State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America

Book Description

Pat Buchanan is sounding the alarm. Since 9/11, more than four million illegal immigrants have crossed our borders, and there are more coming every day. Our leaders in Washington lack the political will to uphold the rule of law. The Melting Pot is broken beyond repair, and the future of our nation is at stake.
In this important book, Pat Buchanan reveals that, slowly but surely, the great American Southwest is being reconquered by Mexico. These lands---which many Mexicans believe are their birthright---are being detached ethnically, linguistically, and culturally from the United States by a deliberate policy of the Mexican regime. This is the “Aztlan Plot” for “La Reconquista,” the recapture of the lands lost by Mexico in the Texas War of Independence and Mexican-American War.
Comparing the immigrant invasion of America from across the Mexican border---and of Europe from across the Mediterranean---to the barbarian invasions that ended the Roman Empire, the author writes with passion and conviction that we have begun the final chapter of the Death of the West. Unless the invasion is halted now, Buchanan argues, by midcentury America will be a country unrecognizable to our parents, the Third World dystopia that Theodore Roosevelt warned against when he said we must never let America become a “polyglot boardinghouse” for the world.
President Bush’s failure to halt the invasion and secure America’s border, Buchanan writes, is a dereliction of constitutional duty that, in other times, would have called forth articles of impeachment. In the final chapter, “Last Chance,” he lays out a sweeping immigration reform and border security plan, which, he contends, if not pursued, means George W. Bush’s legacy will be to have lost for America a Southwest that was the legacy of Sam Houston, Andrew Jackson, and James K. Polk. With an estimated ten to fifteen million “illegals” already here and tens of millions more poised to pour across our borders, few books could be as timely---or important---as State of Emergency. It is essential reading for all Americans.

Customer Reviews:

xenophobia or rational position?.......2007-09-13

Buchanan, makes an impassioned argument that the country is in a 'state of emergency' because of our neglegence in dealing with the immigration issue. However, many of the arguments seem to steam from a fear that America is losing its traditional anglo-identity, and not rational arguments that show why largre-scale immigration is such a great evil for this country. While he does makes some good points and back them up with some statistics, most of the time is just trying to scare people with anticdotal evidence. I conclude that Buchanan's book, while completely correct that we need to pay attention to the immigration issue and that there could be catastrophic effects for neglecting it, fails to ever show that a large mexican immigration is a bad thing just that there needs to be restrictions in place on who we let in and what we require of them.

A Good Book but lacking in the Proper Historical Perspective .......2007-08-19

Texas, AZ, NM, CAL, Utah and most of the eastern US, areas the US now calls its own were neither paid for properly nor legally. They were stolen from their owners, both native american indians and latinos. Buchanan mentions that CAL for example only had 3,000 Mexicans in it when these lands were stolen from them. How many americans were there at the time????? Not very many. What he conveniently fails to mention are the lands which these 3,000 owned at the time, mnay of them were farmers who controlled huge areas of land in the most desireable climatic growing areas. The US government promised these people compensation for their lands if they permitted their lands to be squatted on by expansionist caucasian farmers, miners and cattlemen. But once the caucasian squatting started the deals were soon broken. The lands given to the american indians were even more laughable, typically dry, nearly waterless lands with little to no meaningful crop or cattle supporting abilities which the expansionist caucasians did not want to occupy anyway. Wow what a deal for them indeed.

This is what happens when the creation of "your" country is basically the result of an entirely "Illegal Caucasian Invasion" which is what the title of this book really should be. Unlike many other nations where new cultures immagrated in and assimililated themselves in a legal manner, the US as we know it today was essentially stolen at gunpoint from its occupants in a wholly illegal manner. Historical FACTOID! It's laughable how we whine about what is happening in the US but talk about how bad Hitler was in Germany. What exactly did Hitler do that was so bad? How about the fact he occupied lands at gunpoint, slaughtered millions of the inhabitants in those occupied lands, and committed all sorts of atrocities upon the native peoples of those lands he invaded. Sound like familiar story folks????? Well, it is, because that is EXACTLY how america was formed by primarily euro based caucasians in the past 200 years. Indians were slaughtered, their food sources wiped out, Latinos were slaughtered and those who were offered "deals" almost never ended up getting what they were promised by the US government. We took the most fertile lands available and left the desolate areas for indians and called them "reservations". Our cheap labor force in the caucasian controlled South for decades was Negro slave labor STOLEN from Africa. Now we whine about how a new wave of invaders isn't fair, pooh hoo hoo. This is called reaping what you have sowed. If you or Buchanan had bothered to study your history even a bit for the past millenium you would know that this is how all countries formed at gunpoint usually inevitably end up.

As for the laughable comment that Clinton and GW Bush caused the current immigration problem, better go study some more history. Good old Ron Reagan, the same guy who authorized selling chemical weapons to Saddam, the same guy who illegally sold weapons to Iran a sworn enemy of the US at the time, the same guy who deregulated the S&L's leading to the S&L crisis and a $1 trillion taxpayer funded bailout of the S&L crisis (through the RTC) is also the same EXACT fellow who promoted amnesty and opened the doors for the current wave of huge immigration into this nation. Bush SR also certainly played his part, and in fact up until this past November your Congress had been controlled by Republicans for the past 13 years, blame them too. And most of all do not fail to blame both US consumers and employers, many of them caucasians. Consumers who love the low prices they pay for various goods thanks to the dirt cheap illegal labor employed by so many of the companies you buy goods from and the employers themselves who knowingly employ much of this illegal cheap labor force to fatten their profits. Stop the illegal employment and you'll end the problem. But of course you'll also then pay higher prices for your produce, landscaping, construction, restaurant food bills, clothing, etc..

Blame the primarily caucasian employers employing this labor force and the primarily caucasian consumers willingly buying and benefitting from the prices of the products produced/sold by the employers of these illegals while simultaneously whining about it like crybabies. Anyone here shop at Walmart recently????????????? They have been found guilty of hundreds of illegal immigrant employment violations in the past decade. If you shop there even once a year you and your family yourselves are therefore overt supporters of illegal immigration by your own consumer actions. WM is just one of many examples.

Sad but True.......2007-08-17

I hate to say it but I agree with everything Pat said. We can't even take care of whose here. No point in bringing in more problems.

Open This Book Only in Emergency. Now?.......2007-08-06

Mr. Buchanan, as ever, comes through with an easy to-understand slant on current affairs, this time making the case for curbing the numbers of immigrants entering our nation in a major way. He's a good writer, yes; but he too often gets bogged down in short chronologies of historical events that occurred well prior to his topic. This does make for some dry, colorless reading here and there. From the Austro-Hungarian Empire to 1918 Czechoslovakia to French Enlightenment and on, in many cases, the reader is left asking "What does this have to do with the subject at hand"?

Several of the chapters are bursting at the seams with percentages, numerical comparisons, quantities, poll results...in paragraph after paragraph of analysis of populations, voting results, immigration details, dollar figures. Great pages for the researcher, but he really doesn't footnote much of the number crunching; so often one wonders: "Pat, where'd all this numbing number-information come from, anyway?"

All in all, author Buchanan makes some compelling points about the impending "take-over" of USA Southwest by Mexican immigrants [by "invasion without a shot"], quite sanctioned by the Mexican government. He discusses big-city sanctuaries for illegals, quotas, assimilation, low-pay jobs and languages...and takes to task the allegiance of Mexicans as they proclaim for themselves: "Mexican-American, but Mexican first." He points out (many times) that we can expect the "loss of our country [Southwest and all, by "2050"] as we know it," unless we make prompt national adjustments.

He proclaims "things will change" for us in a major way, but Buchanan doesn't tell us how different things actually will be. He doesn't even make small guesses as to what to expect [by 2050, his repeatedly target year]. How will new "MexiAmerica" will look and feel? Excepting his recurrent assertion that whites will be in a definite minority, he doesn't say much more about the year 2050. --But who knows, Pat. It could all be for the better!

