I knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written oI knew nothing about the late Charles Krauthammer before reading “Things That Matter”, a collection of hand-picked essays and columns he has written over the course of his 30-plus-year career as a syndicated columnist at The Washington Post, political pundit, and a psychiatrist.
The only thing I had heard about him—-indeed, what initially attracted me to his writing—-was the fact that he was a conservative who, in his few final years before his death in 2018, continually maintained a loathing and disgust for Donald Trump. (https://whyy.org/articles/rip-charles...)
That alone was enough for me to give him a try. And I’m glad I did.
While I don’t think I agreed at all with a majority of his politics, I nevertheless found him to be intelligent and humorous and compassionate in his writing. Even when excoriating people he didn’t like, such as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he was never mean-spirited, and he always made it clear that he disagreed with and disliked the policies and not the person.
His was a spirit of true old-fashioned gentlemanly political criticism that is not seen anymore, certainly not amongst his other conservative pundits and bigmouths like Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and the late Rush Limbaugh.
I think it’s important to read books by authors that you may not agree with or are not aligned, politically, with. It helps to broaden one’s political viewpoints and promotes intellectual growth. To my fellow liberal friends: if you are looking for a differing viewpoint, reading Krauthammer may be a good place to start....more
“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of“Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is a collection of six long essays by Thomas Sowell, an economist and philosopher. Each essay is an examination of certain racial/ethnic groups as seen through the lens of economics.
To people who are not economists, this may sound like a dry, boring textbook. At least, this was my initial thought going into it, as I am not an economist and, to be honest, have always thought economics to be a dry, boring subject.
Surprisingly, Sowell had me engaged right away. His style of writing is far from dry. While professorial (He was a professor, having served on the faculties of Cornell, Brandeis, and UCLA), he writes with an enthusiasm that demonstrates his fascination for his subject matter. He loves economics, and it shows.
He also has a unique perspective, and one that I am ashamed to say that, going into it, I was afraid that I would find problematic.
Sowell is a conservative. (This is the part in the review when my liberal friends shout, “Egad!”)
I jest, of course, but I am familiar enough with some of Sowell’s reputation. He is a black conservative who is—-like other black conservatives Allen West and Candace Owens—-highly critical of governmental assistance for black people (such as affirmative action), as he believes that it has created a dependency that doesn’t actually help, and may actually hinder, the intellectual and emotional development of black people. While there may be some validity to this argument, I don’t necessarily agree with it totally.
That said, I went into “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” with as open a mind as I am capable. I honestly didn’t know what to expect.
To my delight, I actually enjoyed the book far more than I expected. I found Sowell’s essays to be enlightening and thought-provoking. They introduced me to concepts and ideas that I have never heard before.
For example, in the first essay, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, Sowell writes about how much of “bad” Southern black behavior (laziness, drunkenness, misogyny, violence) as well as mannerisms (saying “I be” instead of “I am”) that contributed to many negative stereotypes that are still around today actually comes from identical bad traits exhibited by specific white immigrants that settled in the South from an area west of England. These white immigrants—-often referred to as “crackers”, “rednecks”, or “poor white trash”—-literally rubbed off , behaviorally, on many of their black neighbors in antebellum and postbellum Southern states.
I found this fascinating. As I did the essay, “Are Jews Generic?”, in which Sowell writes about the historical mistreatment of “middleman minorities”, which are, historically, ethnic groups that often found success as bankers or merchants between the wealthy producers and the lower class consumer groups of another ethnic group, Jews perhaps being the most familiar within European countries. Being “middlemen”, these groups often felt the brunt of irrational anger and hatred during economic downturns and were often scapegoats.
Every essay in this collection intrigued, shocked, and enlightened me in some way. They challenged some of the liberal “truths” that I have held for a long time, and helped to reconsider some things that I have always considered sacrosanct. It reminded me of what the late Allan Bloom (another conservative philosopher) said about how having prejudices was a good thing, because when those prejudices are challenged or overturned, it is in that moment when true learning happens....more
An extremely timely and important book, Sara Kamali’s “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War Against the UnitedAn extremely timely and important book, Sara Kamali’s “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War Against the United States” is dense with information; practically an info-dump of anything and everything having to do with domestic terrorism. (One-third of the book is endnotes, sources, and bibliography.) Yet despite its disturbing subject matter and the sheer amount of academic (albeit fascinating) information, the book manages to still be readable and engaging.
One of the more disturbing take-aways is that White Nationalist extremists do as much, if not more, damage (loss of life, property damage, stress on the system and individuals) in this country than their American-born Militant Islamist counterparts, but, due to the fact that there is, technically, no federal ordinance against domestic terrorists, especially if they are white or Christian, very few are punished as severely as terrorists who happen to be Muslim. (Another win for white privilege! Yay!)
So, the terrorists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, with the intent of overthrowing the government and torturing and killing government employees and officials, can’t, technically, be branded domestic terrorists. At least, not officially, since there is no federal criminal statute for it. This should make anyone who witnessed the horrific events of that day (and NOT the “high fives and hugs” that the Republicans witnessed through their bullshit-tinted glasses) feel sick to their stomach.
Why does this matter? After all, it’s essentially just semantics, right?
Wrong.
The differences between being branded a “domestic terrorist” and a “homegrown violent extremist”, according to the language of the respective federal ordinances, are subtle, but it boils down to the fact that a person is a homegrown violent extremist and NOT a domestic terrorist if, and only if, that person has ties (directly or indirectly) to a militant Islamist organization. So, because the Proud Boys didn’t receive funding or moral support from ISIS, they are not, technically, terrorists. Even if they are. Make sense?
Here’s some eye-opening stats (from the United States Government Accountability Office… and, yes, I’m just as surprised that such an office even exists, too):
“In ten of the fifteen years, fatalities resulting from attacks by far right wing violent extremists exceeded those caused by radical Islamist violent extremists.
“In three of the fifteen years, fatalities resulting from attacks by far right wing violent extremists were the same as those caused by violent radical Islamist extremists.
“Of the eighty-five violent extremist incidents that resulted in death, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for sixty-two (73 percent).
“Of the eighty-five violent extremist incidents that resulted in death, violent radical Islamist extremists were responsible for twenty-three (27 percent).”
In case you need it spelled out for you, those sentences are basically saying that, statistically, white Christian assholes are far more violent than brown-skinned Muslim assholes. But let’s be honest: this is like saying that Donald Trump’s penis is uglier than his ballsack.
White Nationalists and Militant Islamists actually have way more in common than one would think:
They both absolutely hate the U.S. government. Kamali gives detailed histories of both movements. Interestingly, using a straight line from Ruby Ridge to Waco, TX to Timothy McVeigh to January 6, she succinctly demonstrates how White Nationalists are overwhelmingly anti-U.S. government. Equally, due to a lot of history that the U.S. was a part of that has shaped (in a pretty bad way) the turmoil in the Middle East, Militant Islamists are vehemently anti-U.S. government, as well.
They both absolutely hate and want to kill anyone who doesn’t share their beliefs. For White Nationalists, anybody who is non-white (and, for the most part, non-Christian) are simply in the way of their goals. Likewise, Militant Islamists just want to kill everyone who is not Muslim. To be fair, both these groups are using very perverted interpretations of Christianity and Islam, but, hey, it’s all good because
They both want to establish a perfect Utopian World government. The problem is White Nationalists want an all-white Christian theocracy, and the Militant Islamists want a Muslim-only theopolity. Awkward!
Kamali’s book gives very in-depth explanations of concepts and terms that many people have heard but may not understand, like the Fourteen Words, RAHOWA, White Genocide, Christian Identity, Creativity, Wotanism, Al-wala, Wa-l-bara, Takfir, Jihad. Trust me, you will know what all of that shit means by the end of the book.
