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Anonymous
Posted June 30, 2008
An alarming and accurate exposure of the 'military-industrial complex'
Robert Scheer¿s The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America, takes as its thesis President Eisenhower¿s warning against the ¿military-industrial complex¿ on his retirement from the presidency and provides succinct analyses of how, particularly in the eight presidential years of Bush II, Eisenhower¿s worst fears have been realized. Scheer generously acknowledges that Bush, Cheney and the defense hawks may believe otherwise, but he leaves no doubt that America¿s war in Iraq, like so much of its foreign relations, is motivated not by the nation¿s defense, the spread of democracy or resistance to tyranny, but by the desire for power and profit. Scheer has documented how the close relationship between the defense industry and the Defense Department has resulted in many billions of dollars in contracts to build weapons for which there can be no rationale use in a war against terrorist forces that do not control large armies or navies. He spells out how individuals move from high positions in private weapons corporations to high positions in government that contract to buy those weapons, and then move back to higher positions, and back again to the highest government posts, making ever greater profits for the weapons makers and themselves. The Pornography of Power is a frighteningly persuasive account of their success in creating a wartime environment without end and without real war, but at a terrible cost to America¿s ability to respond to crises in economic opportunity, health care, education, and infrastructure repair, none of which can be confronted as long as literally trillions of dollars are wasted in a false pursuit of national security.
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Anonymous
Posted June 22, 2008
A Perfect Political Storm
Robert Scheer¿s powerful new book, The Pornography of Power, examines what happened after an inattentive and largely apolitical public, led by a poorly prepared, intellectually insecure, and petulant president was confronted by deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It¿s a frightening story, but it is crisply told, well researched, and convincing. After decades of incisive investigative reporting, including extensive interviews with five presidents, Scheer is unrivaled in his ability to explain the complex interactions that have created this perfect 'political' storm. As Scheer tells it, the Cold War probably began to unravel with Richard Nixon¿s policy of détente, but the definitive end had to wait until the disappearance of the Soviet enemy. Unfortunately, what was seen as an opportunity for most was perceived as a disaster by others, especially defense executives and neocon ideologues. No Cold War meant no superpower enemy and that meant the end of unlimited military spending. Then came 9/11 and, as Scheer observes, unlimited military spending was back stronger than ever. Thus the focus of the book: the unlikely and illogical linkage between terrorist attacks accomplished by hijacking commercial airliners with box- cutters and annual military spending that has exceeded that spent during the Cold War. In the aftermath of 9/11 the neocons were ready with a fully developed theory for a 21st century Pax Americana. They had a fully developed answer for whatever problems Bush saw emerging in the wake of 9/11. Scheer meticulously lays out how Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle ¿went to work on an untutored president.¿ Their agenda had clearly been laid out in the 1997 founding statement of the Project for a New American Century which, as Scheer illustrates, was to boost military spending to create a world ¿favorable to American interests.¿ At its center were plans for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Never mind that there was no connection between Hussein and al Qaeda. Scheer¿s convincing evidence demonstrates that little attempt was made, by Bush and company, to identify the nature of the problem presented by the attacks on 9/11. Instead, the President and his neocon advisors used 9/11 as justification for ¿solutions¿ that featured expensive weapons originally meant to counteract technical advances by the old Soviet Union. If you wonder why the United States continues to build the F-22 Raptor 'at $65 billion' or the F-35 joint fighter 'at $300 billion' Scheer explains in precise detail. Never mind that the terrorists have no air force. Never mind that the F-16 flys perfectly well. If you wonder why the Congress has funded new Virginia class submarines 'at $2.5 billion each' to fight terrorists who don¿t have a navy Scheer makes it distressingly clear. But the executive branch cannot spend all this money without congressional approval and, from the beginning, congress was cooperative. A critical mass of Republicans and Democrats alike are shown to be open to the influence of the likes of Lockheed, Halliburton and Boeing. Such influence, Scheer shows, does not stem from campaign contributions alone, but from the promise of jobs. It is not for nothing that the various facets of military production are spread into as many congressional districts as possible. All of this, the author concludes, is ¿proof that when it comes to the defense budget, there is bipartisan support for endless waste.¿ Gore Vidal once observed that the United States is no longer a ¿serious country.¿ What he meant is that we have become a nation with little sense of our own past and with little commitment to political discourse. What one learns from The Pornography of Power is that such apathy comes at a price. That price is an American foreign policy that has
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Anonymous
Posted June 15, 2008
A reviewer
I am one of those ordinary citizens who keeps asking that common-sense question: where are the grown-ups in government and how have they lead us to squandering the goodwill and moral leadership our country has earned in over two hundred years of foreign policy ? Robert Scheer's book answers these questions for me. I'm not a political groupie. I try to keep informed through newspapers, news magazines and talking heads on television. But each of these sources are overloaded by partisan rhetoric and/or mind-numbing detail which obscure the global forest for the idealogical trees. But the details he gives trace a clear path from our original, noble intentions to our sinking into this quicksand of war with no peace. He writes of the Farewell Addresses of two of our greatest generals turned president who cautioned fellow countrymen against the excesses of empire. George Washington spoke of the 'Impostures of patriotism' who incite foreign 'entanglements'. Dwight Eisenhower cautioned against the 'unwarranted influence' of the 'military-industrial complex'. So these warning signals were always there. I wanted to understand how we got from 'there' to 'here' without having to be a politico or wading through footnotes. And that is what his book does. It identifies the culprits: the Pentagon, multi-national corporations, the Cold War, the War on Terror , a dangerously misguided nuclear policy , and the flag pin-wearing fear mongerers-- this is where Washington's 'Imposturers of patriotism ' come in. The most crucial election of modern times is coming up. After having read this book, I will be a much more informed voter. And presidential nominees McCain and Obama should put it on their summer reading list. Scheer's clear and concise argument for rethinking our foreign policy shows a way out of our self-created bunker.
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