imagination might decide to mete out against him. By going to the root of the matter, Miller doesn’t mince words. I’ll end with this: “ . . . [the Bush] regime is essentially anti-secular, anti-rational, anti-republican, anti-democratic, ironically posing as a champion of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ throughout the world.”(p.198) Irony can kill; what else needs to be said?

Secrecy and Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty From Watergate to Iraq – Robert Parry

2006-06-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

Secrecy and Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty From Watergate to Iraq – Robert Parry, The Media Consortium, Inc. (2004) 359 pp. (S) ***

If there is an expert on U.S. foreign policy during the 1980s, particularly as it pertains to the Iran-Contra scandal, then Robert Parry would certainly qualify as a front-runner. His past works (Fooling America, Trick or Treason, and Lost History) have focused primarily on illicit foreign policy practices of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations and how these interact with the “corporate media” and what has come to be known in Washington as the “conventional wisdom.” In other words, how the right shields itself by mitigating negative repercussions for actions of gross criminality, both domestically and abroad. So naturally, in Secrecy and Privilege, we find a combination of these interests with the focus of analysis on a thirty-year period of recent history (from Watergate to the Iraq war).
For those familiar with some of Parry’s earlier works, you may find some repetition in Secrecy and Privilege that can make for slightly frustrating reading. Parry knows his subject well, so well that at times he seems to stray from the purview of the title to his book. For instance, there is plenty of ink devoted to the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his peculiar organization, the “Unification Church.” While Moon’s mysterious flows of cash are an important tool to the financial backing of right-wing causes, Moon is certainly not the only wealthy backer of the right. Richard Melon-Scaife and Joseph Coors come to mind, figures that are given only cursory mention by Parry. And while there are direct ties of Moon to the elder Bush (in the form of payment for speaking engagements), it is less clear what if any relationship Moon has to the “born again” Bush Jr., something Parry does not elaborate on.
Another glaring omission of Parry’s focus is the 1980s U.S. covert policy (in its day, the largest in terms of devoted resources) to back the Afghani mujihadeen. One can draw direct links form this misguided policy to the 9/11 attacks, yet Parry gives it all a pass, as he does mostly for the 9/11 attacks themselves. Parry must be aware of the numerous discrepancies in the 9/11 official story, and in fact, points one out himself: (Bush’s statement that he saw on television on the morning of the attacks the first plane hit the North Tower, when no such footage was available to broadcasters at that time). 9/11 is indeed a formidable subject, but it is surprising given Parry’s wholesome skepticism with regards to Republican policies, that he hasn’t dived in to take on what has essentially become the contemporaneous Republican platform.
Parry also takes a focused look at the 2000 U.S. presidential election and campaigns, noting particularly how Al Gore was repeatedly singled out with misquotations of his actual words, to paint him as a serial exaggerator and liar. Comparably Bush, whose speech is far less eloquent and even often grammatically challenged, got a free pass from the press, who were far too sycophantically ready to indulge his many misstatements as that of an innocuous simpleton. This example really shows up the real bias in the media and would seem to indicate, given Bush’s even more dubious past (i.e. drug use and the desertion of the Air Guard) that when it comes down to brass tacks, money talks. The candidate who has more of it, is more apt to get a free pass from a pliant press core, too sensitive to step on the toes of someone from the moneyed class.
But for all the other times that Parry disappoints, credit has to be given to his sheer tenacity in refusing to back off from the questionable Republican practices of the 1980s, from the “October Surprise” plot to drug-running in Central America to fund the Contras. Parry is a master of his subject matter, and credit must be given to a journalist who was among the first to have introduced Iran-Contra to the American readership.

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century – Kevin Phillips

2006-06-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century – Kevin Phillips, Viking/Penguin Group (2006) 462pp. (S) ***

