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

Rating:
Summary: Offers remarkable insight and wisdom in our changing times
Review: Many journalists and writers proffer psudeo insight masquerading as wisdom concerning the current George W. Bush presidency. Far fewer have the depth of understanding, the gift of clear written prose and the mental firepower to write a book such as this.Although opinions on this Presidency are more polarized than any other Presidency in recent memory this book makes a lucid and convincing argument that the underlying foundation of the Bush war on terrorism is solidly rooted in progress and a brighter future. After reading this book you will better appreciate the historic nature of the Bush's presidency. In the realm of foreign policy post Iraqi election the scope and boldness of the Bush vision coupled with the political risks W took during the last presidential election appear all the more impressive and historic. Seems like David Frum's other book - The Right Man - is all the more prophetic.
Congratulations on a job well done !


Rating:
Summary: Sophomoric prattle from two yellow abdomens
Review: This book has to rank as one of the worse of all the political books that appeared in 2004. References are only sparingly given, and therefore a considerable amount of effort would be required to check the author's facts. In fact, if the authors had taken the time to include their references, or elaborated in more detail on the historical background on the myriads of claims that are made, the book would have swelled in size, which no doubt would have prohibited its publication. It is a rush-to-print polemic, and fails miserably in giving the inquisitive reader factual information on world events.

Here are just a few of the totally unsubstantiated claims that are made in the book:

- The claim that Iran was responsible for the murder of 86 people in Buenos Aires. Was it? Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that it is the remnants of the Baath Party that have launched a guerilla war against the Allied forces in Iraq? Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that Saddam Hussein harassed and threatened the weapons inspectors in the mid 1990's. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that Saddam Hussein arrested more than 200 hundred senior officers and executed 80 of them in July 1996. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that Saddam Hussein plotted to assassinate G.H.W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait in April 1993. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that Iraq was smuggling billions of dollars' worth of oil through Syria and Iran. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that the UN collected 1.5% commission on all the money in the oil-for-food program. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

- The claim that the danger from Iraq was underestimated and that it had started work on a nuclear weapons program in the early 1990's. Where is the evidence? How do they know this? An inquisitive reader wants to know.

But most troubling, and this goes to the root of any war on terror, nowhere in the book do the authors encourage those that agree with their "manual for victory" to enlist in the military to fight the "war on terror" or bring about an "end to evil." When viewing the authors on the many television news programs they are invited to, they both appear to be very healthy, indeed, healthy enough to serve in combat duty in Iraq. It is readily apparent they have no intention of serving in combat, and neither do the majority of those that agree with them and the administration of cowards they support. In the book they scold the "American political and media elite" for "losing their nerve for the fight", and chide the administration's Democratic opponents for being "ready to give up the fight altogether", but they let others do the actual dirty work of fighting and killing. There is no sand blowing in their face and no rifles aimed at them when they populate the podiums of their think tanks, and proclaim this book as a "manual for victory." But it is a victory that won't be attained with their help in actual battle. "We have wanted to fight," they say early on in the book. So why don't they?

The authors and the neo-conservative crowd they are a part of can easily be distinguished from others by their unwillingness to put themselves in the line of fire. The authors quote Donald Rumsfeld as saying "weakness is provocative". Was Rumsfeld showing weakness or strength when he avoided service in Korea or in Vietnam? How about Bush and Cheney when they avoided military service in Vietnam? It seems that weakness and cowardice are the rule rather than the exception for the authors and the administration they support. Without doubt they are all yellow, a sickening bright yellow, and their lack of intellect is only matched by their lack of intestinal fortitude.

Rating:
Summary: Makes some very valuable points
Review: Well, the bad news first. The analysis of the war against Iraq is not all that coherent. As I see it, one ought to evaluate the following sets of scenarios, whether one could have achieved them or not, about the decision to invade Iraq. Namely, what benefits and disadvantages would there be in all six situations: not trying to get UN approval, trying to get it and failing, and trying to get it and succeeding. Yes, that is three cases, but for each case, we could actually invade or decide not to do so.

Then the authors could have discussed the advantages of being able to avoid immediate commitment of our forces, and the flexibility that such a policy might provide. And they could also have discussed the risks of not fighting, including the possibility of incurring some catastrophes by refusing to take action, or of making future battles more difficult and losing flexibility of action.

I think the authors ought to have talked about the war against Iraq in something similar to such terms. Still, I won't fault them all that much for this, given that other writers are just as bad (or worse) in this respect.

