Customer Reviews

The Men Who Stare at Goats

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Some reviewers have completely missed the point. This is the author's journey researching an inane army experiment, and what manifestations may remain. This book is no more an investigative proof than Ronson's last novel was an argument for joining extremists. This book is Errol Morris, not Art Bell.

Wholly enjoyable and entertaining, it's hard to remember at times this is non-fiction, as some of the interviews seem insane. The presentation base comes from declassified goverment documents. However, they are not included, nor are there any footnotes, because Ronson is not trying to convince the reader of anything. He is writing about his interviews and conversations investigating the chronology of the "First Earth Battalion" manual. I believe Ronson started this project intending it to be much funnier (he is a comedian after all), but some of the subject matter and personas he found, though entertaining, aren't laughable: staring at a goat trying to kill sounds funny, but imagine the views of a person who wishes they had the ability to kill people with their mind. So it is a perspective on the legacy of a few persons relieved of common sense, that were given a little power and a budget.

You might enjoy this book if you:

- Find Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) funny.
- Like character documentaries, like those by Errol Morris.
- Enjoy psychology.
- Want a light introduction to a bizzare goverment-funded experiment.

You probably won't enjoy this book if you:

- Are looking for hard documentation on goverment conspiracy
- Believe our goverment would never do bad things to people
- Are uncomfortable with light critisism of George W. Bush

I had the hardest time deciding whether or not to read this book based on the various Amazon reviews. While I love a good conspiracy theory or two, I try to avoid books either written by conspiracy fanatics who have no objectivity, or conspiracy comics who treat the subject from a distance and use it to poke fun. As you can imagine, it's tough to find middle ground.

Goats ends up being worth reading for fitting somewhere into my realm of acceptibility, but sadly not enough to merit more than 3 stars. Ronson definitely keeps his distance during the first half of the book - as military men, some of whom are clearly unhinged to some extent, talk about crazy programs, Ronson makes it clear that he's not confirming or denying the allegations, merely quoting. And here, the book takes a comic tone and allows the reader to decide who to believe. On top of this, the book feels light, as if little research beyond interviews was done. Perhaps there's no other way to get this kind of information. Regardless, every chapter was more of a series of anecdotes than anything.

For the second half, the tone turns more serious as it becomes clear that there is a spider web connecting many of the participants of various army plots, and here Ronson suddenly suddenly gets too serious without enough evidence. I was fine with the tone change, and the book does lead you on the same inner feeling: at first, "this is nuts" to "hey, maybe there's something seriously wrong going on." The problem is that this is where we needed a lot more hardcore research. And yet the book still felt light and airy. I mean, Ronson didn't even bother to look up the name of the song or band that features the words "Burn Mother*ucker, Burn!" A small point, but one that will stand out to American readers as an obvious example of not doing all the homework. Also, the history of these programs is basically presented as Ronson discovered them, and the problem with this is that he backtracks and overlaps on himself a zillion times rather than present the material sequentially. Again, I see the reasons for taking us on the same path of discovery he did, but I'm not convinced it was for the best.

I think that there's a better book that could've been written buried in here somewhere, and what actually hit the page isn't necessarily bad. It just ultimately comes off as too light to be as important as it could have been. For those who were in my quandry of deciding whether to buy it, I recommend it, but I felt a lot better buying it used.

This is a fascinating tale about people who are completely nuts. Unfortunately, many of these people who are completely nuts hold or have held senior positions in the United States military. Ronson rarely writes a judgmental word, but allows his subject to speak for themselves--and hang themselves with their own words. (At least, that's the impression--obviously Ronson has selected which of their words to present.)

Ronson looks at ideas for a "First Earth Battallion" by soldier-turned-newage-marketing-guru Jim Channon, who proposed in 1979 that the military put greater emphasis on influencing people with alternative weapons such as paranormal abilities and music. Ronson traces the use of music in warfare to the use of loud music by the FBI at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas and as a torture technique used by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.

The book covers a wide-ranging territory of nuttiness, including Uri Geller (who is quoted in the book suggesting that he has been re-activated for use by the U.S. military), the remote viewers at Ft. Meade (Joe McMoneagle, Ingo Swann, Pat Price, Ed Dames, etc.), the non-lethal weaponry of UFO and paranormal investigator Col. John Alexander, the connections between the remote viewers and Courtney Brown--and then to Art Bell and Heaven's Gate, and the CIA's MKULTRA experiments and the death-by-LSD of Frank Olson and his son Eric's search for the facts about his death.

The book is alternately amusing and horrifying. It would be funny if this craziness wasn't taken so seriously by high-ranking officials who have put it into practice, wasting tax dollars and occasionally producing horribly unethical outcomes.

I highly recommend this book.

This book isn't funny.

Mind you, Ronson knows exactly what he's doing by presenting the book as "hilarious" - it starts out completely absurd, with the high-minded hippy ideals of a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran presented to a beleaguered military under siege. Jim Channon, seeking solace in the emerging human potential movement in California, struck a chord with the top brass, and the repercussions are still felt today.