For those familiar with Kevin Phillips last work, American Dynasty, what will strike such a reader most about his most recent book, American Theocracy, is its breadth in scope. Phillips’ analysis provides a strong historical context, bolstered by a dizzying array of statistics, so much so that some readers may become overwhelmed. In fact, Phillips’ scope is so wide that it is a marvel just to see how he pulls everything together. And what Phillips must be fully respected for is his bold initiative in introducing “theocracy” into the popular lexicon. For the line separating the Taliban and Christian Reconstuctionists is very fine indeed. The principle thrust of his argument is threefold, as spelled out in the subtitle: the impact of radical fundamentalist religion, imported oil, and national debt, both on the modern day Republican party and upon the nation, and even the world as a whole, in general. Given the historical precedents he cites, principally that of the Dutch, the British, and the Spanish, Phillips demonstrates that there’s real cause for concern in the debt load currently being shouldered by the U.S. (and those internationally, who are forced to buy U.S. debt in the form of bonds and the like). What this portends for the future, perhaps only China will tell.
At one point, Phillips succinctly captures the notion of the evangelical information cocoon. His words are as follows: “Many of the evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal churches, especially the megachurches, become the principal source of both belief and information in their congregations’ lives. Broadcast, publishing, and direct-mail empires have grown up around these fellowships and communities, creating umbrellas against the effects of secular communications. The viewpoints of so-called sophisticates have little access to the minds of the faithful.”(p.385)
While Phillips’ argumentation is often full-bodied and dead-on target, there are however, a few things missing. Readers of other reviews by this writer may find this point tediously belabored and redundant, though in reality it really can’t be iterated enough. Two words: election fraud. Any serious analysis of Republican success at the polls over the past five years, can not overlook the reality of election fraud perpetrated by the Republican party. From purged voting rolls in Florida, to the criminal machinations of Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, George W. Bush would not be president, were it not for the ready assistance he received from corrupt campaign cronies, willing to go that extra mile, even if it took them into territory of the illegal. To this reader’s disappointment, Phillips mentions none of this. For while as much as 40% of the U.S. population may call themselves religious fundamentalists, 40% will never make a majority, no matter which way you cut it. But it is the zeal with which this 40% backs and supports George W. Bush, not as president, but as something akin to being God sent, that must be watched closely. For it is exactly this zeal, and perception of George W. Bush not as a public servant, but as something other than – as in of a divine nature, that carries some of these people into adopting illegal measures that helped to usher in their Highness into office, and re-select him to keep him there.
The other area where Phillips is a bit weak in, is in regards to “peak oil” and the 9/11 attacks. In his opening pages, he gives only passing mention to Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon with respect to peak oil, and then in a spattering of spaces throughout the rest of the book. What is really lacking is any closer investigation into the event of 9/11, territory that Ruppert has fearlessly navigated, and for so doing, is oddly not recognized by Phillips. For the sake of brevity and to prevent further redundancy, this reviewer will not explore the many facets of the irregularities of that fateful day, here. Suffice it to say, Phillips has dropped the ball by assuming the standard interpretation of the 9/11 attacks (i.e. that foreigners, and foreigners alone, without any stateside assistance, planned and executed the attacks). But, we can’t have it all in a single book, can we?

Intelligence Matters: The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War On Terror – Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum

2006-06-23T16:22:00.001-07:00

Intelligence Matters: The CIA, The FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War On Terror – Bob Graham with Jeff Nussbaum, Random House (2004) 296pp. (S) ***

Like Robert Byrd’s Losing America, it’s always interesting to get a view from the inside when it comes to congressional activities. Also like Byrd, Graham (Democratic Senator from Florida) seems to in part be writing out of his frustration in his dealings with the current administration. Hence this in his earliest pages: “[Bush’s failures in office] constitute an indictment of president Bush’s leadership so serious that it warrants his removal from office.”(p.xvi) Indeed!
Much of Intelligence Matters is devoted to Graham’s work on the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 and his work as chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. From this vantage point, the reader is directed to a February 19,2002 meeting that Graham had with general Tommy Franks, the head of “Central Command,” in which Franks confides that war materiel was being moved out of the Afghan theater, to positions closer to Iraq. This is a stinging indictment of an administration that long before it publicly said so, was preparing for war with Iraq. Later, Graham writes of a phenomenon known as “incestuous amplification,” which he defines thusly: “People with the same point of view are invited to the table. They reach a conclusion. Their views are then vetted by people who hold the same beliefs. As a result, the original conclusion in endorsed and amplified.”(p.243) What better description of the aim and purpose of the Pentagon’s secretive “Office of Special Plans?”
There are other reasons as well that Graham cites for having a skeptical and cautious eye when it comes to hearing what the administration has to say. For instance, when the State Department released its statistics on international terrorism in April 2004, citing a thirty year low in incidents, only to be later called out and corrected, so that acts of global terrorism had indeed actually increased over the previous year. There was also the stonewalling by the FBI to not permit an informant, who had known two of the 9/11 hijackers, to speak to the Joint Inquiry Committee. Grahams’ hunch was that such uncooperativeness was being directed at a higher level than simply the FBI alone. Such is also his suspicion when a “leak,” apparently attributable to the committee, is disseminated widely in the press, it causes Graham to reflect: “I am not by nature a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that we were hit with this disclosure [leak] at the moment we began to make things uncomfortable for the Bush administration has stuck with me.”(p.140) Such is life in the era of Rovian dirty tricks.
If one is looking for a perspective from the inside of government mechanics, then Intelligence Matters if for you. Graham is both thoughtful and incredulous in the face of an administration that more often than not perceives Congress as an obstacle its megalomaniacal ends. While the title is Intelligence Matters, it could just as well be “Congress Matters.”