In addition, there could have been a better discussion of the weapons of mass destruction. The issue is not whether the case for going to war was reasonable. It is whether the misimplications about this issue changed the minds of legislators and voters. If that is the case, then there are some procedural mistakes in the system. And if we don't fix this, we'll all be at a disadvantage in the future. We'll either be too aggressive, and make decisions based on misinformation, or we'll completely lose faith in our information and make decisions on even more illogical grounds.

Now for some of the good news. Frum and Perle do make some very straightforward and valuable comments. Here are eight of them:

1) Neither the Ku Klux Klan nor Jesse James were a "national resistance." Describing their political heirs as such is incorrect.

2) Toppling Saddam Hussein denied a huge victory to our enemies and may make future potential aggressors think twice about taking us on.

3) American Muslims ought to be expected, as citizens, to stop the flow of their funds to terror, end incitement in their schools and mosques, stop promoting antisemitism, and avoid denials and excuses for failing to do this.

4) Whenever militant Islam approaches power, it turns its wrath on women.

5) The Arab-Israeli conflict is not a cause but a manifestation of Islamic extremism.

6) Respect for America on the world stage rests not merely on our power and wealth but also on our moral authority. If we go back on our principles, we give credence to charges that we're a "rogue nation, an imperial state, and a threat to world order."

7) At the UN, "the heroes are in fact thieves, thugs, liars, and killers. The UN regularly broadcasts a spectacle as dishonest and morally deadening as a Stalinist show trial."

8) The defeat of Muslim extremism will come, maybe sooner than most of us expect.

I recommend this book. It has plenty for us all to ponder.



Rating:
Summary: In Their Own Words: (By Tom Tommorow):
Review: "I believe demoloshing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk"
- Defense policy Board Member Ken Adleman, 2/13/02

"Simply Stated there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of Mass Destruction"

-Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/26/02


"We do know that (Saddam) is actively pursuing a Nuclear Weapon."

- National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, 9/10/02


"It is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you kow, six days, six weeks, I doubt six months."

- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - Cheney 3/16/03

"We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." - Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, 3/27/03

"We know where the weapons are. They're in the area aaround Tikrit and Baghdad and East, West, North and South somewhat." - Rumsfeld, 3/13/03

"Iraq will not require sustained aid." O.M.B Director Mitch Daniels, 3/28/03

"Major combat operations have ended." - GWB

"A year from now I'd be surprised if there's not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." - Pentagon Advisor Richard Perle, 9/22/03

"I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the draft." Rumsfeld 2004-

The last one is the only statement that hasn't been totally contradicted in reality by now. Let's hope it never is.


And those "Free Elections"? Don't think for a minute that those weren't a sham too. If the neo cons want to "El Salvadorize" Iraq as they've said, they are likely rigging the elections (as they did in El Salvador) and killing opposition to whichever candidate they prefer.

Just remember, in 1968 the Press was all over the "free elections" in South Vietnam which installed a DICTATOR- Diem. If we want "Democracy" so much, why not in Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Pakistan (the list goes on and on)?

That's because we dont want Democracy dummy..

Read more than one newspaper and watch more than Fox News and investigate yourself and you'll see this. Its too bad there's so many ignorant people around.



Rating:
Summary: a good assesment but not very comprehensive
Review: A very good book on neoconservative foreign policy. It is honest, criticizing the administration where it thinks it has faults and praising the President where he is right on.

I found the case for an invasion into Iraq to be good based on the original reasons: weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, two things you don't want combined.

An End To Evil was written in the year 2003 and therefore is a little dated and does not deal with the obvious problems of current Iraq. Instead, the Iraq it portrays was just recently liberated and the insurgency had not yet gotten into full swing.

It is not very comprehensive. It goes over broad topics without a lot of detail (or some anecdotal evidence) as opposed to picking a few topics and diving in deep. This is either good or bad depending on how you look at it. For the average reader, you will understand where conservatives are coming from when they support Bush.

Overall, I enjoyed reading it and would read it again.

Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly intelligent
Review: A thoughtful discourse, Frum is a master at looking at subjects from multiple perspectives. Especially understanding those that he may not necessarily agree with.

Worth a read- no matter your political view.

Rating:
Summary: Imagine there's no bad guys, it's easy if you.......
Review: One always gets the chilly feeling that in the mire of 'international politics' and 'international law' lies the membership requirement of the suspension of disbelief. Today we all cheer an Iranian 'dialogue' that will supposedly, somehow, lead to them not acheiving nuclear status. This is a fools wish, and if pressed, I find that most anyone of any political persuasion will admit as much.

