Customer Reviews

The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq

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As the promise of a quick victory in Iraq fades on the horizon, and the reality of a long, messy and costly occupation emerges, authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's timely book "The Best War Ever: Lies Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq" examines the details behind the propaganda and the headlines that led to the war in Iraq. The authors' main point is that the wave of propaganda and lies continues, and while this is a multi million business that successfully 'sold' the war to Americans, the campaign isn't reality. Those who created the war, coveted the war, profit from it, and sold it are immersed in an incredible, dangerous fantasy of 'victory' 'liberty' and the spread of 'democracy.' Meanwhile those who chose to read this book are likely to be those who haven't drunk the cool-aid and are probably already opposed to the war for a variety of reasons. While I'd like to imagine that the book would help change the pro-war opinion, it probably won't happen. Nonetheless, the facts presented here will stun and sicken those already opposed to the war, and by the time the last page is turned, the anti-Iraq war reader will feel their opinions solidified.

The book details the PR campaign ($300 million over a 5 year period) launched before the war. It takes a particularly cynical mind to conduct surveys with a focus on "casualty aversion" in order to analyze how a war can be 'sold' to the people, but those surveys were conducted with the conclusion that Americans would swallow the Iraq war without too much squawking if they believed the war would "ultimately succeed." Experts on the pre-war Future of Iraq Project urged the administration to consider back up plans in case it didn't go smoothly and even predicted looting and the emergence of insurgency. This team was replaced, and the invasion of Iraq sailed ahead with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz predicting that Iraq could "finance its own reconstruction." Fat chance of that happening. By late 2003, the occupation was costing America 1 billion a week, and by the end of 2005, 5.9 billion a month!

The book also examines specific linguistic choices made by the speechmakers and the media spokespeople in order to present a united, positive front on the subject of Iraq, and hand-in-hand with the word choices is the "bloodless" approach to the war--the suppression of photos, the lack of coverage of the horrendous wounds some of our soldiers are coming home with--plus the lack of coverage of the deaths of Iraqis.

There's a lot of 'old' material here--the Valerie Plame outing, the smear campaign against Wilson, the forged documents detailing the purchase of uranium oxide, etc. But in spite of the fact some of this is old news, the authors plug the material into the book to illustrate an overall pattern of the media burying stories and retractions while hyping rumours of supposed weapons findings in Iraq. The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) for example, with their "big impact" project and a generous budget of 300 million hunted for WMD in Iraq but couldn't discover anything. But no matter--because the lack of weapons led to a U.S. intelligence theory that Saddam deliberately acted suspicious to 'dupe' America. The twists and turns of the propaganda used for this war would be hilarious if it were fictional--but it's not--it's real--and people are dying because of it.

One of the best sections of the book covers the arguments that led to the war, and includes quotes from those who predicted invading Iraq would be a piece of cake ("I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators"- Cheney). New arguments have been created for remaining in Iraq, and once again by putting this all in print, the authors illustrate an insidious pattern of shifting propaganda. The authors successfully debunk all the arguments for the war--including the flypaper theory, and instead argue that it's time for damage control. The book includes scrupulous footnotes and an index--displacedhuman

We hear a lot about Iraq. Here and there; deaths, civilian and military; corruption of government, occupation and Iraqi; politics. There's so much information that it can be overwhelming.Rampton and Stauber do a stellar job of summarizing the whole mess.

The authors are part of the Center for Media and Democracy, which does a remarkable job of exposing the sham that it today's public relations market. The only of their books that I haven't read yet is "Mad Cow U.S.A." only because I haven't yet gotten to it.

The book starts with what one might call an "ugly American" summary. So many who're made responsible for Iraq didn't speak Arabic, had never been there, understood NOTHING of the culture. That, the authors say--and I, who have extensive overseas experience, concur--is a grave weakness of our foriegn policy approach.

The summary then starts with the allegation of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. That devolved into weapons programs as nothing--NOTHING--was found. I'm grateful that the authors stress that the media played into the WMD scare. (I recall watching the tube one night and some talking head saying that the UN inspectors spent months and found nothing while it took US troops an hour and a half to find "them," i.e., the WMDs. No, talking head, that was a fertilizer factory which was just destroyed!

They point out also that the Bush spokespeople didn't even get their stories straight; there's a term the authors use--which I've since forgotten--for such representatives to at least coordinate their stories. But the administration's lieutenants didn't do that so their lies became all the more evident.