In light of recent events in the Israel-Palestine War and in light of January 6, 2021, Kamali’s book is an important and useful primer on terrorism....more
Israeli super-spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Amsterdam to investigate the murder of a controversial college professor who happened to be an Israeli agenIsraeli super-spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Amsterdam to investigate the murder of a controversial college professor who happened to be an Israeli agent. The controversy surrounding Professor Solomon Rosner stemmed from his outspoken views about Muslim extremists. Branded an Islamophobe and a racist by his Dutch peers, Rosner was extremely vocal about his contention that Muslim terror cells were slowly taking over, and planning their global attacks in, the Netherlands. His murder only seemed to prove him right.
Barely settled in Amsterdam, Allon discovers a plan to attack somewhere in London, England. Rushing to warn British Intelligence, Allon stumbles into the middle of a multi-pronged terrorist attack that kills hundreds and results in the kidnapping of an American woman, who also happens to be the god-daughter of the President of the USA. Too late to stop it, Allon suddenly faces a new problem: somebody has leaked his name and history to the press. Now his face is on every front page and TV news program. Israeli’s top secret agent is no longer a secret.
Thus begins Daniel Silva’s seventh novel to feature Allon, “The Secret Servant”. It is another break-neck spy thriller from the current master of spy thrillers.
Being outed doesn’t stop Allon from doing his job, but it certainly makes things more difficult. There’s also the complication of a sinister figure choreographing events from afar. Israeli intelligence knows this person only as The Sphinx, but they know very little else. Allon uncovers clues that indicate that he may be related to Egyptian Muslim extremists trying to overthrow the pro-U.S. Egyptian government led by Hosni Mubarak. The terrorists’ plan to kidnap the American woman may have been a distraction for something much bigger, and the U.S. and Britain have already written her off as a victim of the War on Terror. Allon can’t accept that, though. He has a history of seeing too many innocents die, so he’s made it a personal mission to save the American.
Silva continues his streak of thought-provoking and extremely humane thrillers in which all sides of the struggle are viewed through a lens of compassion. While his terrorists do evil things, Silva never lets the reader forget that they weren’t created in a vacuum but themselves victims of hardship, struggle, and tragedy.
Silva was also fairly prescient in this one, as he correctly predicts (he wrote this in 2007) the 2011 Arab Spring protests which, among other things, resulted in Mubarak’s government in Egypt being overthrown....more
Genocide: (n) The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or grGenocide: (n) The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
It is a sad irony that a nation-state built primarily for a group of people who suffered a near-successful genocidal campaign by a psychotic world leader in the 20th century has, in the 21st century, engaged in a similar genocidal campaign against another group of people, an almost-perfect textbook example of the oppressed becoming an oppressor.
Please don’t twist my words, either. I am not being Antisemitic in that statement. Criticizing the colonial policies of the Israeli government should not imply a hostility or hatred of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, the world being what it is, such a statement will inevitably be misinterpreted.
The truth, though, is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used the Israeli-Hamas War that started on October 7, 2023 as the impetus to continue a deliberate ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip that began roughly more than a hundred years ago.
Rashid Khalidi’s 2020 book “The Hundred Year’s War on Palestine” is an immensely eye-opening history of the conflict that has turned an area of the Middle East that is considered sacred by three of the major world religions into a profane killing field.
Blaming Israel is disingenuous, of course, as British Imperialism is as much at fault as the popular Zionist movement at the turn of the last century for creating the Palestinian displacement. In what has now become known as the Balfour Declaration—a single sentence recorded in a November 1917 cabinet meeting by the secretary of state for foreign affairs, Arthur J. Balfour—-Britain essentially declared its support for the eventual creation of a Jewish state in what was the country of Palestine. Perhaps nothing more than a statement to appease the growing number of Jews supportive of the Zionist movement in Europe at that time, this statement threw open a door that led directly to the creation of Israel many years later, a prospect that many indigenous Palestinians feared.
Jewish settlements, with the support of Britain, began to appear in Palestine after the First World War, bringing an already-existing Jewish population of roughly 6% of the whole to roughly 18% by 1926.
In 1947, The United Nations General Assembly voted for the partition of Palestine. Known as resolution 181, the plan provided an area of the country (42%) for the Arab population, an area of the country (56%) for the Jewish population, and the remainder (2%)—-an area comprised of the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem and surrounds—-designated as an “international zone”.
It was only a year later that Israel officially became a country, under David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency. Helping to establish legitimacy was U.S. President Harry Truman’s recognition of the state on the same day it became the State of Israel, May 14, 1948.
Almost immediately, the violent upheaval that resulted in roughly 750,000 Arab Palestinians expelled from their homes began in earnest by the new Israeli government. Called the “Nakba” (an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe”), this ethnic cleansing of Palestine ushered in a new era of violence on both sides.
The Israeli narrative of this event vastly deviates from the Palestinian perspective. The tendency by some Israelis even today to downplay, ignore, or completely refute the violence committed by its own government during this time period ironically earns it the expression “Nakba denial”.
Palestinian militancy grew stronger in the subsequent years, eventually culminating in the foundation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), initiated by the Arab League (comprised of the seven countries of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Transjordan), in May 1964. This was the first organization to officially represent the Palestinian people.
The group Hamas was formed many year later, in 1987.
The late 1960s was the beginning of what Khalidi refers to as “the classical period of the Arab-Israeli conflict”, in which the United States and Israel became unofficial “partners” during the Cold War against Russia, which “unofficially” offered support to militant Palestinian groups.
Amidst the violence perpetrated by Israel and militant Palestinian groups, it is important to keep in mind the vast number of innocent Palestinian people—-children, especially—-caught in the crosshairs of this conflict. Just as it is wrong to lump all Israelis together as anti-Palestinian, it is equally wrong to lump all Palestinians as terrorists. Unfortunately, this is essentially what happened.
Over time, the PLO denounced many of its own militant tactics, such as suicide bombing, and became simply a political arm of the Palestinian people. Many times, the group came close to getting countries such as the U.S. and Israel to recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian people as a nation-state without a nation. But a two-state solution has never been adequately devised.
If any progress was made with the countless talks and accords over the years (and, frankly, there hasn’t been much), President Donald Trump set the conflict back considerably with his proposed peace plan announced in 2020, a plan rejected almost unanimously by Palestinians.
Then, October 2023 happened, where Hamas launched a full-scale attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip. According to recent data, roughly 1,200 Israelis have been killed and 5,341 injured; roughly 35,091 Palestinians have been killed and 78,827 injured.
Khalidi’s book is a good start if you want to understand the situation overseas. He lays bare his own personal history, one that divulges some of his own potential biases, but his book manages to be as objective an account of the last hundred years as is possible....more
Apparently, the United Nations has their own investigation unit, investigating crimes that happen internationally; crimes that tend to fall in the craApparently, the United Nations has their own investigation unit, investigating crimes that happen internationally; crimes that tend to fall in the cracks where certain countries’ investigation units can’t or won’t investigate due to jurisdictional loopholes.
Valentin Vermeulen is a UN investigator. He’s assigned a case of two Kenyan men who are found dead on American soil, both from mysterious causes. Both of them had forged UN documents on them, a crime that points to UN higher-ups.
Vermeulen is in dangerous waters here, as his investigation may lead him to some of his own people. He uncovers a human trafficking network run by wealthy and powerful forces. As he gets deeper, he realizes that he is not just putting his own life at risk but the lives of his friends and family as well.
