Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rigorous Political Science, June 1, 2004
By A Customer
Why would I want to pay to read what a "non-expert" with absolutely no credentials in military affairs or international relations has to say about the U.S. in Iraq? Because I prefer the rational, empirical analysis built from the facts up rather than an analysis put forward by an "expert" indoctrinated by higher education (1) to accept simplistic and downright childish establishment principles (e.g., the U.S. government always acts with benevolent intentions) and (2) to explain facts only in terms of those naive principles (e.g., if the U.S. invades Iraq, it must be to liberate Iraqis and spread democracy because the U.S. government always acts with benevolent intentions). To say the very least, a Ph.D. in political science from a state university is not a requirement to understand the world.Mahajan is an expert, in the proper use of the term. He has a command of the facts, both current and historical, and his explanation of the U.S. government's behavior is properly inferred from them (as opposed to explaining facts in terms of unwarranted and naive assumptions borne of indoctrination with no basis in observational fact, as self-described "experts" tend to do). This book is not a book about strategy. Rather, it is an empirical and scientific work that collects facts (data), draws conclusions, and posits a theory based upon them, familiar ground for a physicist.
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44 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Common sense and decency in these diabolical times, December 14, 2003
Mahajan notes that the U.S. from Bush Sr. through Clinton and George the dumber gave Saddam every reason not to fully comply with the disarmament provisions of UN resolution 687 by stating that contrary to that resolution, it would keep sanctions on Iraq and seek to overthrow Saddam even if Iraq was certified to be completely disarmed. The U.S. engaged in heavy spying of Iraqi government institutions about matters nothing to do with WMD, as noted by former Inspections head Rolf Eakus in his Financial Times interview. In Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, he notes, only 11 of 97 targets were WMD related. The rest were Republican guard and secret police facilities, command and control centers. He notes that the U.S. likely decided to invade Iraq in August 2002 when Rumsfeld started bombing command and control centers and non-active air defenses in the illegal "no-fly zones" whose bombings were causing hundreds of civilian casualties according to former UN humanitarian coordinator Hans Von Sponek. The U.S. got the security council to pass UN resolution 706, in September 1991, the original "Oil for Food ," which after "reparations" to go in large part to oil companies harmed by Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, left Iraq a maximum of only 930,000 dollars of oil to sell over a trial period of several months. This was well below the proposal of UN undersecretary Aga Khan that called for Iraq to be able to sell enough oil to be able to partially repair its vital civilian infrastructure destroyed by the U.S. in 1991. When the program started about $15 per capita got in, only about 26 out of the 41 billion directed for Iraq, and the Iraqi economy remained collapsed, unable to generate income. He quotes UN under secretary general Martti Ahtissaari from 1991, left Iraq in a "near-apocalyptic state." Through 2002 the U.S. placed holds on billions of dollars worth of material needed to repair vitally needed civilian infrastructure as well as hospital equipment and vaccines, claiming absurdly that basic vaccines could be transmuted into biological weapons. He notes how the head of U.S. AID claimed in April 2003 that the vile Saddam had not repaired Basra's water/sanitation facilities. He said this after the British had gallantly knocked out Basra's electricity thus once again shutting down what remained of Basra's water treatment facilities. This of course is a vile lie, the U.S. had been blocking the importation of parts for their repair on the sanctions committee. Iraq's oil for food revenue was placed in a Bank in New York and directly dispersed to companies whose contracts with Iraq were approved. Saddam couldn't get at it so he could build palaces. After the first Gulf war, the U.S. did all it could to impede the Iraqi rebellion. Brent Scowcroft who allowed that at that point he would have preferred the Iraqi military to retain in control rather than the rebels. The U.S. feared the rebels would not follow orders from the U.S. so they preferred to keep Saddam in power for the moment. Thomas Friedman, that shameless voice for the powerful on the New York Times explained that the U.S. hoped that eventually Saddam would be replaced by "an iron fisted junta" that would rule Iraq the same way Saddam did when the U.S. was giving him all he needed to "gas his own people," blocking condemnation of him in congress and blaming the Halabja massacre on Iran. He notes that the U.S. will continue to support as much as possible the brutal dictatorships governing the region, who give oil companies huge profits in extracting their oil and then spend the massive revenues they get not for the most part on their own people but buying weapons in the West to repress those people, treasury bonds, etc. This capital flight is contrasted with the lack of spending by these oligarchs on increasing production capacity to meet the huge increase in demand for ME oil. Getting a client state with such awesome untapped reserves as Iraq that can support oil production policies the U.S. wants against OPEC is important. But getting rid of rivals for political domination of the region is what U.S. policy in the ME is first and foremost about. He notes how the U.S. played something of a role in the coup against Hugo Chavez in April 2002 and how they refused the Taliban's offer to extradite Bin Laden to Pakistan. It has refused repeatedly since 1995 Sudan's offers of its files on Bin Laden and dismissed the Sudanese arrest of two people after the 1998 embassy bombings.The U.S. destroyed the factory producing the majority of Sudan's most needed medicines in August 1998, claiming falsely it was producing precursors to BCW. Who knows how many thousands have died as a result of that attack. The U.S. of course always supports violations of UN resolutions and does it a lot itself. For example it provided arms for Indonesia to slaughter East Timorese for twenty-four years. It has supports Morocco's looting of the Western Sahara. It supports Israel's severe violations of the fourth Geneva Convention. It has never paid the 17 billion dollars to Nicaragua ordered by the World Court in 1986, which told it to stop using the contras to terrorize that country. Shortly after it vetoed a UN resolution calling on all states to observe international law. He starts off with some good stuff about the foreign policy of the neocons and how these maniacs argue that the U.S. should use mini-nukes against non-nuclear countries and that the affects of such mini-nukes can be contained. He points out the absurdity of even the "strongest evidence" advanced for the Bin Laden-Saddam intimate alliance. For example the supposed medical treatment received in Baghdad by the number two leader of the extremist Ansar Al Islam which operated in Kurdish-U.S. controlled Northern Iraq and whose leader was probably telling the truth when he denied any connection with Al Qaida. Then there was Colin Powell his slimy way at the UN claiming that a video, in which Bin Laden denounced Saddam as a socialist infidel but said he was in solidarity with the people of Iraq, was proof of an intimate Saddam-OBL connection.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent analysis, a must read, August 15, 2003
By A Customer
Mahajan's account cuts through the distortions of the media's coverage of the U.N. sanctions, weapons inspections and the Gulf War. I learned more about Iraq in the few hours it took to finish this small book than I did following the war for months. His style is very clear and his argument straightforward. Anyone skeptical about Bush's rationale for war will enjoy this book. And anyone in the peace movement (and there are millions of us!) should read this book and pass it on to a friend.
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