Rating: 
Summary: Inspired, Disciplined, Nuanced, Nobel-Level Thinking
Review: <P>
This is an inspired, disciplined, nuanced, Nobel-level book, and if it ends up saving America from itself, then it would surely qualify the author for the Nobel Peace Prize.
This is the first of three "must read" books that I am reviewing today, and it is first because the other two are best appreciated after absorbing this one. The other two books are "IMPERIAL HUBRIS" and "OSAMA'S REVENGE."
The main weakness of this book is the author's lack of strong criticism of Pakistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, and of other states that are corrupt, repressive, and therefore a huge part of the problem. Having said that, here are some of the key points:
- "West" pioneered genocide, expulsions, and religious wars, with Spanish genocide of Indians in Americas, and Spanish expulsion of first the Jews and then the Muslims as critical starting points in understanding Muslim rage today
- America adopted terrorism as a preferred means of fighting proxy wars in both Central America and Africa, when Reagan began "rollback" with the same neo-conservative advisors that guide Bush II today.
- West has four dogmas as summed up by Edward Said (who is admired by the author): 1) that Orient is aberrant, undeveloped and inferior; 2) that Orient is inflexibly tied to old religions texts, unable to adapt; 3) that Orient is inflexibly uniform and unable to do nuances; and 4) Orient is either to be feared (Green or Yellow or Brown Peril) or controlled.
- Fundamentalism actually started in the US among the Christians seeking to insert religion into the state's business and ultimately demanding faith and loyalty as the litmus tests for acceptance.
- Earlier generations of Islamic reformists disavowed violence, but ended up adopting violence after being in state prisons (e.g. Egypt).
- Earlier incarnations of a Muslim revival were in the open literature in the 1920's and then in the 1960's, and lastly in the 1980's to date--our national "intelligence" agencies appear to have missed the importance of all three
- Viet-Nam, Africa, and Central America all fostered extremely unhealthy connections between CIA covert operations and the drug trade, with CIA routinely condoning and often actively enabling massive drug operations and related money laundering, as the "price" of moving forward on covert operations.
- The obsession with winning the Cold War at all costs essentially destroyed U.S. foreign policy and set U.S. up as the enemy of the Third World [see Derek Leebaert's "The Fifty-Year Wound"].
- Morality in the US has been perverted, as the extreme right, joining with extreme Zionists, has "captured" the U.S. government in both Congressional and Executive terms. Orwellian "spin" together with the labeling of all dissent, made possible by media corporations "going along", has destroyed any possibility of informed, objective, or actually moral dialog.
- The Central American campaign pioneered the privatization of terrorism and proxy war by the US, with secrecy and deception of the US public being the principal role of the US government.
- The US Government is explicitly accountable for introducing bio-chemical weapons into the Iraqi arsenal, and thus accountable for the genocide and war crimes attendant to their use.
- US (AID) sponsored textbooks, such as those created by the University of Nebraska, routinely used terrorism against Russians as examples in the mathematic and other textbooks being distributed in Afghanistan.
- CIA's main contribution to the destabilization of the world has been in its Afghan-related privatization of information about how to produce and spread violence, and its training of tens of thousands of jihad warriors from all over the world who have now returned home and are teaching and leading others.
- Under US leadership, Afghanistan has gone from providing 5% of the global opium production in 1980, to 71% in 1990, and even more today--much of which comes to the US.
- America not only accepts massive drug activities as part of the "cost of doing business", but also ignores human rights in its rush to cozy up to corrupt dictators.
- From an Iraqi point of view, the 1.5 million or so children that died in Iraq due to the sanctions, must be seen as a major war crime and a form of terrorism, together with the air war with its indiscriminate murder of thousands if not tens of thousands civilians including women and children. The US has killed more civilians in Iraq than it did in Japan with two atomic bombs. Napalm and depleted uranium are disabling US troops as well as Iraqi civilians long after their use in the field.
- Economic sanctions, when they have the impact they did in Iraq, must be considered weapons of mass destruction, their application terrorism, and their results war crimes.
- The US Government's general disdain for the rule of law, but the incumbent Administration's particular focus on ignoring treaties and refusing accountability (e.g. for war crimes) sets a new low standard for immoral behavior by nation-states.