Too, the author doesn't say much (if anything) about the current influx of Muslims into the country.... We might guess he's simply left that to Mark Styne and his work on the subject. --But we should ask: why isn't it part of this book? Isn't the fast migration of Islam also a concern of "The [total] Emergency" that we face...or is Buchanan's whole concept being slightly exaggerated after all? Finally, The author notes we have but "one more chance" to return to sanity and security...and offers many salable directions for us to take to save ourselves...including building a long, fat border; reevaluation of "anchor baby" laws; and, he says, "no amnesty."

I'm not sure Pat Buchanan's made his case here; even so, he's come up with another interesting read. Yet "State of Emergency" does have the texture of Mark Styne's "Alone America" and Buchanan's previous work, "Death of the West." It's the same Pat Buchanan here with an old focus--and a bit of new information plus some absorbing looks at how Mexicans see the USA. Three stars for a relevant re-hash of many things we pretty much know about...amid vacant history lessons we pretty much don't much care about.

Clear and concise.......2007-07-13

Pat Buchanan presents the problem of illegal immigration and possible
terrorist threat in a logical way. There are no scare tactics, just
"how it really is" and "how it could be". I am not a raving conservative,
and am in fact on the more liberal side, but everything he said makes
sense. I gave it 4 stars because he throws in the occassional "slam"
toward the Democrats but for the most part he concentrates on the
problem that affects us all.

The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization

Average customer rating:

The Death Of The West
An important trend that is often ignored by the mainstream media
A curious read and ominous suggestion...
AWESOME read!
Dear Mr Buchanan, you've missed something

The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization
Patrick J. Buchanan
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America
Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency
A Republic, Not an Empire
In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security
Right from the Beginning

ASIN: 0312302592

Amazon.com

Patrick J. Buchanan's contentious premise in The Death of the West is that the United States is no longer a healthy melting pot, but instead a confused, tottering "conglomeration of peoples with almost nothing in common." Relying on United Nations population statistics, and citing such diverse sources as Yogi Berra and Rhett Butler, Buchanan sees for America four "clear and present dangers": declining birth rates; uncontrolled immigration of peoples of "different colors, creed, and cultures"; a rise of "anti-Western" culture antithetical to established religious, cultural, and moral norms; and a "defection of ruling elites" to the idea of world government. His solutions include higher wages and tax breaks for parents than for singles, a dramatic rollback of immigration quotas, and a National History Bee. Buchanan's volatile, adamant book eschews any middle ground. Readers will either applaud his ideas or be repulsed by them. --H. O'Billovitch

Book Description

The West is dying. Collapsing birth rates in Europe and the U.S., coupled with third-world population explosions, are set to cause cataclysmic shifts in world power, as unchecked immigration swamps and polarizes every Western society and nation. The facts are clear: There are 30 million foreign-born people in the U. S. today, and there are more than nine million illegal immigrantsmore than the populations of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island combined Not a single European countrysave Moslem Albaniahas a birth rate that will enableit to survive in its present form through this century By 2050, only 10% of the worlds people will be of European descent America is losing the cultural war. Militant paganism is crowding out the old faiths. Separatism is triumphing over integration. The melting pot has become a salad bowl. And the impact upon American society, politics, and culture will be devastating.

Customer Reviews:

The Death Of The West.......2007-08-24

This is an excellent, interesting, thought provoking book. I enjoyed it so much I have read it twice and have discussed the issues raised in the book with many people. I recommend it as essential reading for any westerner.

An important trend that is often ignored by the mainstream media.......2007-07-02

If birth rates are the best indication of a how much a people values itself, it's customs and it's traditions, then certainly Europeans and White Americans are in the pangs of self-loathing and self hatred. Nations and cultures usually die from internal causes and certainly the European way of life is rotten at the core. Europe and the American culture inherited from Europe is literally suicidal. Bucahanan does an outstanding job of laying out all of the grim statistics. The most important statistic is this: birth rates are exploding in the third world and developing nations while birth rates are exceedingly miniscule in the most developed nations of Europe, North america and Japan. What this means for the future no one can be certain but it is certainly an important phenomenon (maybe the most important trend in all of sociology) and one that for politically correct reasons does not receieve its due consideration in the mainstream media.

A curious read and ominous suggestion..........2007-05-17

"Death of the West" is a prophetic look at immigration and the state of our nation. One does not have to look very hard to see that this issue is of paramount importance in today's day and age. Buchannon sounds the horn, but will anyone listen to the discussion.

AWESOME read!.......2007-05-13

I never knew Patrick Buchanan was SO versed in history! A highly involved and educational read.

Didn't read it when it came out as I had the preconception that anything a staunch "conservative" would write would not be of interest. The reason? The label "conservative" has been hijacked and warped by the Neocons into a "mislabel".

Mr. Buchanan understands what a true "conservative" is and in my opinion is a true patriot.

Excellent read !!

Dear Mr Buchanan, you've missed something.......2006-11-30

Pat Buchanan's book has the following quote. It is from Katarina Runshe's book "Empty Hearts Empty Homes":

"Feminism is a Darwinian blind alley. In biological terms, there is nothing that identifies a maladaptive pattern so quickly as a below replacement level of reprocuction; an immediate consequence of feminism is what appears to be an irreversible decline in the birthrate. Nations pursue feminist policies at their peril."

Buchanan adds: "In short, the rise of feminism spells the death of the nation and the end of the West." And a little later, he says: "...the decisions women are making today will determine if Western nations will even be around in a century, and Western women are voting no."

Gloomy thoughts indeed.

But this view looks at society matrilineally: "Western Society" is being identified primarily with its women: we men are not even in the picture. Consequently, it fails to see the obvious. If feminist Western women want to "not-breed" themselves out of existence, then let them do so. We patriarchal males shall start looking for non-feminist--if necessary non-Western--women, who can be our life-companions, and the mothers of our children. There are plenty of them out there. We don't have to marry feminists.

In fact, a declining birth-rate poses a huge problem for feminism itself. If feminism is to survive for much further into the 21st century, then it needs to be passed on to the next generation, and the next generation after that. ie down the family line, from father to son, from mother to daughter to granddaughter.But is this likely to happen? According to a recent survey, 25% of young women aged 16 to 24 never want children. An italian feminist magazine found that 52% were of this opinion. Increasing numbers of women approach the end of the childbearing years, childless. Those who do have children, have them increasingly late. So the rate at which modern women reproduce themselves has slowed down considerably. One is tempted to say, that feminism cannot be passed on, because, increasingly, there is no next generation to whom to pass it.

Low birth rates do not affect all women equally. Women who identify strongly with a religious community of some sort--christian, hindu, moslem, jewish, or whatever--seem to have no trouble reproducing. The "Fatherhood and Family" ethos is still strong in those communities; hence, motherhood is valued too. And those women who are not especially religious, but who are not feminists either, also seem to do better than the national average of 1.66 children per woman. So that figure of 1.66 is only a national average. My hunch is that for feminists, the figure is lower than the national average--maybe 1.1 or 1.2 children per feminist woman. If that figure is correct, then it is pretty ominous for the future of feminism. It may be that feminism cannot be passed on to future generations, because, increasingly, there is no next generation to whom to pass it.

"Ah!" I hear you say, "What about those feminist who do have children?" Well, it is difficult to imagine feminism being passed down the male line---from father to son to grandson. Can't see it happening. So that only leaves the female line, matrilineally. Mother to daughter to granddaughter. But is even this much guaranteed? Daughters don't always follow their mothers. Imagine--just imagine--if a "Fatherhood and Family" type of culture were to become very popular in Western lands. What would happen then? My hunch is that many young women would abandon the feminism of their mothers, and embrace it. It will be observed, that in those communities where fatherhood is honored, there is no shortage of young women who hope one day to be mothers.

Unfortunately, the problem of declining birth-rates is usually approached from the point of view of women avoiding motherhood. Men are excluded from the picture; the result is a picture which is only half-complete, and so the solution is not found. Here are some examples:

Fifteen years or so ago, the declining birth-rate in Italy became too serious to ignore. Pope John Paul was moved to speak publicly about it. He urged women to "rediscover the joys of motherhood". A very noble sentim,ent. But he didn't mention fatherhood at all. Or if he did, the media failed to report it.

