Blowback : The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Second Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A must for every US citizen
Review: Did you ever wonder why 9-11 happened? Did you ever ask yourself why America has a bad reputation? Read this book! Johnson tells us from the point of view of other nations what America did to them (and still does), things we never knew about. After knowing these facts, you wonder why it didn't happen earlier and you begin to understand that if we don't change our "diplomatic' ways fast, more things like 9-11 will eventually happen!

Rating:
Summary: What A Book
Review: This is a book every Administration taking office should read before they begin to formulate foreign policy. This book goes over the foreign policies of supporting dictators, communist regimes, lying to the American people, and being dishonest and how it all "blows back" in our faces years later. From Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and now Bush II. They all have done the dance called "stupid" and have paid for it with American lives in order to clean up the mess. This book will make you put it down for a while because you will wonder how stupid these guys we hire to run our country are. Then you will pick it up and read some more. Hope you enjou it and please just read it and don't be bias because at some point your favorite Administration will be featured in a chapter also.

Rating:
Summary: Real Problem, Poorly Presented, No Solution Offered
Review: Yes we are a many-headed hydra, with our fingers in every pie. Through generations of administrations, we prove time and again that our foreign policies are written to favor our own, unenlightened self interest. Blowback is a single word to describe how we don't even look out for ourselves very well. This book is loaded with real examples of how we shamelessly manipulate markets, and, to a lesser extent, how these machinations come back to haunt us.

However, the real fish in this book are often cloaked in a sea of misinformation, unnecessary rhetoric, and unprovable innuendo. The author would almost have you believing that the USA is the only political entity that engages in such sport - that if we just left poor China alone, everything would work out great. What's worse, Johnson offers no real solutions. In fact, I suspect he doesn't have any. I liken this book to the man on the streetcorner announcing that the end of the world is near.

There is information here that all Americans should know. There is also good writing. So it's not a waste of time to read this. Use a critical eye if you do, and be sure to let us all know if you find the solution to a problem which is ultimately one of human nature - not politics at all.

Rating:
Summary: Not What You Would Think
Review: I do not think I have ever read a book where the title was so different from the actual text. If the title of the book would not have been at the top of every page I would had thought the publisher had made a mistake and inserted a different book between the covers. What I thought the book would detail were story after story of Osama Bin Laden type situations where the suspects benefited from US / CIA funding only to turn against the US. This is not what the book delivered. Instead the author provided a wonderful overview of American foreign policy as it relates to Asia with a focus on the last 15 years. The author takes the readers through a number of countries and details issues that show the US in a less then favorable light. This clear description of the issues made the book well worth the read. What most interested me was not that the US is acting in it's self interest, all countries do that, but the long list of extremely brash, crude and in your face ways the American government goes about it. In reading the book I just kept thinking there has to be a better way to protect and project American interests without stepping on everybody's toes.

The reason I would not give this book a five star rating is that at times the author would let slip an unsupported comment, basically his opinion, that struck me as going beyond truthful reporting and criticism to anti American bashing (a difficult tight rope to walk). He also gave it to all administrations, not just the Republicans, which tend to get the majority of this type of criticism. I also had one major annoyance, this author wins the "repeat it often" award for interjecting the book title within the text. At first you see that he is trying to tie in the book to his title, then it starts to get amusing, and finally it is just annoying. Toward the end of the book there were actual paragraphs that had "blowback" in them three or four times. It started to sound like a fraternity drinking game chant, over and over again. Overall the book was a well-written and thoughtful look at American foreign policy as it relates to Asia.

Rating:
Summary: Just the old truth... for non-Americans
Review: After I read the reviews about this book here, I was surprised to see Americans consider this book thought-provoking or at least something new. If so, it's a urgent situation. This book talks about the plain old truth from the perspective of non-American, never a conspiracy theory. Non-Americans already knew and are undergoing what this book talks about.

This book is well-written. Also, I praise that the author is brave because he attempts to reveal what American hate to see. If you think that it's something new after you read the reviews here, you have got to read this book. Face the harsh truth, and America will really become the country of justice, which it has never been.

Rating:
Summary: Looking for the brake handle
Review: Every now and then, an author writes a book that proves both timely and prescient. With 'Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire,' Chalmers Johnson has such a book. Blowback predates by a year the 9.11 disaster, a ghastly instance of the phenomenon it describes and explains, and by nearly three years Gulf War II, a likely source of numerous blowback effects. Although a bit ahead of its moment, Johnson does have ample source material to work with, for his subject refers to those catastrophes specific to the American empire and, unfortunately, this empire has endured numerous instances of such. Put in different terms, Blowback is a book on the disastrous consequences of American empire-building and imperial domination. Indeed, blowback was a term coined by the CIA, the black magicians of the American empire, to refer to those disasters that result from American policies.

