Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond

Rating:
Summary: A handy prism for a full spectrum
Review: A short, clearly organized, and cogently argued primer of the "real" motivations behind the neoconservative agenda, this book leans ideologically to the left, but is not overly preachy or rabid in its rhetoric. Mahajan connects the dots behind US foreign policy of the Bush era, centering US motivation in a desire to expand US military presence, topple potentially threatening regimes, maintain and increase armed hegemony and technology, and expand control over diminishing resources. The book is logical and there is evidence to support its positions. However, not having been present at PNAC meetings or National Security Council deliberations, Mahajan's conjectures about Bush-administration motives remain just that-- conjectures (albeit compelling ones). Like many authors of this sort, also, Mahajan is long on criticism and short on proffered alternatives. But perhaps it's not necessary to propose "solutions" here... the book sticks to its mission of presenting a possible reason why things are they way they are, and succeeds at this limited but important task. Worth picking up, provocative without being annoying, it is sure to make people of all ideological stripes think.

Rating:
Summary: Emergent Voice
Review: Compact, highly readable, survey of neo-con strategy for a new American century. The booklet is simply too condensed to be either weighty or deep, nor do the respective sections on Terrorism and Iraq cohere well, (oddly, there is next to nothing on Afghanistan, a logical bridge between the two). That being said, Mahajan emerges as a consistently sharp-eyed critic of Washington's pretentions at doing something other than building a particularly ruthless and self-serving world empire. That is the book's core and its main virtue. The historical facts are presented cleanly and effectively, much like an extended op-ed piece with footnotes. I particularly like the way Mahajan refuses to pull punches in either this book or in his tv appearances. The section on the murderous UN sanctions regime is especially revealing for an inside look at how that body gets co-opted into the imperial project. Anyone looking to understand why an anti-war, anti-US movement, is growing world-wide, would do well to pick up this little book from one of its emergent voices.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent analysis, a must read
Review: First the U.S. Govt demolishes Iraq, then starves it for a decade, and ultimately invades and occupies. Why? "Full Spectrum Dominance" explores the motivations. Peel back the layers of war propaganda, and there exists, in the bowels of empire, the Orwellian aphorism "War is Peace". From the Truman Doctrine to the Bush Doctrine, the U.S. Govt constantly trolls the planet desperately looking for evil tyrants and dictators to dispose. After all, how shameful having a massive military machine sitting around doing nothing. The destruction and occupation of Iraq is classic "ends justify the means". Undeniably the biggest armed robbery in history, which depending on ones moral compass, is either good or bad. Furthermore, it secures the petro dollar and makes the region safer for Israel.

Rating:
Summary: Common sense and decency in these diabolical times
Review: Mahajan notes that the U.S. from Bush Sr. through Clinton and George the dumber gave Saddam every reason not to fully comply with the disarmament provisions of UN resolution 687 by stating that contrary to that resolution, it would keep sanctions on Iraq and seek to overthrow Saddam even if Iraq was certified to be completely disarmed. The U.S. engaged in heavy spying of Iraqi government institutions about matters nothing to do with WMD, as noted by former Inspections head Rolf Eakus in his Financial Times interview. In Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, he notes, only 11 of 97 targets were WMD related. The rest were Republican guard and secret police facilities, command and control centers. He notes that the U.S. likely decided to invade Iraq in August 2002 when Rumsfeld started bombing command and control centers and non-active air defenses in the illegal "no-fly zones" whose bombings were causing hundreds of civilian casualties according to former UN humanitarian coordinator Hans Von Sponek.

The U.S. got the security council to pass UN resolution 706, in September 1991, the original "Oil for Food ," which after "reparations" to go in large part to oil companies harmed by Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, left Iraq a maximum of only 930,000 dollars of oil to sell over a trial period of several months. This was well below the proposal of UN undersecretary Aga Khan that called for Iraq to be able to sell enough oil to be able to partially repair its vital civilian infrastructure destroyed by the U.S. in 1991. When the program started about $15 per capita got in, only about 26 out of the 41 billion directed for Iraq, and the Iraqi economy remained collapsed, unable to generate income. He quotes UN under secretary general Martti Ahtissaari from 1991, left Iraq in a "near-apocalyptic state." Through 2002 the U.S. placed holds on billions of dollars worth of material needed to repair vitally needed civilian infrastructure as well as hospital equipment and vaccines, claiming absurdly that basic vaccines could be transmuted into biological weapons. He notes how the head of U.S. AID claimed in April 2003 that the vile Saddam had not repaired Basra's water/sanitation facilities. He said this after the British had gallantly knocked out Basra's electricity thus once again shutting down what remained of Basra's water treatment facilities. This of course is a vile lie, the U.S. had been blocking the importation of parts for their repair on the sanctions committee. Iraq's oil for food revenue was placed in a Bank in New York and directly dispersed to companies whose contracts with Iraq were approved. Saddam couldn't get at it so he could build palaces.

