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An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

List Price: $25.95
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: America must fight and win the War on Terror
Review: If you believe that America should ignore 9/11,and leave it to someone else like the United Nations ,to ensure her Freedoms are protected,don't bother reading this book.The Democrats have chosen to put their efforts into defeating the government ahead of fighting the enemy.The War on Terror is not a battle between Liberals and Conservatives;but a war against an enemy that wants
to destroy a way of life based on freedom of the people.
The authors have done an excellent job of showing how this war developed and what America must do to protect herself. Pessimism and defeatism will not win this war.9/11 proved that appeasement,blindly trusting tyrants and ignoring reality only encourages these evil intentions.America did not seek this war but she will win it ;for the simple reason that there is no other option.What it costs to win the war is not an issue any more than it was in the Civil War,WW1,WW2 or the Cold War.
As the war proceeds, it is important that America looks at the actions rather than listening to the rhetoric of countries to determine which are her friends and which are not.America's friends may well change.As John Manyard Keyes said "When the facts change I change my opinions".
The authors conclude with this...
"A world at peace,a world governed by law,a world in which all peoples are free to find their own destinies.That dream has not yet come true,it will not come true soon,but if it ever does come true,it will be brought into being by American armed might and defended by American might too.America's vocation is not an imperial vocation.Our vocation is to support justice with power.It is a vocation that has earned us terrible enemies.It is a vocation that has made us,at our best moments,the hope of the world."
This was proven in WW1 ,WW2 and the Cold Was and will be again in The War on Terror.
The leaders of the terrorists should remind themselve of the words of the Japanese commander after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.."I fear all we have managed to do was to awaken a sleeping giant".

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Their views on China
Review: I agree with the authors' general attitude to China. "Americans," they write, seek "friendly" and "sustainable" relations with the Chinese. Perle and Frum really don't see China as a major problem for the United States. Indeed, they have little to say about China in their book, dismissing the subject in a couple of pages, and then only near the end of the book. In fact, they have far more to say about France and Russia, and neither country is in their good graces. (Europeans must be told: "Either you're with us or you're with the French!" And Russia is a country with which America can have neither friendship nor alliance - "only a series of transactions." In other words, France is now an enemy, and the Russians can't even be called friends!)

Two things suggest that these authors wrote this book a while back. First, they are fully in favor of allowing China into the World Trade Organization, they say. But China entered the WTO with America's blessing back in December 2001. Second, they say China is doing little to help the US over Noth Korea. But the opposite is now true. Indeed the Chinese now see Kim Jong Il as a major threat to their national security.

Perle and Frum's strong support for free and open trade with China is very admirable in my opinion. But characteristically they view trade not for its own sake (i.e, cheap, high-quality products for American consumers and FDI for China) but only in political terms. In other words, free trade is intended to liberalize and democratize the Chinese population.

By contrast, he authors' hard line on the Taiwan question strikes me as silly and laughable from a realist point of view. Taiwan is not a matter of national security for the US, only a historical legacy and a burden on precious American military resources. Their real reason could be the benefit to American defense contractors coming from Taiwan. But such a benefit would be short-lived, as tiny Taiwan cannot win an arms race with a China buying military hardware from Russia by the tons. And the cost to America of such a policy would be in Beijing's foreign policy to the US over everything from Iraq at the UN and North Korea.

In any case, their support for Taiwan for democratic reasons is inconsistent and hypocritical: they have no hesitation in their support for Pakistan's dictator-president Musharraf. On Pakistan, they also fail to mention that China also has a huge stake in keeping the country stable and out of the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. If the extremists get control of Pakistan's military and nuclear weapons, they could start a war with India over Kashmir. And an all-out war, with or without nukes, would be an environmental and humanitarian disaster for China - their next-door neighbor. (China's other fear would be the support a fundamentalist Pakistan would give to Xinjiang Muslim separatist-terrorists in Western China.) For the US, if Pakistan's nukes fall into the hands of the radicals, the terrorism threat would be SEVERE because they would not hesitate to sell or even hand some of these over to their Muslim brethren in the Middle East.

