The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America [Hardcover]

Peter Dale Scott (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520237730 | ISBN-13: 978-0520237735 | Publication Date: September 4, 2007 | Edition: 1

This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11. Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack. Scott shows how America's expansion into the world since World War II has led to momentous secret decision making at high levels. He demonstrates how these decisions by small cliques are responsive to the agendas of private wealth at the expense of the public, of the democratic state, and of civil society. He shows how, in implementing these agendas, U.S. intelligence agencies have become involved with terrorist groups they once backed and helped create, including al Qaeda.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America."--Richard Falk, author of The Great Terror War

"Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. The Road to 9/11 further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the central issue of our time--America's coming to terms with its behavior in the modern world. As in his past work, Scott's gift is not only recognition and wisdom but also redemption and rescue we simply cannot do without."--Roger Morris, former NSC staffer

"The Road to 9/11 is vintage Peter Dale Scott. Scott does not undertake conventional political analysis; instead, he engages in a kind of poetics, crafting the dark poetry of the deep state, of parapolitics, and of shadow government. As with his earlier work Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, Scott has no theory of responsibility and does not name the guilty. Rather, he maps out an alien terrain, surveying the topography of a political shadow land, in which covert political deviancy emerges as the norm. After reading Scott, we can no longer continue with our consensus-driven belief that our so-called 'liberal' order renders impossible the triumph of the politically irrational."--Eric Wilson, Senior Lecturer of Public International Law, Monash University, and co-editor of Government of the Shadows

"Peter Dale Scott exposes a shadow world of oil, terrorism, drug trade and arms deals, of covert financing and parallel security structures-from the Cold War to today. He shows how such parallel forces of the United States have been able to dominate the agenda of the George W. Bush Administration, and that statements and actions made by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld before, during and after September 11, 2001, present evidence for an American 'deep state' and for the so-called 'Continuity of Government' in parallel to the regular 'public state' ruled by law. Scott's brilliant work not only reveals the overwhelming importance of these parallel forces but also presents elements of a strategy for restraining their influence to win back the 'public state', the American democracy."--Ola Tunander, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo

"A powerful study of the historic origins of the terrorist strikes of September 11, this book offers an indispensable guide to the gluttonous cast of characters who, since Watergate and the fall of Nixon, fashioned an ever more reckless American empire. By exposing the corrupt U.S. 'deep state'-transfer of public authority to America's wealthy and to the nation's unaccountable secret intelligence agencies-Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11 illuminates the path toward a more democratic and inclusive republic."--David MacGregor, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario

"The Road to 9/11 provides an illuminating and disturbing history of the American government since World War II. Scott's account suggests that the 9/11 attacks were a culmination of long-term trends that threaten the very existence of American democracy, and also that there has been a massive cover-up of 9/11 itself. This book, which combines extensive research, perceptive analysis, and a fascinating narrative, will surely be considered Scott's magnum opus."--David Ray Griffin, author of Debunking 9/11 Debunking

"'The America we knew and loved. Can it be saved?' That question opens this book, and getting to the answer called for the honed intellect of a scholar and the sensitivity of a poet. Peter Dale Scott has both, in spades, and here gives us much, much more than a book about 9/11. In a time of fear, he speaks for sanity and freedom."--Anthony Summers, author of The Arrogance of Power

About the Author

Peter Dale Scott is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America (1993) and Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1996), both from UC Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (September 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520237730
• ISBN-13: 978-0520237735
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #903,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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106 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep, convincing analysis of the road to conspiracy and disaster., September 12, 2007

By 

Anthony J. Thorne (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Hardcover)

Peter Dale Scott's long-in-the-works THE ROAD TO 9/11 is outstanding, powerful, sad, in a way, and quietly gripping. (It's also notable for the fact that the University of California Press only reportedly published it after they'd spent the better part of a year scrupulously fact checking and cautiously vetting it for accuracy). Glib summaries aren't likely to do it justice. There have been several books published so far that address the official story offered about 9/11 with a critical eye, all of which basically allege that the White House and US intelligence agencies have covered up their own, complicated roles in the terror attacks of 2001. Scott's new book makes some reference to and generally builds upon a number of those works, but simultaneously encompasses a far broader sweep, wields (conversely) a simpler, more direct argument, and provides a new level of hard-to-argue-with credibility to the process of naming specific names.