The birth-rate in Britain has dropped to a record low. In september 2004 government minister Patricia Hewitt spoke publicly about this problem. She urged women to halpsolve this problem by producing more babies. "It is your national duty", she aid, to embrace motherhood. And no, she didn't mention fatherhood either.

I remember listening to a BBC World Service program on this subject. A study had discovered that 25% of young women aged 16 to 24 had decided never to have children. And the young men? What was their attitude to fatherhood? We were not told. No-one thought to ask the question.

All too often, in Western countries, there is a huge blank space, where fatherhood should be honored. Or at least mentioned. Maybe that's the real underlying problem.

Pat Buchanan, unfortunately, in his otherwise excellent book, does not explore that aspect of things. Maybe in his next book?

Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores

Average customer rating:

Invasion
Why US citizens are so afraid.
To Protect a Nation
Political distortions in the form of jouranlism....
This Book Hits the Nail on the HEAD!!!!

Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores
Michelle Malkin
Manufacturer: Regnery Publishing, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Emigration & Immigration | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

U.S. | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Terrorism | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
In Defense of Internment: The World War II Round-Up and What It Means For America's War on Terror
Outrage: How Illegal Immigration, the United Nations, Congressional Ripoffs, Student Loan Overcharges, Tobacco Companies, Trade Protection, and Drug Companies Are Ripping Us Off . . . And
Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security and the War on Terror
Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve

ASIN: 0895260751

Book Description

Michelle Malkin shows how every component of our immigration system failed leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ready or not, Invasion tells the truth about the dangers we face within our own borders.

Customer Reviews:

Invasion.......2007-09-19

Incredible eye opener. Very well written and easily understood. The message is clear and somewhat shocking. I finished this book in two days. I just couldnt put it down. It really captures your attention.

Why US citizens are so afraid........2007-08-19

Some US citizens almost seem compelled to feel afraid, very afraid. I suppose when the Soviet Union collapsed, the "perception managers" of the US elite needed to create a new menace to keep the population afraid in order to continue their funding of the military industrial complex, and to advance the growing police state. Moreover, many people have careers in the business of surveillance, detaining people, busting unionization efforts, building hi-tech fences and drones, constructing prisons and watching the border.
We wouldn't have much to worry about if we treated other people in the world decently. We have been doing more than menacing them, throughout the Global South we have been killing them; if not by military intervention or CIA machinations, then through financial warfare and economic hit men. It is the job of propagandists like Malkin to studiously avoid this reality, and they can count on the psychic fear and intellectual dishonesty/laziness of many Americans to go along with this deception about the poor, put-upon military empire of the U.S. being "invaded."
If people have the courage to look themselves in the mirror, here are a few resources to learn about the invasions, terror and war crimes committed by the U.S.:
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
The Fourth World War
Z Magazine

To Protect a Nation.......2007-08-06

Meticulously researched, well-organized, logically presented. In order to protect a nation the measures taken must be sufficient to address the threat. Mistakes will be made. Nothing is perfect. If the mistakes occur on the side of protecting too much, the nation stands a chance of survival. If the mistakes are made on the side of not protecting enough the nation will perish. There is no such thing as "just the right amount." (When you have bacterial pneumonia and the doctor prescribes an antibiotic, do you want him to prescribe the minimum strength or the maximum? Do you stop taking the antibiotic as soon as your symptoms are gone, or do you finish the medication even after you are asymptomatic? Try stopping the medicine too soon and see what happens.) If it makes a nation safer to round up a large group of people who fit the enemy profile when the enemy threat is imminent then profiling is good, racial or otherwise. If you can't accept this then let's just ignore the borders, give everyone the benefit of doubt and we'll see who you blame the next time people who share appearance, enthicity and religion fly a jetliner into a city.

Political distortions in the form of jouranlism...........2007-06-23

There are no facts here. No in depth journalism. No hard data. Nothing.

Just a lot of hot air from someone who writes political garbage. Nothing else.

This Book Hits the Nail on the HEAD!!!!.......2007-06-15

As usual, the liberal fringe NUT JOBS have attempted to discredit and discount this accurate and very informative book. As a resident of the Southest TX area, I see first-hand the damage that illegal aliens are doing to this country - overwhelming hospital ER with non-emergencies, severely overcrowding the schools, driving poorly maintained vehicles with no insurance or drivers license, etc. Many illegals aliens are not the humble, respectful, law abiding people that are here just to work hard and provide for their families - quite the opposite. The US will become a third-world country within the next 100 years if drastic changes are not implemented.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

Average customer rating:

a fine place to start at understanding 9/11
issues to be informed about......
Unbeliveable history of Afghanistan
Ghost Wars
Long telling

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Steve Coll
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Afghanistan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Central Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Intelligence & Espionage | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

Conspiracy Theories | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Terrorism | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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
Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror
Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander

ASIN: 1594200076
Release Date: 2004-02-23

Amazon.com

Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 offers revealing details of the CIA's involvement in the evolution of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the years before the September 11 attacks. From the beginning, Coll shows how the CIA's on-again, off-again engagement with Afghanistan after the end of the Soviet war left officials at Langley with inadequate resources and intelligence to appreciate the emerging power of the Taliban. He also demonstrates how Afghanistan became a deadly playing field for international politics where Soviet, Pakistani, and U.S. agents armed and trained a succession of warring factions. At the same time, the book, though opinionated, is not solely a critique of the agency. Coll balances accounts of CIA failures with the success stories, like the capture of Mir Amal Kasi. Coll, managing editor for the Washington Post, covered Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992. He demonstrates unprecedented access to records of White House meetings and to formerly classified material, and his command of Saudi, Pakistani, and Afghani politics is impressive. He also provides a seeming insider's perspective on personalities like George Tenet, William Casey, and anti-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke ("who seemed to wield enormous power precisely because hardly anyone knew who he was or what exactly he did for a living"). Coll manages to weave his research into a narrative that sometimes has the feel of a Tom Clancy novel yet never crosses into excess. While comprehensive, Coll's book may be hard going for those looking for a direct account of the events leading to the 9-11 attacks. The CIA's 1998 engagement with bin Laden as a target for capture begins a full two-thirds of the way into Ghost Wars, only after a lengthy march through developments during the Carter, Reagan, and early Clinton Presidencies. But this is not a critique of Coll's efforts; just a warning that some stamina is required to keep up. Ghost Wars is a complex study of intelligence operations and an invaluable resource for those seeking a nuanced understanding of how a small band of extremists rose to inflict incalculable damage on American soil. --Patrick O'Kelley

Book Description

From the managing editor of the Washington Post, a news-breaking account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda.

For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars which sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and which provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of 2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's ISI, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department all operated directly and secretly in Afghanistan. They primed Afghan factions with cash and weapons, secretly trained guerrilla forces, funded propaganda, and manipulated politics. In the midst of these struggles bin Laden conceived and then built his global organization.

Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll tells the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, from its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, to the rise of the Taliban and the emergence of bin Laden, to the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998. Based on extensive firsthand accounts, Ghost Warsok is the inside story that goes well beyond anything previously published on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. It chronicles the roles of midlevel CIA officers, their Afghan allies, and top spy masters such as Bill Casey, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al Faisal, and George Tenet. And it describes heated debates within the American government and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies.

Ghost Wars answers the questions so many have asked since the horrors of September 11: To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail?

Customer Reviews:

a fine place to start at understanding 9/11.......2007-09-30

on 9/12/2001 i figured that i should take a stab at getting a better picture in my head of the political turbulence that storms through the middle east. but i'm a lazy person. and such an undertaking seemed a chore. i have enough chores in my life, so i procrastinated. i bought a small stack of books on the topic over the years, but they only served to make me feel bad, because i really didn't want to read any of them. but this month, about 6 years later than it should have been, i took the plunge. I picked up steve coll's "Ghost Wars," and started reading the thing. well, lo and behold it was not a chore at all. the first 475 pages flew by with ease, pulling me along eagerly. mr coll builds a narrative momentum here, while threading complex strands of people, countries and events into a coherent whole, that is superlative. his portrait of the saudi, afganistan, and pakistani governments, and their interactions with the united states government was particularly well done and fascinating. my only complaint (and the reason i give this book 4 stars instead of 5) is that after the bombing of our warship in yemen by bin laden's group, the narrative suddenly grinds to a halt and becomes bogged down in about a hundred pages of overly detailed description relating to unsuccessful plots to get bin laden himself. since we all know that bin laden was not caught, this long stretch of failed planning simply takes up too much space at the end of the book, and is not all that interesting. that said, by all means read this book for the excitement and enlightenment cast in the first 475 pages or so. i believe this book to be about as good a place to start as any for someone looking to better understand the road that led us to 9/11.

issues to be informed about.............2007-09-23

Interesting. A must read. I hope Mr. Coll writes the next segment of Afghanistan's history from September 11, 2001 onward.