What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heat of America – Thomas Frank

2006-06-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heat of America – Thomas Frank, Henry Holt and Company, LLC. (2004 & 2005) 322pp. (S) ***

A third into his book, Thomas Frank writes this: “ . . . the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below. All claims on the right, in other words, advance from victimhood.”(p.119) Here, and in several other places in his book, Frank has exposed an important truth about the psychology of the right. They perceive themselves as the dispossessed, worn down by the repression of an omnipotent liberal elite. Oddly, this psychology prevails even when the Republican party currently dominates all three branches of the federal government. Why is this?
For answers, Frank later in his book, levels direct criticism at the Democratic party for having lost its moorings in pursuit of corporate dollars and hence adopting a center-left ideology. In this development of the 1990s, Frank sees a lower-class of voters whose interests have gone completely ignored by the Democratic party, thus making it ripe for right-wing exploitation, via cultural “wedge issues” or other shenanigans. According to Frank, lower-class voters confuse the domineering machinations of big-business which they are the victim of, and which by continually voting Republican, are only furthering their suffering and low economic status, with an imaginary cultural elite, created and propagated in popular media. But what Frank fails to recognize, that even as the Democratic party shifted right under the tutelage of organizations like the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), Al Gore won 500,000 more votes nationwide than Bush did in the 2000 U.S. presidential election and that in 2004, had it not been for massive and widespread election fraud, John Kerry would presently be president. This proves one of Michael Moore’s main points. That when it comes down to basic issues; healthcare, the economy, the environment, the American electorate is much more progressive than the rigid conservative model by which the corporate media seeks to instruct and inform the U.S. voter that he/she should conform to. In other words, while the left may be losing in places like Kansas, overall it has been winning elections, elections that have been wrenched from the jaws of victory due to the corrupt maneuverings of a ruthless and shameless foe.

Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – George Lakoff

2006-06-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – George Lakoff, Chelsea Green Publishing Company (2004) 124pp. (S) ***

Why has the right as of late, been so successful at the polls? According to George Lakoff, the answer lies in the left’s inability or unwillingness to adequately “frame” its ideas (i.e. provide its arguments with a linguistic context). If you ask Lakoff, facts and truth are all well and good, but absent a “frame” by which to present them in, are pretty much meaningless. In other words, it is only through frames that people are able to relate to unfamiliar ideas.
Of course, in political contexts, it is the media that is most responsible for “framing the debate.” Politicians can enforce strict discipline for “keeping on message” which indeed can shape the debate, but in the end it is the corporate media that is the lens through which the broader public interprets events. The examples are endless, but here is one for elaboration: the reader will recall the “Dean scream” which the media latched onto and within the period of a 24 hour news cycle, the media single-handedly sunk his campaign, by continuously rerunning the “scream” footage. Now if one compares the scream to George W. Bush’s notoriously poor oratory, it is quite plain to see that the candidate with the deeper pockets gets the pass from the media.
While Lakoff recognizes the massive Republican machine that since the Watergate era, has sunk billions into think tanks and media outlets, he fails to appreciate just how much weight this fact carries. That the left is consistently and thoroughly outspent, is no secret, yet goes a long way in explaining why a poorly informed public, prone to the exploits of propaganda, turns out in numbers to vote again and again against its own personal interests. Lakoff sees another aspect to this inequity: “But what has happened as budgets and taxes get cut is that the right is privatizing the left. The right is forcing the left to spend ever more private money on what the government should be supporting.”(p.29) So is there an end to this gross imbalance? Lakoff offers no answers. Reframing is all well and good, but if you don’t have the airwaves and the resources to get your message out, then framing is not the issue. Surprisingly, Lakoff only mentions Air America in passing. What Lakoff seems to fail to appreciate is that it is on the airwaves where the rubber meets the road. Reframing is fine as a personal virtue, and may make modest victories in one on one settings, but when you’re talking about millions of people, it is ludicrous to think that every voter will get a personal consultation.
Lastly, Lakoff fails to recognize that in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes. In the last presidential election in 2004, there is strong evidence that due to may electoral irregularities and coordinated Republican interference, the election was likely stolen. What can be concluded from these facts? A) The American populace is already much more progressive in spite of media attempts to mold it to the contrary and B) The greatest threat to American democracy are paperless electronic voting machines, which in most cases have manufacturers owned by persons on the right. Given these realities, the left should forget about “gay marriage” and other cultural “wedge issues” of the right and focus like a laser on the voting apparatus that threatens the most fundamental aspect to democracy: the right to a free and fair ballot.