The first lengthy section of the book features Scott's run through of recent events in US history, with an emphasis on various 'shadow government' elements of the US political system, and how these elements have moved into the foreground in recent years. (Scott uses the term `shadow government' to encompass the various avenues used by governments - not just in the US - to undertake certain activities off the books, under the radar, or illegally). Scott notes the disintegration of the Nixon presidency as being a starting-point for slowly building incidents and trends related to an active `shadow government' that have re-emerged in the disaster of 9/11 and the subsequent, seemingly comprehensive cover-up. Little known government plans from the Nixon era for militarily suppressing public dissent (via the secretive, innocuously titled `Operation Garden Plot') are discussed here. Then, following the post-Nixon rise to prominence of Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Ford presidency, Scott notes how these martial-law ambitions eventually reappeared in a different form during the Iran-Contra events via the newly politicized FEMA and Lt. Col. Oliver North's `REX 84' plan. REX 84 evoked (in the event of an unspecified future `national emergency') the widespread surveillance (and possible detention) of political dissenters, the suspension of the U.S. constitution, and the activation of a secretive, parallel government set up to run things away from the pesky oversight of Senate and Congress. It's carefully noted early on that these aims were strongly desired by both Cheney and Rumsfeld, with the two of them conducting much of the highest level planning at the time for all the above, and the accompanying process given the title of `Continuity of Government', or `COG'. (Scott jokes darkly that in the light of the sweeping measures it would, and eventually did, enable post 9/11, `Change of Government' is a much more accurate description). Cheney pushed hard to enable and lay the groundwork for COG through FEMA in the 80's - groundwork which would institute a parallel government in the event of a national crisis - and Scott eventually notes what he dryly calls an `arresting coincidence'. Once Cheney and FEMA are reunited in May 2001, the same COG planning team from the Iran-Contra era in the 1980's was put forth by George W. Bush as a terrorism task force, and then a major terrorist attack on the United States allowed those same folks to implement COG. (Though Scott finished the bulk of THE ROAD TO 9/11 in 2006, he also makes use here at one point of information just revealed in Andrew Cockburn's 2007 biography RUMSFELD: HIS RISE, FALL AND CATASTROPHIC LEGACY. Cockburn's book notes how Rumsfeld and other hard-line Republican hawks with an eye on the future had privately kept the COG / parallel government exercises alive during the 90's in training exercise / bull sessions where they would "..castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way", and where the prior evoked COG threat of choice, the Soviets, had been replaced by a new designated foe thought of as likely able to provoke a useful national emergency - terrorists).

Dramatically, Scott (a veteran chronicler and researcher of another painful, much debated event from American political history) holds firm in refusing to water down his conclusions. During the eventual terrorist attacks of September 2001, COG boosters Cheney and Rumsfeld both described themselves (along with other members of the Bush administration) as being `out of the loop' during key moments of the crisis that could have affected the events of the day. Scott begs to differ. THE ROAD TO 9/11 can be seen as one long build-up to the most careful, detailed examination possible of just what the official record, supporting documents, pertinent testimony, and reports from the day actually suggest Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a specific period of time that morning. Clearly, testimony from Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and others openly contradicts what Cheney and the 9/11 Commission Report would have us believe happened. In a gripping, methodically documented chapter, Scott breaks the relevant testimony down thoroughly, statement by statement, to examine what he believes really occurred at the Pentagon that morning. Would it be too much to ask for the mainstream media to do their job and examine why the specific pieces of evidence and testimony Scott outlines in this book were given the widest possible berth by the 9/11 Commission Report authors?