But instead of being used as a positive force for peace, the military twisted it into a force of evil. Ronson ties it all together: September 11, Heaven's Gate, sticky foam, Abu-Grahib, Waco, Art Bell, Projects STARGATE, MKULTRA, and ARTICHOKE, and yes, Barney. Goat-staring is the least of our worries.

The thread running throughout all these seemingly disconnected blips in history is that they are a new form of psychological warfare that is innocuous, ruthless, and entirely effective. The Men Who Stare at Goats would be just another conspiracy-laden anti-government diatribe if it wasn't for the fact that Ronson always takes the next step as an investigative reporter. He finds people to back up the wild claims, interviews them, and often challenges their wild theories.

The sad thing is, very few of these shadowy contacts hide their past. Almost unilaterally, Ronson calls them all out by name and they step forward, sharing a story that sheds a disconcerting light on America's human rights record. Where is the vigorous conversation, the protests, the discord over these revelations? The facts are right here before us - even photographic evidence -- but we laugh about Barney being used to torture prisoners and we shake our heads at the poor, misguided psychics. But outrage? There's no outrage. We save our vitriol for partisan debates in our own government.

Eric Olson, son of Frank Olson, a military scientist who died under mysterious circumstances while working on MKULTRA, sums it up best:

"The old story is so much fun, why would anyone want to replace it with a story that's not fun. You see...this is no longer a happy, feel-good story...People have been brainwashed by fiction...so brainwashed by the Tom Clancy thing, they think, 'We know this stuff. We know the CIA does this.' Actually, we know nothing of this. There's no case of this, and all this fictional stuff is like an immunization against reality. It makes people think they know things that they don't know and it enables them to have a kind of superficial quasi-sophistication and cynicism which is just a thin layer beyond which they're not cynical at all."

Have you heard? There's a movie based on this book coming out starring George Clooney.

It's a comedy.

It's hard to know what to make of Ronson's book. I bought it because I saw him on C-SPAN2's BookTV, and found him engaging and credible, with a keen sense of the absurd. But as others here have noted, his book is thin on documentation, and the claims made in it are outlandish. On the other hand, if they are true, they're just the sort of thing you would expect there to be scant documentary evidence of. Therein lies the rub.

Either way, the book is well-written, and quick and entertaining to read. My suggestion is to read it for yourself and form your own conclusions about its claims. And by the way, if you find the sort of thing Ronson writes about interesting, you should rent the DVD "Suspect Zero," starring Ben Kingsley, which covers some of the same territory and includes some documentaries on one very odd military program.

"The Men Who Stare At Goats" is perhaps the oddest book I have read since "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" by Chuck Barris. Both books are incredibly entertaining and have plots revolving around fairly unbelievable government programs. Chuck would have fit in here perfectly.

This is the story of military and government intelligence officials who believe and promote utterly wacky concepts, like "Warrior Monks," the ability to stop a goat's heart telepathically by staring at it (this was allegedly demonstrated later on guinea pigs for budgetary reasons), and the ability to walk through walls.

Jon Ronson has a wonderful, conversational writing style. The only unfortunate part of that it is hard to tell when he is serious and when he isn't. I do not know how much of this book is true, and how much is complete, if inspired lunacy. I am not accusing Ronson (a documentary filmmaker) of fabricating anything, but given that his references are all speaking from first-person experiences which were supposedly classified, verification of these stories is nigh-impossible. In other words, even if Ronson reported the facts as he knew them, there is no way to verify the bulk of these allegations. I do know that Art Bell is discussed to a degree, and despite relative skepticism from Ronson and others, his mere appearance in the book tends to make most people (including myself) more skeptical of matters at hand.

I don't know what parts of this book I believe and what parts to merely laugh at. Within that conundrum is the entertainment value (as disturbing as it may be) of this book.

I recommend this book for people with open, but skeptical, minds.

It's hard to know where to begin with this book from British freelance journalist and documentarian Ronson. It is, in a sense, victim to a kind of clandestine catch-22. The claims made in it are so outrageously bizarre that they demand documentation to substantiate and take seriously. And yet, the matters involved are so ultra secret and frightening that it's unlikely such documentation could ever be produced without resorting to real espionage. So even though Ronson manages to get surprising number of former officers and others to go on the record about the American military's flirtation with the paranormal over the last 25 years, one has to kind of read the book with either a grain of salt or a bit of faith.

The basic gist is that in the years following the end of the Vietnam War, there was a real malaise in the American military. An officer named Jim Channon took it upon himself to examine alternative forms of warfare and spent about a year traveling around the U.S. immersed in the new agey, positive self-transformation movement that was burgeoning at the time (and still does). He wrote a manual in 1979 based on his findings, full of suggestions, some wackier than others, some of which have been explored the military intelligence community. At the core of his manual was the notion that the military could create "warrior monks" trained in paranormal techniques such remote viewing, mind control, and invisibility. To that end, there was a secret unit established which was involved in remote viewing and, as the title indicates, attempts to psychically kill animals by staring at them. One of the less bizarre offshoots of this research is the blasting of music by the military and FBI in siege situations (such as Panama or Waco) and at detainees in Iraq and elsewhere. There's also some interesting stuff about subliminal messages, and the entirely strange detainee experience of a British man, who was subjected to Fleetwood Mac covers, Kris Kristofferson, and Matchbox 20 at normal volume for no apparent reason.

