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75 of 81 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tars CIA & FBI, US, UK, France, with Supporting Terrorists, 9-11 a Pretext, October 25, 2005
While there is certainly something to be said for this book painting a "worst case" conspiracy theory scenario, I have to say that it is consistent with both my years of experience as a clandestine case officer, anad my extensive reading on national security misadventures. I do agree with one reviewer's observation that we should not over-estimate the competence of the U.S. Government, but I also believe that we cannot under-estimate the incompetence of the bureaucracy nor the lack of ethics of the political ideologues.
Academically, objectively, this book is about as carefully laid out and sourced as one could want. The quotes that it offe
rs from official State Department officers complaining they were ordered to give visas to clearly unqualified terrorists being trained and supported by CIA stand out, as do the retrospective quotes on everything the FBI failed to do against the first World Trade Center bombing. This book is, in brief, everything the 9/11 Commission was not. The two taken together, along with the Aspin-Brown Commission, give us a good sense for reality.
Having been a part of the CIA when it was committing high crimes and misdemeanors in Central America, and having been a youth in Viet-Nam when CIA was in charge of the Phoenix assassination program and learning how to fly drugs and launder money for its warlords, and based on my extensive reading, I am persuaded of the three core propositions in this book:
1) That CIA and FBI managed clandestine relations with those who blew up the World Trade Center for years, and generally concealed and obstructed Justice investigations after 9/11 because of their antecedent mis-behavior;
2) That both the Clinton and Bush White Houses actively supported the Taliban and the secret Enron negotiations with the Taliban to build energy pipelines, not realizing at the time (as we know today) that the extraction and transportation of the energy as envisioned then is actually not supportable; and
3) That the Bush White House was already planning to invade Afghanistan, with all of the operational plans drawn up as early as July 2001, and 9/11 was treated as a Pearl Harbor pretext.
Having read most of what has been written by Brzezinski, Kissinger, and others I find the author's speculation that the U.S., the U.K., and France, among others, have been actively using terrorists, nurturing terrorists, as part of a geopolitical and economic strategy, and that in their naivete, they nurtured a force they cannot control today, to be completely credible.
I recommend this book be read together with Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin by Larry Beinhart, and The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Kuntsler. The first examines information that can be known, as in this book, but that is ignored if not over-shadowed by "spin"; while the second examines the pathological implications of cheap oil and all that cheap oil has made possible, including the creation of huge cities that are unsustainable into the future; the transport of vast quantities of water over long distances to places that will be dry in the near term; and the shipping of very cheap goods over very long distances from China by Wal-Mart.
Bottom line: cheap oil is the fool's gold of this century, only it is toxic and radioactive. The White House, Enron, and a cast of rather poorly-read bureaucrats came together to create a toxic mold called sub-state terrorism. The bureaucrats were following orders or had good intentions--the politicans and their corporate cronies were and are out and out thieves who are looting the Republic for their own selfish gains, firm in the belief that enough people will be fooled until they are out of office and laughing all the way to the Cayman Islands. They are probably right.
EDIT of 11 Dec 07: See also, with reviews:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
and of course the 9-11 DVDs, which I find compelling.
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33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The case that we're sliding into totalitiarianism on a raft of lies, December 25, 2005
Having read several books on the phenomenon of terrorism and historical accounts of 9/11, I must conclude that Mr. Ahmed's book, "The War On Truth" is head and shoulders above the fray. Copiously researched and constructed from an abundance of corroborated sources amply qualifying his statements, Mr. Ahmed pops the membrane of the vainglorious hype balloons - packaged for distribution by WH propaganda offices and politically motivated committees and floated by the corporate media - revealing a national security complex that has been deeply politicized and compromised to serve elite transnational corporate interests at the peril and expense of the American people and indigenous populations around the world, particularly in Eurasia. After consuming this reality sandwich - which illustrates the tactical use of terrorism to achieve corporate welfare and "strategic imperatives" - you will never see the so-called "war on terror" in the same way. This is a good thing, because what America and its Western allies need more than anything else is a good dose of truth.
If we were a country of laws - rather than political expediency - there would have been a full-scale criminal investigation of 9/11 conducted by an Independent Special Prosecutor and Grand Jury with unlimited judicial subpoena power. Instead, we are sliding into totalitarianism on a raft of lies. Mr. Ahmed's book makes a strong case for returning to the lawful, Constitutional process and holding those who have treasonously hijacked the nation's intelligence and military capabilities accountable.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The War On Truth, December 18, 2005
In my opinion, for those wanting to look deeper into the events surrounding 9/11 and it's implications, "The War On Truth" should be number one on the book list. Mr. Ahmed's work solidly proves, with sober scholarship, the staggering amount of involvement and complicity on the side of the US Government in the attacks of 9/11 specifically, and in international terrorism generally. Mr. Ahmed attempts to show how international terrorism is an effective tool and vital pretext used by US elites for the expansion of US hegemony in the world, and for the control of remaining energy supplies in Eurasia. In my opinion, Mr.Ahmed's work succeeds on all levels. 9/11 was but the much needed "Pearl-Harbor" which could provide the "shocking" and much-needed pretext for America to begin to implement it's plans, which have been devised over the past decade or so, to invade Afghanistan and establish a base and "jumping off point" for further operations in Central Asia. Essentially, the US government allowed for the murder of 3,000 of its citizens to provide the "much needed justification" to pursue this objective, i.e. the war on terror, which is anything but.
In response to those who criticize Mr. Ahmed for "not being extreme and hardcore enough", I think this is absolutely absurd and idiotic. Mr. Ahmed has contributed a work which is solid in its academic approach, and undeniable in its presentation of the material. This is a sober, and much needed work on the topic of 9/11, which can hold up to any scrutiny directed at it by those wishing to deny the allegations of US government involvement in 9/11, in my opinion. Let people who are perhaps not very informed on these matters build for themselves a solid basis of information of what happened and why, and from there they can delve further into the more "technical" aspects of what occured.I agree with Mr. Ahmed, who, in a lecture and question and answer session on C-Span, commented that he didn't want to scare off those interested in 9/11 by appearing as nothing more than another conspiracy theorist. I agree with this approach. The facts are there and undeniable. Why not try and make them available to as many people as possible? Once people have a firm understanding of these facts, they will naturally want to delve deeper into the topic and perhaps investigate the more "hardcore" aspects of 9/11.
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