Home :: Books :: Nonfiction  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes
Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction

Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
9-11

9-11

List Price: $8.95
Your Price: $8.06
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 16 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the truth will not be televised
Review: Quote:

"History has already proven him wrong just by looking at the lives that have been saved in Iraq and Afghanistan by removing oppressive regimes."

- pea-brained reviewer

OH you really must crawl out of your respective holes and look at what's really going on. i have just completed my second relief mission with the red cross in central and north eastern iraq, and let me tell you there are more ruined than saved lives by the US's constant campaign of terror on the iraqi people. the recent war in the middle east is only the icing on the cake for these people, most people forget that US sanctions killed about a million people between 1991 and 2002, and that prior to that the US provided Saddam with the weapons he needed to kill his own people, knowingly.

Noam Chomsky isn't taking sides in this book, he's merely relating facts from reliable sources, and posing a possible cause of sepember 11.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH AMERICAN NATIONALISM or ANTI-AMERICAN SENTIMENT. Chomsky's vision reaches futher than that, and sees what's happening outside of the collective "box" that is the american medias one-sided coverage. he truely is the only american intellectual i've ever read that doesn't have his head up his ass.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worthless
Review: All of Chomsky's work is worthless...

Not because of a lack of thought but because of too much thought.

He offers a single-minded attack with no realistic alternatives.

When reading anything Chomsky writes, ask yourself what is the alternative - it is easy to attack any course of action (and the past behavior of any nation). The unfortunate truth is that even the best possible course of action may be successfully attacked:

Until Chomsky begins to offer a realistic alternative along with his criticisms, his entire body of work will remain worthless.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Sloppy editing, but still Noam Chomsky
Review: After 9-11, Chomsky threw together some of his interviews and voila! Here's a book. Despite this herky-jerky format Chomsky remains one of the most brilliant and well informed Americans alive. It amazes me how many people reviewed this book without even rudimentary knowledge of who he is.

Aside from his more then 20 honorary doctorates from top universities around the world, his virtual remaking of the field of linguistics and his honorable position at MIT, Dr. Chomsky has something that few political writers, left or right, seem to have: Tons of information.

You will not see this kind of documentation many places, except possibly Gore Vidal. It is not only that he uses logical arguments and fact more then the pundits like O-Reilly and Coulter; He does so more then even those people I do not detest, like Moore and Franken.

All in all, more of a booklet then a book, but a very good booklet.

By the way, my favorite review is the one that said the book had no plot, as if it were supposed to be a story, thanks for the laugh kid!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mindless crap
Review: It's the same old anti-american propeganda. Chomsky tries to blame the terrorist attacks on everyone but the perpetrators.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A quick overview of Chomsky's earliest reactions to 9/11
Review: This slim Chomsky book has a lot of important information in it --- unless you've read Chomsky before. If you know anything about US foreign policy, this is a recap. If you've never read Chomsky before, this is an okay place to start. (A better place to start is Chronicles of Dissent.)

What does it have to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Well, Chomsky gives you a lot of context. He shows you that these events didn't take place in a historical vacuum. But once you've read that, it's up to you to learn more, by reading dozens of other books.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: INTERESTING POV BUT THERE ARE BETTER BOOKS OUT THERE
Review: I wasn't that impressed by this book but some of these negative reviews are mind boggling, for example, several reviewers refute Chomsky's claim that Bin Laden has CIA ties by stating that both Bin Laden and the CIA deny this claim.....ever consider that both parties are lying due to the embarrassment such a connection would cause? Of course Bin Laden was a CIA asset. We don't need chomsky to tell us that but, it gets annoying when some people insisting on refuting the claim and use lame official statments from less than credible parties as their source. Either way, there are far better books on 9/11 out there. Nevertheless, Chomsky does have an interesting POV and had I come across this book sooner, I might be inclined to give it a higher rating

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tasteless
Review: Unbelievable that this was publsihed less than a month after the tragedy. Clearly very little thought or work was put into it. The author should be ashamed of himself for trying to capitalize on the tragedy to try to put forth his narrow point of view.

The format is also cheap as "interview's" , like anyone would ever want to hear this old throwback mindlessly ramle on a subject he knows nothing about.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Preaching to the sheep
Review: If the revelation of the extent of the killing fields in Cambodia (more on this later), or the mass graves concealed in Serbia didn't dissuade Noam Chomsky from continuing his bizarre career of spinning conspiracy theories and whitewashing murderous ideologies, it is definitely too much to hope for that the deaths of 3,000 people in a well-orchestrated murderous attack might provoke some thought in his mind, while sitting in his decidedly non-plebeian mansion. No such luck.

