Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia (Paperback)

~ Alexander Cockburn (Editor), Jeffrey St. Clair (Editor) "Strange are the ways of men!..." (more)
Key Phrases: laptop bombardiers, cluster munitions, sanctions committee, United States, Saddam Hussein, Alexander Cockburn (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The war on Iraq didn't begin with the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe, and it didn't end with George W. Bush's made-for-TV aircraft landing. Undetected by the mainstream press, the US campaign against Iraq began many years before, featuring cruel sanctions, weekly bombardments, and assassinations. With Saddam deposed, the US now finds itself mired in a grinding occupation, its troops under constant attack with no exit in sight.

Iraq was just one of three major imperial crusades in the last decade, orchestrated by a new generation of American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who backed pre-emptive strikes to overthrow unruly regimes in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair reported on these wars as they happened. Years ahead of the pack, they exposed the economic motives behind the wars and how fraudulent intelligence, a spaniel press corps, a servile United Nations, and corporate propaganda techniques were used to sell them to the public.

Imperial Crusades chronicles the lies that are now returning almost daily to haunt the liars in Washington and London, the secret agendas and the under-reported carnage of these wars. It is a ripely vivid, blow-by-blow commentary from Cockburn and St. Clair, and regular CounterPunch writers such as the late Edward Said, former marines Chris White and Scott Cossette, historians Gary Leupp and Doug Lummis, psychologist Carol Norris, economist Paul de Rooij, human rights lawyer Joanne Mariner, and former senior CIA analysts Bill Christison and Ray McGovern.

About the Author

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair co-edit CounterPunch, both the newsletter and the well-known website, CounterPunch.org. Together they have written Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press and Five Days That Shook The World: Seattle and Beyond, both published by Verso. Alexander Cockburn lives in Petrolia, northern California. Jeffrey St.Clair lives in Oregon City Oregon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Verso; Reprint Edition. edition (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844675068
• ISBN-13: 978-1844675067
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #164,739 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Account of the Empire, July 31, 2004

By	cecil (nacirema) - See all my reviews

Generally speaking, this account lives up to the high standards of CounterPunch's usual work: timely, witty, committed, and analytically sophisticated. It's main drawback is that it won't be anything new to those who have paid attention, and its undoubtedly small printrun, non-corporate marketing budget, and invisibility to an establishment press (that it critiques so well) will limit its distribution and appeal--which is a great misfortune. That said, it is an excellent place to start for those who need basic data and smart interpretations of current events.

Otherwise, I find it necessary to correct the review below of S. Frantzman, who utters numerous distortions about Cockbrun & St. Clair's work. I will take Frantzman (who in his other reviews and lists appears to advance an extremely belligerent ultra-zionist, pseudo-islamophobic ideology, by the way) point for point.

Frantzman: "This is a book based on opinion [...] America simply took over Iraq."

Me: Of course it's based on opinion; as writing is a human endeavor, it is impossible for any discourse to be based on anything else. Ever. Period. The point about encouraging Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, via ambassador Glaspie's comments to Saddam in the summer of 1990, is well known and not open to dispute. The point about the US conspiring to "starve" Iraq relies on rhetorical equivocation, but is true nonetheless, for the Pentagon had produced war plans in the late 80s about how vulnerable Iraq's water treatment industry would be to US bombs, and thus how all biopolitical systems of the country would fail as a result of a bombing/sanctions one-two punch; to doubt this is to ignore the US government's own published records, which openly speculate on mass mortality for infants by means of disease. Likewise, assassinating Saddam is nothing new, considering all of the hubbub about "decapitation strikes" during the barbaric Shock and Awe offensive. However, at various points in the 90s did the CIA also attempt to "help" Saddam commit suicide; such is so well known that various Friedmanish/Pipesque/Limbaughian figures in the Empire often boast of it. Last, it's pretty obvious the the Empire "took over" Iraq, considering that the new Iraqi constitution opens the country to foreign investment--all subject to approval by the US appointed governing authority--now headed by former CIA killer Ayad Allawi, who is only in power because of the US occupation force, a force that conveniently occupied government buildings associated with oil while Baghdad was otherwise looted and burned.

Frantzman: "The truth is that Saddam chose to invade his [...] program to get billions for new weapons."