What specifically is blowback? When defined informally, 'blowback is shorthand for saying that a nation reaps what is sows, even if it does not fully know or understand what it has sown' (p. 223 and also p. 11). When more narrowly defined, the term refers to the unintended and unacceptable consequences issuing from an action or set of actions, a policy or set of policies (p. 8). Blowback typically supposes the exercise of massive political, economic and military power across the world. It also issues from discreet events. Instances of blowback are often motivated by the arrogance of the imperialist, who would reorder the lives of whole peoples while obscuring the unacceptable features specific to the use of imperial power. Blowback is thus an exercise of power by the weak as they seek to redress the grievances they hold against those who ignore their humanity. For the powerful, it's a reversal of fortune. It's harm they suffer because of harm they caused. It's the unexpected costs they must bear because of the benefits they took without compensation. There is, as Johnson notes, 'a kind of balance sheet that builds up over time' (p. 5). The debits contained therein exist within the living memory of those harmed by America's empire, debts often forgotten or obscured by the debtor (pp. 11-12). The creditors merely wait for an opportune moment to collect what they believe to be their due. We know all too well that payment can be devastating. The journalist Robert Fisk on 9.11:

'So it has come to this. The entire modern history of the Middle East -- the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the Balfour declaration, Lawrence of Arabia's lies, the Arab revolt, the foundation of the state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and the 34 years of Israel's brutal occupation of Arab land -- all erased within hours as those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people.'

Johnson also broadens the scope of his term so that it might fit the scale, density and complexity of the American imperium. He uses blowback to refer to undesirable events that cannot be attributed directly to the acts of a person, group or institution but which do issue from the presence and use of American power overseas. For instance, adverse economic consequences -- system crises such as depressions, recessions, capital flight, inflations, etc. -- can be considered instances of blowback. When Lyndon Johnson's chose to hold the line on taxes during the expensive and politically devastating Vietnam War, he implemented a policy which contributed greatly into the novel economic phenomenon of the 1970s, stagflation. Stagflation, the hostage crisis in Iran and the humiliating fall of Saigon were, in turn, motives which brought Ronald Reagan to power. Reagan and his administration supported terrorists like the Contras, implemented policies which led to the Iran-Contra crisis, the Savings and Loan scandal, etc. Likewise, chronically destructive political conflicts arising from the use of economic or military power have provided instances of blowback or can be a kind of blowback per se. Thus, fifty years of error and imperial imposition on the Korean peninsula have recently produced a nuclear crisis with North Korea. Decades of staunch support for and exploitation of repressive and murderous regimes in Central America led to an immigration crisis on America's southern border while this morally dubious support and exploitation has motivated many to consider America's boastful claims regarding support for human rights as grossly hypocritical.

In conclusion, the author makes a point to emphasize that 'world politics in the twenty-first century will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the second half of the twentieth century -- that is, from the unintended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a cold war posture in a post-cold war world' (p. 229). He also makes it clear that terrorism, the bugaboo that finally settled in as Washington's replacement for world communism, merely 'strikes at the innocent in order to draw attention to the sins of the invulnerable' (p. 33). Non-state terrorism is not a product of the intrinsically depraved, in Johnson's view, but of the' humiliated and doomed' people of the world making an effort to gain their due. We can see today the relationship between terrorism and empire in the current war. When president Bush deploys a ponderous and inefficient military apparatus to subjugate Iraq, he justifies this effort with reasons few take seriously while implementing a policy likely to produce additional 9.11s. His foolish war finds its true 'rationale' in the United States' need to control the oil of the Middle East and Central Asia. This need originated not just in the gluttonous consumption of oil in the United States since World War II, it also originated in the economic decline the country has suffered since 1965, a fall precipitated by an economy severely distorted by the needs of the empire and its military institutions. Blowback is thus a reflexive feature of the American empire, for the conditions which produced this or that catastrophe motivate, in turn, policies and actions which produce yet another catastrophe (p. 10). In the end, we are left with the image of a snake devouring its own tail.

To avoid the suicidal fate of the snake, the American people must make a collective volte-face. We long have been content to let our leaders lead while we wave flags and denounce naysayers. If Chalmers Johnson is right, we shall share the fate of the snake if we continue on our present course.

Rating:
Summary: Must Read Book
Review: This is a great book - a must read for every citizen. This explains the real cause of September 11th.

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Summary: An angry, simplistic screed
Review: In the introduction to this reprinted edition, Chalmers Johnson complains that a reviewer dismissed Blowback as a "comic book.'' Alas, the reviewer was right. This is an angry and simplistic screed, filled with distortions and unsubstantiated accusations.

I decided to read to Blowback because I share Johnson's concerns about the way the United States has been using its power and about the resentment it is causing around the world. I hoped Blowback would refine my thinking. In some ways it probably did. Johnson certainly knows a lot about U.S. military involvement in East Asia, and many of the things he reports (such as the way the U.S. has run roughshod over Okinawa) are outrageous.

But again and again, Johnson goes too far. For example, he claims without providing any proof that the U.S. military wanted a "splendid little war'' with North Korea during a nuclear standoff in 1994. This is dubious. Everyone knows a war with North Korea would risk the destruction by artillery of the South Korean capital Seoul and probably hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Even Pentagon brass blinded by their own propaganda would be reluctant to roll the dice on the Korean peninsula. Just look at the uncharacteristic caution the Bush administration is displaying in the current standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.