If anything, this book illustrates just how deeply old Noam has withdrawn from the world. There is little in it that one could not find in his prior works, and I got tired of reading his discussions with fawning interviewers who throw him softballs. Of course, he writes of Afghanistan as someone who has never seen it (I'd lay money on that) and certainly as someone indifferent to the damage wrought by the Taliban on that country. The Chomskyite Left doesn't really care about human suffering in the vast majority of instances when it does not flow from Western action - he may occasionally cite the failure to intervene in Rwanda as proof of Western or American malevolence, but (diehard followers pay attention) does anyone think that he would have supported an intervention there?

Once again Chomsky trots out his tired characterization of America as a terrorist state. But he doesn't really look at events in question besides viewing them casually as items on a list. Context is important. Why? See what one author has to say about this, when examining the crimes of Communist rebels in South Vietnam:

"I don't accept the view that we can just condemn the NLF terror, period, because it was so horrible. I think we really have to ask questions of comparative costs, ugly as that may sound. And if we are going to take a moral position on this-and I think we should-we have to ask both what the consequences were of using terror and not using terror."

The author? A younger, less guarded Noam Chomsky. Apparently terror is OK if inflicted in the name of "the people". But going in and rooting out a terrorist-sponsored regime in Afghanistan is inexcusable.

He's done this sort of thing before. One chapter of his career that is deeply embarrassing to his acolytes occurred when he savagely attacked emerging reports of genocide in Cambodia. When refugees published accounts of Khmer Rouge atrocities, he attacked those accounts, while praising pro-Khmer Rouge works by Western Marxists (a Google search on Khmer Rouge and Chomsky will reveal more information). Some Westerners admitted later that they were wrong about the Khmer Rouge; Chomsky never has, though his praise of them was written guardedly, as if in anticipation of future denials.

Readers looking to learn about the world will find this book tiresome and disappointing. But if you care more about the Cult of Noam than the actual world his writings distort, don't let me stop you from buying this book and helping him pay the mortgage on his mansion. Go ahead, once you have it, you can read it forwards and backwards and sideways and even upside-down. It will be very enlightening . . . because you want it to be!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Anti American Propeganda masked as psedo-intelectual drivel
Review: Chomsky shows his true colors with this book by needlessly trying to justify the atrocities of 9/11 , and by distorting truths, even tries to blame the event on previous US policies.

Mindlessly condemning any US military action before the fact, Chomsky shows his hatred and mistrust of the US government. History has already proven him wrong just by looking at the lives that have been saved in Iraq and Afghanistan by removing oppressive regimes.

Chomsky failed to realize that the US is capable of careful, controlled military actions that minimize civilian casualties, and greatly benefit hundreds of millions of people. His cynicism also prevented him from foreseeing the selfless nation building exercises now underway in Iraq and Afghanistan that stabilize the mideast; despite the obvious historical precedence of US charity in response to war in nations like Japan, France and Germany to name a few.
It's important to realize that despite good intentions, the US isn't perfect and no better than other civilized societies. However, most of Chomsky's criticisms are way off base, and include his typical distortions of the truth to paint a black picture of what is really quite a great country.

Ultimately, Chomsky gives himself away as someone motivated by bitter hatred by publishing this horrible book less than a month after the atrocities while the smell of still burning flesh was hovering over the southern half of Manhattan.

There's no denying Chomsky tastelessly tried to make money on the tragedy by churning out this drivel immediately afterwards. He rightfully takes his place alongside the worst scum of the earth, including the hateful dastards who flew the planes into the buildings.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: So many mistakes - so little time!
Review: Many reviewers miss the lack of substance herein while breathlessly sharing its contents. For instance, there's the myth of CIA support of Bin Laden and the Taliban.

"Bin Laden was vigorously involved in that campaign as a field commander and was aided directly by the CIA," for instance. Both the CIA and Bin Laden's own family have denied any connection, as reported by The Independent, London (October 2001?).

Another cannard is that Afghanistan's Hamid Karzi consulted for oil companies prior to the Bush Administration's elevation to leadership - once "again" proving that "it's all about oil!" This was reported in a respected French newspaper in November-December 2001, and the myth took off. It was never sourced however, never subsequently nailed by the Paris newspaper, and Karzi has adamatly denied it stating that no one from that newspaper has ever asked him about it!

This is just a couple of too many myths to explode in Chomsky's oh-so -over 15 minutes of fame.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 .. 16 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates