Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil [Hardcover]

James Bovard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2003

"The war on terrorism is the first political growth industry of the new Millennium." So begins Jim Bovard's newest and, in some ways, most provocative book as he casts yet another jaundiced eye on Washington and the motives behind protecting "the homeland" and prosecuting a wildly unpopular war with Iraq. For James Bovard, as always, it all comes down to a trampling of personal liberty and an end to privacy as we know it. From airport security follies that protect no one to increased surveillance of individuals and skyrocketing numbers of detainees, the war on terrorism is taking a toll on individual liberty and no one tells the whole grisly story better than Bovard.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Bovard, who has written for the Wall Street Journal and the American Spectator, among others, looks at the post-September 11 policies and actions of the government and finds them sorely lacking. (He also has a lot to say about how the government let the terrorist attacks happen in the first place.) Instead of fighting the terrorist menace, he argues, the Bush administration's cosmetic gestures reward incompetence and establish dangerous legal precedents. While dealing with civil rights issues (the Patriot Act "treats every citizen like a suspected terrorist"), the book casts a wider net, including the intertwining of the wars on drugs and terrorism and the continued bungling of flight security (additional guards at airports "did little more than take up space and consume oxygen"). Meticulously documented from contemporary news accounts, this rant against Bush's "aura of righteousness" may well leave readers as angry as its author.
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Review

"Terrorism and Tyranny is a scathing account of the war on terrorism...Bovard is a bipartisan scourge...His lively fury at government incompetence keeps the pages turning quickly...Most riveting." -- Edmund Carlevale, The Boston Globe

"[Bovard] has synthesized and organized a vast amount of information, yet he presents it in an acessible, reader-friendly way.... A timely, troubling book, exhaustively and impeccably researched and documented.... an important, indeed essential, guide to the complex issues with which we must now grapple." -- Martin Sieff, The Washington Times

"No one is spared in Bovard's merciless review of our spectacularly unsuccessful war on terrorism."--Justin Raimondo, The American Conservative

"Invaluable....the best one-stop source I've seen for what various officials actually said at various times, suffused with intelligent
analysis." --Alan Bock, Orange County Register

"...a concise and accurate chronicle of what happened and what could happen to our freedom as a result of excessive federal government power."-Jim Grichar, LewRockwell.com

"If you want to know what is really going on in President Bush's War on Terror, read Terrorism and Tyranny."--Charley Reese online

"Meticulously documented from contemporary news accounts, this rant against Bush's 'aura of righteousness' may well leave readers as angry as its author."--Publishers Weekly

"Bovard's take is ... a far more detailed and wide-ranging assault on the Patriot Act and the Bush administration, dense with example after example of governmental oppression, folly, and ineptitude in the wake of 9/11.
Bovard is a superb reporter.... He has apparently read just about everything
cf0published, in both the traditional and alternative media, about the egregious conduct of government officials, investigators, airport screeners, and bureaucrats everywhere in the last two years . His parade of horribles is sourced with exceptional attention to detail [in 67 pages of fine-print footnotes]...
Bovard offers far more than an infuriating record of government misconduct. His is a libertarian critique of any government's-including ours-inherent tendency to aggrandize and abuse its power." -- Michael Stern, The American Lawyer

"Meticulously documented¿this rant against Bush''s ''aura of righteousness'' may well leave readers as angry as its author."

(Publishers Weekly 20030825)

"[Bovard] has synthesized and organized a vast amount of information, yet he presents it in an acessible, reader-friendly way.... A timely, troubling book, exhaustively and impeccably researched and documented.... an important, indeed essential, guide to the complex issues with which we must now grapple."

(Martin Sieff The Washington Times 20031223)

"[A] scathing account of the war on terrorism...Bovard is a bipartisan scourge...His lively fury at government incompetence keeps the pages turning quickly...most riveting."

(Edmund Carlevale The Boston Globe 20040204)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1st edition (September 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403963681
• ISBN-13: 978-1403963680
• Product Dimensions: 1.7 x 6.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #728,971 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan (Kindle version 2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (St. Martin's/Palgrave, 2006), and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. He is a contributing editor for the American Conservative and a regular contributor to the Future of Freedom monthly, published by the Future of Freedom Foundation.

The Wall Street Journal called Bovard 'the roving inspector general of the modern state,' and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a 'one-man truth squad.' His 1994 book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty received the Free Press Association's Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association.

His writings have been been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 85 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Washington's Watchdog Author September 17, 2003

By Karen A. Decoster

Format:Hardcover

Jim Bovard, in the words of the Orange County Register, is "Washington's most hated truth-teller." In his latest book, _Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil_, he sustains that long-standing reputation with surefire dignity and aplomb.

You get a feeling about a book and its author, when, in the book's very first sentence, he rivets you to your chair with jackhammer force by stating that "the war on terrorism is the first political growth industry of the new millennium." The rest of the book falls out from that thesis, as Bovard takes the reader on a journey through the war on terrorism, starting with the mostly forgotten Reagan crusade, and onward through to the Bush cabal.

