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The New American Empire
by
Rodrigue Tremblay (Paperback)
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Customer Review: *****
*****A deftly researched,
deadly serious warning , November 8, 2004
Reviewer: Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
In
The New American Empire, economist and professor emeritus Rodrigue Tremblay
dares to ask: what is really the motive behind the American war in Iraq? What
will be its consequences, both for the United States and the world? Focusing on
a critical shift that American foreign and domestic policies have taken under
George Bush since September 11, 2001, viewed both in the context of modern
history and as part of the evolution of Western civilization since the fall of
Constantinople in 1453. The dangerous implications of a war initiated and led
under false pretenses, the strategic importance of oil and its fundamental
motivation in a political and worldwide power grab, emerging decadence in the
West and more are all chronicles with a cautious eye and a sharp tongue. A
deftly researched, deadly serious warning of the clear and present dangers of
America's current uncontrolled national hubris.
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Customer Reviews
*****Fundamental Truth
about U.S. Foreign Policy, Sep 1 2006
Reviewer: Robert C.
Brown
(Toronto, ON)
I am deeply indebted to Dr. Tremblay for helping
me understand the basics of geopolitics, as it relates to current affairs,
especially regarding how domestic politics in the U.S. functions, how foreign
policy is an extenion of domestic politics, and how American foreign wars
nowadays are not defensive wars but wars of aggression. Here are some of the
most crucial points the author makes:
1- President George W. Bush intended to invade
Iraq even before he became president. In 1999, for example, he told his
biographer Mickey Herskowitz: "If I have a chance to invade (Iraq), if I
have that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything
passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful
presidency." In fact, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has confirmed
that the discussion of a plan to oust Saddam Hussein and invade Iraq was the
main topic from day one of the new Bush administration, in January 2001, nine
months before the events of 9/11.
2- Bush's obsession with invading Iraq squared
perfectly well with the 1997 Neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
and its agenda for transforming the Middle East in order to enhance Israel's
security in the region. The pro-Israel cabal within and outside the government
went full speed in pushing for a war against Iraq, on the flimsiest of reasons,
most of them made up from scratch.
3- When Vice President Dick Cheney's energy
advisory panel tabled its 163-page report on May 16, 2001, Middle East oil
policy came to reinforce Bush's and the Neocons' desire to invade Iraq.
These facts go a long way toward explaining why the U.S. occupation of
Iraq lasts so long, costs so much and has no end in sight. If you want to learn
the fundamental truth about the Iraq war and other wars in the Middle East, Dr.
Tremblay's book is what you need. It's a book that's easy to read and
understand.
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*****Informative and
Original,
Aug 15 2006
Reviewer: G.
Belanger
(Montreal, Qc, Canada)
This is a very informative book and a must read
for anyone interested in understanding why the Bush administration is so prone
to launching wars in the oil-rich Middle East region. The author, a renowned
economist, is very knowledgeable about the economics and domestic politics that
support such warmongering efforts. He identifies the pro-Israel Neocon movement
and its alliance with the lunatics of the religious Right as important forces
in the push toward involving the U.S. in wars abroad. The military-industrial
complex and the strategic importance of Middle East oil are represented by Vice
President Dick Cheney in the Bush administration, and are also prime movers of
war.
Probably the most original part of this book is
its chronology of empires and how Western civilization started its ascendency
after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This chapter (chap. 16) is worth
buying the book in itself. The author's style is direct and pulls no punches.
An excellent book.
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*****A Way Out of the
Mess?,
June 23, 2006
Reviewer: S.W. Larson (Philadelphia, PA USA)
As an amateur student of American foreign
policy, I am appalled by the wave of anti-americanism it has generated over the
last few years. The policy of systematically meddling in the internal affairs
of other countries, especially in the Middle East, has been most
counter-productive.
There is no doubt that unbridled
interventionism, often done illegally and under murky influences, is the root
cause of why there is so much anti-americanism around the world. And case in
point is the gratuitous violence imposed on some Muslim countries, i.e. Iraq
and Palestine. This is creating tons of resentment all over the Muslim world,
turning many to hatred and some to terrorism.
Tremblay's book offers a way out of this circular dilemma: Apply to the
Muslim world the same treatment given to the Communist world with the 1975
Helsinki Accords. As he puts it (p. 152-53), the Helsinki Accords, signed by 33
Eastern and Western European countries, the United States, and Canada, played a
fundamental role in opening up the communist bloc to liberty, freedom and
reforms. I doubt that bombs would have brought the same result.
