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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too Soon to Tell, December 20, 2004
This review is from: America's Oil Wars (Hardcover)
Asked about the historical effect of the 1789 French Revolution, Chou En-lai is reported to have replied: "We Chinese feel that it is too soon to tell." After reading Stephen Pelletiere's "America's Oil Wars," (and several other books) it's clearly too soon to tell about the second Iraq war.
Dr. Stephen Pelletiere brings impressive credentials to the subject: CIA senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war; professor at the U.S. Army War College; PhD in Political Science; studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. Unlike so many of the current crop of books on this subject, "America's Oil Wars" carries includes notes and an index.
However, sloppy editing (starting with "Trans-Caucases" on page 1, "competitive building" (instead of bidding) on page 142, and continuing through howlers such as "North Sea oil... is extracted... from beds thousands of kilometers down...") leads a reader to question whether Pelletiere knows what he is talking about, or just doesn't bother to check his facts, such as asserting that the United States did not become a net importer of petroleum until 1986 (US Energy Information Agency statistics show imports exceeding production starting in 1979, then dropping until 1989, before imports again exceeded production). On page 76 Pelletiere asserts that the "neo-cons" are primarily Jewish, and then on page 141 refers to Ahmed Chalabi's "Iraqi National Congress (a neo-con group)".
Pelletiere's central thesis appears to be that a jewish-dominated military industrial complex has driven the United States to preserve its status as world hegemon, by controlling oil through regulating the production of OPEC. According to Pelletiere's analysis, the United States forced Iraq to invade Kuwait in 1990, and further (page 146) Saddam and the Iraqi Ba'athists operated from "a moral position--nothing less than self-determination." As an apologist for Saddam, Pelletiere even manages to cast the purge of 1979, in which 21 members of the Ba'ath were executed, in a positive light. "Shortly after he acted, Saddam opened the ranks of the Ba'ath Party to public enrollment. Vacancies created by the elimination of top Ba'athists (and their recruits) were filled with new recruits...." While at the U.S. Army War College, Pelletiere was one of the co-authors of a controversial report that asserted that the Iraqi forces were not responsible for gassing the Kurds at Halabja, an assertion that as far as I can determine, has been thoroughly discredited by other sources.
I don't want to be too harsh on this book; America's Oil Wars contains much useful and interesting material, and Pelletiere offers many provocative ideas. Pelletiere builds a good case that American foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly in Iran and Iraq over the past 50 years, is in large part responsible for the mess we currently find ourselves in. However, the author occasionally undercuts his arguments with slipshod reasoning and sloppy writing. Despite its occasional lapses, America's Oil Wars is an important source.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important, but it's True They Need a Corrected Edition, January 21, 2006
This review is from: America's Oil Wars (Hardcover)
The other review is totally on the mark concerning the editing. It sucks. This guy needs a new editor. There are a couple of minor factual errors, but I don't think this guy has a whole crew of people helping him check facts. So I can overlook it. I'm a big fan of this writer. I have his other book (Iraq and the International Oil System), too, which was only available for like $100 for a long time.
I'm disturbed by the reviewer's comments about Halabja. There is no conclusive evidence that Sadaam's forces were solely responsible for the deaths at that town. This is an argument I had with someone on politics.com prior to Howard Baer (a hardliner Republican) shutting it down and deleting everything. The other report on this subject was one written by the DIA for Congress when there was a big push to sanction Iraq. The fact is that one was biased. I've even heard it strait from the mouth of a CIA officer. The DIA also ran the team that "debriefed" the Iraqi National Congress (INC) "defectors". Iraq did not have the capability of producing cyanide gases back then. There was evidence of cyanides at Halabja. Iran had cyanides in its stockpile. We know Sadaam used mustard agents (semi-lethal) on outlying areas against Iranian and Kurdish fighters, and probably inside this particular town...the only direct attack on civilians using CBRN that I'm aware of. Other intentional civilian deaths were through conventional means like shelling. There is zero evidence Iraq directly meant to murder a town. Iran and Iraq were fighting in and around it, both used chemical weapons. Civilians got caught in the crossfire. This was the primary "instance" used by Congress during the initial phase of sanctions, though. Saying "as far as I know" it's been debunked just doesn't cut it. Talk about apologist. Besides the DIA, the main "debunkers" are one human rights organization (relying on testimonials from people not exposed to cyanides since they were still walking around, inconclusive for obvious reasons) and some doctors group that sent one guy years later to collect a few soil samples. The doctor claimed he found traces of nerve and cyanide-like byproducts, but dealing in trace byproducts is a lot like statistics and voodoo. You can usually hypothesize some sort of chemical precursor pathway to support any conclusion if you look hard enough. The photos show mass cyanide exposure, though, not nerve agents or just some blueing due to trace byproducts. There is no solid evidence to lay the blame solely on Iraq, certainly nothing justifying the schizophrenic speed with which USA turned against Sadaam after the Iran-Iraq War. So if it doesn't follow, then why the sudden switch? Was there a strategic reason for wanting Iraq even weaker than the Iran-Iraq War puppetry had managed? Pelletiere is being cold and objective...the way an analyst and academic should be. He's analyzing OUR foreign policy the way a CIA political analyst has been trained to do with other countries: to see the true players, policy threads, and motives without any unreasonable slant. The only bias there should be is for reason and truth, and that "reason" in the classical sense often takes a back seat to political correctness and the desire not to seem too "extreme". Not here.