Michael Niemann’s “Illicit Trade” is a taut little international thriller in the Jo Nesbo/Stieg Larsson vein. It’s the second book in a series. I somehow missed the first book, although it may have been published out of order. I look forward to reading more by Niemann....more
For anyone who is a political news junkie, the infamous “Steele Dossier” is akin to the Holy Grail of the Trump Era. Dismissed by many (especially TruFor anyone who is a political news junkie, the infamous “Steele Dossier” is akin to the Holy Grail of the Trump Era. Dismissed by many (especially Trump and his Republican sycophants) as an apocryphal document, or “fake news”, the document was equally dismissed by those on the Left as being useless due to its “unverified” and “unsubstantiated” accusations. Neither beliefs are true.
In truth, the Steele Dossier was the foundation for a series of powerful revelations (many of which are still being investigated) about Trump’s reckless and, in some cases, criminal relationship with Russia dating back several decades, his many ties with organized crime, and Russia’s attempts to derail or destroy the integrity of the American electoral process. The Dossier also provided much of the information that led to 34 indictments as a result of the Mueller Report’s findings.
But, sadly, the most people remember about the Dossier is the notorious “pee tape”, an alleged video of Donald Trump with Russian prostitutes engaged in a golden shower. It is perhaps the least damning thing in the Dossier, but it has, due to its salacious nature, become the thing most representative of the document.
Some background: the dossier, which was never intended to be circulated to the media or made public, was a result of intelligence gathered many months prior to the November 2016 elections by Christopher Steele, a retired MI6 agent who was an expert in Russian affairs having worked for British intelligence for over a decade. Steele, a decorated and well-respected former agent, had gathered a plethora of information from his network of viable and trustworthy sources within the Russian government.
Steele’s focus was on Trump’s ties with Russian organized crime and oligarchs who were loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump had built up a strange relationship with Russia over many years, primarily through a myriad of business and real estate deals, many of which were questionable and or possibly illegal by international business laws.
Despite what the media has said about the dossier, Steele did not work for the Democrats. He worked for an opposition research group called Fusion GPS, which hired him out. Fusion was often hired by many groups—-corporations, organizations, politicians (Democrat and Republican)—to conduct in-depth research. Here’s the thing: intelligence gatherers such as Steele are never told who hired Fusion. They are simply given an assignment to find out anything and everything about a subject. Knowledge of who is paying for the assignment would inadvertently and unfairly create bias in the investigation. So, Steele didn’t know or even care who was paying for the information.
Based on some of the shocking things he was finding out about Trump, he and Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, both co-founders of Fusion, decided to take what they had to the FBI, the law-enforcement agency most appropriate for the types of crimes illustrated in the dossier. Steele, et al, thought that the FBI would handle it discreetly from there. Little did they know the horrendous shitshow that erupted.
Due to a series of missteps, mistakes, leaks, and bad timing, the Dossier became an explosive hot potato that made its destructive rounds throughout Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, eventually being leaked to BuzzFeed News in its entirety, something that Steele had dreaded from the outset.
The report was never meant to go public. At the very least, the information was raw and unverified, which meant that it needed to be investigated thoroughly. (These reports were always only a first step in ongoing investigations; never intended to be the “final word” or conclusive.) At the worst, lives were at stake. Steele’s sources (and Steele himself, along with his family) were now in jeopardy against Putin, an authoritarian dictator who had a documented history of literally assassinating anybody he deemed a personal threat.
The resultant shitstorm is documented thoroughly in Simpson/Fritsch’s book “Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Investigation of Donald Trump”. It is an extremely engaging and fascinating (and infuriating) behind-the-scenes glimpse at Washington politics, modern-day espionage, and the perfect storm of insanity and stupidity that was the Trump campaign/presidency and resultant death knell of the Republican Party.
The information within the Dossier has been the source for numerous investigations that has already resulted in indictments. Much of the information still has yet to be further investigated. Steele “remains confident that at least 70 percent of the assertions in the dossier are accurate. On that he hasn’t wavered. (p. 276)”...more
If you are a political junkie like myself, the name Stacey Abrams may sound familiar. Serving in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 201If you are a political junkie like myself, the name Stacey Abrams may sound familiar. Serving in the Georgia House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017, Abrams ran for governor of that state in 2018, losing to Republican Brian Kemp, who has since been accused of blatant voter suppression in that election. She would have been the first African-American female governor, ever.
She’s not hurting, though. Abrams has made a name for herself as a vocal advocate of voting rights, having published two nonfiction books about voting and life in politics in general. Under a pseudonym, Abrams is also a well-known author of eight historical romances. Her latest novel “While Justice Sleeps” is her first novel published under her own name.
“WJS” is a taut, fast-paced legal thriller in the same vein as the works of John Grisham or Brad Meltzer. She touches on some hot-button political issues throughout: genetic engineering, corruption within the pharmaceutical industry, presidential abuse of power.
Her protagonist is Avery Keene, a feisty young law clerk who works for Supreme Court Justice Howard Wynn, a man known as much for his grumpiness as he is for his legal brilliance. He is the swing vote on a recent case involving a merger between an American biotech company and an Indian genetics company. While the merger could mean jobs and wealth for both countries, as well as promising leaps in the medical field, U.S. President Brandon Stokes is dead-set against it, ostensibly on moral grounds. Before he is able to make any ruling, however, Wynn inexplicably goes into a coma.
Keene, like everyone in her office, is shocked. On top of the tragic news, Keene is immediately notified that Wynn, at the last minute, made Keene his power of attorney, to the chagrin of Wynn’s current trophy wife and his son from his first marriage. The news quickly attracts the attention of President Stokes, Homeland Security, the FBI, and the worldwide media. Keene—-a workaholic with no social life, a crackhead mother, and bills to pay—-is suddenly put in the national spotlight in the middle of one of the most important political issues of the day. It is, apparently, the Cuban Missile Crisis of business mergers.
Thankfully, Keene is blessed with an indomitable spirit and an eidetic memory, two things that Justice Wynn saw in her that led to his decision making her his POA. When a toxicology report suggests that Wynn was purposefully put into a coma, Keene is forced to play detective. It’s a race against time as someone way above her pay grade is killing anyone who might know something, and it’s only a matter of time before they go after her.
Abrams’s experience in politics and the law definitely elevates this book from what could have been a mere dime store potboiler. It is an edge-of-the-seat thriller that takes the reader on an exciting, and terrifying, journey through the deepest, darkest levels of government and the dark money backers that runs it....more
It is difficult and somewhat arrogant for someone like me---a well-off middle-income American Christian suburbanite from Ohio---to have an opinion aboIt is difficult and somewhat arrogant for someone like me---a well-off middle-income American Christian suburbanite from Ohio---to have an opinion about the Middle East, especially in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I don’t even know what to call it, so I’ll just call it an “issue”. (Is “war” appropriate? Is “hatred” accurate? Is it politically incorrect to call it “genocide”? What the hell do you call it without offending either or both sides?)
There’s so much I don’t know or understand about what is going on in the Middle East, mainly because there is so much I don’t know or understand about what is going on in my own country most of the time that the events happening hundreds of thousands of miles away, across the ocean, are all just white noise. I hate to say that, but it’s the truth.
I like to pride myself on being someone who tries to stay current with what is going on in the world, but most of the time---and especially lately---I have had this frantic isolationist approach to the world. I just want to hole up with my wife and daughter, “bunker down”, stay socially distant, and the government’s “recommendation” to stay at home is strongly influencing these thoughts.
Silver lining: I’m getting a lot of reading done, especially of some books that I had set aside, with every intention of someday reading them. Now that libraries and bookstores are closed, that “someday” is now.
I was, a few months ago, on a Daniel Silva reading kick, and then I just stopped for no apparent reason. So, I’m picking up where I left off, which was the fifth book in his series featuring Israeli super-spy Gabriel Allon, “Prince of Fire”.