Elsewhere in THE ROAD TO 9/11, the October Surprise Iran hostage scandal prior to Reagan's election is carefully dissected. Scott notes how select elements of the upper Republican Party, alongside elements of the intelligence agency community sympathetic to their aims, showed (from the available evidence) a probable willingness to commit treason and endanger American lives for the pursuit of various goals. Scott also carefully links the October Surprise scandal, and Bush Senior's documented involvement with Saudi arms-dealing, to the eventual assistance provided by Bush Jr's administration in flying various Bin Laden family members and Saudis out of the US shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Scott describes the event succinctly, noting: "People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offence cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators".

Midway through the book, Scott provides a very long, detailed recounting of al Qaeda's use by various covert arms of government as a tool to, among other things, acquire and use illegal drug trade funds. He follows the FBI and CIA's involvement with terrorist double agents, noting how a lack of congressional oversight has historically led to greater and greater excesses. The infamous `out of control' BCCI money-laundering operation is examined, along with the mainstream media's efforts to avoid studying the particular relationship the BCCI (and various Bush/CIA related spook groups) seemingly had in funding and utilising al Qaeda. One comment made here by Scott seems pertinent, and by itself sums up much of the content of his book. "America's out-of-control entanglements with jihadi Islamists, and particularly with the ISI, underlie the still misunderstood events of 9/11, and the ongoing instability of the U.S. bureacracy and media to report honestly either on what happened that day, or on what these events reveal about the deep structure of U.S global politics."

As noted before, Scott's final chapters dissect the public record and various 'official' accounts of the events of the day, with an eye to examining Rumsfeld and, in particular, Cheney's activities. Over and over in this section, Scott convincingly shows that the public record itself, when analyzed carefully, marks Cheney as a key element of a likely cover-up, and deserving of being questioned under oath in regards to his behavior on the day. It's evident that, repeatedly, the 9/11 Commission Report really worked overtime to heave the spotlight away from dwelling on just exactly what Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a key period of time that morning. Scott's final chapter puts things in perspective, and offers suggestions and words of encouragement for the future

There's much more featured, as I have just cherry picked some central points, but Scott's powerful, involving analysis of US covert policy and its relationship to the events of 9/11 is a tour-de-force. I'll also note that, though the book is heavily footnoted and carries a lengthy bibliography, I found it to be more readable and emotionally engaging than some of his earlier works. (There are some thoughtful and appropriate personal touches). It's worth finally mentioning that Scott cleverly begins each new section of the book with highly appropriate quotes pertaining to the chapter that follows. After reading this book, and thinking quietly for a while about the detailed, disquieting picture it reveals, the most resonant to me was the all-too-relevant comment from onetime US intelligence-linked al Qaeda trainer Ali Mohamed: "Americans see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear."

56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When Eloquence and Conscience Collide, October 25, 2007

By 

Gianmarco Manzione (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Hardcover)

Though Scott occasionally becomes boringly preoccupied with the minutiae of the 9/11 Commission Report and the unanswered questions it evades, his "Conclusion" chapter features the most eloquent call for unity and change that I have encountered in a long time. His affiliation with so-called "conspiracy theorists" such as David Ray Griffin may mislead readers into associating Scott with the stigma of the "9/11 Truth" movement, but this is hardly the kind of hysterical and paranoid alarmism you might expect to find from some of that movement's high priests. Scott's indifference to ad hominem logical warfare and hasty assertions distinguishes this skeptical look at the official 9/11 story from the bellicose flamboyance of fear-mongering demagogues like Alex Jones.

Scott makes careful and intelligent distinctions between "shameless lies" and "carefully crafted falsehoods" while illuminating the importance of such distinctions to a greater understanding of how an "overworld" of ruling elites manufactures reality. Particularly enlightening is his finding that Saddam Hussein was behind a concerted effort within OPEC to do what American oil executives and government officials consider the unthinkable: "allow some OPEC oil sales to be paid in Euros."