Johnson also makes the outrageous claim that Vice President Gore encouraged Malaysians to overthrow their government in 1998 to punish it for slapping controls on the flow of international capital. Gore did nothing of the sort. He was expressing sympathy for pro-democracy protesters demonstrating against the authoritarian government of Mahathir Mohammed. Gore's behavior was clumsy and arrogant, but he was standing up for American values.

Johnson also implies - the book is big on smug, unsubstantiated asides that may or may not be actual arguments - that the United States deliberately engineered the 97-98 financial crisis in part to ensure that U.S. troops could get deep discounts on Southeast Asian hookers.

Johnson seems animated by contempt for the United States. In his view, U.S. policymakers are always knaves or fools; the leaders of other countries, stooges who do the bidding of the lone superpower. It seems inconceivable to Johnson that the U.S. ever has good intentions. Why did the U.S. intervene in Somalia or Bosnia? Were these morally justified military interventions? Johnson never stops sneering long enough to say.

Setting aside Johnson's bias, the book has at least two other flaws. Johnson focuses almost entirely on East Asia (understandable because he is a renowned scholar on Japan and China) to make his case that the U.S. wrongly decided to keep a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War world. But the emphasis on East Asia is debilitating. A discussion of the U.S. decision to expand NATO into the former Eastern bloc would, for example, have been highly relevant.

Moreover, Johnson is promiscuous about the use of the word "blowback" - which is supposed to refer to the negative repercussions of a policy on the people who pursued the policy. Johnson uses the word to suit whatever purposes he has in mind, using blowback to describe any and all consequences of U.S. policies on anybody.

Somebody needs to analyze the ways in which the U.S. has used its lone superpower status for good and for ill and what the consequences might be. Johnson tried, but his effort is fatally undermined by his own bias and bile.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book if you have an open mind
Review: This book held less surprises for me, as a European reader living in the USA, than it does for many Americans who traditionally have something of an limited knowledge of the world they live in. America is not the worlds benevolent Godfather, nor is it an evil Empire - unfortunately depending on which side of the border people live they tend to adopt one of these rather unrealistic viewpoints. This book is balanced, considered analysis of American foreign policy of the past 50 years and some of the adverse consequences. It should be required reading in colleges to at least start people thinking in a more global perspective.

Blowback is a timely book that hopefully helps to explain that people don't "hate" America for the ludicrous reasons that the media likes to throw out - freedom, capitalism, democracy etc. Unless people take the time to understand the policies - and impact of those policies - over the last 50 years, they will never understand the consequences and reprocussions of them.

Rating:
Summary: As ye sow, so shall ye reap
Review: Chalmers Johnson defines blowback as the "unintended consequences of policies that were kept from the American people." He also puts it in a simpler phrase: "a nation reaps what it sows." A lot of it is retaliation for political interference and economic imperialism. One example is the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, which was in retaliation for Reagan's bombing of Libya in 1986. (Note: this book was published in 2000, so his passage that "the innocent of the twenty-first century are going to harvest unexpected blowback disasters from the imperialist escapades of recent decades" is tragically ironic and foreshadowing. But blowback has been experienced by other empires, so America's not the only one. Look at the Soviet Union, Britain, and Rome.

Johnson explains America's imperialist influence in Japan, in particular, the notorious rape case in Okinawa in 1995. That was the most publicized case. In fact assault and harassment of Okinawans is commonplace. There's a clause in the U.S. forces occupation treaty that gives the U.S. military accused of crimes the right not to hand over guilty soldiers to the local authorities. It's kind of like the diplomatic immunity ambassadors in foreign countries get. (Remember Lethal Weapon 2?)

Individual countries are covered in detail: Japan, both Koreas, and China, in particular. The words "American Empire" in the title are no mistake. True, it's not outright political annexation as was done in the Roman, Spanish, or British Empires, but an economic hegemony. Where the Soviet created an Eastern bloc with countries such as East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, so did the U.S. No, not in Western Europe, but in East Asia, comprising of Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, and before their fall to Communist regimes, the former French Indochina countries. In fact, what's the first thing a newly-elected Japanese prime minister does? He flies straight to Washington D.C. to report in to his new masters.

Another factor of American foreign policy is its support, defense and economic, of repressive anti-Communist regimes, such as South Korea and Indonesia. America hardly batted an eye when in 1980, a student demonstration protesting martial law was violently put down in what became known as the Kwangju uprising. The same is true for the Kopassus commando squads in Indonesia, who violently put down Suharto's opponents.

Then there's Indonesia, where Suharto, who had been put in power by the CIA in 1965, was ousted with the help of the DIA because the IMF was unable to help Indonesia's financial problems. Conclusion: Suharto was no longer useful so he was dumped. The collapse of the Asian rim economies is also touched on.

Another similar pattern is how former dictators are given immunity for their crimes. Ferdinand Marcos died in exile in the U.S., General Chun Doo Hwan was pardoned by South Korean President Kim Young Sam, and Suharto was deemed too ill to stand trial.

The ultimate message in this book is indeed, that a country reaps what it sows. Solution: less imperialism, less interference, more peace, in other words, an end to the hegemony. There's so much peaceful potential that the U.S. has--why not use that?