The book covers a lot of ground and is lengthy, but is well written and reads quickly. Coll outlines the people and policies (or, the lack thereof) from the Soviet chapter in Afghanistan until the day before September 11, 2001. Throughout the historical narrative, the book covers and addresses scary amounts of money flowing in and out of Afghanistan, the conflicts between the CIA, the State Dept. and other U.S. agencies/policymakers in addressing issues related to Afghanistan, the Taleban, Al Q, and Bin Laden, and who understood what and when related to Al Q, Bin Laden, et al. Coll also critically addresses the roles of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in U.S. policy considerations, and those countries policies toward Afghanistan/knowledge of Al Q and Bin Laden.

Beyond the headlines, I was not very well informed on the history of Afghanistan. This book will bring the reader up to speed very quickly.

Unbeliveable history of Afghanistan.......2007-08-17

Don't be scared away by the 600+ pages. It flows freely and is really a riviting historical read. It provides quite a narrative on the history of this area and the difficult political and military situations that the US, Pakistan, Soviet Union and other influcencal Middle East countries had in this area of the world..

Ghost Wars.......2007-07-14

Ghost Wars is an account of U.S. assistance to the mujahedin during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and U.S. attempts to curtail Osama bin Laden's influence. Ghost Wars focuses on the CIA but author Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered Afghanistan for the Washington Post between 1989 and 1992, also covers the interagency policy making process in Washington.

The U.S. policy of helping the mujahedin in Afghanistan harass and ultimately defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan was, of course, a success. U.S. officials realized that the contending forces in Afghanistan were unlikely to form a unified national government after the Soviet's departure, but the United States was in Afghanistan to hurt the Soviet Union, not to build a new nation in Afghanistan. U.S. assistance efforts in Afghanistan were advanced by two allies, in particular, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Coll argues that, while the allies' interests coincided in containing Soviet expansion, U.S. interests were hurt by the efforts of Pakistan's intelligence service (the ISI) to strengthen radical Islamists after the Soviet collapse in Afghanistan and by Saudi Arabia's unwillingness to confront radical Islamists at home and in Afghanistan.

Coll criticizes U.S. policy in Afghanistan on several grounds. First, the United States relied heavily on the ISI to deliver assistance to the mujahedin, despite the ISI's preference for radical jihadists. Second, the United States' reliance on Saudi oil made it too hard for the United States to confront its ally over terrorism policies. Third, the United States missed opportunities to engage India as a democratic ally in South Asia. Fourth, the United States failed to develop "a strategy for engagement, democratization, secular education, and economic development among the peaceful but demoralized populations of the Islamic world."

U.S. policy toward bin Laden, in particular, could also be criticized for a lack of coherence. Coll's narrative describes a reluctance to give unambiguous instructions to kill bin Laden, even though capturing him alive would have been nearly impossible. Numerous opportunities arose to attack bin Laden but policymakers always demurred because they were reluctant to offend other governments or risk civilian deaths. At one point, referring to bin Laden, CIA director George Tenet announces that "We are at war," but the resources and single-minded determination that this announcement implies never materialized.

Long telling.......2007-06-14

This book is very long in reading. It does not follow any folw to be seen but jumps around. It is informative on a historical view however, to get to the few usfull items the reader has to read one mans musing.

The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Norton Library)

Average customer rating:

Fantastic Work
Very thought provoking
Puritans as imperialists
Impassioned Revisionism
Jennings lays it out- you have to make yourself think.

The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Norton Library)
Francis Jennings
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0393008304

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic Work.......2004-10-01

The beauty of this book...the author, though angry, uses the angry energy in a focused, forthright and definitive way. The result is an informative and detailed look at history that most may be surprised to read. Jennings analysis of the events is told in a story-like form, so that the reader is enlightened, then slowly taken in by the intrigue and intriging mischief of the day. Another title for this research could have been {the art of puritan warfare}. The author tells of the barbaric, imperialistic, and destructive engagements with the Irish as a prelude to the western invasion. This invasive group of people had plenty of practice. Word of advice, read slowly, don't miss anything...Fantastic Work...

Very thought provoking.......2003-04-08

Francis Jennings' first book, The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism and the Cant of Conquest was path breaking when released in 1975, a book of "angry, forceful prose [that] still touches readers a quarter century after its publication," according to his 2001 obituary in the newsletter of the American Organization of Historians. In fact, Jennings himself was known for his "irrepressible" devotion to debunking the myths of Native American history of the colonial period, particularly the works of Francis Parkman. As his eulogizer Frederick Hoxie notes, Jennings early on insisted that "America began not with "discovery" but invasion," a belief which set "himself apart from those who viewed the fate of the continent's indigenous people as somehow inevitable or natural." The polemical The Invasion of America was the first in what Jennings called his "Covenant Chain Trilogy," with The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire (1984) and Empire of Fortune (1988) finishing the set. As Hoxie states, The Invasion of America (and most of Jennings' other writings) was a "frontal attack on the generations of scholars who, he argued, had internalized the racist language of the seventeenth century and overlooked the violence and brutality of European settlement." As another reviewer writes, "this is a strong, angry book," the prose of which is characterized by "the author's controlled outrage at what happened and at the misconceptions, distortions, and even lies he sees in the treatment of the period by other historians."

Puritans as imperialists.......2001-11-29

Francis Jennings' Invasion of America is still usefull reading, but... In the half of 70s' it was almost revolutionary work, and many (not only) historians looked at this as at nearly sacred text. But I think, that Jennings adversary's" - i. e. Vaughan's - New England Frontier is more balanced view of Puritan - Indian relations in the 17th century.
Jennings book is divided into two different parts. First is thematical (and I think better), and second chronological. Author tries to apply the research done in the first part to the 17th century New England (second part). Jennings offers many interesting ideas, often highly provocative. He shows, for example, how the contention between single New England colonies (especially between Massachusetts and Connecticutt) influenced their Indian policy.
Book has two weak points, of which the second is essential. 1) Jennings' approach, especially in the second part, is not ethnohistorical, although he (in the first chapter) praises this historical subdiscipline. He focuses almost exclusivelly on Puritan policy toward Indians, and largely omits Indian actions. 2) He looks at Puritans from the perspective of 70s' of the 20th century through the eyes of a radical (left-wing ?) intelectual. So he finds nearly all Puritan actions toward Indians as bad. Their only goal was to conquer Indians and their land. They were real imperialists. He absolutely excludes the possibility, that Puritan actions could have been motivated by sincere conviction, for example, that they are just trying to help Indians (missions) or to protect themself (Pequot war; actions toward Narragansett and Eastern Niantic tribes in the 40s'and 50s'). I think, that this too much revisionst and sceptical approach is wrong. Historian should look at actions of his heroes" through the perspective of time they were living.
In spite of above said, I think this is still an important book (not only) on New England history in the 17th century.

Impassioned Revisionism.......2000-05-20

A brilliantly-written, well-researched and incredibly impassioned telling of the European conquest of North Eastern America. My only complaint would be that after around 300 pages, the author's anti-european/pro-indian sentiments become a little wearing.

It seems to be a standard orthodoxy these days that 'colonialism' was a bad thing, and that, possibly, European settlers didn't acquire the continent without a spot of realpolitic, but in the mid-70's, when this book was written, it probably opened a few eyebrows. The accounts of just how quickly the pilgrim fathers took to aggressive expansionism against local tribes certainly made *my* stiff upper lip twitch a little.