- The UN Secretary-General was forced by the US to ignore the Rwandan genocide because of a US desire to keep everyone focused on Sarajevo, and continues to us its veto power to prevent UN from being effective against racist Zionism, which is routinely committing crimes against humanity with its Palestinian campaign.
The author concludes, without sounding inflammatory, that America was built on two monumental crimes: the genocide of the Native Americans, and the enslavement of African Americans. His point: the US is in denial over this reality, while the rest of the world is completely aware of it. He agrees with Jonathan Schell, concluding as Schell does in "Unconquerable World," that the challenge of our times is in "how to subdue and hold accountable the awesome power that the United States built up during the Cold War." The last sentence is quite powerful: "America cannot occupy the world. It has to learn to live in it."
Rating:
Summary: Unavailable
Review: A friend of mine ordered this book from Amazon, but was later told that Amazon "cannot fill your order," and he was credited a refund to his card. What does this mean? Has this author been made the victim of prior censorship? And has the public been denied access to a book that could be critical of the administration's plans? Is conquest liberation? Is war peace? Have we come down to an Orwellian nightmare?
Rating: 
Summary: Pulls no punches
Review: Americans are not unique in their ignorance. Most people everywhere just want to live their lives in peace. The average American can lead a very peaceful and comfortable life if they follow laws and don't pay too much attention to the sad news of the world. It is easy to understand why they may not pay attention to the actions of our government outside our borders. They may think "If it does not affect me directly then why should I care?" and "Those people probably deserve it."As an American who cares and who wants peace for everyone even at my own expense I hope that many people will read this book. Yes, it is true that the author takes page after page to lay out the negative actions of our government. But who is to blame for that? The author for reporting the events or our government for giving so much to write about? As citizens of the strongest and richest nation on the earth we have a duty to the world to be aware. This is OUR nation and we should not let small minded and selfish men (and women) destroy other nations without being held accountable. And if you need to be selfish about it then please learn enough to understand that it does affect you how other nations think of America. We must be wary of others and double-wary of ourselves. This book is not easy to read because it is painful, but it is still a must read for Americans. Even if one-tenth of what Mamdani reports is true we should all be stunned and embarassed.
Rating: 
Summary: Painful to read, but very enlightening despite some problems
Review: As an American, even one who disagrees with much of our foreign policy since the early 1980s, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a tough pill to swallow. If you're the kind of person who needs the reassurance of a staunchly pro-American ideological screed to sooth your delicate sentimentalities and shore up your patriotism without questioning your beliefs, this is definitely not the book for you. But if you go into this book with an open mind, willing to have your preconceptions about your country challenged, you will learn a lot from it, albeit painfully.
This book seems to have two main purposes: First, to dispense with the notion that terrorism carried out by Muslims is somehow an intrinsic element of either Islam or Muslim culture; and second, to identify the root causes of that terrorism. The second point is actually a bit more complex though, because what the author really sets out to do is blame the US for causing terrorism. And although he makes some excellent and well-supported points, this is one of the weaknesses of the book, as I'll discuss below.
It was only natural for me to squirm a bit when I read many of the accusations in this book, and because I'm not the kind of person who immediately believes everything he reads in a book that is very obviously tilted heavily toward a single viewpoint I did not simply swallow everything the author says. However, I have to concede that, on most of the major points, I cannot offer a rebuttal. One would think that a book of this nature would spawn a mountain of heated and defensive responses, but I have been very surprised to find that the overwhelming response has been no response at all. In fact, I have been unable to find a single rebuttal to anything in this book. It has either somehow managed to remain under the radar of its likely critics or those critics simply have nothing to say in response.
In the end I shorted this book one star because there were several glaring problems in both the central thesis and some of the factual details, some of which I'll mention here. Before beginning it is important to point out that the author goes to great pains to essentially blame the US for the very existence of Muslim terrorism today. But focusing on such a narrow mission I believe he goes astray from time to time and loses some credibility in what is otherwise a very well-reasoned book. First is his claim that the US was "the source" of chemical weapons to Iraq. This is simply not true, and while the US certainly did help Iraq develop its chemical and biological weapons programs, it is well-documented that Iraq's program was the product of a fairly fragmented system involving quite a lot of other countries.