After a Jewish embassy is bombed in Rome, leaving many dead, Allon is called in to spearhead the manhunt of the person or persons behind the bombing. Allon is given a hand-picked team, under the supervision of his boss and mentor, Ari Shamron.
Connecting dots of similar bombings---a community center in Buenos Aires and a synagogue in Istanbul---and significant dates that are too significant to be coincidental, Allon’s team discovers that the man behind the bombing is a man whose very existence has been reduced to a myth, a man who has been shaped by a violent history between Palestinians and Israelis.
It is a history in which Allon is complicit, and one for which he feels some guilt. It is a history, on the other hand, in which his boss, Shamron, takes pride. Shamron, like his Palestinian counterpart, Yasir Arafat, are part of the old-school hard-line militants, slowly dying off, but too slow for Allon.
Going into further detail would be spoilers, but it’s needless to say that Silva has written another fast-paced edge-of-the-seat espionage action thriller, one that tackles timely subjects in an intelligent and compassionate manner....more
Like many Americans, my drug of choice is coffee. Also like many Americans, my knowledge of the history of coffee is quite lacking, mainly because my Like many Americans, my drug of choice is coffee. Also like many Americans, my knowledge of the history of coffee is quite lacking, mainly because my knowledge of history in general is lacking. History is, unfortunately, one of those subjects many Americans find boring. It isn’t, but the way history is often taught in schools certainly doesn’t help. Alas, I digress...
Dave Eggers, a writer who can’t seem to write an uninteresting book or one that isn’t socio-politically relevant, writes about the history of coffee in his book, “The Monk of Mocha”, a fascinating true story about a man in search of a bean.
Who knew coffee could be so fascinating? Who knew the history of the world coffee industry could be so intriguing and exciting?
Well, Eggers, for one. But Eggers probably didn’t know how fascinating coffee was until he met Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the real-life hero of his book, whose rags-to-riches story is a multi-layered examination of the American Dream in the 21st century, obsession, globalization, human rights, immigration, the situation in the Middle East, and why knowing exactly where your food comes from is better for everybody.
Alkhanshali, a Muslim Yemeni-American, grew up in an impoverished section of San Francisco called the Tenderloin, an area well-known for being a high-crime area. Dreaming of breaking out of the “ghetto”, Alkhanshali worked a series of menial jobs---selling cars, doorman---which entailed helping out rich people for relatively mediocre compensation.
It wasn’t until he started researching coffee that he realized his calling in life. He discovered that Yemen, his birth country, was the official source of coffee in the world. While academics may debate over whether Ethiopia or Yemen is the true source, most scholars would agree that Yemen was the place where coffee was perfected. Indeed, for centuries, Yemen was renowned for its spectacular varietals of coffee, a reputation that gradually dissipated to the point that, today, very few coffee aficionados (coffeecionados?) could imagine that Yemen would be the contemporary site of a revolution in direct-trade high-end coffee.
This is, of course, exactly what is happening, and much of it is due to the almost religious zealotry of Alkhanshali’s quest to revitalize the Yemeni coffee market, improve the living conditions of Yemeni coffee farmers, and find the perfect coffee bean; a quest that, in 2015, nearly got him killed.
It is, of course, this quest that provides the meat of the story in Egger’s book, as Alkhanshali travels to Yemen on business at the worst possible time: the start of the Yemeni Civil War. Stuck in Yemen as radical Houthi insurgents topple the Yemeni government, Alkhanshali and several other Americans must find a way out of the country. No easy task, as the Houthis have bombed all of the airports and blocked off every road in and out of the country with armed insurgents.
What follows is an exciting and suspenseful, albeit horrifying, tale of survival in a war-torn country.
Eggers, however, doesn’t believe in telling just one story. As he did in his best-selling novels “The Circle” and “A Hologram for The King”, Eggers tricks the reader into thinking he or she is reading one thing while subtly, and with deft sleight of hand, making a poignant statement about something else entirely. “The Monk of Mokha” is all the more intriguing given the fact that it is nonfiction....more
The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of “cipher” is: 1) a) ZERO (the numerical designation denoting any absence of quantity); b) one that has no The Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of “cipher” is: 1) a) ZERO (the numerical designation denoting any absence of quantity); b) one that has no weight, worth, or influence: NONENTITY.
I vaguely recall all the noise about Bowe Bergdahl, the young Army soldier who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2009 and released in 2014 due to a deal involving the release of several men from Guantanamo Bay. At the time, I was unaware of most of the facts of the case, although I remember many theories and rumors that were being reported by the media as fact.
Indeed, much of what the media reported at the time has since been refuted or proven to be misinformation that was leaked to the media for political gains. So much of what we read about Bergdahl---that he deserted his post in order to join the Taliban, that he was a traitor to his country---was blatantly untrue, but it served a narrative that was manufactured by higher-ups in the U.S. government and the military and was seemingly bolstered by a media that was marketed to the lowest common denominator.
I remember seeing a cover of TIME magazine---a magazine for which I once had some semblance of respect---that depicted a profile of Bergdahl in front of an American flag with a byline that read “Was He Worth It?” I admit that I didn’t read the article. The very audacity of the article’s title alone was enough to set me off and pique my umbrage.
Where had we, as a country and a nation, taken such a wrong turn at morality that a soldier’s life was no longer worth saving?
I admit to not being a strong supporter of the military. As an institution, I think that the U.S. military has some serious cancers metastasizing within its core values and central tenets that have developed over the past fifty years to become a corrupt and dangerous organization. The same, of course, can be said of our entire government. That being said, I still hold individual men and women who serve in our military with the utmost admiration and respect. And yes, I do believe that one can despise the institution while still respecting those who serve in it.
My main criticism of the U.S. military is, in fact, its treatment of the men and women who serve in it. If a country prides itself on an ideal of every citizen having worth but repeatedly treats a segment of its own citizens as ciphers, then there is clearly something wrong with that country, and the pride that a majority of the people feels is misplaced.
Our soldiers who fight and die for us---especially those of us who are safe and sound at the homefront, who have not chosen a life in the military---deserve to be treated with the respect that they deserve and the adulation that they have earned. Instead, they are treated as simply bodies to fill a task, numbers on a data-sheet, targets for the enemies, and pawns to be used by politicians in Washington war-rooms.
Matt Farwell and Michael Ames collaborated their investigative journalistic talents to write “American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. tragedy in Afghanistan”, perhaps one of the most disturbing and scathing critiques of the institution of the U.S. military that I have ever read. It confirms nearly everything that I have suspected and feared about what goes on in shady backrooms of our nation’s capital.
At the heart of the story, of course, is a troubled kid who grew up in a small town in Idaho. Home-schooled, raised a devout Christian, Robert “Bowdrie” Bergdahl (named after a fictional western hero in a series of books by Louis L’Amour) was, by all accounts, a sweet-natured young man who was always lending a helping hand. He was also somewhat of a loner, a bookworm, who harbored strong ideals about life and, some might say, unrealistic expectations.
He had wanted to join the military from a young age, but a stint in the Coast Guard resulted in a breakdown that would have him discharged on medical grounds: mentally, he just wasn’t suited for the military. Later, of course, he would be diagnosed with serious mental illnesses that any astute doctor should have seen right away.
That, of course, didn’t stop the Army from grabbing him up, thanks to a lowering of entrance standards that enabled a seriously mentally unstable kid to become a soldier in a war that nobody---including the politicians who had started it---understood the point of.
Bowe didn’t make a hell of a lot of friends when he was stationed in Afghanistan, mainly because he didn’t like the crass and cruel behavior of some of his fellow soldiers. He also didn’t like the inefficiency of the military rules and regulations. Some of them didn’t make sense, and some of them were just plain stupid. Why, for example, was having a clean-shaven face more important than a good night’s sleep before setting off into battle?
