Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fine exposure of US state's efforts to run the world, 17 Jan 2004
This fascinating book presents official sources documenting the US ruling class’s strategy for world domination, centrally for controlling the oil of the Middle East. In particular, it shows how the US’s rulers adopted Saddam Hussein, used him for more than 30 years, and then turned against him when he disobeyed them.
Ahmed cites the American state propagandist Samuel Huntington, “Muslims ... fight non-Muslims far more often than do peoples of other civilisations.” Huntington could note how many wars the US state has waged against ‘non-Americans’ - 74 since 1945.
The USA’s precursor empire, Britain, claimed that in the Middle East it was fighting “to defend the area against the brand of Arab nationalism”, that is, against its people! Similarly now, the occupying forces in Iraq claim to be defending the country - against its people!
For nearly 30 years, Saddam Hussein was one of the CIA’s men in the Middle East, an obedient dictator. The CIA helped Hussein in the 1963 and 1968 coups, giving him lists of trade unionists to be killed (5000 in 1963 alone).
In 1980 Iraq attacked Iran, after the US government had given Iraq the green light to invade. There were no frantic US-British efforts at the UN to denounce Iraqi aggression! In 1982, the US government took Iraq off its list of terrorist states. Later, after Iraq had used US-supplied chemical weapons, the US government increased its licensing of dual-use technology exports to Iraq.
In 1990, Thatcher and Reagan encouraged Kuwait not to negotiate with Iraq. Then the US government assured Iraq of its neutrality, while planning its attack. The US government told us that Iraq was threatening Saudi Arabia - but commercial satellite pictures showed no Iraqi troops on the border. The Pentagon’s photos, which it said proved that the troops were there, remain classified.
As for the sanctions against Iraq, the US government knew from the start that sanctions would ‘fully degrade’ Iraq’s water treatment facilities. In 1999, the ethical Blair government prevented the shipment of vaccines to Iraqi children. “Iraqis will pay the price while he [Saddam] remains in power” said the US Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Gates. The genocidal sanctions clearly broke the Geneva Conventions against harming civilians.
Now the occupiers are opposing elections, because the wrong people would win – yet more proof that the war was never about democracy, but about oil and obedience.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Oil and power, 27 Dec 2005
Ahmed's analysis of the war in Iraq contains at least a big part of the truth, and, for me, the essential part.
The war was/is all about control of Middle east oil, because Iraq possesses probably the world's biggest inexpensive and high quality oil reserves.
As Ahmed clearly explains, our technological civilization is totally dependent on oil and the actual oil reserves are now being depleted at a rate of about 2 per cent each year. Control of the oil price is a crucial problem for the West, if it wants to keep its actual living standard.Saddam, in fact, began to act independently as an oil producer and even asked to be paid in Euros (see an important article in the English paper 'The Guardian' of February 26 2003). If this policy should be adopted by other oil producers, the US would not only lose control of the oil reserves, but even of the oil price. Fundamentally however, Ahmed's analysis is based on respect of basic human aspirations: freedom, independence, human rights. One could say that his analysis is naïve (or idealistic), and contrary to 'normal' human behaviour, which is search for power, dominance, unchallenged hegemony. The citations of George F. Kennan and Madeleine Albright in this book are most typical (or should I say, cynical) in that respect.
Ahmed's book is a magnified example of the deeds of an unchallenged political and military power. Of course, as he proves time and again, the international sanctions against Iraq were illegal. Of course, they were intended to the fall of Saddam and the installation of a pro-Western government.
And unfortunately, nobody who wields total power (one needs another analysis why some nations got it and others not) has not exploited it in his own interest or lost it without a struggle (see the masterful analysis of power by Laura Betzig). As a matter of fact, Ahmed himself stops short of giving an opinion on the Iranian situation during and after the reign of the by the author much admired Ayatollah Khomeini, who installed an Islamic shiite oligarchy in Iran. Respect of human rights on the international level can only be imposed by supranational authorities (the UN, an international court). But if these authorities try to take measures against 'vital' interests of one of its members and if that member has enough power, it will neglect all the resolutions and even completely disregard them. Even if it knows that its behaviour equals or installs the 'law of the jungle'.
It is crucial for world peace that the UN should wield international power and be able to impose sanctions. But there is another alarming and frightening aspect of the war in Iraq: freedom of speech was curbed in order to hide the truth.
If the author is correct that US troops fired deliberately at journalists whom they considered not loyal to their cause, then this is the same as the barbarous demolition of the library of Pergamon. This book is a compelling, provocative and must read.
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40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ahmed is a genius, 1 Nov 2003
This book carries accolades from Gore Vidal and John Pilger, but for me, even at the age of 25, Ahmed's work already surpases theirs. Nafeez Mossadeq Nafeez is quite simply the best political commentator writing today. His 'War on Freedom' took a line of thinking that I had previously dismissed as the domain of conspiracy theorists and made a solid case for it, backed by meticulous research. This level of research is again evident in 'Behind the War on Terror'. This time there is no element of speculation, it is all solid fact. The history of western intervention in Iraq from the end of the first world war to the present date is clearly documented in a highly readable and convincing manner.
At a time when even papers like the Guardian and the Independent carry articles by Blairite liberal imperialists, it is a crying shame that neither of them have snapped up Ahmed as a columnist. His arguments would shatter those of pro war camp. I am tired of hearing their pathetic arguments of 'well would you have kept him in power'. The war cannot be seen in isolation. The sanctions against Iraq that denied them clean water supplies thus causing over a million to die from preventable diseases can only be seen as Biological warfare. It is an incredible but little known fact that two heads of the UN humanitarian mission in Iraq resigned calling the sanctions genocide. The pretext for these horrific sanctions (though by no means justified) and the war was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. As this has proven to be untrue the real reason has become more apparent. It was simple naked imperialism, a grab for oil.
Both Blair and Bush have constantly conjured up a picture of Saddam as a dangerous monster, undoubtedly this is true. But it was their (and their predessors) actions that caused the deaths of over one million Iraqis beteen 1991 and 2003. This has to be termed one of the crimes of the century and the proponents of it should stand trial for crimes against humanity. The real tragedy was that it was commited under the authority of the United Nations, who broke their own charter by using this method of mass punishment. Genocide has occured before by the hands of dictators but when the worlds senior most governing body is responsible that is truly a nightmare scenario.
The sanctions were clearly a method of destroying the fabric of Iraqi socity and the moral of the Iraqi people so that they would have agreed to anything if it meant they were removed, even an invasion by oil grabbing imperialist powers. Ahmed's explanation of this, the Iran/Iraq war and subsequent western interventions is quite brilliant. I look forward to his future publications and would implore everyone to read this book. I can only hope that his work receives wider media access, because the world needs it. I sincerely believe he is a great genius of our time.
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