Jennings lays it out- you have to make yourself think........1997-09-04

Book offers analyses based on thorough interpretation of primary sources.
It is a seed book portraying the event of European conquest on the North American continent. The magnitude of the underlying falsehoods that American history is based upon are what the reader walks away with after digesting this work.
The list of sources contained in the work are worth the price of the book

Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942

Average customer rating:

Meticulous Military History
The Story of What the Carriers Did at Guadalcanal
Richly detailed
Long on detail, short on analysis
Historically accurate! Entertaining! Engrossing!

Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942
Eric Hammel
Manufacturer: Zenith Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Aviation | Military | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Naval | Military | History | Subjects | Books

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First Team And the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942

ASIN: 0760320527

Book Description

Beginning with detailed descriptions of the history of the aircraft carrier, the development of carrier-air tactics, the training of carrier pilots, and numerous operational considerations that defined the way carrier battles had to be fought, Carrier Clash takes the reader into the air with brave U. S. Navy fighter pilots as they protect their ships and the Guadalcanal invasion fleet against determined Japanese air attacks on August 7 and 8, 1942. Next, Hammel sets the stage for the August 24 Battle of the Eastern Solomons, by putting the reader right into the cockpits of the U. S. Navy Dauntless dive-bombers as they drive on the Imperial Navy light carrier Ryujo - and hit the ship with 500-pound bombs! Carrier Clash is the definitive combat history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons' third battle (of only five) between American and Japanese aircraft carriers. Had the Navy failed in this battle against the Japanese fleet, the 1st Marine Division's invasion of Guadalcanal would have been defeated almost before it began.About the AuthorEric Hammel is the author of almost thirty works of military history. He is also a frequent contributor to various military journals including Marine Corps Gazette and is currently working on an illustrated history of the Marine Corps in World War II to be published by Zenith Press. Hammel lives in northern California near San Francisco.

Customer Reviews:

Meticulous Military History.......2005-12-25

Despite the book's title this is really a history of the Solomons campaing up to the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the first carrier to carrier clash of the campaign. It certainly has its center of gravity placed on the operations of the American carriers, but includes much of the actions of both navies in and around the slot, the fighting on the ground, and the aerial duels between the Japanese coming out of Rabaul and the Cactus air force.

Foremost this book is an account of what happened in a very comperehensive manner. After explaining the aircraft and ships the Japanese and Americans possesed, and delving into an interesting comparison of their air wing make ups and tactics, the author takes you chronologically through the Solomons campaign.

The reason this book only merited four stars instead of five is that sometimes this can be a bit dry. There's a lot of " . . . and then at 1350 the Wasp launched two more Hellcats on CAP. At 1415 a Mavis was shot down by a Hellcat from the Enterprise. Japanese records indicate that this was from their base in the Shortland Islands. At 1430 four planes from the Hornet CAP returned to refuel. At 1435 planes from the Wasp sighted another Mavis but were unable to pursue it. At 1440 . . . " Stretch this amount of minute by minute detail out over several weeks worth of operations and you get a sense of what the book is about, and it's a marvel it's not longer.

This might be slow at some points but it does allow some interesting insights that many other more easily read, and more exciting books can obscure. First is the sometimes monotomy and boredom of war. Second is the ridiculous degree to which kills of enemy aircraft and ships were overstated during the battles that occured. By comparing accounts of both sides the author makes it clear that most engagements resulted in fewer losses than the participants thought took place. (Clearly the engagements must have been emotionally draining and fierce.) If the after action reports are to have been believed it would seem as though the Japanese thought they wiped out the entire American force several times over and vice versa.

Certainly interesting for people with a passion for WWII history, especially the pacific campaign, but too much like pure history to really recommend for the casual reader.

The Story of What the Carriers Did at Guadalcanal.......2005-04-23

The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 1942.

The Battle of the Eastern Solomons was history's third carrier clash. A collision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanal--whose airfield the United States desperately needed and the Japanese desperately wanted back--the battle was waged at sea and over Guadalcanal's besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeter on August 24, 1942.

These battles were the result of the US deciding to draw the line in the pacific at the Solomons. If the Japanese had been able to complete the airfield on Guadalcanal, their planes would have been able to prevent the sailing of ships to Australia via the Pacific. So it was here that the Americans drew the line. Before the Guadalcanal battle the Americans fought the Battle of the Coral Sea stopping the Japanese southern advance.

Remember that this was a time before the Americans brought out their newer aircraft. This battle was fought with Wildcats against Zeros. And the dive bombers were the old SBD Dauntless.

This is not a history of Guadalcanal or of the overall place of this battle in the war, it is as the title says, a description of the carrier vs. carrier battles. This is only part of the story, but it is well told here.

Not a companion book, but anyone interested in the stopping of the Japanese advances should also read the new Australian book "A Bastard of a Place." This covers the stopping of the Japanese advance across Papua New Guina a fierce and deciscive battle little known in the US.

Richly detailed.......2001-07-02

CARRIER CLASH is the first of a two book set detailing the campaign in the Solomons from Aug-Oct 1942. The reader is familiarized with aircraft carrier doctrine, operations, and the aircraft types used by both combatants. The book takes the reader through the opening operation (the initial landings on Guadalcanal)right through to the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in late August. As in the second volume CARRIER STRIKE, this book follows an almost minute-by-minute account of the tension and confusion of aerial combat.The reader is thrust into the midst of the action. I was hardly able to put the book down.

Long on detail, short on analysis.......2000-05-29

The man has definitely done his research - this is the most detailed account I've ever read of any Pacific theatre battle.

However, although the book describes Guadalcanal and the battle of the Eastern Solomons, Savo Island is all but ignored. There is no discussion of the significance of the battle, nor even of who won it! Essentially, the book stops when the fighting did, which is a bit odd.

If you like blood-and-thunder dogfight anecdotes you'll like this book, but some more of the big picture would have been nice.

Historically accurate! Entertaining! Engrossing!.......1998-08-14

This book details a small section of history from World War 2. It describes the equipment, the men and the battles, but it does it in such a way that you are unable to put the book down. By the time you've finished you have a feeling of some of what it must have been like to be involved in the struggle for that 'terrible' island. You also begin to believe that you know the men who fought there. This book is unmissable.

America's Prisoner:: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega

Average customer rating:

Noriega, just another Bush discard...
Pleeeaaasssse!!!
Lessons about U.S. imperialism
Superficial and self serving
Noriega, the hapless victim of American Imperialism?

America's Prisoner:: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega
Peter Eisner
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Panama
The Noriega Mess: The Drugs, the Canal, and Why America Invaded
Our Man in Panama: How General Noriega Used the United States- And Made Millions in Drugs and Arms

ASIN: 0679432272
Release Date: 1997-03-11

Amazon.com

Like Muammar al-Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega is vilified by the United States like few other statesmen (or ex-statesmen). Now Noriega has a chance to counter the charges leveled against him in America's Prisoner: The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega. As a former friend of the CIA, Noriega has a unique perspective on U.S. involvement in Latin America, and he has a heap of dirty laundry he's more than willing to air. From his prison cell in Miami, America's only prisoner of war expounds on such topics as his covert dealings with CIA agents, his relationship with high government officials such as George Bush and Oliver North, the U.S. invasion of Panama, and his own drug charges. Helping his cause is Peter Eisner, a former foreign editor and Latin American correspondent for Newsday, who calls in question many of the charges against Noriega while admitting the extreme unpopularity of the man. Brazen and controversial, America's Prisoner is an account of U.S. foreign policy from one who has been on both sides of the political fence.

Book Description

Important messages sometimes come from unlikely messengers. Manuel Noriega may be a demon in the eyes of most Americans, but he has a unique and alarming view of the reasons behind the U.S. invasion of Panama. His book is certain to be one of the most newsworthy and controversial events of the year, containing revelations about dealings with George Bush, Oliver North, William Casey and the CIA, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, and Moammar Quadafi.