But Bowe never complained, other than the few things he wrote about (very circumspectly---he knew his letters were read) to his father. Indeed, everyone who ever dealt with Bowe, including his Taliban captors, always seemed to be impressed by the young man’s manners and demeanor: he was a gentleman at all times.
Why Bowe decided to leave his post on the night of June 30, 2009 is still somewhat unclear, but the fact that he left it has never been questioned. Rumors that Bowe wanted to leave the Army, renounce his U.S. citizenship, join up with the Taliban have never been adequately substantiated, and to this day, Bowe denies that any of those are the reasons why he did what he did. The truth is: we may never know. All that we know for sure, and all that Bowe himself is willing to admit, is that he did something stupid. A momentary lapse of reason and good judgment. Unfortunately, the series of events that that action started would snowball into a horrendous situation.
Farwell/Ames documents an almost-insane story of military and CIA in-fighting and face-saving that would put many more soldiers in harm’s way and threaten to make things far worse for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It would involve the actions (and inactions) of then-Director of Intelligence for NATO’s ISAF coalition Michael T. Flynn and General Stanley McChrystal. It would involve statements and mis-statements by President Barack Obama, Senator John McCain, FOX News talking heads Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity that would have dire consequences for the early release of Bowe from his Taliban prison in Pakistan. It would involve Bowe’s father, Bob, facing the worst scrutiny and abuse by the media and members of the Republican Party. It would lead to a ridiculous show trial that many would argue was already decided on by the court of public opinion and by, of all things, tweets from a president who was already on record for saying deplorable things about soldiers and prisoners of war.
“American Cipher” is a book that will make one feel disgust and hatred for one’s country, assuming, of course, that one didn’t feel that way to begin with. For the record, I don’t hate my country. I feel disgust for it sometimes, but I don’t hate it. I just don’t like it all that much.
8/30/2024 addendum: Another important read about the Trump ascendancy, published during the Trump ascendancy...
Greg Miller’s “The Apprentice: Trump, R8/30/2024 addendum: Another important read about the Trump ascendancy, published during the Trump ascendancy...
Greg Miller’s “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy” is, perhaps, the most up-to-date, cumulative, and concise historical overview of the whole current mess surrounding our president and his potential ties to Russia since last year’s “Russian Roulette” by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, but considering the fact that the Mueller investigation is still on-going and God knows how it will end for Trump (at this point, any rational-minded person is thinking, “not well”), it is still incomplete.
Given that, Miller’s book is still an amazing and wonderful piece of journalism. It is, I daresay, what Bob Woodward’s “Fear” should have been but wasn’t. It is also somewhat more in-depth than the afore-mentioned book by Isikoff/Corn. While “Russian Roulette” reads like a lengthy series of news articles (albeit extremely well-written and informative), “The Apprentice” reads like a fast-paced and suspenseful Daniel Silva novel.
Miller, the national security correspondent for The Washington Post, has clearly spent lots of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears on investigating the Trump Administration, the Russian computer hacking, the state of affairs in Washington, D.C., and everything in between. Indeed, he was one of several Washington Post reporters who recently won a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. In his Acknowledgements, he gives recognition of the fact that his book is, technically, a group effort of the numerous reporters, editors, and political sources that combined to create it.
It’s impossible to convince people of the importance of something, and it’s almost equally impossible, if not moreso, to convince people that they are gravely mistaken about what they think or believe on any given subject. Understandably, telling someone that their political views are incorrect or based on misinformation and/or a disregarding of the facts puts one in an untenable position of perceived arrogance, self-righteousness, and sophomania (the delusion that one possesses superior intellect).
Today, Trump supporters and Trump himself have become rigidly sophomaniacal. Trump, during the campaign, even bragged about his “high IQ” and his “good brain” and how he doesn’t feel the need to have advisors because his best advisor is himself.
His supporters feel the same way. Ask a Trump supporter what they feel that Trump has accomplished in office, and they will give a litany of answers, most of them vague, unsubstantiated, or blatantly untrue. But they will not listen to reason. Or, if they claim to try, they will get antagonistic and nasty when confronted with facts that dispute their own. They will claim that it is “the liberal mainstream media” that is perpetuating an “anti-Trump agenda” with “fake news”.
The truth is, the only truly “fake news” that has been created has (based on all evidence by CIA, NSA, FBI, and a myriad of other intelligence agencies) as its source a rather nondescript and innocuous four-story office building in St. Petersburg, Russia. The building houses the Internet Research Agency, a rather dull title for an agency that essentially created millions of fake memes, tweets, Facebook posts, news articles, and comments that managed to shift and shape Americans’ opinions and views prior to the 2016 election. The IRA is the world’s largest and most effective Russian troll factory.
Also according to every intelligence agency, incontrovertible evidence shows that Russia hacked into the computer systems of both the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Republican National Convention (RNC). We know this because of all the thousands of leaked e-mails from the DNC that were dumped on Facebook and other social media outlets during the summer and fall of 2016.
We know that while voting machines weren’t tampered with or hacked (owing to the archaic and still predominantly paper-based voting machines used in most states), Russia’s trolls still managed to effect the outcome of the election by creating doubt, sowing seeds of mistrust, and taking the heat off of Trump’s numerous pecadillos by branding Hillary Clinton a criminal and a monster.
We know that Vladimir Putin hated Hillary, and while there is no smoking-gun evidence that Putin actually orchestrated the whole thing, government agencies say that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory that a cyber attack of this magnitude could have only been perpetrated by a foreign government and that Russia is the only foreign government who had so much to gain from it.
All of this is, of course, bullshit to a Trump supporter, and Trump himself, which is frightening in its complete disregard for truth and its obvious desperation and blind loyalty to a man who continually creates new constitutional crises every day that he is in office.
Miller’s book is an absolutely essential book to read if you believe in things like freedom and democracy and holding people like Trump---and his supporters---and bad-acting countries like Russia accountable for their actions....more
The Cold War never ended. In fact, it is unfortunately getting hotter by the minute thanks to decades of lackluster foreign policy regarding Russia, rThe Cold War never ended. In fact, it is unfortunately getting hotter by the minute thanks to decades of lackluster foreign policy regarding Russia, ridiculous partisan division, and the Idiot-in-chief currently sitting in the Oval Office, who may be a Russian stooge.
Sincere apologies to Mitt Romney, who, in a March 26, 2016 interview on CNN, said, “[Russia] is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe. They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors.”
When asked to clarify, Romney added, “I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation that lines up with the world’s worst actors... Of course the greatest threat that the world faces is nuclear Iran, and a nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough. But when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them... who is it that always stands up with the world’s worst actors? It’s always Russia, typically with China alongside. And so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council that has the heft of the Security Council, and is of course is a massive nuclear power, Russia is the geopolitical foe. (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...)”
Sadly, in response to this comment, on Monday, October 22, 2012, during the third presidential debate before the elections, President Barack Obama jokingly said, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back, because the Cold War has been over for 20 years. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0IWe...)”
It was a zinger of a line, and it hurt Romney, despite his awkward attempt to defend it. Many critics felt he lost that debate, and he did it precisely at that moment.
Unfortunately, Obama was wrong, and Romney was right.
Michael Isikoff and David Corn’s brilliantly thorough reportage in the book “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump” describes the ramifications and the backlash of this total misreading of history.
Spoiler alert: this book does not make Obama look good. To be fair, this book makes a lot of people look bad. Many people on both sides of the aisle were simply unwilling to accept the truth and the facts because it was an election year, and they didn’t want to threaten their candidate’s success. So, party politics was chosen over doing the right thing. Shocker!