The author makes the point several times that terrorism is a political response to certain repressive conditions rather than simply a religious response. And while I agree with this 100%, he overplays his hand by next claiming that the US is primarily to blame for the political conditions to which terrorists are responding. In doing so the author almost completely ignores decades of often brutal oppression by Muslim governments. Perhaps it is convenient for disenfranchised elements of the populations in those countries to blame the US for their plight in life (and to be sure, the governments often promote that view as a safety valve to shield themselves), but that doesn't mean they are correct in blaming the US. The author should have explored the subject of Muslim oppression of other Muslims much more thoroughly. Somewhat related to this issue is the fact that the governments and people of many Muslim countries (such as Saudi Arabia) have contributed a tremendous amount of support to terrorist organizations. The author acknowledges this in passing but fails to explore it further, focusing instead on how actions of the US have contributed to terrorism.
Where the author really went overboard was his claim that the US committed widespread war crimes and used weapons of mass destruction during the first Gulf War, in Afghanistan, and in Kosovo. Specifically, he says the use of depleted uranium weapons, cluster bombs, and Mark-77 firebombs violated humanitarian law because they are "incapable of distinguishing between civil and military targets." He also says the US conducted bombing with no regard to the civilian population. These claims are really quite silly. Had the US really wanted to kill the civilian populations in those engagements it could very easily have conducted the sort of saturation bombing so prevalent during WW II. Instead, it is quite clear that great pains were taken to minimize civilian casualties in all these engagements. The fact that these efforts were not always successful does not mean the US simply disregarded those concerns. With regard to the specific weapons used, there really is no such thing as a weapon that can distinguish between civil and military targets. The best one can do is try to hit the intended target, but obviously that doesn't always work as planned. I feel that I need to specifically address depleted uranium weapons. The author makes it sound like some kind of nuclear weapon was used, when in fact it is simply a very dense metal (albeit one with low grade radioactivity) used in armor-piercing munitions and even in the armor of some vehicles. Even after it impacts with a target it does not add significantly to the normal background radiation we encounter in the natural environment every day. And while the potential danger of these materials is not disputed, there is a lot of misinformation out there about them, and their long-term health risk is very debatable. Referring to them as a "weapon of mass destruction" and calling their use a "war crime" is way over the top and exposes the author's predisposition.
There are other instances where the author overreached, but this book review is already long enough and I don't want to nitpick every single little point I disagreed with. In the end the problems I have identified do not negate the central theme of the book. However, they do damage the credibility of the author a bit and help illustrate how the book goes a bit off course by focusing almost solely on the US rather than discussing many other factors that have contributed to terrorism. I still believe this book is very much worth reading, with the understanding that the reader will encounter some claims that need not be accepted as completely accurate or evenhanded.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: Delightful! The author traces the roots of terror to politics and the product of the cold war. He argues against the demagogic claim that terrorism is linked to Islam, and proves his point by investigating the purposeful radicalization of political Islam by the United States in Afghanistan to defeat the Soviets.
I thought his discussion of Jihad had its shortcoming when compared to traditional Islamic treatment of the subject, but the rest of the book is indeed worth the time.
Rating: 
Summary: Meanders in two dirrections and ends up weak
Review: In all, it is a good book. The only issue is that it could have been better through the inclusion of more examples. And, better use of the examples that it does include. A weakness is that he tries to go in two directions and leaves them both weak.
What he does do well is to illustrate the difference between political and fundamentalist Islam. He separates the motivation and behavior of these groups very well.
Where he fails in this separation is that he then continues to attempt to illustrate his point by using American Pentecostals in his examples. It is clear that he is trying to use the Christian Fundamentalist movement as an example of parallel paths. But he falls in this simply because he, clearly, knows little about Christian Fundamentalism. It may be odd to say, but this lack of knowledge is fine. I read this book to expand my knowledge of Islam and the political divisions within it; not to learn more about Christian Fundamentalism.
The author also makes a great attempt to Tie America to a large number of terrorist related activities. This is clearly both part of his thesis, along with showing difference between political and fundamentalist Islam, and his bias.
Where he falls in this is that he is quick to use disputed sources. The single New York Times article, that ran nationally for a single day, that he relies on heavily was not followed up in the media at the time because it was so heavily flawed. It was, at the time, seen as having no legitimacy. This single article is one of his key documents.
