Rating: 
Summary: Finally
Review: This book is amazing. A book that finally gives us the facts about what is REALLY going on with the White House and 9/11. Thanks Mr. Unger.
Rating: 
Summary: Expose in the grand AMERICAN tradition
Review: I found the book quite readable and well organized given the rather long period of time it covered. Good basic reading about the intersection of geopolitics, business, religion, and expediency.
Rating:
Summary: A page-turner and unfortunately a true story
Review: This well-researched, well-written and intriguing book will keep you on the edge of your seat. Even details that in other books would come across as dry and indecipherable are presented in a way that makes you want to devour every word faster than you can you read. The facts are here... conjecture is rarely used, and when it is, it is qualified as such. We've heard bits and pieces of this story before, but it's great to have it researched in depth, and all in one place. The author clearly put a lot of work into this book, and the result is stunning. The thing that immediately comes to mind is that Richard Clarke's story is told pretty much exactly as it appears in his own book (which came out after this one). I suppose the partisan accusers will now have to start saying that Clarke's motivation in telling the truth here was to help Unger sell books...
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Crime In American History!
Review: In Craig Unger's book, he reveals an incredible link between Saudi money, and the last 40 years of the Bush family and their business dealings and investments. It turns out that Prescott Bush, the Senator from CT, and father of George Bush Sr. '41 was something else, before he retired to be a Senator from CT. He was the Managing Partner of Brown Brothers Harriman which is a private bank, used only by the rich and famous, as today, BBH will not take an account for less than $3 million in cash/securities. Through these money connections and through Bush '41 and Bush '43 oil connections, incredible amounts of Saudi money were invested in companies that were either owned by the Bush family or that the family had interest in. The biggest of these is the Carlyle Group, a giant private equity company. Unger estimates that $1.4 Billion was invested by Saudi's in the Carlyle Group which very much directly benefitted the Bush family. But the most interesting part of Unger's book, is the fact that it was published between that of O'Neill's book and Clarke's book, and thus got a bit of the short shrift in the marketing department. However, Unger's book supports both O'Neill's book and Clarke's book. Apparently, a little known fact is that during the period between 9/11 and 9/13/2001, there were several commercial non-military airplanes flying over the skies of the US of A. These planes contained members of the Saudi Royal Family and the Bin Laden family, who were congregating in Lexington, KY in readiness to evacuate the country. No one else was allowed to fly. Former President Clinton was stuck in Australia at the time and was not allowed to fly back in. Former V-P Al Gore was in Austria at the time and was not allowed to fly back in. But with White House approval, a bunch of Saudi's, about 140 all told, were not only allowed to fly during the no fly period, but some even left the country on 9/13, prior to Logan International being reopened for commercial traffic, with special White House Clearance. This event is what Unger characterizes as the "Greatest Crime In American History." When the country is devastated, when the vast majority of the hijackers and killers had been identified as Saudi Nationals, and in cooperation with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the White House lets 140 members of the Saudi Royal Family and members of the bin Laden family, to fly, unimpeded, around and out of the country. Unger's book gives excruciating detail about the connections between the Bush '43 administration and the Saudi Royal Family. In fact, George W. Bush was personal friends with Prince Bandar, as was his father. Unger explicitly indicates, that it is difficult to imagine that a President would act entirely in the national interest, when his personal interest is so tightly tied to the interests of Saudi Arabia. Therefore, in addition to the failure to develop a cohesive anti-terrorism plan, despite Richard Clarke's preparedness to do so at anytime, and his plan sitting doing nothing waiting for the NSC to review it, the Bush administration badly damaged our ability to really properly respond to a threat such as the type that Al Qaeda was and is involved in still to this day. And that the very funders of this terror are also the closest allies of the Bush family. And that this indeed seems to represent a serious conflict of interest for the President of the United States of America. This is recommended reading for all US citizens who want to have at least a glimpse of the truth, without nearly the spin that the White House is putting on its statements today in the news. It is highly recommended for its well researched factual revelations.
Rating:
Summary: Blows your mind
Review: The author, using solid and extensive references, demonstrates year by year and step by step the evolution of the relationship between the Bush family and their associates with the House of Saud, and by extension, the house of bin Laden. The weight of the evidence that such an association exists is the sheer number of shared business endeavors, business associates (who are later appointed government officials) and mutual interests - too much for it to be coincidence. The consummation of this association is the outright courting (and winning) by the Bush campaign of the radical Muslim vote in Florida in 2000 and the subsequent loosening of immigration requirements for Saudi Arabians. The last chapter (I will not give it away) will sweep the reader into a dimension where the game of playing both sides by the rich and powerful (both Bush and Saud) comes suddenly crashing down in a deadly tragedy for thousands of Americans. Now we can see why Richard Clarke maintains the Bush administration did little pre-9/11 to pursue Al Qaida - what he doesn't say (but this book documents) is that Al Qaida is the stepchild of Saudi Arabian royalty, and that it is Saudi Arabian royalty that has helped propel the Bush family into power. A chilling read that explains so many questions we have. Read it, share it.