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man – John Perkins

2006-06-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Confessions of An Economic Hit Man – John Perkins, Berrett-Koehler Publishing, Inc. (2004) 250pp. (S) ***

Like Philip Agee (Inside the Company), Victor Ostrovsky (By Way of Deception), and Robert Baer (See No Evil, Sleeping With The Devil) before him, John Perkins, as a former insider, has decided to spill the beans in a memoir of his own. Perkins has traveled to many parts of the world (Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran) as a self-professed “Economic Hit Man” (known as an EHM in the industry), giving him a view to the common themes of economic exploitation in the service of empire that permeate and afflict each country. While a more commonly known and understood “hit man” would wield a gun as his favored tool (persons Perkins designates as “jackals”), the economic hit man carries a brief case with documents and a calculator to help produce the inflated numbers that over-optimistic – some would say, avaricious – development firms are so eager to chomp on. This was Perkins specific role, to supply the numbers that projected wildly over-rated future growth projections, because that is what his superiors wanted to see. These numbers would then be used as the foundation for mammoth investment programs and infrastructure projects, all financed by borrowed monies at usurious rates that were sure to keep the target countries in a state of indefinite indebtedness for years to come. It is from just such a weakened position, that the U.S. would then be able to get economically advantageous concessions, be it rapacious access to raw resources or more favorable business conditions for U.S. multinationals.
Ten years into such a life, Perkins’ conscience eats away at him, so that he begins to make a gradual break from the industry he believes to be so corrosive to life on the planet. Even though Perkins’ profession is in economics, readers will be pleased to know that Perkins’ style is easy to read, unencumbered with technical jargon, perhaps even to a fault. Perkins’ book is more about a man’s struggle with his afflicted conscience, than a brass tacks expose of his less than savory trade – so much so that the text often becomes needlessly redundant. Nonetheless, Perkins must be given his due for breaking the sound barrier and bringing the subject of international, extortive economics and its unpleasant underside, to the fore.

How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 – Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wassserman

2006-06-02T04:59:00.000-07:00

How the GOP Stole America’s 2004 Election & Is Rigging 2008 – Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wassserman, CICJ Books (2005) 103pp. (S) ****