Another failure is his reliance on the disputed CIA bin Laden connection. It is likely that bin Laden is one of the few groups that The US didn't work with in Afghanistan. And then, the US didn't work with him only because he refused to work with the US.
In all, he does a good job of separating political and fundamentalist Islam. But, in other areas the book is weak. His thesis leads him in two directions. In one of those directions he is very strong and knowledgeable. In the other direction he is conspicuously weak.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read
Review: Mamdani, who is a professor of political science at Columbia, has written one of the best books on this topic. This book brings out issues that are often disregarded in the media. Mamdani provides a very clear and through analysis of the Islamic world and the origin of the modern tension between the U.S. and Muslim countries. I specifically liked his analysis of Reagan years. Overall, the book is well-written and all the claims in the book are supported with ample evidence.
Rating:
Summary: Judeo-Christian fundamentalism
Review: Mr. Mamdani's book is a good read all through. His thesis is novel, arguments sound and conclusion is unbiased. His analysis of America's cold war policy of transition from containment to rollback is an eye-opener. Specially noteworthy is his observation of how covert operations undertaken during Reagan era in order to bypass obtaining funds from tax-payers' money through rampant act of aiding and abetting drug trafficking changed to Bush's approach of privatizing military with similar goal of keeping American people in dark regarding its imperial policy in Iraq and elsewhere. Also, his arguments showing parallel mind sets of imperial Europe and modern America regarding the practice of democratic despotism is laudable. European historians always argued in favor of colonizing "lower" races with the 'sacred' interest to civilise and enlighten them, the so called "White men's burden" (Rudyard Kippling) and that mass slaughter (genocide), mass starvation and plundering natural wealth and enslavement to feed industrial revolution in their home countries are but the 'collateral' damages. Similar 'collateral' damages inflicted on the Third world countries in the name of containment during cold war and globalisation following that era by America bears all the diagnostic features of imperial Europe. Finally, I share his frustration when he concludes by saying that whereas serious efforts are being made by the world at large to restrain the terrorism of Muslim origin, an absolute lack of similar efforts to check American and Israeli fundamentalism (the Judeo-Christian terrorism) gives a helpless feeling.
Rating:
Summary: Highly reccomended; tender-minded Americans beware
Review: The author discusses the U.S. effort to overthrow the democratically elected first prime minister of the Congo Patrice Lumumba in 1960, who suffered from the problem of being from the U.S. point of view of not being too independent. The U.S. and UN wouldn't help suppress a rebellion in Katanga province sponsored by Belgian mining interests, so Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for aid. Eisenhower then said to the CIA director Allen Dulles "How can we get rid of this guy" and the CIA started contemplating ways to kill him as were tried in the attempts on the life of Castro Mamdani quotes foreign journalists about how the mercenaries the U.S. used to crush a Lumumbaist rebellion in Kivu province in 1964-65 looted, and executed and tortured wantonly. Then of course CIA asset General Mobutu who had Lumumba kidnapped and murdered back in 1960, seized power and ravaged and looted the country with Western aid. The author notes that the U.S. and South African backed rebels in Angola,UNITA, were cited by Africas Watch as being behind the planting of the landmines that made Angola one of the amputee capitals of the world, laying siege to villages to starve civillians, kidnapping, and so on. This was another example of the U.S. opposing "ultra-nationalist regimes" that had to turn to the Cubans and Russians for aid. He shows how the U.S. encouraging of South Africa to invade its neighbor reversed moderate tendencies within its government and set back the end of apartheid by a decade.. A state department interview of refugees concluded that Renamo was responsible for about 95 percent of the atrocities in Mozambique's horrific civil war. Some prominent U.S. politicians like Bob Dole and groups like the Heritage Foundation supported Renamo and South Africa invested heavily in the U.S. media and evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell.