Noriega's story was independently investigated by Peter Eisner, a top foreign correspondent who has reported on Latin America for more than twenty years. Eisner's reporting confirms many of Noriega's assertions and provides additional perspective on his conduct as head of Panama's military, his relations with key U.S. officials, and the damage inflicted upon the people of Panama by the U.S. invasion. Eisner's reporting raises new questions about allegations that Noriega was a drug dealer, a murderer, and a thief.

America's Prisoner is one of the most unusual and important accounts ever written about U.S. aggression and duplicity. It's the story of how we have imprisoned a man -- and a nation.

Customer Reviews:

Noriega, just another Bush discard..........2004-08-15

After reading this book, I come away with a deep sense of sorrow for my fellow Americans. Clearly Manuel Noriega is no saint. However, compared to Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush and their henchmen, Manuel Noriega smells like a rose in comparison.

I have worked with Latin Americans long enough to know that honor and respect are very important to these people. Noriega clearly was a man of honor and respect among his fellow rulers in Latin America. The history of Panama is that of a client state of the United States. Manuel Noriega just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were intent on murdering Salvadorans and Nicaraguans to re-establish colonial rule in these countries. Ollie North, their boy, was convicted of obstruction of justice in pursuit of their mission (defying the US Congress' ban on support for the Contras). Manuel Noriega was caught between a rock and a hard place. Being a Latin American he was loyal to his fellow Latin Americans who opposed US rule by fiat. As a client of the United States, Noriega did everything he could to make the US rulers happy. However, in the end, he denied US permission for their covert operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador. This led to his downfall. He chose loyalty to his fellow Latin Americans over being bought off and disposed of by the United States.

I'm sure Noriega withheld a great deal in this book. However, the conclusion I draw is that Noriega chose to stand and defend his position rather than accept the $2 million offer by Eliot Abrams (yes the same Eliot Abrams that urged us that there were WMDs in Iraq) to leave Panama quietly and then be murdered in some dark alley.

If anything Manuel Noriega is a political survivor and not a scumbag in the league of Saddam Hussein or Pap Doc Duvalier.

I, for one, would welcome an appeal of his case to the World Criminal Court in the Hague.

Pleeeaaasssse!!!.......2004-04-26

I still have not read the book, and I was very young during Noriegas year. However, judging by other comments in here, is easy to note that most if not all of them are simply supporters of our famous criminal, assasin and dictator.
What happened in Panama was not "american propaganda" as other poster clame. I saw things with my own eyes: I do rememeber the brutality of the police squads, beating people who simply went to protest on the streets; I remember hearing of people getting arreested and brutally tortured, just because they critized, precisely, the burtality of Noriega; I remember my father coming home after a two days arrest, covered with bruises all over the body because of such treatment while in jail. I remember my uncle hiding in friends house beacuse it was known that he was on a "arrest and kill" list. All of those brutal acts where by direct order of Noriega.

Noriega was a saddist, cruel, despotic assasin.

If you would like to read "Osamas's memoirs", and support his "cause" by buying his book, do it. Same if you want to read about Noriega. In my opinion, I wish he rotts in prison, the same opinion shared by every panamanian who today can enjoy freedom and democracy.

Lessons about U.S. imperialism.......2003-10-19

"The Memoirs of Manuel Noriega: America's Prisoner" by Manuel Noriega with commentary and analysis by Peter Eisner is an important story. It holds lessons about U.S. imperialism and the demonization of its supposed enemies -- lessons that, unfortunately, appear to have been largely overlooked by the American public. Indeed, the template for the exercise of U.S. power by the elder Bush against Noriega in Panama as described in this book seems to have been knowingly employed by the younger Bush against Saddam in Iraq.

Given the demonization of Noriega in the U.S. media, one may be surprised but nonetheless impressed with Noriega's personal values as they are expressed in this book. Noriega's support of policies that began with the Torrijos administration on raising living standards among the nation's poor seems to be sincere; no doubt this is connected with his Catholic faith and his familiarity with the Bible, which is quoted in several places in the book. Noriega also writes fondly about his career in the Panamanian military and the honor, discipline and professionalism associated with this career and the duties he performed on behalf of his country. Overall, while Noriega does not appear to be a saint he does seem to be a healthy, balanced and moral person.

I think that Noriega's contention that he became a marked man due to his insistence on Panamanian soveriegnty is credible. To his credit, Noriega never bought into Cold War ideology, choosing instead to provide safe haven for political refugees of all stripes and to open up channels of communication with Fidel Castro and others. Yet despite years of friendly relations with the U.S. and cooperation with the CIA, his decision to open talks with the Japanese about a new canal combined with his refusal to cooperate with Ollie North's illegal "contra" war in Nicaragua proved to be too much for the White House.

If Noriega ever did commit a crime that could possibly justify a full-scale invasion, it is also true that the drug conviction against him is highly suspect. The chapters that discuss the dirty dealings with Colombian drug cartels in securing the conviction is very disturbing. On the other hand, the fact that drug shipments increased in the absence of Noriega provides credence to the author's contention that the Panamanian Defense Forces cooperated in the war on drugs during Noriega's tenure.

Last but certainly not least, the horrible consequences of the war on the innocent Panamanian people are discussed. Clearly, it was unneccesary to use such overwhelming force against a peaceful country in the midst of its Christmas celebrations. Noriega's blistering comments about the leading protagonists of the war -- including Colin Powell and George Bush Sr. -- may cause consternation among some Americans; but on balance the General's narrative is remarkably restrained. Indeed, the book is a cautionary tale of powerlessness and how a small nation and its leaders have few options available once regime change has been deemed desirable by the U.S. government. The sad part, of course, is that thousands of innocent civilians had to pay for these policies with their lives (not to mention the countless others who have been left with the shattered remains of their bombed-out communities).

In my view, recent events in Iraq, Venezuela, Colombia and elsewhere makes it more important than ever for Americans to gain greater perspective on the consequences of U.S. foreign policy. To that end, "America's Prisoner" is a superbly readable, provocative and informative book that deserves a wide audience. I highly recommend it to all.

Superficial and self serving.......2003-04-11

This book is of interest because it tells another side of the story of Panama in the 80's. There's a lot of interesting information here. But while I find it almost unavoidable to conclude that American intervention in Panama was guided as much by political expediency and diplomatic incompetence as it was by noble ideals, that doesn't imply Noriega was clean. Sure, Bush, Cheney, Oliver North, Eliot Abrams, etc. were all crooked politicians. But Noriega's portrayal as himself as simply a Panamanian patriot who was destroyed by the USA for standing up to them doesn't hold water. Many controversial aspects of Noriega's reign are not mentioned (Noriega's superstition or alcohol abuse), glossed over (Spadafora killing) or implausibly denied (the fate of the Giroldi coup plotters). He very seldom admits mistakes and even then only half-heartedly ("We should have just cancelled the elections outright instead of waiting until the results were in to anull them") and never shows a trace of regret. The subject of democracy seldom comes up; all opposition to Noriega is characterized simply as the white power elite ("rabiblancos") and their status as pawns of the USA.

In short, the book is disappointing as it appears Noriega has not used his time in jail for serious, thoughtful introspection and analysis. It's not a truthful confession, or even an intersting autobiography; it's basically a defensive essay on the American invasion of 1989. Still it's worth reading as no doubt some of his accusations against the "wimp" Bush bear examination.

Noriega, the hapless victim of American Imperialism?.......2002-05-31

I have to admit the book is rather enjoyable to read, incredibly interesting and hard to put down. Noriega comes across as very charismatic, but thats how Eisner intended to write him up. While one might see that there was some erroneous CIA propaganda in the whole Panamanian-Noriega Affair, it isn't nearly as prevalent as Noriega would have you believe. The CIA's timing is suspect, but what better time to air out the bad laundry of a drug-dealing dictator than when you want to bring him down. Moreover, Manuel Noreiga and Eisner are no less apt to making propaganda of their own. The Panamanian demagogue would have you believe he is wholly a victim of the evil American imperial capitalists. Eisner more or less tries to portray poor Noriega as the hapless and 'innocent' victim of American imperialism. Noriega, the pox-marked dictator, derided as "Pineapple Face" by his detractors, may never have amassed the massive fortune alleged by the CIA... but he was on the take so to speak. He has always been for sale to the highest bidder whether the Medellin drug cartel or the CIA. Since his early days as a CIA spy, he was selling out intel on his fellow students at a Peruvian Military Academy in the 1950's. Noriega mastered the art of double-dealing... and can fairly be described as a double-agent, if not a "triple" or "quadruple" agent. He was taking payoffs from drug dealers (as most politicians in the region do) and this isn't just CIA propaganda. He essentially crossed Bush one time to many... making one too many overtures to the Sandinistas and the Soviets. Bush Senior pulled the Potomac two-step on Noriega and Noriega reaped the whirlwind for having asked for a divorce. Regardless of what you think about the Panamanian intervention in 1989, Noriega isn't the "patron saint of Panama" that he'd have you believe he is. Nonetheless, I find his biography too be very intriguing.