Former President Mikhail Gorbachev has said that
the Helsinki Accords opened the door to reforms that would not have taken place
otherwise. Why can we not adopt a similar approach with the Muslim world,
instead of jumping all the time on the war wagon? This is a well-written and
well-researched book. It is highly recommended.
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*****The On-going Drama in
the Middle East,
May 16, 2006
Reviewer: C. A.
Templeton
(Calgary, AB, Canada)
People who want a condensed introduction on how
the Bush administration walked into a quagmire in Iraq should read "The
New American Empire". I don't agree with all of Tremblay's arguments, but
in my opinion he hits the nail on the head when he identifies the real reasons
why Bush II invaded Iraq, i.e oil, Israel, military bases and domestic
politics. By the way, the same scenario seems to be repeating itself with Iran,
with the same deception about the real reasons for intimidating Iran.
So, even if you do not agree with everything the author has to say,
this book is worth a ton of newspapers articles or hours of TV reporting. The
chapters on `Oil' and on the `History of Empires' are worth buying this book.
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*****Behind the Iraqi Mess, April 3, 2006
Reviewer: A.B.
Pactor
(Hyattsville, MD, USA)
Among the many books written on the Iraq war and
the Bush administration's fixation with militarism, this book by economist
Tremblay is one of the most readable and most informative.
The fact that George W. Bush was planning a
premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' in that country, even
before he took power in January 2001, should make people pause and think. So
should the Neocon blueprint for a complete American take-over of the Middle
East ("Rebuilding America's Defenses"), drafted in Sept. 2001, by
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and Lewis Libby.
Now that Iraq is a mess, that thousands and thousands
of people have been killed, and hundreds of billions of dollars have been
wasted, the American people are entitled to know the real reasons why the Bush
administration launched an illegal war of aggression against Iraq, with no
provocation but with a lot of bad faith. All the official reasons have been
proven false. After reading this book, one knows the real reasons behind one of
the most foolish enterprises ever undertaken by a U.S. government abroad. I
have learned a lot also from prof.
Tremblay's new blog: http://www.TheNewAmericanEmpire.com/blog.
*****Very Informative, March 11, 2006
Reviewer: P. Solomon, (Washington DC,)
I found this book fascinating. It is full of
insights. This is a book hard to put down.
If you want to know why there are so many wars,
read this book.
*****The Law vs.
Imperialism and Fascism, February 21, 2006
Reviewer: S.D. Ryan (San Francisco, CA,
USA)
There is much that could be said about this
book. First, it is well written. Second, its arguments are rooted in facts.
Third, it breaks new ground when it applies economic thinking to the
understanding of international and domestic politics. Tremblay is most
impatient towards imperialism, colonialism, militarism, despotism, hegemonism,
totalitarianism, and political ineptitude.
What makes the book particularly interesting,
notwithstanding its somewhat polemical tone, is its humanistic and
philosophical approach. It is not per se a polemic, but the author never
hesitates to confront the neocon ideology, which he assimilates to old-style
imperialism and fascism.
After a general introduction about hegemonism, Tremblay covers five
broad themes: (1) The place of religion in politics, especially as it relates
to the United States; (2) how oil has come to dominate U.S. foreign policy; (3)
how anything connected to Israel arouses political responses in America; (4)
how the Iraq war was launched on false pretenses; and (5) how empires seem to
follow a very long cycle.
If you want a concise, short, and eloquent
opposition to aggressive wars and international lawlessness, I can think of no
better book to serve this function.
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this review helpful to you?
***** Challenge to the Neocons, February 16, 2006
Reviewer: C. Martin (Madison, WI USA)
This book is a significant challenge to the
neocon-fascist ideology of history and politics. Since this lawless ideology
has taken a stranglehold on the nation's foreign policy, this is a message
worth listening to. This is a must read.
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***** Bush and the Law, February 13, 2006
Reviewer: B. J.
Bernstein (New
York, N.Y.)
It would take many books to document the many
unlawful acts committed by the Bush administration. But this book goes a long
way toward explaining things.
Sen. Byrd has said that "No president is
above the law."
In a democracy, no politician can choose the
laws to be obeyed, and those to be discarded.
Because G.W. Bush has often discarded laws he
did not like, many think he is guilty of impeachable offenses.
Whatever Congress does is OK with me. This is a
great book to learn the facts.