Thus, the US and China have converging interests not only in North Korea (where the country is stable but the leader is not), but also in Pakistan (where the leader is stable but the country is not). Perle and Frum should also mention that since 2003 China overtook Japan as the world's second largest oil consumer. Therefore, China and the US have exactly the same needs for a stable Middle East (and low oil prices). China and America are being forced, willy-nilly, to become allies by changing global realities, just as America and Europe are being pulled apart by them. The authors may have sensed this, but they could have been more elaborate and articulate, to say the least.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Some good ideas but overreaching
Review: An end to evil? Sounds a bit utopian to me. What the authors propose is simple: war without end against terrorist states-e.g. Iran, North Korea, Saudia Arabia, etc... Ultimately, this will be costly beyond imagination, both in blood and money. As we have seen in Iraq, "regime change" is more difficult in practice than theory.
This is not to say the book is without value. Frum and Perle do make some constructive suggestions regarding our failed immigration policies. It's probably worth checking out of the library, but it isn't good enough to justify the price.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I highly recommend this book to everyone
Review: In this fascinating book, political thinkers David Frum (former special assistant to President George W. Bush) and Richard Perle (former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan and chairman of the Defense Policy Board under President George W. Bush) turn their thoughts towards the American war on terrorism. The book begins with a spirited defense of the American invasion of Iraq, and then moves on to the war on terror as a whole. The book looks at the world, with special attention focused on the various nations' motives and actions with regards to Muslim fundamentalism, and what America should do to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

Let's make no bones about it; this is a book about war, about good guys and bad guys, about the application of force, and remaking the world. Overall, I found the authors' arguments to be very black-and-white, but quite well thought out. They look at the problem of terrorism as a whole, examining where it is in America's best interests to use military force, and where to use economic aid and pressure to bring about better conditions for the people of the world. Indeed, I strongly suspect that the Bush Administration is listening to such people as Messrs. Frum and Perle, which means that, agree or disagree, you would do well to read this book to see what strategy they are following. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Biting Off More Than They Can Chew
Review: The book quickly suggests and reinforces the belief that everything the Bush administration has put forward to us can, and should be, justly contrasted between good and evil - even such distinctions as those between Republicans and Democrats. By the mid-point of the second page of the book, Democrats have already been accused of being against the "war" (no doubt left ambiguous as to which war - that on terror, or that in Iraq - as it suits Frum and Perle's ideas to leave undefined that which carries with it meaning).

The book struggles to rise above that of propaganda. The books double spaced 284 pages are sparsely footnoted. Given the claims made in this book, should the authors have desired to do more than inflame and reinforce those that already agree with them, it would have served their purposes well to provide some sort of academic support. Without them, the book does not rise above that of an extended campaign speech for now-President Bush. Some of the book is ludicrous - "The clues and hints we have linking Saddam's intelligence to the hijackers are inconclusive. But they are not nonexistent." (page 45) What? Where did we begin to allow such weak-minded arguments to become the basis for military action? Are we as anesthetized to logic and reason that this type of question is purported to be meaningful?

The flaccid logic this book espouses are best illustrated by using the authors' own words: "Yet at this dangerous moment many in the American political and media elite are losing their nerve for the fight. Perhaps it is the political cycle: For some Democrats, winning the war has become a less urgent priority than winning the next election. Perhaps it is the media, rediscovering its bias in favor of bad news and infecting the whole country with its own ingrown pessimism. Perhaps it is Congress, resenting the war's cost and coveting the money for its own domestic spending agendas. Or perhaps it is just fatigue." (page 4) This is ludicrous - no where in this section do the authors make a meaningful effort to suggest that some peoples' resistance to the "war" are on the basis of meaningful policy disputes or a desire to see our foreign policy become more consistent.