The book goes back as early as the mid- to late-‘90s, when Russian hacking was just starting to be a serious issue. In 1996, Russian hackers broke into Defense Department networks “and stole documents that if piled up would be three times the height of the Washington Monument. (p. 59)”
According to federal agents in charge of defending against cyberwarfare, China was actually the largest threat to the U.S. in terms of hacking into government databases but only because the Chinese were sloppy. Richard Ledgett, the deputy director of the NSA at the time, “had long since become convinced that the Russians were the more sophisticated and stealthy adversary. (p. 60)”
Keep in mind, this was the late-‘90s, early 2000s we are talking about. Russia has had 20 years to improve their cyber skills.
Fast forward to 2013, Moscow, where Donald Trump is hosting the Miss Universe Pageant, an entity he purchased seventeen years prior with NBC. Trump was excited because he wanted to meet Vladimir Putin. He wasn’t just excited, though. He was giddy as a schoolgirl on prom night knowing that she was going to finally lose her virginity.
Putin took notice. He was the consummate tease, sending one of his representatives to the pageant instead, disappointing Trump tremendously. But the dance of seduction of Trump wasn’t over. Over the years, Trump had had many business deals within Russia, most of them failures. Trump, for years, lied about meeting Putin, in much the same way a virgin lies about having had sex with the star football player.
Even during his campaign for president in 2016, Trump was trying to seal a deal with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a clear conflict of interest and violation of campaign protocol.
Meanwhile, Russia was hacking the headquarters of both the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Republicans. The FBI was aware of this as early as the beginning of 2016, but, for some reason, they waited to tell both parties. When a vague warning was sent to the DNC, the message was first dismissed as a crank. It was only when an IT team discovered the hack that people started taking it seriously.
Then, of course, there was the now-famous Steele Dossier. Christopher Steele, a former British spy with MI6, produced a dossier which implicated Russian oligarchs and higher-ups within the Kremlin in attempts to interfere with U.S. elections. There’s also the infamously alleged “golden shower” kompromat (Russian for “compromising material”) sex tape involving Trump and several Russian prostitutes. No tape has ever been released, and Trump still insists it is “fake news”.
Unfortunately, because it was an election year---and shaping up to be a fubar one at that---there was some major confusion as to how to handle all of this. Obama mishandled it from the beginning by downplaying its importance. Later, when some Democrats found out about it, they brought it to the attention of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, neither of whom wanted to touch it with a ten-foot pole, even when given the opportunity to make it a bipartisan issue (which, of course, it was).
Then, Trump won, and shit got real.
A Special Counsel Investigation, headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, was started on May 17, 2017 to investigate the Russian cyber intrusions in the U.S. elections as well as any possible collusion or links between Trump and the Russian government.
Isikoff and Corn’s book ends rather abruptly, mainly because the Mueller probe is an ongoing investigation. There is still much that is being learned about the Russian ties with Trump, and it doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon, much to Trump’s chagrin.
“Russian Roulette” is an unrelenting powerhouse of investigative journalism. You will probably, like me, want to go back and re-read sections simply out of a “WTF?” incredulity, especially if you are, like me, not as well versed in the computer hacking world. (Prior to reading this book, I’ll be honest, I had no idea that Russian troll farms actually existed, who the hell Guccifer 2.0 was, and what, exactly, WikiLeaks actually did.) The book reads like a Tom Clancy novel, all the more disturbing and frightening because it’s real and happening as we speak. ...more
Madeleine Albright served as Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, the first female in American history to serve in that Madeleine Albright served as Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton, the first female in American history to serve in that capacity. Today, Ms. Albright teaches International Relations at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is also the director of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. In between her myriad of jobs and titles (she is 81, by the way), she also manages to write the occasional book. Impressive, to say the least.
“Fascism: A Warning” is her sixth book she has written, all within the prime of her life. As intelligent as she is prolific, Albright looks at the history of fascism as a movement and at the ways that contemporary world leaders have, as she puts it, borrowed from the Fascist playbook. The book is both a history lesson and a primer for spotting early warning signs of totalitarianism.
She does not hide or pussyfoot around the fact that her impetus for writing the book is the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. She clearly sees in Trump (as most rational-minded people do) the embryonic sparks of a potential totalitarian dictatorship. She is, however, quick to point out that Trump does not currently fit the bill of a fascist. She does, however, imply that there are enough red flags about Trump that suggests that he could easily be shaped into a fascist.
The first half of Albright’s book focuses on the history of fascism, starting with the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, both of whom epitomized fascism’s ultranationalistic fervor, forcible suppression of opposition, and flagrant use of extreme violence.
Her book then covers the many faces of fascism throughout the 20th century, starting with Russia’s Joseph Stalin. She describes the dictatorships of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin: all of whom, like Trump, were elected through democratic and legal means.
Albright is also quick to point out that far-right ideologies are not the only political systems that tend toward fascism. This, of course, is a liberal myth, and one that even George Orwell---who was a Socialist---tried to debunk, as he saw the same fascist tendencies played out in far-left political systems. Fascism has no ideology. It is simply ultranationalist totalitarianism, regardless of politics. In any shape and form it takes, however, fascism is always a threat to democracy.
Throughout the book, Albright makes the point that we are all somewhat culpable in opening the door for a fledgling fascist such as Trump. In times of hardship and confusion, even rational-minded people can do questionable things. When people are faced with poverty and hunger, even well-intentioned people can often do unspeakable things.
She writes that while we demand more from our government, “[t]hat would be fine if only we matched the request by asking more of ourselves. Instead, we are spoiled. Even those too lazy to vote feel it their birthright to blast our elected representatives from every direction. We complain bitterly when we do not get all we want as if it were possible to have more services with lower taxes, broader health care coverage with no federal involvement, a cleaner environment without regulations, security from terrorists with no infringement on privacy, and cheaper consumer goods made locally by workers with higher wages. In short, we crave all the benefits of change without the costs. When we are disappointed, our response is to retreat into cynicism, then start thinking about whether there might be a quicker, easier, and less democratic way to satisfy our wants. (p. 116)”
Albright’s most important warning to us all is that we look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are the type of person who craves democracy or whether we are okay with someone else telling us what to do. ...more
Diplomacy is dead. This is the main take-away of Ronan Farrow’s recent book “War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence”Diplomacy is dead. This is the main take-away of Ronan Farrow’s recent book “War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence”, a frightening look at the first stages of a growing new world military order and the death of hope for mankind.
The book starts with the Mahogany Row Massacre, the name given to Trump’s sweeping blanket firing within the State Department during his initial first weeks in office. Virtually every ambassador, diplomat, and consultant that was involved in overseas diplomatic efforts with hundreds of countries was forced to resign or fired. To this day, a majority of those positions have gone unfilled. Whole American embassies sit empty and collecting dust right now.
What Trump did was, according to Farrow, unprecedented and terrifying, but he makes the case that the lack of respect and interest in diplomacy started long before Trump. It began under Bill Clinton and continued on under the presidencies of George H. W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Partly due to an attempt at “trimming the fat” (or, as Trump would call it, “draining the swamp”) of what was seen as an over-budgeted diplomatic corps and partly due to the fears brought on by September 11, 2001, the de-emphasis of diplomacy inevitably meant the rise in more military spending and a stronger militarization of foreign policy efforts.
This trend has, unfortunately, been going on under our very noses and with very little protest. Whether because the media has been under-reporting it or because we have all been willfully ignorant doesn’t really matter at this point. It’s happened, and it’s getting worse.
