Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond : GlobalExchange : US$9.95
by Rahul Mahajan As soon as the Pentagon and Twin Towers were attacked - a war against on Iraq immediately became inevitable. In the absence of massive resistance - Donald Rumsfeld issued orders to his aides to find a way to implicate Iraq within hours of the events of September 11th. Why? In Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond Rahul Mahajan shows the reason has nothing to do with Iraqi connections with terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda. Nor does it have to do with Iraq's putative weapons of mass destruction. Nor with the Bush administration's desire to bring peace - democracy - or liberation to the Middle East. Instead - combining his experience as an anti-Iraq-sanctions activist with a keen analysis of US foreign policy in the post-Cold-War era - he provides the answers that have been missing from the mainstream debate. Situating Iraq within the larger context of post-9/11 foreign policy - he analyzes the Bush National Security Strategy and the new vision of the neoconservatives to achieve greater and greater degree of global domination and control. With unflinching clarity - Mahajan's research demonstrates that the war on Iraq was a pre-programmed part of a much larger plan - assembled before 9/11 and needing only - in the words of the Project for a New American Century - a new Pearl Harbor to implement them. He goes on to review the strangulation of Iraq during over 12 years of sanctions and then - step by step - dismantles the administration's case for the war. In the process - he addresses questions like: Who is more responsible for the suffering of the Iraqi people - the United States or the Iraqi government? If the war is about Weapons of Mass Destruction - why is the Bush administration so set against inspections? Is the war necessary to uphold international law? What is the role of oil in the drive to war? Mahajan concludes by sketching out in broad strokes the outlines of the latest New World Order and suggests what can be done to stop the dark vision of the neoconservatives from coming to pass. Rahul Mahajan (PhD University of Texas at Austin) is a longtime antiwar activist at the local and national level. He is a founding member of the Nowar Collective and serves on the National Board of Peace Action - the nation's largest grassroots peace organization. His first book - The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism - has been described as mandatory reading for all those who want to get a handle on the war on terrorism. He writes frequently for mainstream and alternative print media and for websites like Common Dreams - Zmag.org - Alternet - and Counterpunch. For those of us in the peace movement who truly thought we could stop the war in Iraq - FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE shows us our naivite. Its deep analysis of the policies and strategies of U.S. foreign policymakers is sobering. But author Rahul Mahajan is not just an academic but an activist. He provides us the tools to understand the forces we are up against so we can better challenge them. The book is essential for those who wish to continue to fight against empire. ??Medea Benjamin - co-founder - Global Exchange and Code Pink: Women for Peace