The story is such a tangled one with so many bizarre threads that one has to applaud Ronson for keeping it all in some semblance of order -- although the bit about the Art Bell show and Heavens Gate cult seemed to stray a little too far from the core. Ronson's approach is to simply keep asking questions, acting naive to his interviewees and then devastatingly connecting the dots in writing. The writing style is so breezy and wittily deadpan that it somewhat undercuts the seriousness of the topics under discussion, although to be fair, when he does discuss detainee torture and the apparent murder of a civilian scientist, the tone does switch to appropriately respectful. Indeed, the parts of the book that trace how the more whimsical fancys of the late '70s got twisted into the very real torture at Abu Gharib prison (and elsewhere) are chilling. Similarly, his account of the famous CIA MKULTRA experiments of the '50s turn what might be comical into sobering stuff.

The whole thing is rather unsettling, because even though much of it is pretty wacky stuff, there's no disputing that a good portion of it is true. And yes, it'll confirm the worst beliefs of those who are are distrustful of the American military establishment, but it should prove shocking to the rest of us as well. It's hard to know what to do after reading a book like this other than scream for greater transparency in the intelligence community. But when the president has authorized some $30 billion for "off the books" operations... one gets the uncomfortable sense this may be only the tip of the iceberg.

PS. In conjunction with this book, Ronson put together a three-part documentary called The Crazy Rulers of the World which ran on BBC4 in the UK.

I really want to like Jon Ronson's work. I left The Men Who Stare at Goats the way I left Them, though - fun anecdotes, interesting people, but no actual development of the story - no tying together what's happening. I'm not looking for a lot of piercing analysis, but I felt like every chapter was "... and then I met Bob!"

It's an opportunity to deliver a great book, and I just found it boring to read.

Ronson also draws news-like conclusions with no supporting information. For example, he quotes the Iraqi propaganda materials dropped on US armed forces members that said "your wives are back at home having sex with Bart Simpson and Burt Reynolds," and then says that the US propaganda was obviously more effective than that. He doesn't justify this statement, though - how do we know that our materials weren't as foolish when translated into Arabic? It's just sloppy writing, and it happens again and again.

Wow, where do I begin? This book is one of the funniest I've ever read. In fact, my new favorite quote is, "Most goat-related military activity is still highly classified." The story is absolutely hilarious in many parts, very easy to read and seemingly unbiased as Ronson allows his interviewees to say whatever they wish. However, and that is a huge however, I don't believe at least half of what he has written, and possibly as much as 75%. I do not follow conspiracy theories, and that is what much of this books seems to me.

Ronson relates his information directly from each source in most cases, which makes me automatically skeptical. Because much of this information is (supposedly) still classified, there is no way to verify it. "John Doe told me this, so it is true" is the state of mind you need to read and believe this book. Also, he has a bad habit of using British dialect in his interviews with Americans. I'm sorry, but Americans just don't use the word "bits" with the same meaning as the Brits do. If you're going to quote people, please quote them directly and don't change their words. (Granted, I bought a UK copy of this book, so maybe the publishing house changed the quotes; or maybe the quotes just aren't real. See, I told you I'm sketical.) Another mistake I found was a gentleman attributed with an American military rank that simply doesn't exist. Research or editing should have caught that.

I truly don't believe that a bunch of Special Forces guys at Fort Bragg are currently in the Goat Lab, trying to stare to death a de-bleated goat.

The Barney song playing on an endless repeat in Iraq? That story holds much more veracity than goat-staring. Music has long been used in psychological operations and it works. Though I'm not sure that I really believe it's the Barney song and not some other type of music, just because the Barney song holds no sentimental, cultural or torturous value for Iraqis other than its repetitiveness.

Basically, I found this book entirely readable and entertaining, and vaguely truthful. I don't want to say that Ronson has written a work of fiction and marketed it as fact, but I do think he wrote this with sales in mind and found the best stories and interviews for his target audience. Please please please do not read and believe every word in this book, because I know for a fact, 100%, that it is not entirely correct.

Jon Ronson writes in a very relaxed, entertaining style. Almost too relaxed and entertaining. I picked up and read the first third of the book in one sitting and enjoyed it deeply. I'd frequently laugh out loud at the completly insane ideas these government officials were devoting their lives to. They seemed essentially like harmless quacks (or, at worst, snake oil salesmen) who ultimately weren't doing a whole lot of harm.

Then Jon started making connections to Abu Ghraib and programs of assassination.

Jon's style is so accessible that you occasionally have to remind yourself that either this stuff if true or (at a minimum) there are people in fairly high positions who believe in it and act on it.

Either way, this is that rare book that has both interesting subject matter and is a great read.

My only regret is that the style of the book will probably prevent it from getting widely read or seriously discussed.

I'm not into conspiracy theories (I think I'm the last guy who really thinks Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK) but this book definately has me scratching my head. A great read!

I couldn't recommend it more highly!