We all assume that the Bush presidency was most likely the worst culprit in this military escalation, which makes sense since 9/11 happened under his watch. The truth is, though, that Obama is equally, if not more, culpable: “Over the course of his presidency, Barack Obama approved more than double the dollar value of arms deals with foreign regimes than George W. Bush had before him. In fact, the Obama administration sold more arms than any other since World War II. (p. xxvii)”
Much of what happened prior to the Mahogany Row Massacre was due to a petty fight between two generations: Obama’s post-post-boomer and millenial worship of technology and innovation versus the Old-school form of diplomacy as embodied by men like the late Richard Holbrooke.
Obama and Holbrooke historically butted heads about how to approach foreign policy. Obama’s tragedy was in refusing to listen to and learn from the past. Holbrooke’s tragedy was dying before convincing the Obama administration that his generation of diplomats were a valuable and under-utilized resource.
The problem with Obama (and, according to Farrow, an entire generation of young people) is the lack of understanding of the kinds of things that old-school diplomats like Holbrooke did. To many of the new-school, the old-school looked like an outdated form of James Bond-like espionage, which lent itself (erroneously) to the image of impropriety and illegality.
As old-school diplomat Robin Raphel explained, “I have had foreign policy people come up and say, ‘You were doing the old-fashioned thing and now there’s a new thing.’... I wasn’t doing the wrong thing. I wasn’t doing the out of date thing. I was doing the real thing. (p. 151)”
Because of the gradual de-emphasis on diplomacy, foreign policy matters were, more and more, being managed by military minds. Unfortunately, the military is very good at one thing---war---and not very good at diplomacy.
Historically, too, the U.S. entanglement with warlords and foreign militants have, in many ways, been the cause of many current problems. For example, it’s easy to forget that the CIA, during the 1980s, backed, both financially and militarily, the Taliban in Afghanistan as a way to undermine the Soviet Union. And, yes, that’s the same Taliban that birthed Osama bin Laden.
These kinds of entanglements have, unfortunately, backfired, escalated, and created completely new problems in tumultuous parts of the world such as Central and South America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. So, yeah, that’s basically the entire world.
It’s easy to criticize the diplomats of the ‘60s and ‘70s, who got us entangled in embarrassing and, in some cases, irreparable situations like Vietnam. The problem, according to the late Holbrooke, was that presidents Bush, Obama, and now Trump refuse to see the obvious parallels between Vietnam and what we are doing in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Diplomacy as an option is being completely taken off the table, and we are in a world that needs diplomacy more than ever....more
If that were the only take-away from Garry Kasparov’s 2015 book “Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the EnemiesVladimir Putin is a very bad guy.
If that were the only take-away from Garry Kasparov’s 2015 book “Winter is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped”, I doubt the book would have much traction; nor do I think that it would still be talked about in foreign policy circles, which it is.
The book, now three years old (ancient in terms of current events), is as relevant today as it was then, mainly because Kasparov was quite descriptive in his analysis of Putin’s gradual totalitarian take-over of Russia, and he was rather prophetic in giving us a sneak peek at the abuses of power that Trump has engaged in with his own fledgling totalitarian regime.
The harsh criticisms that this book has received should be addressed. Many people don’t seem to like Kasparov because he has the audacity to criticize former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for their lackluster (to put it nicely) foreign policy in dealing with Russia. These critiques, of course, stem from the Left. Kasparov equally lambastes former presidents George Bush the Elder and W. for also being way too lenient on Russia, leading to some harsh criticism from the Right. Neither liberals nor conservatives, of course, like when their guys are criticized for anything. This is the problem with party politics, and it is why we are so divisive in this country. I’m not saying I’m any less guilty; I’m merely saying that we need to take an honest look at “our” respective presidents and hold them accountable.
People who don’t like this book also feel that Kasparov is way too nasty in his examination of Putin, that his comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Hitler’s pre-war Germany are completely unfair and inaccurate, and that he seems to have a personal grudge against Putin. I personally think that a majority of these criticisms are from Putin-backed Russian hacker-trolls, although I have absolutely no proof of this. To the first part: Putin has gotten away with his shit and gained this much power precisely because people weren’t taking a hard enough line against him in the first place. To the second point: Kasparov makes the point that his Putin/Hitler comparison is not about what Hitler did during the Second World War II but how Putin compares to pre-war Hitler and how other countries treated him. Hitler, like Putin, was well-liked and treated with undeserved respect by other Western countries. Indeed, it was a policy of appeasement that enabled Hitler to become the political monster he became, and Kasparov warns that the same kind of appeasement toward Putin may do the same. To the last point: I don’t see that Kasparov has any personal grudge against him, although as a pro-democracy protestor and human rights activist, Kasparov has every reason to find Putin deplorable.
There are also a strange number of criticisms in regards to the fact that Kasparov is a world chess champion. There is, repeatedly, a view of What the hell kind of authority does Kasparov, a chess master, have in analyzing foreign affairs? As if people who are one thing can’t also be well-versed and knowledgable in other areas. I personally find this view stupid. It is one thing to flippantly have an opinion about anything when one clearly knows nothing about a subject (I am reminded of Dr. Ben Carson, who stated publicly that he believed that the pyramids of Egypt were used as grain silos and not tombs, a completely incorrect belief that goes against all archaeological and scientific evidence), but it is a different thing entirely to have an opinion (well-researched and supported by facts) on a subject with which one isn’t necessarily a certified professional. Kasparov has clearly done his homework. Plus, he’s Russian. The fact that he’s lived under Putin directly gives him more credence than other foreign policy advisors.
“Winter is Coming” is eye-opening, especially to someone like me who is admittedly ignorant about Russian history and politics. Unfortunately, no American nowadays should be ignorant about Russia, despite how much Trump Republicans want to downplay the current Russian cyber war against the U.S. As Kasparov argues (compellingly), Russia is the greatest threat to Western democracy, even moreso than Iran, North Korea, China, Syria, or ISIS. And Putin actually makes Trump look like a boy scout. (Albeit a boy scout who believes in not paying taxes, giving his super-rich pals a “get-out-of-jail-free” pass, likes to grab pussy, dreams of having sex with his own daughter, would love to see respectable journalists in concentration camps, separates children from their parents, thinks Lebron James is “stupid”, and says that some white supremacists are “very nice people”.) ...more
China's population is a staggering 1.3 billion people (as of 2011), with a projected growth of roughly 200 million more people. * A coal-burning indusChina's population is a staggering 1.3 billion people (as of 2011), with a projected growth of roughly 200 million more people. * A coal-burning industrial nation, China has burned roughly 4 billion tons of coal, making it the world's largest coal consumer. It is the fastest-growing nation in the world, in terms of economic and industrial growth, but it is also the most polluted.
Everyone knows that China can not sustain its growth, even the Chinese. To continue on the path that it is currently on, China poses an environmental threat not only to itself but also to the entire world. This is the frightening and beyond-inconvenient truth in Craig Simons's eye-opening book "The Devouring Dragon: How China's Rise Threatens Our Natural World". The amount of lumber alone that China requires makes it a very real possibility that, if continued unchecked, the rain forests of the world will be completely destroyed by the end of this century. The death of the rain forests would inevitably mean the extinction of millions of animal and plant species. Many of those extinctions are happening now.
In one of Simons's most emotional chapters, he writes about the rapid decline in the world tiger population, and how he desperately hopes that his newborn little girl will be able to grow up to see the beautiful creature before it, too, joins the list of extinct species in our lifetime. And, while our selfish world leaders continue to bicker over whether global warming is a real threat, global climate change continues to wreak havoc on the entire planet. Projections of global climate change and its effects on ocean levels, average global temperature, and precipitation rates are shocking.