Rating:
Summary: If this book doesn't blow your mind...?
Review: This is not only one of the most well-written non-fiction books I have ever read but the research behind the author's claims are so thorough it's terrifying that all this information is out there and this is the first thorough depiction of this relationship the public has seen. The author also gains credibility in that his contentions about pre 9-11 responses to terrorism from the White House match nicely with what Richard Clark and Paul O'Neil have claimed. If you want to understand the backdrop of the most prominent foreign policy decisions of the past two decades, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Free Copies to the MidWest!
Review: This is book is so insightful, so well researched and so convincing, free copies should be made available to moderate/independent/undecided voters before the election. What Gore Vidal claims but never bothers to prove; your worst fears about the Bush administration - all are revealed in this book. Likely to become an "All the President's Men" for this political generation. It is genuinely impossible to see the world the same way after investigative reporting of this caliber and the magnitude and seriousness of what has been uncovered. One can say with full conviction that the real fifth column in the United States is the Bush family and their entourage.
Rating:
Summary: Judge it by its cover.
Review: This is more of a question than a review. Can you imagine the political hay that the RNC would be making out of the image of John Kerry holding hands with a smiling Saudi? There are a number of well-researched, well-written books about the actions of the Bush family and its current resident of the White House, but elections in this country no longer turn on well-reasoned arguments or nuanced appreciations of diplomacy and negotiation. We argue about foreign policy in pictures now, from toppling statues of Saddam to Jessica Lynch to Mission Accomplished banners to Abu Ghraib snapshots; the cover photo used on the jacket of "House of Bush, House of Saud" deserves its rightful place in this national "debate."
Rating: 
Summary: Aspiring Book on Foreign Policy Tainted by Selective Bias!!!
Review: MOST HoS reviewers are imbalanced, vindictive liberals who're impersonating into reviews defamations of Bush, with every frenetic conspiracy-theory their anti-government minds invent. Their reviews divulge the extreme of liberals' cancerously black detestation of Bush, that they're shamelessly willing to stoop to unconscientious fraud by insidiously masking themselves as literates who've read it, really abusing that façade as a screen to galvanize immaterial, conspiracy-theory, radically insane slurs!!!! If you're afflicted with schizophrenic Bush-animosity, DON'T get pollutedly mistaught by these SICKOS; Unger's book isn't blinded, anti-Bush fanaticism like the sordid crap vomited by shameless demagogues so much as a history lesson, albeit a biased one. The otherwise informative book, chronicling Arabs' obsession with Islamic fundamentalism that was tactically used by the Reagan Admin. to help defeat the U.S.S.R. in the Cold War, is ruined by Unger's prejudicial and stealthy selectivity in order-chronology and his sometimes worse misdeed on disadvantageously believing untrustworthy sources. Unger's thesis is Bush intimacies with Saudis may've facilitated profane, Islamic fundamentalism's rise; something plausible. Unger begins by detailing the materialization of Binladen repatriation after 9/11, contending that, contrary to FBI's insistences, they weren't screened probingly as required, but received WH, FBI clearance. While true, Unger's first wrongdoing is committed. Unger plagiarizes this fact from other books' and articles' sources, an illness he perpetrates for most of his book's discussions, reducing his merit because he doesn't investigate independently. Unlike other liberal partisans posing as authors, Unger at least balances his planned accusations that the WH jeopardized national security by not scrutinizing Binladen's relatives with confessions that, in the Binladen repatriation, there's only speculation regarding their connections to Osama, and the Binladens renounced him. Parts dealing with the Saudi-American connection's infancy are historically informative and edify that not only did Saudis begin their Americanization through Houston businessmen like Bath, but Demoncrats were also involved, like Carter's director of the OMB, Bert Lance. The Saudis' ultimate goal was blatantly to infiltrate access to American power's inner sanctum-the presidency. Saudis partook in particularly shrewd habits of having businessmen such as BCCI's Abedi and Mahfouz rescue American politicians' companies that were in financial direness, even Bush's Harken. Saudis would continue to ingratiate themselves in America's interests by covertly assisting two Reagan policies: arming the Contras and Iraq to counter Iran, excellently strategic maneuvers. Unger puts in perspective that Iraq's arming was actually CARTER policy; he encouraged Hussein to attack Iran to ultimately free the hostages. However, America realized that Iraq was gaining