If you care about Central American politics, you might like "A Twillight Struggle" by Robert Kagan.

The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Modern World)
Average customer rating:

Excellent but misses effects of Anti-Semitism

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS

Best of its kind

First-rate history, exceptionally clear analysis.

The final Fall of the Third Republic

The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940 (Modern World)
Julian Jackson
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | France | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
Western | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France

Strange Defeat

Lightning War: Blitzkrieg in the West, 1940

ASIN: 019280300X

Book Description

On 16 May 1940 an emergency meeting of the French High Command was called at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris. The Germans had broken through the French lines on the River Meuse at Sedan and other locations, only five days after launching their attack. Churchill, who had been contacted by Prime Minister Reynaud the previous evening to be told that the French were beaten, had rushed to Paris. The mood on the French side was one of panic and despair: earlier in the day the French government had discussed the possibility of evacuating Paris. As the meeting proceeded, thick smoke rose from the garden outside the window as officials feverishly burnt papers to prevent them falling into German hands. Churchill asked Gamelin, the French Commander in Chief, 'Where are your reserves?' 'There are none', replied Gamelin. This exciting new book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the greatest bastions of the Western Allies, and thus to a dramatic new phase of the Second World War. Using eyewitness accounts, memoirs, and diaries to bring the story to life, Julian Jackson both recreates the intense atmosphere of the six weeks in May and June leading up to the Vichy regime, and unravels the historical evidence to produce a fresh answer to the perennial question of whether the fall of France was inevitable.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent but misses effects of Anti-Semitism.......2007-06-18

Most histories I have read treat the Fall of France with little examination--Hitler invaded through the Ardennes, the French didn't expect them there, the line broke, Dunkirk happened, Paris fell, there you have it.

This work is excellent in that it uses multiple perspectives to illustrate Why this happened. This includes a cogent analysis of the military situation and choices--tanks scattered about as infantry support and not in armored divisions, sending the reserves very far north to link up with the Belgians etc. But it goes beyond this to look at the effect of intense political infighting between the left and the right in pre-war France; the weaknesses of the French leaders of the time; the inter-war pacifism of French society. Jackson weaves together a multi-threaded explanation in an easy to read work.

I feel there is one level of analysis he may have missed. Jackson points out the intense anti-Semitism of some of the French leaders (Marshal Petain) and of the society in general. The French people and leaders were being asked to fight the most anti-Semitic regime in history in Hitler's Germany. I have to wonder how much of the military and political leadership of the Army and the Government just didn't want to be fighting people they agreed with in many ways, and how much of this filtered down to the troops. I would have liked to see Jackson deal with this rather than tip-toe up to it and then not attend to it in any meaningful way.

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS.......2006-11-09

I won't attempt to repeat information outlined in the exceptional previous reviews. This book provides a good companion to Ernest R. May's STANGE VICTORY Hill & Wang 2000. Although of the two, I find this book more interesting in that the author covers all aspects of French society as well as the impact of the defeat and how it was handled. He points out both the French and the British anticipated a long war, but they expected to have two years to complete gearing up for it.
Part of the German success he attributes to a handfull of aggressive tactical commanders who outran the conservative wishes of the German senior command. He highlights the abysmal command and control problems of the French. Where properly led and handled, he believes the French infantry were formidible although there was a desperate shortage of artillary and especially antitank weapons. Except for the poor management of the aircraft situation, French industry by May 1940 was producing weapons at a respectable rate.
This original work provides considerable insight into the factors leading to the German dramatic victory. He also points out there were significant people around the leadership who didn't want a war with Germany, although none of them had the levers of power in their hands at that time. I believe this work makes an important contribution to understanding that time and its legacy. Its purchase is recommended to anyone interested in history or France as well as those who follow military affairs.

Best of its kind.......2006-05-11

Both scholarly and entertaining, this is one really really fun read.

The final chapter alone is worth the price of the book. As though in answer to the questions, "Why is the collapse of France in 1940 important, and why do we keep reading and writing about it?", Jackson weaves a fascinating tale of the aftereffects of June 1940. He argues convincingly that the fall of France began a chain-reaction that turned a rather circumscribed European conflict into a world war. (Briefly: France's collapse brought Italy into the war; which meant Britain had to focus on the Mediterranean at the expense of the Far East; thus Japan was able to see its advantage in Singapore, etc.) Even better, Jackson delineates the long-term ramifications of 1940 on French outlook and politics for the next four or five decades.

Postscript: The only bad thing about the book is its subtitle, which was probably added by the publisher. The 'Nazis' did not invade France in 1940. The German army did, as it had twice before in the previous seventy years. Had the 'Nazis' been fighting the French army, France would not have fallen.

First-rate history, exceptionally clear analysis........2005-05-14

This is an unusually good, short, very readable history of a difficult and contentious event, to which justice has not previously been done. I have read the usual accounts in the general histories (Churchill, Liddell Hart, Keegan and others) of the Second World War, as well as Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940", and none of them compare with Jackson's book. He has a very clear and precise writing style and tells the story in a well-organized manner. His citations of French, British, and German sources are very complete and to the point. His conclusions and the evidence he bases them on are very clear, leaving one free to agree or disagree as one wishes. He seems to have no agenda other than the desire to fulfill the historian's first obligation, which is to tell us WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. He also gives a rather complete discussion, for such a short book, of previous accounts and interpretations of The Fall of France.

After carefully considering the various previous explanations that have been put forth, he in the end attributes the French defeat primarily to a miscalculation by the French High Command as to where the Germans would attack, namely through the Ardennes Forest. It should be noted that the Allied High Command - Eisenhower, Bradley, Montgomery - made the same mistake only four years later, in November, 1944. They also assumed that the Germans could not mount an armored attack through that same Ardennes Forest, with near disastrous results for the Allies. Such an attack had been predicted as early as 1933 by B.H. Liddell Hart. His warnings of course were ignored in both 1940 and 1944.

Even so, the key factor in the German victory, which surprised the Germans themselves, seems to have been the speed of the German attack. Guderian in fact was ordered to slow down and even halt after crossing the Meuse because the German High Command feared a French flanking attack from the south. Guderian offered his resignation to Kleist, who relented, and so the attack went on. The French in fact did finally attack the German flank, but too slowly and too late. They were just not prepared for the speed with which aggressive armored operations could be conducted. Jackson demonstrates clearly that the margin of German victory over France was much closer than it later seemed in retrospect, after the collapse of French morale and the ascendency of Vichy.

Jackson's analysis of the long-term political effects of 1940 on the subsequent course of events of the twentieth century in France, Europe, and the world is quite illuminating, one of the best sections of the book. He uses the quite different responses to 1940 of two men, Charles de Gaulle and Francois Mitterand, very effectively to illustrate his points.

The story of the Fall of France demonstrates, I believe, one unfortunate disadvantage of consensual, democratic government as opposed to tyranny, and that is that democracies are slow to mobilize for war and reluctant to throw the first punch. This gives the single-minded aggressor the opportunity to make that first punch a knock-out blow, which is what seems to have happened to France in 1940, from which France may not yet have fully recovered.

Related reading:

B.H. Liddell Hart - "History of the Second World War" (L.H. says
"I told you so" repeatedly.)
John Keegan - "Six Armies in Normandy" (How to stop a
blitzkrieg.)

Highly recommended.