He points out how the emphasis of jihad being a "holy war" had little precedent in Islamic history before the Afghan war of the 80's. One of the few was Saladin's war against the crusaders, another was efforts to fight slave-holding muslim rulers in North-West Africa, another was the rampages of the Wahabbis in the late 18th century, and the last was the resistance to British conquest of the Sudan in the 1880's. He notes the U.S. began aiding the Mujahadeen at least six months before the Russians invaded. Bin Laden was selected as leader of the Afghan Arabs with U.S. approval and as the contractor by the CIA to build the Khost training and weapons storage complex in 1986. Training of trainers for Pakistan's camps took place in many bases in the U.S. Over half of the total official U.S. aid went not to the most military succesful or popular Afghan organization but to Gullubdin Heckmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami.. Pakistan's dictator, General Zia gave Heckmatyar control of refugee camps in Pakistan and he ruled them with mass murder and violence. He operated heroin factories just inside Pakistan, in Southern Helmand, protected by Zia. In 1988-89, Heckmatyar' and Mujahadeen leader Mullah Nasim Adudkhazada fought the largest battle of the whole anti-Soviet war not against the Russians but against each other for control of the opium growing and heroin processing business in the Helmand valley. The Arabs who learned terrorism in Afghanistan went on to ply their craft in many countries including trying to blow up the world trade center in 1993. The CIA sponsored recruitment tours of the U.S. conducted by Sheikh Abdui Azzam, a founder of Hamas and Al Qaida. He quotes the former CIA chief in Afghanistan as saying "we," the CIA, shouldn't have to apologize if a side-effect of one of their operations was creating Pakistan as the dominant world heroin exporter. As Ollie North implied in his notebook, the Contras were deliberately trying to destroy the Nicaraguan economy. The CIA worked with military officers from the fascist regime in Argentina and Israel (which as proxy for the U.S. had supplied the barbarian dictator Somoza with 98 percent of his weapon in the last horrific months of his rule). Former CIA analyst David MacMichael testified at the World Court, that the U.S. hoped by Contra terror to provoke the Sandanistas to invade their neighbors, to crack down on civil liberties so they could be portrayed as totalitarians, etc.
. Mamdani quotes Oliver North's notebook, as recording reports from his aide Robert Owen of drug running by Contra leaders. Mamdani notes North's meetings with Manuel Noriega in 1986. He quotes the evidence of John Kerry's Senate Subcommittee. .But the biggest evidence is provided by the 1998 report of CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz. Despite Hitz's denials to the contrary, on the CIA web site, he observes, the fine print of the heavily censored Volume 2 of Hitz's report revealed the CIA had worked with 58 Contras who were involved in the drug business and allied with the powerful Carribean drug lord, Alan Hyde. The report also revealed that CIA director William Casey had made a deal in 1982 with attorney general William French Smith that allowed the CIA not to report any drug dealings by its non-official employees.
He discusses how the U.S. deliberately destroyed Iraq's infrastructure, necessary for the maintenance of civilian life, a war crime, during the 1991 bombing. It prevented Iraq from replacing its water treatment facilities on ridiculous grounds, causing the water-borne illnesses that ravaged Iraq's children. It dumped mass quantities on Iraq in 1991 and 2003 of depleted Uranium munitions and tipped missiles, killing hundreds of thousands of children and infecting U.S. troops with "the Gulf War Syndrome." U.S. companies and banks provided Saddam with mass quantities of materials to make WMD, facilitated by Saddam's meetings with Rumsfeld in 1983-84. The U.S. then tried to keep Saddam in power after the Gulf War as the author quotes Thomas Friedman of the NYT, hoping an "iron-fisted junta" might eventually replace him.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Reading
Review: The blurb on the dust jacket says: "a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world." This is probably true. The book presents a view of the Muslim world that is quite different from others such as Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations" which holds that the next big struggles between Muslims and the Christians will be the world's next big battlefield based on cultural differences. Mamdani sees the Muslim's current actions as an extension of the Cold War. (He grew up in Africa, among who's nations the US and the Soviet Union fought the war.) That he is probably right does not alter Huntington's view in my mind. I'd also like to see a chapter, maybe two, on the impact of oil on the crisis. Would 9/11 have happened if Iraq's invasion of Kuwait hadn't happened right over the oil we need to import? I further question some of his historical aspects. Mohammed was both a religious and military leader. (He was pretty good until he came up against one of the Greats - Genghis Kahn.) There seems to be to me more of an emphasis on uniting the two in the current Muslim thinking. I really like his closing statement: "To win the fight against terrorism requires accepting that the world has changed, ... that to occupy foreig places will be expensive, in lives and money. America cannot occupy the world. It has to live in it.
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