Both Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are tireless muckrakers in the finest sense of the word. They have provided an illuminating look into the 2004 presidential election and its numerous irregularities, principally in Ohio, but in other states like Florida, Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico as well. As among the first to blow the whistle on election corruption and fraud, Fitrakis and Wasserman had been following the 2004 presidential election from its infancy. From their work, we see how history and conspiracy collide, and how the powerful incumbency of George W. Bush is undeterred in employing nearly every underhanded tactic at their disposal, in order to maintain and expand their power-base.
Among some of the many electoral “irregularities” observed by the authors are what follows. International election observers were banned from entering precinct voting areas by Ohio’s Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, while election “challengers” were allowed free reign to harass and intimidate voters. “ . . . [T]he [Republican] challengers also served to confuse the voting process and to lengthen already very long waits for inner-city residents hoping to vote.”(p.43) In Ohio’s Lucas county, there was a burglary of democratic headquarters where several computers were stolen on the night of October 11, 2004. In some instances, there were spoiled absentee ballots that had already been marked for Bush that were sent out to prospective voters. Perhaps the most incriminating evidence is the wide discrepancy between exit poll results and final vote tallies, in states like Ohio, Nevada, Iowa, and New Mexico. In each of these states according to exit polls, Kerry was expected to win, only to have the votes go the other way as the night wore on. In New Mexico, regardless of demographics, Kerry lost in every precinct where paperless electronic voting machines were used. Kerry himself recognized this peculiar statistical anomaly.
And according to Fitrakis and Wasserman, the Republican majority in Ohio is just warming up. Among policy proposals being made is the display of picture identification as a prerequisite to having the right to vote. Also the Ohio legislature is considering expanding the level of corporate and individual contributions that can be made to candidates. These and other restrictions to the right to vote are possibilities for the near future, ensuring that single-party rule continues indefinitely into the future.
Thankfully, Fitrakis and Wasserman offer a few suggestions for averting so dark an outcome. Have international monitors deployed at every polling station while banning partisan “challengers.” Have a constitutional amendment ensuring every American’s right to vote. Have uniform federal laws, like the requirement that all DREs (direct recording electronics) provide a paper verification of each vote, so that states and municipalities are all on the same page. These are good ideas for a good start, but until the “big money” is reigned in and properly regulated and restricted in its access to candidates, it is this reviewer’s mind, that little else will change for the better.
In the meantime, the efforts of Fitrakis and Wasserman (and before them, Bev Harris and Black Box Voting and before her the Collier brothers with Votescam) must be fully applauded. By calling out nasty GOP electoral practices, they are performing an invaluable service to the public: exposure of what otherwise seeks to succeed by surreptitiousness and secrecy. If there is a common theme to be found in the Republicans desperate efforts, it is the insolence of power that believes it can fool the masses, while those it can’t fool, it can buy, or even yet deal with in a less savory fashion. Part of the nationwide Republican reelection strategy in 2004 was to widely disseminate disinformation in minority (i.e. mostly democratic) communities, attempting to sow the seeds of doubt as to the day of the election and as to whether certain persons will be eligible to vote, or even, if they erroneously are led to believe, they are not, that some legal repercussions may be the result should they attempt to vote. As a student of the 9/11/01 attacks, this reviewer sees an interesting parallel. On the morning of 9/11/01, the FAA and NORAD were engaged in military exercises, or “war games,” as they are sometimes known. But by pure coincidence, four planes were actually hijacked (a hijacked aircraft was the very scenario they were training for), so that confused personnel were at some point unable to distinguish reality from virtual reality. So we see the common strokes. Whenever possible, whenever too many questions are being asked, whenever popular resistance becomes too threatening, sow the seeds of confusion and exploit the uncertainty that ensues. “Divide and conquer” is as old as civilization itself. This is their cowardly m.o. and a tired public should by now be getting wise to the game. If not, we can only blame ourselves if we get more of the same in 2006 and 2008.

House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties – Craig Unger

2006-06-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

House of Bush House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties – Craig Unger, Scribner (2004) 370pp. (S) ****