strength, so they'd backslide to once more financing Iran. For liberal scum who sanctimoniously, IGNORANTLY decry this, this isn't a duplicitous policy as much as it's savvy politics. Ultimately, the Reagan Admin.'s dealing with Saudi Arabia developed into their defining tactic of Cold War victory: mujahedeen-financing in Afghanistan. Unger, by his intractable, liberal categorization, HAS to demeaningly "argue" that constitutes American creation of the jihadist monster, but upon examining evidence Unger cataclysmically presents himself-that Egyptian Qutb and militant scholar Azzam indoctrinated students at Jeddah's Aziz University with Wahabbi fundamentalism-there exists likelihood that LOTS of Arabs would've dilapidated independently into mujahedeen psychopaths. This policy was started by Carter Admin.'s Brzezinski to halt the Soviets' expansion. America's handled two winning approaches to Islamic and Communist threats, ensuing to the Gulf War, whose chronicling Unger treats less than perfectly, injuring his legitimacy. Unforgivably adverse is Unger's selective reliance on untrustworthy, rabidly psychotic, anti-war sources for almost all of one chapter. Detailing the Gulf War, Unger exclusively abuses sources from the guiltiest anti-war forgers: the "Disinformation Company" and John MacArthur, slippery dissembler. Instead of recounting the intriguingly supposed offer Binladen made to fight Hussein with his "Afghan warriors" instead of the "infidel" Americans in response to Hussein's Kuwait invasion to reclaim Iraq's "stolen" oil, Unger descends into hazardously unstable, anti-war propaganda. Using MacArthur's source blindly, Unger subserviently regurgitates the sham Hussein DIDN'T amass a large army into Kuwait. This is THE worst objectionable aspect of Unger's otherwise decent effort, and citing another roguish "reporter" from St. Petersburg Times, Unger fabricates that alleged Soviet satellite photos of Kuwait and Iraq DIDN'T show buildup except America's own. Unger covers-up varying reasons the SAME experts he quoted offered as probabilities for said phenomena, including camouflage, wide troop dispersion, or glare. Another discomforting questionableness is Unger's preoccupation with disproving "Nayirah's" credibility, which CAN'T be "confirmed" other than on mentally ill, anti-war sites!!!! Unger progresses to Clinton, his amoral partisanship lapsing conscience!!!! Unger lies through his teeth Clinton was first to "identify" Al-Qaeda as the premier hazard; if you believe this, you're a gullibly mistaught, liberal patsy-cretin. Unger's casualty is his exorbitant dependence on Clarke the Liar for information. Unger's so shameless, he humiliatingly discloses Clinton's maltreated faults of "anti-terrorism"-1993's WTC BOMBING, 1993's Somalia-Ranger-KILLINGS, 1996's 19-American-soldiers-killing Khobar Towers BOMBING, 1998's Tanzania, Kenya embassy BOMBINGS, 2000's Cole BOMBING-then still imposes Clinton "proactively" retaliated by-get this; gets funnier!!!!-bombing a misconceived "aspirin factory" in Khartoum!!!! When Unger stoops to subordinately swallowing all of Clarke's purport that he presented Bush a plan to assault Al-Qaeda, after being stupid or fanatically virtuous enough to provide the Admin.'s reasoning that Clarke's crippled "plan" OMITTED to account for comprehensive methods to target both the Taliban's AND Al-Qaeda's inseparability, the book careens into impurity. Unger arduously stumbles to close with conspiracy theories about three Saudi princes "knowing" about 9/11 beforehand. If true, it'd ONLY put them in the same, helpless position as Bush who didn't possess information about time or place, because Unger ruinously confesses they didn't know specifics either. Unger's deserving of only a half-rating since only the first two-thirds is responsibly uncovering history somewhat. Unluckily for Unger, the latter third's where Unger's afflicted by the irredeemable tumor all liberals are possessed with: hazardously degrading into skewed innuendo chicaned to his unsanitary worldview that Bush is evil. Unger excruciatingly massacres a decently fair chronology at the end by tyrannically recycling the now-infamous, liberal-practiced slogan liberals always perpetrate undependability in, which is Bush waged a "phony" war and Hussein "didn't" have WMDs.
Rating:
Summary: Best of the current Bush-related book crop
Review: All Americans should be fascinated with, and invested in learning, the background (both "secret" and not) of our political relationship with the Middle East. I'm with the other reviewers who criticize that this book focuses a little too intently on Bush's personal culpability in the 9/11 attacks (after all, all policies did not begin with his administration)- but, I learned so much. I really had to think about some paradoxical and even stupidly dangerous policies we have in regards to oil-producing countries. The war with Afghanistan ultimately brought down the Soviet Union. How arrogant were we to think that we could encourage the region to "Bring it on" when we knew the history? And what does history do...? I read Woodward's book and Clarke's book, but this one is (to me) the most meaningful.
|