Me: No one, least of Cockburn & St. Clair, will deny Saddam's criminality--invasions, gas attacks on Iranians & Kurds, gross violations of human rights, arbitrary arrest, killings, torture, and so on. Indeed, the authors point out that it is precisely for these reasons that the US enlisted him as their creature during the Cold War; the Empire coddled, enabled, and valued Saddam. On the other hand, we know that sanctions did in fact work, for (as both Rice and Powell claimed in early 2001) Saddam has been effectively disarmed to the point that he "can't project power in the region" and that even little Kuwait didn't consider him a real threat. It likewise defies reason to claim that Saddam was a serious threat, even though his regime was destroyed so quickly and even though his evil weapons of mass destruction weren't used against the US invader--which is beyond curious. The notion that Saddam had any substantial control over the Oil-for-Food program (which only began in 1996) is furthermore completely at odds with the historical record, as the program was UN administered to hold Iraqi oil funds in escrow until reparations and debts were paid off, and moreover until Iraqi purchases were approved--a system which thoroughly destroyed the country worse than the bombing--a process called "Sanctions of Mass Destruction" in 2000 by *Foreign Affairs*. This is not to say that Saddam didn't become fabulously wealthy during the sanctions regime--but such a result was well known in advance: what else could've happened but the complete centralization of power in Saddam's hands if all Iraqi foreign transactions are limited to oil, controlled by the state?

Frantzman: "Yugoslavia may be one of the only [...] from the province and supporting terrorists. Here the book is on the mark."

Me: I happen to like their reading here too, but I suspect that Mssr. Frantzman only appreciates it because the text argues effectively against the Moslem position.

Frantzman: "In the last analysis the Afghanistan conflict this book is so far off the [...] Nazism was also wrong and therefore it may not even be worth flipping through."

Me: Interesting that Frantzman acknowledges the criminality of the Taliban, but doesn't seem to comprehend that they, like Saddam, are a product of US Empire. Of course, Frantzman is completely in Never-Never Land with his assertion that the Taliban are foreigners: indeed, such is generally not the case. Rather, the Taliban are an indigenous Pashtun movement that arose in the Afghani-Pakistani border regions during 1994 as a response to the various mujaheddin groups then fighting for dominance after the destruction of the communist regime of Najibullah in 1992. Though a small number of foreigners have been associated with the Taliban, the majority of the cadres and leadership are native to the region; Frantzman perhaps confuses the Taliban proper with the mujaheddin groups of the 80s, who were largely recruited from other Moslem nations (though not without significant local elements, such as the semi-feudal mullahs)--Arabs first and foremost (al Qaida germinated from these folks independently of the Taliban). Also, there is of course no similarity at all between the Taliban and the Nazis--except of course for the virulent anti-semitism of both, and each's place within the rogue's gallery of ultra-rightwing movements. I might as well point out that Frantzman here invokes Godwin's Law by mentioning the Nazis, but I'm sure savvy readers noticed that.

49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They Told You So, June 2, 2004

By A Customer

Bush's war on Iraq has degenerated into a bloody occupation, signified by war crimes, slaughter of civilians and US soldiers engaged in Sadean rituals with Iraqi prisoners. The justifications for the war have been proven to be bald-faced lies. Thousands have perished and Iraq as a nation is worse off than it was under Saddam. This war was supported by both political parties and the corporate press. But not Cockburn and St. Clair, and the team of writers at CounterPunch, which called it right as the war was being planned, sold and unleashed. A similarly bleak saga has played out in Afghanistan, where a cruise missile war was launched on an impoverished nation under the grip of a regime the CIA had put in power in the first place. Mullah Omar and Osama are still at large, heroin production has soared and the nation is controlled by warlords and misogyinistic religious zealots. Again, the press and the Democrats went along for the ride and haven't looked back at the carnage left in the wake of the war. Cockburn and St. Clair predicted and show why the Afghan war was doomed to backfire on US interests and the civilians of that desperate nation. Imperial Crusades doesn't spare Clinton and his gang, either, which orchestrated an illegal war on Yugoslavia, under the rubric of "humantarian intervention", which ended up killing thousands of civilians, propping up Kosovar terrorists, unleashing religious zealots and looney sectarians. Both Kosovo and Yugoslavia remain in dire straits and the humanitarian bombers have moved on to other causes. This book is written as a journal of the past 12 years of unremitting war by the imperial forces of the US and their allies in the press. It was CounterPunch which first exposed the fabrications of the New York Times's Judith Miller. This book holds no punches and plays no favorites.

35 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, May 25, 2004

By A Customer

This is a fantastic book that exposes the truth behind the last decade's worth of US war. The Counterpunch crew has done it again, in bringing the truth to light regarding the US involvement in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

They debunk the lies the mainstream press has used in justifying and defending the US invasions. They reveal the truth behind the conflict in Iraq, and show that the wheels were set into motion long before Dubya took the oath of office in 2000.

Pick it up for yourself and take a look. It's a must read for those wanting to know the truth behind the current US foreign agenda.