Then there was the Valerie Plame story. (Indeed, the authors informed me more about Mr. Wilson, Plame's husband, than I knew! Thanks.) And I now understand more about Judith Miller and the New York Times than I did when talk of those subjects were among the hundreds of other snippets I heard.

There's a lot in the book, yet it's a good read. There's the criminal record of Chalabi, of info on WMDs and other atrocities from sources who were of no credibility whatsoever (to put it mildly!) It's a great, great volume to use in one's argument as to why the extremely unpopular war must end.

So, why only four stars? Well, the final chapter--while the authors may not have intended that--left open an inference that the invasion may have been justified because Sadam Hussein was a brutal dictator. Yes, he was our ally during the Iran Iraq War, and the authors point that out. (They do so in a section on the complete irrationality of the US policy toward the Mideast, another issue with which I concur.) But I stress that the war was illegal from the beginning. If we were justified in overturning Sadam, then what about Pinochet in Chile? Samoza in Nicaragua? The Shah in Iran--whom we placed in power? Marcos in the Philippines? And that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Perhaps another reader won't find that inference. And aside from that, I recommend the volume, not only because the other books by the same authors--including "Weapons of Mass Distraction" to which they refer in this volume--are also worth their weight in gold. But, again, we get so much information from so, so many sources. This summarizes it all very well. Read it and LEARN--then go out and DO SOMETHING!

Twenty years ago Sheldon Rampton--one of the authors of "The Best War Ever"--rented a room in my mom's house (shows that he's frugal). So, I got to know him a bit during that time. Recently my mother loaned me a copy of Sheldon's book, and I'm freaking out (in a good way), because it confirms so much of what I have known about and feared for so long. In retrospect, I wish I had payed more attention to what Sheldon was interested in back then, and I wish I had known the right questions to ask. I remember him talking about the Sandinista's and the corruption in the Reagan administration, and the diverting of taxpayer funds to pay off... well, I didn't pay much attention to him then, not because of him, but because my political eyes had not been opened yet. Anyway, here we are in an unconstitutional, unjust war, and I'm halfway through his book and enjoying it completely.

I suspect that Sheldon leans heavily to the left, and as one of those rare right-wing, Christian fundamentalists that is not fooled by the Bush lies, I am very much at odds with many of my Christian brethren. Too many Christians and other right-wingers pledge their allegience to Bush no matter what, and they refuse to listen to the facts about the lies and corruption. So it's totally refreshing to read Sheldon's book "The Best War Ever."

Sheldon didn't put me up to this either; I'm barely in touch with him by email. We're not buddies or anything. I'm writing this review because I am realy impressed with the book. It's so good to get footnoted FACTS rather than the tripe fed to us on the nightly "news." Hope to see you soon, Sheldon!

Charlie

Not quite as good as Banana Republicans or Weapons of Mass Deception. There were few surprises for anyone who has been following the narrative closely these past 4 years. The best feature of Rampton and Stauber's books is the attention they pay to citing sources for facts they present in the book. The endnotes are copious and most include URLs to source documents.

It is pesented without any attempt to whitewash the truth, and focuses squarely on all aspects of the subject.

The Best War Ever is actually the second book on the Iraq War by these authors. The First Book, entitled Weapons of Mass Deception was released in July of 2003, a mere four months after the beginning of hostilities and while truck loads of personnel were still canvassing Iraq in a futile search for non-existent WMD.

That fact almost makes them look prescient but the fact remains that the was plenty of evidence around contradicting the White House line for those willing to listen to it.

As this book, The Best War Ever, points out the Iraq war was a product of several failures. The failure of the Media, the Congress, the Administration and the Intelligence community. It was also a product of purposeful disinformation and inertia.

By now we have all heard how ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq were fabricated and reports of WMD were exaggerated and cherry picked to make the best case for war. Well, this book delves into that and more. According to T.B.W.E. the Administration may have been fooled by their own disinformation. Apparently in the late nineties some shadowy department of the Defense or State Departments hired an advertising agency to disseminate disinformation.

Not being versed in subterfuge and underhanded dealings, they hired a man named Chalabi to form a government in exile and thus the Iraqi National Congress was born. Of course we had all heard of the INC and it was thought by many to be a movement of disaffected Iraqi patriots. In fact it became a movement of cash from the US into Chalabi's coffers. At first Chalabi seemed to be the real thing and was the darling of the CIA but as more and more of his statements proved untrue and the information given by defectors he provided was discredited he fell from their favor. Yet, he remained a favorite of the Administration, not because of the truthfulness of what he said but because it helped to move along their agenda.