In step Perle and Frum who tell you what you already know: don't be silly...these agreements have a flawless track record of failure for you to ignore at your peril. Wish all you'd like, but the truth just sits there, whether you choose to recognize it or not. By the ever-lofty and sadly humorous standards of 'world-opinion', this book would somehow be considered extreme. However, if we can't muster the backbone to realistically stare a problem down and see it clearly at this moment in history, in a decade this books suggestions will seem very practical, indeed.




Rating:
Summary: Substantial Agreement
Review: Frum and Perle are quite convincing in their approach and reasoning on the issue of terrorism. End to Evil is perhaps the best short explanation of the Neo-Con view. In essence, America will be successful only to the extent they are willing to use unilateral power to erradicate the terrorist groups and the states that habor and protect them. They imply, correctly I think, that the enemy is radical islam, regardless of their incarnation. This is really the same approach the US took to the Axis Powers in World War II. There was no attempt to connect the Germans to the attack on Pearl Harbor or the Japanese to the atrocities happening in Europe. FDR, and the public at large, saw them as cut from the same facist cloth. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology. While we may deplore the violence of the IRA, they are not related in the same way as Hizzbolah or Hamas. Although there will be vigorous disagreement with these arguments on the left, this is one side of the debate elegantly reasoned.

Rating:
Summary: Neocon Jihad
Review: Neocon jihad

How dumb does it get? This diatribe presupposes the Psy Ops trade secret that transparent nonsense can be converted to radiant patriotic allegiance by the right combination of spin and intimidation. This happens on a daily basis. Thus at a key moment in the Iraq war, America was given the heart-rending, up-lifting story of Pvt Jessica Lynch, who shot till she dropped, and was rescued from her brutal captors by a Rambo team who flew her out of harm's way to a hero's homecoming. Jessica was said to have been shot, stabbed, and raped, but now was being primed for the celebrity circuit to promote war against ever-so-evil Saddam Terrorists. In the weeks and months following, the glam story fell apart. Jessica, rather than fighting fiercely until her weapon jammed, didn't fire a shot; instead she fell to her knees and prayed. She wasn't wounded, stabbed, or raped. Instead she sustained multiple fractures when she smashed her truck into the vehicle in front. She wasn't abused by her captors. Instead she was given the best available medical care. The hospital staff attempted to return her to American lines, but this was thwarted when the Americans fired on them. The under the cover of darkness rescue, filmed in dramatic infrared, was a Reality TV imposture: there were no Iraqi troops in the area to interdict the rescue in broad daylight. The real female heroes of the story, Shoshana Johnson, a black, and Lori Piestewa, a Native American, came to notice only when hill billy Lynch denounced the Pentagon for faking her story. What a PR disaster! (Aside: Lynch's home town is Palestine, West Virginia!!! Poetic justice.)

This episode is a cameo of the Iraqi Freedom initiative. Eighteen months after President Bush declared `Mission Accomplished', the Iraqis have yet to greet Coalition troops as liberators, as Neocons promised they would. Instead the Coalition's mired in an insurgency that controls a quarter of the country and mounts numerous daily attacks. Another two or three combat divisions are needed to subdue the resistance (exactly as the generals said), but this force is not available because the reserves have already been cycled through the war zone. The next step is to call up the National Guard. Troop morale sags despite the attractive pay. The morale of senior officers is even lower because they are regularly over-ruled by the politicals. There are numerous defections from the war policy by top talent-generals, security chiefs, cabinet members, Congressmen, and high level administrators. The original justifications for the war (WMDs, terrorism) have been conspicuously refuted by the President's own fact-finder (the Duelfer Report). The freedom justification is compromised by the stubborn insurgents while heavy civilian casualties and the brutality of Abu Ghraib blurs the line between Saddam's sadism and Coalition humanity. Opinion sampling shows that support for the war is close to nil everywhere but in Israel. The American public is deeply divided. Even traditional conservatives have repudiated the Republican Party and are among the most vocal critics of the neocon hegemony. So, as of now, the Iraq war looks like becoming a foreign policy calamity of Vietnam magnitude. Maybe bigger.

