Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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46 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine exposure of US state brutality, January 17, 2004
This fascinating book presents official sources documenting the US ruling class's strategy for world domination, centrally for controlling the oil of the Middle East. In particular, it shows how the US's rulers adopted Saddam Hussein, used him for more than 30 years, and then turned against him when he disobeyed them.
Ahmed cites the American state propagandist Samuel Huntington, "Muslims ... fight non-Muslims far more often than do peoples of other civilisations." Huntington could note how many wars the US state has waged against `non-Americans' - 74 since 1945.
The USA's precursor empire, Britain, claimed that in the Middle East it was fighting "to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism", that is, against its people! Similarly now, the occupying forces in Iraq claim to be defending the country - against its people!
For nearly 30 years, Saddam Hussein was one of the CIA's men in the Middle East, an obedient dictator. The CIA helped Hussein in the 1963 and 1968 coups, giving him lists of trade unionists to be killed (5000 in 1963 alone).
In 1980 Iraq attacked Iran, after the US government had given Iraq the green light to invade. There were no frantic US-British efforts at the UN to denounce Iraqi aggression! In 1982, the US government took Iraq off its list of terrorist states. Later, after Iraq had used US-supplied chemical weapons, the US government increased its licensing of dual-use technology exports to Iraq.
In 1990, Thatcher and Reagan encouraged Kuwait not to negotiate with Iraq. Then the US government assured Iraq of its neutrality, while planning its attack. The US government told us that Iraq was threatening Saudi Arabia - but commercial satellite pictures showed no Iraqi troops on the border. The Pentagon's photos, which it said proved that the troops were there, remain classified.
As for the sanctions against Iraq, the US government knew from the start that sanctions would `fully degrade' Iraq's water treatment facilities. In 1999, the ethical Blair government prevented the shipment of vaccines to Iraqi children. "Iraqis will pay the price while he [Saddam] remains in power" said the US Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates. The genocidal sanctions clearly broke the Geneva Conventions against harming civilians.
Now the occupiers are opposing elections, because the wrong people would win - yet more proof that the war was never about democracy, but about oil and obedience.
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23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant ,Erudite , Gripping., August 12, 2004
Author gives an excellent account of run up of events leading up to the Anglo-American assault on Iraq.Author's arguments unassailable based on irrefutable logic.
Economic considerations prompted US UK to invade Iraq.Of late US has become vulnerable to energy shocks with domestic production unable to cope with increasing demand.This has led to occasional blackouts in places like California.Prior to Iraq war America's oil inventories fell to the lowest level since 1975 with the country on the verge of drawing oil from 'Strategic Petroluem Reserve'
Iraq under Saddam Hussein was becoming what author says a ' swing producer'.In other words he was turning oil tap on and off whenever Baghdad felt that such a policy was suiting its interests.Hussein even contemplated removing Iraqi oil from the market for extended periods of time which would have sent crude oil prices soaring.
Besides Hussein began to challenge US monoply on oil trade.We all know oil trade is transacted in dollars.Hussein switched the trade to Euros.As a result dollar's value diminished by 17 percent.Were other oil-producing countries like Nigeria, Iran Venezuela to follow suit dollar's value would erode.Hussein's measures , in short, threatned America's economic , military pre-eminence.So he was ousted replaced by pro western stooge subservient Illad Allawi.
Bush- Blair team went to absurd lengths to justify invasion of Iraq.Intelligence on Iraq's WMD capability was cooked up distorted ,exaggerated to bolster case for war .Blair even had the gumption to claim that Iraq had lethal weapons which could be activated in 45 mts and was poised to strike British bases in Cyprus.An argument that sound ridiculous because we know from inde sources between a period from 1992-98 98 percent of Iraq WMD was destroyed along with infrastructure to make those weapons. Bush-Blair team ,I feel ,deliberately mislead their people to make a case for war.
Fact goes that Iraq could be invaded easily because it did not have weapons to defend herself.Britain US saw to it Iraq was fully disarmed begore unleashing their armies.In this they were helped by UN Security council which did the dirty work of disarming Iraq.It looks from this train of events that ' right to self-defence ' belongs to few coutries in the west.This a a covert form of racism.Be that may, US UK have taught coutries like N Korea ,Syria, Iran an ugly lesson better arm yourself with nuclear weapons if you want ot deter possible future hostile action.
What US UK want unfettered, unrestrained access to oil of resource-rich Middle East.What they fear most is indigenous nationalsm. Controlling the region by force is nothing but fascism and will not sove problems plaguing the region.It will breed resentment leading to vicious form of 'blowback'a term used by prominent American academic Chalmers Johnson.This term isused to denote negative inevitable consequences stemming from American imperial policies.
Author says it is possible to make western world immune to oilshocks.This can be done by exploring alternative sources of energy and changing fuel consumption patterns of people.
Book contains intersting facts pertaining to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait,anthrax scare in US which many in the west may find hard to digest . Truth sometimes is unpalatable.
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35 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oil and power, October 3, 2003
Ahmed's analysis of the war in Iraq contains at least a big part of the truth, and, for me, the essential part.
The war was/is all about control of Middle east oil, because Iraq possesses probably the world's biggest inexpensive and high quality oil reserves.
As Ahmed clearly explains, our technological civilization is totally dependent on oil and the actual oil reserves are now being depleted at a rate of about 2 per cent each year. Control of the oil price is a crucial problem for the West, if it wants to keep its actual living standard.Saddam, in fact, began to act independently as an oil producer and even asked to be paid in Euros (see an important article in the English paper 'The Guardian' of February 26 2003). If this policy should be adopted by other oil producers, the US would not only lose control of the oil reserves, but even of the oil price. Fundamentally however, Ahmed's analysis is based on respect of basic human aspirations: freedom, independence, human rights. One could say that his analysis is naïve (or idealistic), and contrary to 'normal' human behaviour, which is search for power, dominance, unchallenged hegemony. The citations of George F. Kennan and Madeleine Albright in this book are most typical (or should I say, cynical) in that respect.
Ahmed's book is a magnified example of the deeds of an unchallenged political and military power. Of course, as he proves time and again, the international sanctions against Iraq were illegal. Of course, they were intended to the fall of Saddam and the installation of a pro-Western government.
And unfortunately, nobody who wields total power (one needs another analysis why some nations got it and others not) has not exploited it in his own interest or lost it without a struggle (see the masterful analysis of power by Laura Betzig). As a matter of fact, Ahmed himself stops short of giving an opinion on the Iranian situation during and after the reign of the by the author much admired Ayatollah Khomeini, who installed an Islamic shiite oligarchy in Iran. Respect of human rights on the international level can only be imposed by supranational authorities (the UN, an international court). But if these authorities try to take measures against 'vital' interests of one of its members and if that member has enough power, it will neglect all the resolutions and even completely disregard them. Even if it knows that its behaviour equals or installs the 'law of the jungle'.
It is crucial for world peace that the UN should wield international power and be able to impose sanctions. But there is another alarming and frightening aspect of the war in Iraq: freedom of speech was curbed in order to hide the truth.
If the author is correct that US troops fired deliberately at journalists whom they considered not loyal to their cause, then this is the same as the barbarous demolition of the library of Pergamon. This book is a compelling, provocative and must read.
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