Much of what is known about the circumstances surrounding 9/11 is in no small part attributable to books like House of Bush House of Saud. Where the major corporate media has failed us, these books have picked up the pace, or as Craig Unger puts it, “Media watchers noted that the book-publishing industry was serving as a surrogate for an aggressive Washington press corps that appeared to be missing in action. It was as if reporters were afraid to ask the tough questions because they feared losing access to exclusive interviews with the key players in the administration.”(p.285) The next logical follow-up question is why the “book-publishing industry” waited three to four years to begin its serious inquiry into the Bush II administration? Maybe this is because “when the presidential race got underway in 2000, however, no such statements about Iraq were forthcoming [from Bush].”(p.195) War, or even the talk of war, makes for much more sensational news than unearthing inconsistencies in a presidential candidate’s gubernatorial record.
According to Unger, “in all, at least $1.476 billion has made its way from the Saudis to the house of Bush and its allied companies and institutions.”(p.200) That’s the kind of money that can buy a lot of influence. No wonder Bush actively courted the Muslim vote in the 2000 election, especially in Florida, where it quite possibly paid off in the dividend of the presidency itself. This too may account for the reason that terrorism was far from a priority during the Bush administration’s first nine months.
It is also interesting to note and compare how the Bush Sr. and the Clinton administrations treated their lame duck periods. The former launched a full military operation in Somalia, while the latter sought restraint in countering the October 2000 USS Cole attack, but instead chose to council heavily the incoming administration about the importance of al Qaeda and terrorism, factors the Clinton team believed would play predominantly in the coming months and years. Too bad much of this advice fell on deaf ears
Unger also helps to clarify a few points that are skewed in the official 9/11 Commission Report. First, there is the matter of the private flights that ushered Saudis out of the U.S. ostensibly for the purposes of ensuring their own protection, during a period when the FAA had a ban that kept all private aircraft (numbering 200,000 in the U.S.) grounded nationwide. Twice in the 9/11 report, it is stated that part of bin Laden’s goal is to convert the United States to Islam. Yet, Unger writes “bin Laden’s jihad against the United States includes two specific goals: the complete removal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia and the overthrow of the house of Saud.”(p.278-79) Add to this the cessation of U.S. aid to Israel and corrupt Arab governments, and that is about the extent of stated al Qaeda objectives. This is to say that al Qaeda’s grievances are more about our foreign policy than an existential opposition to “who we are,” (part of which is, admittedly, defined by our foreign policy).

Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War On Terror – Perter Lance

2006-06-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding About the War On Terror – Perter Lance, Regan Books/Harper Collins (2004) 360pp. (S) ***

Sometimes when an author has success with a book, a follow-up isn’t necessarily necessary. 1,000 Years For Revenge happens to be one of the most comprehensive books on the years preceding the run-up to the 9/11 attacks and is a work that stands alone as Lance’s best. However, “the War On Terror,” an expression that I’m sure most Americans are sick of by now, is forever mutating as more information is found and discovered that either refutes or confirms earlier theses. In Cover Up, Lance is building upon the case he made in 1,000 Years For Revenge, that the U.S. government knew much more than it was letting on pre-9/11 about the prospective hijackers and their aims, and that if the government had just gotten out of the way of itself, the 9/11 plot may very well have been disrupted.
Central to one of the main themes in Cover Up is the assertion that TWA 800 went down as a result of an onboard bomb (not, as was determined by the NTSB, an electrical failure in the main fuel tank). In Lance’s words, “this book [Cover Up] further provides evidence that even while [1993 WTC bomber, Ramzi] Yousef was in federal jail he planned and triggered the downing of TWA flight 800 in order to effect a mistrial in the Bojinka case.”(p.210) Lance’s evidence is bomb residue similar to that used by Yousef in an earlier bombing, found in the plane’s midsection over the central fuel tank. It is further Lance’s contention that information regarding bomb making was leaked out of his prison cell via an adjacent cellmate, with the knowledge and cooperation of the FBI. (Yousef also made phone calls, which the reader must assume, were fully monitored.) So the big disconnect in Lance’s argument becomes how would Yousef articulate his plans to have TWA 800 bombed without the Feds knowing about it, and thus intervening? A more plausible theory, if one is to believe multiple eye-witness accounts, is that TWA 800 was shot out of the sky by a surface to air missile, either from a Naval ship that was in the area conducting “exercises” at the time, or by other means, such as a shoulder launched mechanism. (Another instance where eye-witness accounts are quite revealing, is in the instance of the shoot-down of United flight 93 over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Again, while not discounting that UAL # 93 may very well have been shot down, Lance, for whatever reasons, does not refer to the eye-witness accounts that attested to seeing a low flying military aircraft, absent any markings, in the vicinity of flight 93’s wreckage.)
While focusing on some of the hijackers, Lance states that a program run by the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia, called “Visa Express,” expedited visa applications by Saudi citizens, while greatly reducing oversight measures. How the State Department ever reconciled such a program with a country well known for its terrorism links is beyond this reviewer’s comprehension and credulity. In the same vein, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds claimed that indeed the FBI had enough information to prevent 9/11. Combine this with the “war games” known as “Vigilant Guardian” and “Northern Vigilance” that were scheduled for the morning of 9/11/01, as cited by Lance, and a fuller picture comes into view as to how the 9/11 attacks could have been so successful.
Overall, though, if one must make a choice between reading Cover Up and 1,000 Years For Revenge, the better bet would be for the latter.