T.B.W.E. also points to the failure of the media to scrutinize the rational for going to war. In fact they cite The Administrations self proclaimed enemy, the liberal New York Times for being their biggest ally for laying out the case for going to war. The includes Judith Miller the NY times reporter who was getting almost all of her scoops from the aforementioned Chalabi.

Lastly the Administration virtually shamed the congress into allowing them to have their way with Iraq by intimating and insinuating that it was unpatriotic to question the Commander in Chief in a time of war and in fact they still are trying that tactic but with less and less success.

T.B.W.E. is a well written, easily read book on the Iraq fiasco. True there are many of these books out now each of which has the ability to make you mad at the the malfeasance that has transpired. Having read at least a half dozen of these books, each has its own little niche of information, which the others didn't cover and so did T.B.W.E.
I had no idea that Chalabi and Miller has been so instrumental in fomenting the war or that ninety percent of the news articles and opinions leading up to the war were pro-war.

These and many other circumstances covered in this book and others, converged to make the war seem necessary, when in fact the evidence was all around that it wasn't.

Rampton and Stauber are the authors of "Weapons of Mass Deception," which won my personal award for best book title of the decade (so far). Here the irony is a bit over the top. So are these alternative titles I've thought up for them: "Nice Welfare Program for Halliburton," or "Generals Test Toys, Get Bored," or "Don't let the sand get in your eyes; Don't let the shrapnel break your heart," or "Pallets of Hundred Dollar Bills, Forked-Lifted to Eternity!" Or how about "Arabian Nights in the Green Zone, Shooting Pool with My Buds--Not" or "Thank You, Mr. President, I've Been Born Again (In a Flagged-Draped Coffin) and My Eyes Can See Clearly Now: There Is No Light at the End of the Tunnel."

No tunnel, no eyes, and that's just as well since Halliburton does not do Walter Reed or any other stateside hospital for our guys--don't you know we've got a budget crisis and we need to stimulate the economy with more big corporation tax cuts.

What Messrs. Rampton and Stauber are all about here however is not satire or cheap noir laughs. The sad truth is the book is just another closely documented, clearly reasoned indictment of the most colossal foreign policy blunder of the twentieth century by an American president, and how it happened.

After an introduction in which the authors recall Tom DeLay enthusing, "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper-power. We are the leader that defends freedom and democracy around the world...When we lead others follow," there's Chapter 1 "The Victory of Spin," in which the war is spun out according to the Cheney-Rumsfeld vision: shock and awe, and garlands of flowers around our heroic necks, and Mission Accomplished! photo ops. We are reminded of just who told what lie and how cowardly were our sycophantic media and cowering Congress.

Chapter 2 is about "Plamegate" (get the SOB's wife!) and the yellowcake road while Chapter 3 gets into the WMDs that were not there and recalls all the lies and misinformation and how the White House and the media kept tantalizingly predicting the imminent finding of same. And then a chapter on how Ahmed Chalabi with help from adorning neocons scammed the US government and made himself and pals rich, richer and--well, not as rich as ExxonMobil or Halliburton execs, but rich enough.

Why do I keep mentioning Halliburton? Well, the book is entitled "The Best War Ever" and if there is anybody in this great big wide wonderful world that might, just might, think the title is purely denotative, it would be Halliburton and subsidiaries.

Chapter 4 celebrates the rewriting of history, George Orwell style. The authors finish up with a couple of chapters focusing on the effect of the war on the Iraqis themselves (huh?). First there was (and is) the dire necessity to under count the civilian dead and maimed. And then there's the melancholy experience of how "victory" faded after the staged fall of Saddam's statue like a ghostly mirage in the desert.

"The new boss, just like the old boss," once sang The Who.

Irony.

This is an interesting book. Anyone who is interested in an alternative to the right wing talk radio and tv news should seriously consider checking out the Thom Hartmann radio show opposite Rush Limbaugh weekdays at: thomhartmann dot com / showlisten.shtml

Whether democrat, republican, or indepedent, so many of the facts out there are completely ignored by the mainstream media and talk shows. This show is one strong example of an examination of the facts regardless of your political affiliation. I am not affiliated with the show in any way, just struck by the facts so many seem to ignore.