The authors are guilty of tremendous over-simplification. One such example is contained within the second chapter, where they argue that America must come to understand that resolving the civil problems in Iraq will take time, that we must be patient. Now that we are in a conflict I disagree with us originally being a part of, I would have to agree. But to support the argument by suggesting parallels to the current day Soviet Union is inappropriate and illogical. "A dozen years after the fall of communism, electricity and water sputter unreliably in much of the former Soviet Union." (page 12) That sentence is within a portion of the book arguing that the change to democracy, or perhaps better said, the vindication of America's current policy can be shown to help the people if they will only stick with it. To say that now, given the dangerous situation developing in Russia and the poor standard of living in Russia, is shocking.

This book should reinforce peoples' concerns over the neo-conservatives who have power within the Bush administration. These people view American hegemony as a good thing, and view the world in black and white terms that always portray America's motives as pure and those that disagree with them as evil (hence this book's preposterous title). In the second chapter, the authors suggest that the most recent Iraqi war "achieved at least seven great objectives." (page 32) The fourth lesson chilled me, and requires little more for me to believe that neo-conservatives have a worldview that force plays an integral part of: "We have learned valuable lessons about how to fight wars in the region and how to rebuild afterward. Nobody will pretend that mistakes were note made in the Iraqi campaign and the subsequent occupation. But we have learned from those mistakes, and they will not be repeated. The United States will continue to become more and more capable and effective in the fight against terror." (page 33) Those words are chilling. They show premeditation in the employment of force to protect US hegemony and to perpetuate American imperialism. It seems a tad bit premature to argue that we can say we have learned how to rebuild Iraq when so much remains to be done, and when our recent record in Afghanistan is anything but checkered.

I agree with the authors of this book in one area: those that oppose Bush must put forward a meaningful foreign policy that addresses the fear of Americans, the realities of the dangers in our current-day, and that forces institutional reform within those international organizations and governments that can most directly and immediately affect change.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Factually inaccurate
Review: This book present one of the most blatant tracts of right-wing propaganda in recent years. It is also so full of internal contradictions and outright fabrications - that it renders itself almost completely useless - even for its apparent value as a "propaganda primer" - which may have articulated the thinking of some of the more extreme elements within the Bush II administration. The fraudulent "research institutes" that provide the platform of the so-called Neo-Conservatives that supposedly wield enormous influence within the White House are hardly mentioned.
Just how much influence they wield is far from certain, and it is very possible, even probable that the amount of influence is vastly exaggerated. Richard Perle, the main "guru" of the "neo-conservatives", the ideas of whom resemble mainstream Fascists of late 1930s Germany, admittedly meets with George Bush only several times a year.
Getting back to exacly what the ideas contained in this book and who is really behind them it becomes almost comical. The people who are the "neo-cons" - Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Natan Sharansky, Newt Gingrich, Scooter Libby, Eliott Abrams, William Cristol and others - are really no "movement" at all, but a group of people who are proposing that the best way to advance desired American foreign policy goals - is by military force.
What they are really proposing, however are radical changes in the economic system benefitting a narrow range of investors favoring free-market economics, scaling down or dismantling of social programs and institutions that are in discord with the free-market dogma, drastically increasing the power of the state to protect them from the American population and a much more aggressive foreign policy to keep up the level of jingoism to mask the whole affair in an air of fear and patriotism. Concordantly, a side effect of the foreign policy element is elimination of all potential threats to Israel's expansion and hegemony in the Middle East.
"An End to Evil" contains literally dozens and dozens of contradictions - such as Perle's complaining against George Bush I's betrayal of the Iraqi Shia rebellion in 1991 - when at the time Perle and others were radically opposed to that rebellion. Continuations of the falsehoods that were supposed to justify the aggression in Iraq in 2003 - such as the non-existant meeting of Mohammed Atta with Saddam Hussein's agents in Prague in 2001, hundreds of groundless accusations of Iraq posessing of WMD, claims of the "popular democratic opposition" in Iraq consisting of the INC, led by Ahmed Chalabi (who is on CIA's payroll) - the INC is not "opposition" or "movement" but a group of criminals with no following in Iraq, claims that the main reason for the invasion of Afghanistan was to prevent a famine (!). Bin Laden is played down in favor of demonising Saddam Hussein, Assad, leadeship of Saudi Arabia, Iran and others. An obvious motive is to violently overthrow any non-quisling regime in the Middle East. Presumably all of this is a front for the wholesale hardling changes in the domestic policies described earlier.
The incredible incompetence of the "neo-cons" is apparent from the very first page, and if anyone cares to delve deeper into this "movement" it becomes clear just how itellectually bankrupt it is. Some point to the fact that many of the "neo-cons" are Zionists who advance Israel's interests within the American political establishment. There is some truth to that, but it is obvious to many people that the main thrust of the neo-cons agenda is on the domestic front.
This is very crude propaganda that in my opinion, vastly over-exaggerates its importance and relevance. It is possible to read most of it from websites of the American Enterprise Institute, JINSA, Brookings and others. Not worth spending $20 (or any amount).