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*****Bombings and `wanton
destruction of cities', January 1, 2006
Reviewer: Mary
Spencer,
(Madison, WI, USA)
With an eye to the 2006 November elections, the
Bush adminstration will fake a troop reduction in Iraq, while continuing to
fortify large military bases in that country and escalating the air war against
Iraqi cities. This war will become even more immoral and cruel. This war is a
criminal war. Perhaps, George W. Bush should be reminded that terror bombings
of cities is criminal behavior. In particular, he should be reminded of article
6(b) of the 1945 Nuremberg Charter that defines the term "War crimes"
to include: ". . . wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or
devastation not justified by military necessity."
Tremblay demonstrates without the shadow of a
doubt that this war is both illegal and immoral. Now, let's make the media
accountable for not reporting the thousands of civilian Iraqi deaths ruthlessly
caused by American bombings. The United States is not a force for good in Iraq,
it is a force for destruction and killing. The Bush administration has lost any
sense of right and wrong. It has become a monster.
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****Costly War Crimes, December 30, 2005
Reviewer: R.
M. Burns,
(Tarrytown, NY USA)
Reading this book, we must conclude that wars
that are not accepted by the international community should not be undertaken,
period. And this applies to any country, including the United States.
Under the Nuremberg standard established by the
U.S. itself, Bush's invasion of Iraq is a war crime. Indeed, since the 1946
Nuremberg Judgment, it has been international law that "To initiate a war
of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme
international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Nevertheless, even if the Bush administration
has initiated such a war of aggression in Iraq, the cover-up of Bush's crimes
in American media goes on unabated.
British Nobel laureate Harold Pinter recently
asked: "How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be
described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?" ...Bush now says (Dec.
12, '05) that only "30,000 Iraqis have been killed, more or less",
while the number of U.S. Military personnel slaughtered in Bush's war stands so
far at 2175. Other more credible sources (see the Lancet study), place the
number of Iraqi deaths above 100,000, since the beginning of the illegal war
Bush launched in March 2003. In Pinter's view, it would only be "just that
Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of
Justice."
Now, most Iraqis want U.S. military forces out
of their country, but Bush wants to stay in Iraq because he wants "to stay
the course"! Talking of an uninvited and unwelcomed guest!
Meanwhile, the Center for American Progress
estimates that the war in Iraq is costing $177 million per day, $7.4 million
per hour, and $122,820 per minute. This translates into $ 65 billion per year,
or approximately $ 1,000 for each American family of four.
Congress was quick to impeach President Clinton
for a minor misbehavior. Where are they now that impeachable crimes are being
committed right under their very eyes, and costly ones at that?
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*****How to Elect a Brutal
Shiite Theocracy?,
December 26, 2005
Reviewer: L. B.
McNamara, (Baltimore MD USA)
George W.
Bush has done it. He has reconstituted the Persian Empire in the Middle East.
With the election of a pro-Iran theocratic government in Iraq, the Shiites in
Iran and Iraq are posed to form a Shiite coalition that will dominate the
region for years to come, as soon as they kick U.S. forces from their lands. Is
he stupid or what?
This was all too predictable. Anybody who knows
anything about Middle East politics could have predicted that the Iraqi
Shiites, under religious-led parties, would attempt to establish an
Iranian-like theocracy in Iraq, if given the chance. Bush gave them their
chance and they took it. Indeed, it is the United States, with 160,000 troops,
which props up the Iraqi Shiites in power.
This book saw this coming. On p. 170, Tremblay
writes: "Democratic elections [in Iraq] would likely give power to Shiite
Muslims, who represent more than 60 percent of the Iraqi population. What would
then be the implications of a Shia-dominated government in Iraq? Would Iran not
stand to become the primary power in the Middle East, becoming a direct threat
to the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel?"
And mind you, the worse is still to come. On p.
62, the author writes: "If several Middle East countries fell under the
domination of fundamentalist and Islamic movements and became extremist religious
states, hostile to the West, along the lines of Iran, the resulting world oil
crisis could be extremely severe." Well, the Neocon Bush administration
now will likely want to raise the ante and attack Iran, a country of 75 million
people. Then the price of oil will surge above $100 a baril, and the world will
plunge into an economic depression.
That's what happens when you elect stupid people
to government. Pray that this band of bozos will be prevented by Congress from
doing any more damage.
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***** Every American
Should Read This Book,
December 25, 2005
Reviewer: Catherine A. M.