After the first Gulf war, the U.S. did all it could to impede the Iraqi rebellion. Brent Scowcroft who allowed that at that point he would have preferred the Iraqi military to retain in control rather than the rebels. The U.S. feared the rebels would not follow orders from the U.S. so they preferred to keep Saddam in power for the moment. Thomas Friedman, that shameless voice for the powerful on the New York Times explained that the U.S. hoped that eventually Saddam would be replaced by "an iron fisted junta" that would rule Iraq the same way Saddam did when the U.S. was giving him all he needed to "gas his own people," blocking condemnation of him in congress and blaming the Halabja massacre on Iran.

He notes that the U.S. will continue to support as much as possible the brutal dictatorships governing the region, who give oil companies huge profits in extracting their oil and then spend the massive revenues they get not for the most part on their own people but buying weapons in the West to repress those people, treasury bonds, etc. This capital flight is contrasted with the lack of spending by these oligarchs on increasing production capacity to meet the huge increase in demand for ME oil. Getting a client state with such awesome untapped reserves as Iraq that can support oil production policies the U.S. wants against OPEC is important. But getting rid of rivals for political domination of the region is what U.S. policy in the ME is first and foremost about.

He notes how the U.S. played something of a role in the coup against Hugo Chavez in April 2002 and how they refused the Taliban's offer to extradite Bin Laden to Pakistan. It has refused repeatedly since 1995 Sudan's offers of its files on Bin Laden and dismissed the Sudanese arrest of two people after the 1998 embassy bombings.The U.S. destroyed the factory producing the majority of Sudan's most needed medicines in August 1998, claiming falsely it was producing precursors to BCW. Who knows how many thousands have died as a result of that attack. The U.S. of course always supports violations of UN resolutions and does it a lot itself. For example it provided arms for Indonesia to slaughter East Timorese for twenty-four years. It has supports Morocco's looting of the Western Sahara. It supports Israel's severe violations of the fourth Geneva Convention. It has never paid the 17 billion dollars to Nicaragua ordered by the World Court in 1986, which told it to stop using the contras to terrorize that country. Shortly after it vetoed a UN resolution calling on all states to observe international law.

He starts off with some good stuff about the foreign policy of the neocons and how these maniacs argue that the U.S. should use mini-nukes against non-nuclear countries and that the affects of such mini-nukes can be contained. He points out the absurdity of even the "strongest evidence" advanced for the Bin Laden-Saddam intimate alliance. For example the supposed medical treatment received in Baghdad by the number two leader of the extremist Ansar Al Islam which operated in Kurdish-U.S. controlled Northern Iraq and whose leader was probably telling the truth when he denied any connection with Al Qaida. Then there was Colin Powell his slimy way at the UN claiming that a video, in which Bin Laden denounced Saddam as a socialist infidel but said he was in solidarity with the people of Iraq, was proof of an intimate Saddam-OBL connection.

Rating:
Summary: A book on strategy from a non-strategist
Review: The author is a young physics professor with absolutely no credentials in military affairs or international relations. He is an enthusiastic activist for leftist causes and this is an amusing polemnic from a non-expert. But why would you want to pay for that?

Rating:
Summary: A smart, brief guide to the new Cold War
Review: The high point of "Full Spectrum Dominance" is chapter 2, in which Rahul Mahajan examines the Bush administration's National Security Strategy. This public document outlines the basic contours of a new Cold War, a perpetual war fought against terrorists instead of communists. Mahajan reviews the important points of the NSS, then spends the rest of the book backing up his analysis with a brief history of US imperialism, attacks on Iraqi civilians during the 1990s, US disregard for international law, the drive to war in Iraq, and the oil cartels.

That's a lot of information for a 200-page, heavily-footnoted book. But Mahajan makes it work. This book packs a lot of important facts and insights into a small package. I recommend it to anyone who wants background on US foreign policy and the current war in Iraq, especially for those people who don't read a lot about politics and need a good place to start.

Rating:
Summary: Rigorous Political Science
Review: Why would I want to pay to read what a "non-expert" with absolutely no credentials in military affairs or international relations has to say about the U.S. in Iraq? Because I prefer the rational, empirical analysis built from the facts up rather than an analysis put forward by an "expert" indoctrinated by higher education (1) to accept simplistic and downright childish establishment principles (e.g., the U.S. government always acts with benevolent intentions) and (2) to explain facts only in terms of those naive principles (e.g., if the U.S. invades Iraq, it must be to liberate Iraqis and spread democracy because the U.S. government always acts with benevolent intentions). To say the very least, a Ph.D. in political science from a state university is not a requirement to understand the world.

Mahajan is an expert, in the proper use of the term. He has a command of the facts, both current and historical, and his explanation of the U.S. government's behavior is properly inferred from them (as opposed to explaining facts in terms of unwarranted and naive assumptions borne of indoctrination with no basis in observational fact, as self-described "experts" tend to do).

This book is not a book about strategy. Rather, it is an empirical and scientific work that collects facts (data), draws conclusions, and posits a theory based upon them, familiar ground for a physicist.