The deal the Nixon administration struck with Saudis in the early 1970s was to compel OPEC to denominate oil in U.S. dollars in exchange for funds and materials needed to further develop their oil resources and, ultimately, their economy. Additionally, this deal allowed OPEC to price oil much higher than ever before. This is the arrangement that keeps the dollar falsely afloat in the market of international currency and enables the corrupt recycling of petrodollars, and Hussein's efforts to handicap that arrangement provoked the ire of people powerful enough to, as we recently witnessed, have him strung up and hung for it.

Shortly thereafter, Scott reports, "The Financial Times, on June 6, 2003, confirmed that Iraqi oil sales were now switched back from Euros to Dollars." For those of us keeping score at home, that would have been less than 2 1/2 months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Rather than shoving the obvious implications of this hidden history down our throats, Scott gracefully allows readers to connect the dots themselves, confident enough in the meticulousness with which he documents his case to understand that there is really only one reasonable conclusion to come to. It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

Now that I have read Scott's book, I am firmly persuaded that this is obligatory reading for those Americans who are even remotely curious about discovering the reasons for their visceral distrust of elected officials. Scott's thorough understanding of the roots and consequences of the military industrial complex combines with his rare talent for explaining those complex dynamics in such simple language that even the uninitiated can quickly grasp the big picture. Readers who want to learn more about the narrower details of how that big picture was painted would be wise to pursue some of the original sources Scott uses for his book: Chalmers Johnson's "The Sorrows of Empire," Richard Dreyfuss's "Devil's Game," and especially William Engdahl's "A Century of War," which is curiously out of print but not impossible to find (I had no trouble).

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65 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning Work of Immense Value to Every American, September 3, 2007

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Hardcover)

I put this book down in something of a daze. This is one of the top five books relevant to understanding Dick Cheney, 9/11, Iraq, and the demise of the Republic.

This author is a Nobel-level researcher who has specialized in cover-ups and conspiracies, who with this book has fourteen serious books in being, a few of them poetry of a serious nature.

The book begins with a lovely list of nineteen trailblazers that is galringly incomplete, but a nice touch and worthy of note.

As I worked my way through the book I was thinking to myself that this author has brought together, in one volume in which half the pages are endnotes, much of what I have been trying to address in my 950+ reviews and my lists on Cheney and 9/11 and anti-Americanism.

The author is superbly credible and well-written in documenting the many miscalculations that have been the result of the intersection between Saudi Arabia, Texas and Geneva, and aggravated (my own view) by Zionists and Israeli genocide against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. I have a note, "tontos utiles," which is what Americans are called in Latin America: "useful idiots." In reality, Cheney is not an idiot, he is simply the most amoral war criminal to ever sit in the Oval Office.

The author is extremely good at showing how Cheney's power emerged with the creation of the Continuity of Operations (COG) parallel government during the Reagan Administration. I am quite certain that Dick Cheney was controlling every aspect of US Government operations on 9/11, and I believe this book and the other books listed below to the point that I feel the 9/11 Commission was a cover-up, and We the People must indict and impeach Dick Cheney or be forever disgraced in the eyes of the world as accomplices to his murderous misdeeds and his 25 high crimes and misdemeanors.

The author ends the book beautifully, with a call for Open Politics that ends with glossary of open politics. Readers may be interested in my keynote speech to Gnomedex in Seattle, "Open Everything, which will shortly be available at my web site as a 9 minute download, with the slides easily found at my website/GNOME.

The author is an English professor, and I can think of no higher praise for his work than to say he is the most erudite patriot I have ever read. This is a moving thoughtful work of enormous importance to those who wish to save the Republic and the Constitution from the criminals and traiors that have hijacked the three branches of the federal government.

There are 27 secessionist movements for good reason. If we do not act now, before 2008, every one of those 27 secessionist movements will have every right to withdraw from what has become the most dangerous rogue nation on the planet. What is being done "in our name" is immoral, unaffordable, unsustainable, and unnecessary. It's time we took the Republic back.

See also:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
The Power of Israel in the United States
They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It