Jim Bovard is, without a doubt, the best political researcher-writer in politics today. While most writers add a few footnotes to their writing, Bovard adds some first-rate writing to his immaculate set of footnotes. He doesn't make wild judgments or blanket allegations; he provides an encyclopedia's worth of timely quotes laid out in chronological fashion to funnel the reader through an extensive framework of US government double-dealing, coercion, corruption, and propaganda milling.

Perhaps the most unforeseen and brilliant facet of Bovard's chronology is his application of the war on terror's inauguration as being firmly planted in the Ronald Reagan camp. It's as if he expected the reader to forgive and forget, or at least not conjure up those deep-rooted memories in light of the Bush administration's tyranny spree.

Buy this book. No matter what your views; right, left, center, or indifferent, you won't be disappointed.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important And Essential Book For Our Times January 3, 2004

By Barron Laycock HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

On the dust jacket of his new book, author James Bovard quotes Attorney General John Ashcroft's chilling words regarding the costs associated with the raging war against terrorism. Ashcroft claims, "Those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty...will only aid terrorists as they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends". Such is the poisonous atmosphere created by the current administration and its utter disregard for the civil liberties and precious personal freedoms of average Americans. This then, is an extremely well written book that exhaustively details the manifest ways in which the Bush administration has misused and abused its power and privilege in what is obviously the most blatant grab for exclusive executive power in the last two hundred years.

Characterizing the war on terror as the single most aggressive growth industry of the new millennium, Bovard boldly documents the specifics of the Bush' administration's war against its own people through the implementation of a wide range of anti-democratic measures to ensure its hold on power and to use the rationale of the war on terror to pursue a plethora of totally unrelated neo-conservative goals. For Bovard, the current range of executive branch actions against terror has more to do with ensuring its own survival in an abrasive political environment than it does with combating the actual terrorist threat. Every action taken is done with public assurances it is being done with scrupulous and diligent concern for protecting individual rights and personal privacy, when in fact the administration then eschews any and all efforts to oversee or surveil its constitutionally questionable actions and policies.... It misrepresents the actions of its agencies such as the FBI or the Department of Homeland Security at the same time it seeks to extend its ability to monitor and control the civil liberties of its innocent citizens.

Much of the book centers on the specific ways in which the tyranny of the established order attempts to justify its own actions by portraying them as being taken in the public interest. Yet rather than commit sufficient funds for enhancing internal security or bolstering first responder capabilities for cities, states, and municipalities at risk of terrorist strikes, they engage in the single largest tax-refund program for wealthy Americans since the initiation of the federal tax code in the 20th century. They exaggerate victories and minimize failures, and use "bait and switch" tactics to sell a war in Iraq by claiming Iraq posed a clear and present terrorist danger to the United States. The Bush administration constantly conjures up references to freedom and liberty, yet supports many governments that are both anti-democratic and authoritarian to their own citizens.

Most provocatively, Bovard shares a wealth of documents and sources showing how a group of neo-conservative intellectuals have hijacked the means of governance for their own ideological and self-interested purposes. Several of the insiders are prominent Zionists like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who seem to view the current questionable and sometimes brutal military and political tactics of the Sharon government in Israel against the Palestinian refugees in the so-called territories as an ostensible model for how to manhandle and subjugate the truth into a tool to help fashion their own agendas through astute public relations and incredible `chutzpah' in terms of political spin of the situation. Thus anyone disagreeing with neo-conservative doctrines is accused of tacitly suspect patriotism. More worrying is the seeming unilateral agenda of the administration for remaking the world into a form more congenial to American corporate interests. In Bush's view, American hegemony and American service to democratic ideals seem to be the same thing. This is an important book, and one that honestly deserves your most earnest attention. Enjoy! Read more ›

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How our liberties changed after 9-11 May 26, 2005

By Tommy Yeargin

Format:Hardcover

I became interested in "Terrorism and Tyranny", by James Bovard, after his appearance on C-SPAN's "Booknotes" program.

The author provides an incredible amount of documentation to back up the book. It delves into how the USA-PATRIOT Act has done serious harm to our civil liberties, and it uncovers the new attitude of the government in the days since 9/11.

"Terrorism and Tyranny" is a warning to all of us that more government power and surveilance doesn't necessarily mean a safer nation, and that sweeping government reform like the USA-PATRIOT Act can potentially have devastating consequences to the freedoms that we all enjoy.

This book is a very fascinating read, no matter which side of the political spectrum you belong.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent fact-based recitation June 16, 2005

By Walter Nissen

Format:Paperback

I really wish I could give this book five stars. It treats the most important political issue in the United States, the war on terrorism, arguing one side of the question, "Is it worth it?" Bovard is clearly on the "no" side, methodically comparing the value of invading Iraq, allying with Israel, Russia, and Pakistan, and unfettering law enforcement as part of the "war." He highlights the minor benefits and dramatic consequences, and lambastes the Bush and Clinton administrations for their incredibly poor grasp of how to prevent terror. You will be shocked at how callous and misleading the U.S. government (both Democrat and Republican) has been in the face of its own brutal misdeeds. Unfortunately, the author's anger leaks into the otherwise "just the facts" text, and the occasional overdone metaphor weakens the impact of the thousands of documented, footnoted references. Still, absolutely worth reading, if only as an antidote to the continuing phony drumbeat of "war," "freedom," and "terrorists" coming from the White House.