By far the strangest insight here is that a bunch of Jews are largely responsible for the last few decades of woes on these subjects. Before you cry foul, bite your tongue and show some capability for thinking outside the box. You'll be amazed how much of it has already been reported, but in pieces. Partly these Jews are acting for Zionist (Securing the Realm) motivations, and partly it's for military industrial complex, profit, and economic strategy reasons. Some of those involved had family members killed in death camps, so this is disturbing to think they are playing right into this notion of Jewish conspiracy. For the sake of their own ethnic/religious identity they should reform, but these people are an odd combination of ideologue and selfish SOB. But it is a FACT, tough as it is to swallow. It's mostly a bunch of Jews. Crazy but true. Of course you have the same old story of native revolutionary groups like the INC who are promoting certain concepts because they're run by men who themselves want to be the next ones in power. We saw the same thing in Kosovo, which is why Milosevic's trial might never come to a satisfactory end...lots of disinformation and unreliable stories coming from the alleged victims' own side. Rebels are a bad source of facts on how they're being treated at home. Here you also have Kuwait and others who have obvious incentives, as well. Remember the ambassador's daughter and Hill & Knowlton? You claim war crimes or human rights violations and suddenly the standards of proof drop way down. Within the US, though, the majority are Jewish sorts heavily connected to military contractors and Israeli think tanks. How many of these hawks have themselves or someone in their office been under investigation for "passing classified information" (a euphemism motivated by anti-anti-Semitism) to who-knows-where (radical elements of Mossad?) through the Jewish Lobby (American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) they call themselves that, by the way). These people have all gotten away with it, in part thanks to individuals like John Ashcroft, but I digress. Not a single one of them are out of work or in prison.
I think the biggest danger is this over-the-top anti-anti-Semitism that has America by the family jewels. This Judea-Christian bias and political correctness is going to be our downfall. Of course Hitler was bad, most Jews are good people, and anti-Semitism is no way to think or act. But this is not anti-Jew. This is anti-crazy-Jew! How's this any different than saying Islam is o.k. but fundamentalist wackos aren't? It's a fact that a group of powerful Jewish guys who all know each other from their college days interning with defense contractors or with conservatives in Congress working in policy and/or acquisition committees have been networking (not necessarily conspiring in smoke-filled rooms) to get certain policy courses enacted to serve big oil, military contractors, Israeli interests (public & private), and themselves. Somewhere in there they delude themselves into actually believing they're doing it for America, but the sheer quantity of spying on behalf of Israel (again, public & private) belays that claim. America needs to fess up to it in order to identify and limit the influence of these dangerous individuals.
Get this book and read it. Realize it's an early edition and far from perfect. Pelletiere, get another editor, man. I've read two other recent books on this subject and I can tell you America's Oil Wars cuts to the core without blinking. To hell with political correctness and race sensitivity. At some point reason and common sense needs to win out over this fear to offend. People are dying, after all. You'd think these Jewish guys (and Wurmser's wife...yes, some chicks are in the mix) would be more sensitive to that.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
oil wars, January 10, 2007
This review is from: America's Oil Wars (Hardcover)
Another point of view on The United States and their Middle East policy. Well written, concise and very plausible.
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