38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Educational and Enjoyable, September 18, 2003
By A Customer
I picked up this book, all skeptical, thought it was a kidfs comic book. Although simply worded, the wit, content and organization blew me away. I read it in one night, thoroughly engrossed. As the reader above stated, it was a revelation. Working as a cog in corporate America, I thought the anti-militarists were all a bunch of loonies out to harm my good old capitalist interests--money. Instead, I realized just how manipulated I had been. Reading about all the lives and billions of dollars our government has wasted truly awakened me. This book makes you want to question every tidbit we hear in the media. I attempted to verify some of the more flamboyant quotes attributed in the book and guess what? They were true! Perhaps most profound is the simple logic this book presents which slowly hits you at the end. For example at the end of the cold war people thought world peace would be attainable now that the US was the only remaining super power. Yet now George Bush comes along putting fear in us about the terrorist threat, his request for 87 billion dollars and the statement that this new war could last an entire generation. What lessons have were learnt from all the previous wars? Nothing.
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic primer for the military industrial complex, January 5, 2003
Addicted to War was the first book on this subject matter that I read, some time ago. For me, reading this book was like having a revelation. I was speechless the entire time I read it, glued to the pages. I hope not to sound too cliche, but after reading it, I felt as if I had just awoken from "The Matrix", seeing for the first time some of the larger truths of U.S. foreign policy and its inseparable ties with big business and the economy, and how I had been manipulated my entire life to see things in a different way. And I immediately thought that everyone in the U.S. who hasn't been exposed to this kind of thinking needs to read this book. Since then I have bought dozens of copies for family, friends and acquaintances.
Joel Andreas relies mostly on quotes from leaders of industry and government as well as government documents and memos throughout the book to support his thesis that war is a racket, benefitting the wealthy of this country, and paid for by the working people of this country in taxes and military service. One may argue with his conclusions, but would be hard-pressed to dispute the authenticity of the source material used.
The book inspired me to purchase a number of other books dealing with similar subject matter (some of them used in the impressively long Bibliography listed on the last 3 pages of the book), as I think was part of the intent of the book. It's meant to jolt you awake (especially if you were politically asleep like myself) and encourage you to seek out more information on the subject matter.
I see only a couple small nitpicks with the book. Since I've been reading stacks of other articles, books and papers on similar subjects, I think there are a few other dynamite quotes that could have bolstered the viewpoint of Andreas but were overlooked, although the quotes chosen do an excellent job anyway. Also, the role of Communism in the world during the time of most of the military and CIA interventions mentioned in this book is not discussed. This is important information for the reader to know, and I hope anyone who reads this book will research that topic after reading it. Any historian or political scientist with the opposing point of view of this book will likely tell you that the deterrence of the spread of Communism was the primary motivating force behind most of these encounters, and this is the reason given by the government. But that point I think can be overlooked while reading this book, as that information is covered in great detail in other places, and it is not central to the ideas presented by the author. Those ideas being, primarily, that our leaders (leaders of industry and government) are motivated to go to war and change the politics of other countries not out of a desire to spread Democracy throughout the world, but from a desire to bolster the economy and line their pockets. As that is the stance the book takes, the information and the way it is presented is quite convincing.
The other idea that I think is left unexplored in the book, is how essential the natural resource of petroleum is to the survival of the U.S. (and the world) economy and lifestyle, and how securing access to that resource is our most primary national security interest, which has directed U.S. foreign policy a great deal over the last 50 years. I would also encourage the reader to explore this information as a supplement to this book (Michael T. Klare wrote a fantastic book, "Resource Wars", about this very subject).
While there are some well-read and knowledgeable people who may point out this book is full of "tired stereotypes" or that the points presented are old and cliche, I would say that the majority of people living in the U.S. have not been enlightened to these ideas, and as such, I can't recommend reading and distributing this book enough.
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27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hats off to Joel Andreas!, September 18, 2002
What an absolutely fabulous little book! In clear concise and honest fashion, this book lays out in easy to read illustrated pages, the real history of this country. No where in my college level education were these easily verifiable facts presented. My family and friends read this book, and all agree it should be required reading for every highschool student in the country. It has never been more needed than right now with our insane military aggression threatening to engulf the Middle East in a terribly destructive, illegal, and immoral war for profit and control of oil. Read who is doing this and why, read who profits from this madness, take a copy to your next PTA meeting and ask the teachers to read it! The negative reviews cannot dispel the truth of this book, it is loaded with facts, not "tired stereotypes". Buy this book! Better yet but 5 copies and hand them out!
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