This book's cover matter commend the authors as key contributors to Bush foreign policy (true in Perle's case) and forecast that its analysis will set the election issues agenda in foreign policy. That it hasn't done. The Bush campaign rests its appeal on a single issue: that the 9/ll attack presses the policy restart button that compels the nation to make `war on terrorism' the fundamental issue at home and abroad. This is a defensive posture as one sees by comparing it with the original war rationale as set out by Perle and Frum. Here it is: The Neocons would have America assert global hegemony and instruct lesser players-the UN, the EU, France-to mind their manners. (In a speech last year, Perle actually pronounced the UN dead). They spell out the original war plan. Iraq is the beginning of the march to democracy that will topple terrorist Syria, then terrorist Iran. Saudi Arabia, that long time ally, will be instructed to mend its ways while subversion insures that this will happen. The US military will become the permanent occupier to assure the flow of oil. The Israeli-Palestine Road Map to Peace, with its unrealistic call for an independent Palestinian state, is to be abandoned (as has now happened; but the original Neocon proposal dates to the infamous 1996 memo, A Clean Break, presented to the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu. Perle was a signatory of the memo). The authors don't say so, but the flux consequent to these initiatives will give Israel the opportunity to implement its long-standing solution to the Palestinian problem--expel them to Jordan. The Chinese gallop toward military and economic superpower is to be contained by whatever measures might work, and Axis of Evil North Korea will be told to abandon its nuclear program, or else. At home, our patriot gladiators will clean the stables of liberal and internationalist obstruction. Heading the hit list are the CIA, the FBI, and State. Once the FBI has been brought into line, its vigorous enforcement of the Patriot Act will subdue `terrorists', including those who give aid and comfort through anti-Israel `thought crimes'.

An end to evil? Probably not.


Rating:
Summary: Two Guys out of Touch with Reality!!!
Review: Rather than a How-to book, it reads like a polemic on the present administration's wish list of world domination and homeland Big Brother with a complete alienation of civil and private rights thrown in as a bonus. Under such a regime even justice Thomas couldn't engage in getting his dose of porn because Ashcroft would be watching. (But then again he could probably get away with it by finding a new "Anita Hill" to blame and beat on for his own shallow short comings for which he was not man enough during his selection process to owe up to.)

If this is "the book" on how to win the War on Terror, why not just start WWIII? WWI was started with an assination and we went to war to save the world for "Democracy" sound familiar i.e. President Bush's new tom-tom speeches as to why we went to Iraq. Oh! Yes, we were looking for WMD's but since they could not be found why not invent a new rational; after all Americans are dumb according to Bush-Cheney and their neo-con advisers. Besides their patron saint, Leo Strauss, the father of neo-cons said it was alright to "lie" to the people if the ends were justified, also a govenment needs an enemy (see S.B. Drury Leo Strauss and the American Right) and since we no long have the "Cold War" Iraq will do. After all it has "better targets" to use the words of Rumsfeld (see R.A. Clarke Against All Enemies)

In WWII we had Pearl Harbor a legitimate reason to go to war against a known enemy. We of course have 9/11 against an undetectable enemy. But in finding out that the enemy was cultivated by the Regan administration (who also had the same neo-con hacks working for it) and then abandoned by the first President Bush who also supported Iraq in its war against Iran and who may have been involved in the Iran-Contra dealings (we'll never know because the current President Bush has sealed those documents for all time (see Kitty Kelly The Family)) it gives me great comfort to know that the present administration has got the right handle on getting the job done against terrorists. (In fact good old "Rumy" went to Iraq to shake Saddam's hand but that's another story (see James Mann Rise of the Vulcans).)I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Oh Yes! Lets not forget that 14 out of the 19 plane hijakers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia (see The 9/11 Commission Report). But no matter, the Saudi's are our friends and we need them for the oil to drive govenor Arnold's Hummers (he has 6 you know) and all the other SUV's in America.

Mr. Frum and Mr. Perle need to get a reality check as to what is going on. If they think that America is as dumb as they believe in writing this book the way they have, they are sorely mistaken. Of course politcal hacks and trite pundits like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity will stand up and cheer for such a shallow book as will others on the far right and other neo-con breathern. But to the descerning person save your money.

I think Mr. Frum needs to go back to writing speeches for the political hacks he knows so well. Moreover, he can go back to writing Mr. Bush's scripts (see Ron Suskind The Price of Loyalty) because without having the words the President of United States appears on the world wide media stage as the sorry C student he was at Yale. Or as Paul O'Neill put it in describing how the President conducts his cabinet meetings for the two years he observed him "... like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people. There is no discenible connection." Well he certainly didn't connect during his first debate speech did he? And no amound of coaching is going to correct years of intellectual neglect and shallowness of mind.

As I said I think one should save his money and wait for this book to appear on the $1.00 table in Big Lots or the Dollar Shop. And then if you buy it you will be treated to a wonderful book of fiction that would make Orwell blush.

But of course as Rush Limbaugh and the other pundits on the right like to say "its only my opinion."