Yet, Simons manages to not create a xenophobic atmosphere. He doesn't see the point in finger-pointing, and if there is any finger-pointing to be done, The United States deserves a fairly good chunk of the blame, as well. Throughout the book, Simons is quick to remind the reader that the average Chinese citizen lives far below our standard of the poverty line. At one point, Simons makes the comment that the average Chinese citizen's life is far more "green" than the average American's, and they do it without trying and without a choice in the matter. Simons remains hopeful, as he points out the many sustainable-energy strides and attempts at protecting the environment that China has already made. Even though, as he says, "we were poking holes in the bottom of a sinking ship even as we debated how to plug them. (p. 211)"
* These are 10-year-old statistics. In 2022, China's population was close to 1.5 billion....more
I’ve never taken cocaine or meth before, but I can only imagine that reading a Don Winslow novel is akin to the feeling of being hopped up on one of tI’ve never taken cocaine or meth before, but I can only imagine that reading a Don Winslow novel is akin to the feeling of being hopped up on one of those drugs.
“The Power of the Dog” is a hyperkinetic crime thriller that is so visceral, you may, at certain points, be ducking down in your seat for fear of being hit by a ricochet during one of its many intense gun fight sequences. Winslow writes with the intensity of James Ellroy and the epic sense of scale of Dennis Lehane. “TPOTD” is “Sicario” meets “The Godfather”, as directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The novel—although populated with fictional characters—-is a thinly-veiled history of the rise of the drug cartels in Mexico, starting in the late-1970s to the late-‘90s. During the ‘80s, the focus of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was primarily the Colombian drug trade, under the infamous Medellin and Cali cartels. While the DEA was somewhat effective in stopping the flow of drugs from Colombia, they dropped the ball when it came to keeping an eye on the rise of trade from Mexico. In the late-80s and early-90s, the drug trade exploded out of Mexico, thanks in large part to NAFTA, which helped cartels find easier and cheaper ways of transporting drugs into the country, and by teaming up with American street gangs and the Italian mafia in this country. Today, five major cartels in Mexico battle it out for supremacy in the Mexican drug trade, often utilizing human trafficking of children and women for the sex trade for extra cash flow.
I knew little to nothing about this history, other than what few headlines I have gleaned over the years from my newsfeed, which is to say: not much at all. A lot of this still goes underreported.
What the fuck do Americans care about the massive crime and tragic loss of life south of the border? Let’s be honest: most Americans spend a shitload of money on illicit drugs on a yearly basis. It’s supply and demand. College kids buying their weed could care less that the weed they bought was drenched in the blood of women and children. Their parents who are buying coke don’t give the slaughter of innocents a second thought either. It’s the American way to not give a shit about how their desired drugs of choice get to them, just that they get to them.
Winslow is at least trying to open our eyes to the true drug problem: that a war has been waging in Central and South America for decades, mostly because of misguided and just plain awful military and secret interventions by our own government. (Remember the Iran-Contra affair? Neither do I, but the repercussions of it are still being felt in many central American countries.) That, and the complete buffoonery of ineffectual law enforcement agencies like the CIA and DEA have simply made things worse. We apparently learned nothing from Prohibition.
Besides being entertaining as fuck, Winslow’s novel is a quick and easy primer for learning about how this country fucked up the entire country of Mexico back in the ‘80s and how the War on Drugs today is a complete and utter failure....more
Words can not express how truly amazing Adam Johnson's novel "The Orphan Master's Son" is, and to give it only five stars seems like not enough. If I Words can not express how truly amazing Adam Johnson's novel "The Orphan Master's Son" is, and to give it only five stars seems like not enough. If I could give the book seven stars I would. Maybe eight. It's that good. The novel is set in North Korea, a mysterious country that many of us do not stop to think about often, unless we read about the latest terrifying bit of news to come out of its borders. One has perhaps laughed at the ridiculous figure of the pudgy little dictator, the late Kim Jong Il, the country's "Supreme Leader", and one of the world's last truly evil totalitarian rulers. He is (or was---he died in 2011 but has been succeeded by his equally terrifying son Kim Jong-un, so the legacy continues) nothing to laugh at. The stories that come out of North Korea---the torture camps, the mass starvation, the strict governmental control of all goods and services---are difficult to swallow, let alone believe, for Americans accustomed to excess and rampant consumerism. How, in the 21st century, is it possible for these people to not own cars, TVs, cell phones, or personal computers? It is difficult to fathom and even think about, so we generally don't. North Korea makes us extremely uncomfortable, for some reason, which is why Johnson's book is not just an entertaining read but an important one, as well. Parts of the book read like George Orwell's "1984" or Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"---a kind of dystopic society that we can only hope is fictional. Johnson, however, has traveled extensively in both North and South Korea. His research is thorough. The world he writes about in "TOMS" may seem so far-fetched in its bleakness and despair, but it is all the more terrifying because it is real. Still, Johnson manages to interject much-needed humor and hope throughout the novel.
The protagonist, Jun Do, is aptly named. When he meets an American for the first time, the American misinterprets his name as "John Doe". When the American attempts to explain why his name is funny, Jun Do is struck by the appropriateness. Jun Do was born "dead on arrival"---the son of an orphan master and raised in an orphanage---and, for a majority of his life, he lacks any identity. He quickly learns that he is living in a country of identity-less people, a nation of john and jane does, whose only purpose is to serve the "Dear Leader". Jun Do rises within the ranks of Kim Jong Il's army. He is a professional kidnapper, kidnapping Japanese, Chinese, and even some American citizens to fill necessary jobs in North Korea, such as English teachers or doctors. That this actually goes on with some frequency, even today, is terrifying to contemplate. Jun Do detests his job, but, in some weird twist of fate, he is good at it. So good, in fact, that it attracts the attention of Dear Leader himself. He is assigned job details with ever-growing importance. Ultimately, he finds himself on a fact-checking mission to America, where he discovers a taste for freedom for the first time. Upon his return to North Korea, however, he is quickly arrested and sent to the Pobyuks, government "interrogators", under the command of a famously vicious military leader named Commander Ga.
This is where the novel gets delightfully weird and kicks into high gear. (Word of warning: the following may contain some spoilers...)
Several months have passed. The prisoner known as Jun Do is officially dead. Commander Ga arrives back at his home and job at Pyongyang, but there is something different about him. One, he does not look like himself. Nor does he act like himself, lacking the violent temper and cruel streak that he possessed in the past. The person to notice it the most is Commander Ga's wife, Sun Moon, the nation's greatest and purest movie actress. The man she calls her husband, she knows, is not her husband. He is somewhat smaller, especially in the shoulders. He is friendly. And he is affectionate in his love-making. He also has a new tattoo on his chest of her stunning face, something which she knows her real husband would have never done. Her real husband, she knew, was much more interested in his trysts with young male soldiers. Her real husband, she knew, never loved her. This man---this imposter---not only loves her, but she begins to have feelings of love for him, as well.
If all this sounds unbelievable, it is, somewhat, but Johnson isn't quite going for stark realism here. There is, thankfully, a bit of the magical realist touch involved, and it works. When the plot twist happens, the tension also begins, along with the nail-biting suspense, because the reader (and the main characters) know that it is only a matter of time before their secret is revealed, and a secret this enormous has only one outcome. Commander Ga devises a plan, with the help of other conspirators within Kim Jong-Il's inner circle, to escape with Sun Moon and her two children. It is an elaborate plan involving an American captive held in a Pyongyang prison and an American diplomatic mission. It builds to one of the most intense climaxes I have read in a long time, outside a Robert Ludlum or Vince Flynn novel.
"The Orphan Master's Son" is, hands down, the BEST novel I have read in years, and I realize I said that about the last several books I have read, but this one truly is worth picking up immediately in the bookstore or at the library....more
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