The final Fall of the Third Republic.......2004-07-18

The collapse of France in 1940 was the last in the chain of political and military defeats. First it was lost "the battle of Czechoslovakia" (politicaly) and then the campaign in Poland. Unfortunately, the author don't give a fair evaluation of this events. On the contrary. He quoted Marshall Petain (and agree with him), who after the disaster in 1940 maintained that one of the reasons of the collapse were "too few allies". Sorry, but the reality was completely "the other way round". It were French, who let down first Czechoslovakia in Munich and then, one year later, Poland.

The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion

Average customer rating:

review
Greek Cypriots reject the UN Peace Plan to unify the Island
my two sense
This must be a great book. Here is what I remember from those days
Good book!

The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion
Brendan O'Malley , and Ian Craig
Manufacturer: I. B. Tauris
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Cyprus: A Modern History
Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus
Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, And an Island in Conflict (New Anthropologies of Europe)
Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City

ASIN: 1860647375

Book Description

It has been 25 years since Greek colonels staged a coup on Cyprus, ousting Greek-Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios, and Turkey retaliated by invading and seizing a third of the island. The island remains split in two, policed by the United Nations. Henry Kissinger claimed he could do nothing to stop this because of the Watergate crisis. The Cyprus Conspiracy provides crucial evidence that this was no failure of American foreign policy, revealing for the first time the explosive strategic reasons why Washington had to divide the island.

Customer Reviews:

review.......2007-08-08

Dear friends, you can't make, know and understand history by reading one book. I have read a number (big number) of books regarding the Cyprus problem. Books written from GCs, TCs and foreigners.
I wont write down a summary of history but i will just say that what happened to Cyprus was a crime the West did and the two communities here were more than willing to go along with it. The West has never saw the problem as it was, but it handled it according to the cold-war interests. Nationalism in both sides was developing with Britain's blessing and the conflicts were inevitable. After Cyp's independance, none side worked they way they were supposed to work. GCs were seeing independace as a step towrds the final Enosis and TCs saw it as a step towards partition/division.
There were many crimes against civilians, innocent people from both sides. After the military regime in Greece (established and founded by USA's Kissinger) made the coup against Makarios, Turkey found the opportunity it was looking for to invade and divide the island. Ever after cease-fire was agreed, they continued their aggression and took 37% of the island's land. 200.000 refugees, many killed, many slaughtered and abortion (due to rapes) was made legan for 1 year. Since then, both sides create their propaganda against each other instead of seeing what the real problem was. GCs would never admit their mistakes and what their nationalism brought. On the contrary, we (GCs) tend to remember those murderers as heroes. On the other hand, TCs saw the invasion as a peaceful operation (my a*s) and they also remember their nationalists as heroes. They both created a climate of hetery for each other, that has fallen apart since the "borders" opened and people visited each other. There were MANY incidents of TCs and GCs finding each other after 30 years and bursting into tears from joy. Recently there are some left-wing organizations and movements from both sides that try to re-write history, as it really was. They blame nationalism, they organise many bi-communal activities that relatives of vistims (civilians slaughtered just because they were greeks or turks) speak and promote forgiveness and reunification. Many writers, journalists and activists are criticised in their communities (Gc and TC) for talking against nationalism and that their side made mistakes. Few weeks ago, those activists dcided to visit mass graves of GCs and TCs to deliver some flowers and honours. First they went to the fre part of Nicosia and they (together GCs and TCs) paid respects. Then they tried to go to the northern part to a mass grave of GCs. They were stopped. The regime in the north did not let them do it. And this is just an example where the leaders of both communities cause problems to people who just want to forgive and move on. THIS is the biggest problem now in Cyprus... the denial of truth, from both sides. And as a turkish writer once wrote "those who walk the same path, will get to the same place eventually"... that says a lot about nationalism.

Greek Cypriots reject the UN Peace Plan to unify the Island.......2006-11-14

It is funny how many Greek and Greek Cypriots like to revise history. Lets recap the events of the Island.

Cyprus was under Ottoman rule for 400 years prior to annexation by Great Britain. And when Great Britain finally agreed to leave it was decided that since the island had both a Greek and Turkish community the best solution was to have it become sovereign as opposed to becoming a part of either Greece or Turkey. The Turkish minority was certainly content with this model.

Under Makarios's rule most of the democratically held political power was stripped away from the Turks. The Greek Cypriots began a campaign of ethnically cleansing the Island of Turks with the objective of unifying with Greece. Turkey did not invade the island until a Greek orchestrated coup. Even then Turkey asked the England and Greece to intervene and reverse this to no avail. Only after that did they invade to protect the Turkish minority from the Greek atrocities.

Fast forward to 2004. The UN devised a plan to unify the Island. The US and the EU both thought it was a just and fair resolution. The Turkish Cypriot's under pressure form Turkey accepted this plan by 65% vote. The Greek Cypriots defeated the plan by 75% vote. The Turkish Cypriots got punished for their decision to go along with world opinion and the Greek Cypriots were rewarded by being allowed to enter the EU.

To this day the Turkish Cypriots are being punished. They are not a pariah state. They don't practice terrorism? Why the isolation? Why the embargo? It is clear that the Turkish minority will never be allowed to live in peace with the Greek majority on the island. And it is too small to be an independent state. The only solution is for Turkey to annex Norther Cyprus. This is not what Turkey wants but the Greeks have a way of pushing Turkey in this direction. Their objective is to use every round of EU membership to extract concessions, only at the end to veto Turkey's application anyway. What they fail to realize is Turkey will not become a hostage to this. Their efforts have managed to turn Turkish public opinion against EU membership. Any hope of uniting the Island only exists for as long as Turkey believes it is in her interest to do so. That time is just about up. Greek Cypriots should take a one last look across the border to Northern Cyprus. The next time they look across they may be looking at a Turkish city.

my two sense.......2006-06-20

I too feel compelled to write upon reading a prior review which said "The Turkish government used its right to get in and saved the lives of thousands of Turks out there. Why did they only took one third of the island? Because at that time the Turk population was the one third of the population of Cyprus. What do you expect?"
What do I expect? That land was my grandparent's village where they were born and raised. Explain to me why someone else is living illegally in my grandparent's house without ever compensating them for a penny of its worth. Regardless of that even, they hold that village dearly in their hearts as their home. It's sad that they are not welcome or allowed there because "the turkish government used it's right to get in" according to someone's view. Let's not all forget that there are individual human beings involved in this and their pain and suffering runs deep. Illegally occupying one's land and house does not seem like a "right" to me.

This must be a great book. Here is what I remember from those days.......2005-11-13

Sorry,I have not read this book yet,I certainlly will. As someone serving in the Greek military the days of the invasion I would like to point the following. It was well known in Greece that when "Atila" starting rolling on the island many fleeing Greek Cypriots gave the keys of their houses for safe keeping to ***their Turkish Cypriot neighbors***. I think this speaks volumes. It was talked about in our army that the pupet of the US inspired regime in Athens Mr Sampson, who had led the coup against Makarios that meant to anex Cyprus to the dictatorship in Greece had gathered many Turkish Cypriots in a foot ball stadium with some very bad plans for them. We should not forget that the attack on the Turkish Cypriots was part of a general attack on the Cypriot republic. Readers may want to go back to the interview of Makario's in Oriana Falatsi's "Interview with History". Britain of course had been practising for a while there the old and tried "Divide and Rule". I saw with my own eyes right wing connected members of the Greek military cheering at the overthrough of the government of Makarios. It was their dream come true, of course some days later they saw that the Turkish generals had been ready for a very long time to take advantage of that unique oportunity, clearly for the generals in Ankara the well being of the Turkish Cypriots was not a major concern. NOTE: The reviews of the book on this site do bring all sorts of important points to the attention of the reader. This is the most informative collection of reviews I ever read at the Amazon site.

Good book!.......2005-02-18

Well written, full of facts and light on 'opinions' - just the way history books should be written.

US-Pakistan Relationship: Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan (Us Foreign Policy and Conflict in the Islamic World)

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US-Pakistan Relationship: Soviet Invasion Of Afghanistan (Us Foreign Policy and Conflict in the Islamic World)
A. Z. Hilali
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0754642208

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