Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil (Paperback)

It's a frightening amazing look at US and world politics, the dwindling of oil supplies (at least those feasible to access) and the impact it's having on us all.

The current administration in the US was in charge on that fateful day back in September 2001 (9/11) and this book points the finger directly at Dick Cheney for "pulling the lever" and being at the helm.

Did you know that on 9/11 there were war games and other internal government training exercises being conducted? They included crashing planes into the WTC and Pentagon.

The frightening thing is, Dick Cheney was given complete oversight over these war games and exercises in May 2001. WHY? Why would the vice president be given control of these exercises?? This is a military issue, not an executive branch issue.

There is so much uncovering in this book's 600 + pages yet fortunately the author writes in language that nearly everyone at any age or education level could understand.

He uses nearly 1000 footnotes to substantiate the conclusions and all his data is gleened from media reports, government employee interviews and press releases, congressional and senatorial hearings, investigations and other sources deemed 100% reliable.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE US READER REVIEWS?

This book is more or less a compilation of the author's contributions to the internet site 'From the Wilderness'. It lacks the solid structure of the works of N.M. Ahmed and M. Chossudovsky, on which it heavily draws. The style is rather egocentric (a lot of 'I's).

Nevertheless, it throws a shrill light on some major aspects of the framework wherein the 9/11 attacks took place.
Clearly exposed are the links between the CIA, Wall Street and 9/11, through the heavy buying of put options on airline shares before the attacks (2.5 M$ profits on one bet were not claimed!).
He shows also clearly that there was sabotage within the US intelligence services and that those services had infiltrated Al-Qaeda. More, US government services shielded the hijackers from being arrested. Still more baffling is the fact that a third tower in New York collapsed without being hit!
A very murky affair is the organization of 'wargames' on 9/11 apparently in order to paralyse information channels. There is also the Cleveland mystery: the landing of two unidentified planes. Still more outlandish are the claims that some of the alleged hijackers are still alive or that the planes flew under remote ground control.

The paramount question is: cui bono? After the 9/11 attacks the US defense budget was raised by 48.1 billion $. Indeed, war is the most profitable business.

For the author, the US government crossed the Rubicon after 9/11. From a republic, the US became an empire, a hegemon.
In order to defend its national security, the empire now can make preemptive strikes (war is peace) and create artificial terrorist activities in order to stimulate reactions which could serve as a pretext to invade other countries.
The Total Information Awareness asks the whole population to become spies (Big Brother in the nth degree), while the Patriot Act undermines general civil liberties.

On the economic front, the author stresses the importance of oil and 1.3 billion Chinese consumers.

However, he sometimes formulates extremely important issues without developping them. One example: the policy that 'the world population must be reduced by as much as 4 billion people is secretly accepted and is being acted upon by world leaders.'
Nevertheless, this book is a goldmine for those who want to understand the 9/11 massacre. Michael C. Ruppert poses at the end the right questions: who are we really? And why are we here?

A must read.