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A recipe for disaster
Review: Well, the Bush administration has followed the author's advice, chapter by chapter, and it definitely appears that this book is nothing but a recipe for disaster.

This book will come in handy for those interested in how not to conduct U.S. foreign policy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Who will do the neo-cons' heavy lifting?
Review: Having recently paid his dutiful respects to Israel and awaiting the passage of legislation allowing 20-year or more residents to run for president, it would seem that fate is lining up Herr Schwarzenegger to be the 'next Bush'. Could he and Hilary be on a cosmic collision course?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Good Dream
Review: The book about ending all evil is a fairy tale, the book "An End To Evil - How To Win The War On Terror" is exactly that. Whomever reads this book will hope the steps and procedures expressed by David Frum and Richard Perle were as simple as stated. The book discusses American Foreign Policy from Sept. 11 to Afghanistan and Iraq as well as going into detail about other terrorist organizations around globe. The factual infromation that is expressed can not be dismissed as opination. The book blames the past Clinton administration for flaws in communication between agencies in the U.S. government causing Sept 11 and ect. This book stresses that American saftey relies on riding the evil in the Middle East. This book states how the Bush administration is handling the war on terror. If the "how to win war" genre type books worked there would be few made, as well as few conflicts. Expect the book "An End to Evil 2."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poses question: America's capital: Jerusalem or Washington?
Review: An very deceitfully self-righteous work, written in pure fire-blood, that in very shrill moralistic terms which moral retards will delight in, argues for the practical dismantling of American sovereignty to fulfill a grandiose and truly holocaustal vision of Israelo-American hegemony over a pacified and safely globalized planet. Of course, this is not stated so directly. It is completely natural that the authors identify with their Hebrew kinsmen in embattled Israel so ferociously, but perhaps they could have displayed their proud inegalitarian love of their folk in a manner less offensively disingenuous? The insubstantial rhetoric of mawkish universalism and tactical "Judeo-Christianity" can hardly contain the authors' ill-concealed fanatical Zionism and vicious anti-Muslim demonology. Essentially, what we have here is very understandable but subintellectual feelings of biogroup nepotism (see Van den Berghe, "The Ethnic Phenomenon") becoming intellectualized, either consciously or unconsciously (see Kevin MacDonald, "The Culture of Critique"). The average American is not in favor of the Nietzschian power-politics of these hotheaded world-perfecters. The average American is not fond of the idea of their family members perishing ignobly in the sands of the Middle East, and America as a somewhat functional democracy should forthrightly discuss the tenability of the revolutionary concept of total identification of United States interests with the interests of the expansionist ethnostate of Israel. I think it is time we heeded Mr. Washington's warning of foreign entanglements.


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