This is similar to the Noam Chomskey book that I read which was a transcript of a radio interview. This book is a collection of interviews with Alternate Radio where Zinn discusses American History and where the United States was at that point in time. While the book was released in 2006, it contains a number of interviews post September 11 and the main theme of the book is that really nothing has changed with the American system of government since its inception. He believes that it is a militant government bent on war of the sake of war, and that the many wars that the United States has been involved in drains funds from the public purse to support what Eisenhower termed as the 'Military Industrial Complex'.

 

I have spoken about war elsewhere, and will do so again, however I will try keep my comments brief here. One of the things that I tend to disagree with the pacifists is that there is the idea of a just war, and that there are times when to is necessarily to go to war, obviously to defend the interests of yourself and your allies. However, sometimes it is necessary to go to war to attempt to prevent the aggressive tenancies of another power or idea, sometimes it is necessary to go to war to remove a tyrant. However it is not the question of war that I am raising, but how one goes about it. It is quite clear that while there was probably a very good reason to send troops to Vietnam, however the way the war was carried out was not. The same goes with Iraq, and it is with Iraq that I will now come to.

 

It is accepted that Sadam was a tyrant, and it is accepted that he murdered many innocent people during his reign. What made Sadam such a threat though was that he has industrialised his nation, and then geared his nation to war. It is true that there is a lot of oil wealth in Iraq, and during the cold war he would play the Russians against the Americans to get the best price for his oil. With the proceeds he then set about industrialising his country and his military, and proceeded to go to war with Iran. The Americans even provided him with weaponry to fight this war. However, it was after the war was over, and that his ally, the Soviet Union, had collapsed, that the United States discovered that he could not be trusted. The US has no problem with propping up brutal dictators, as long as the dictator plays by their rules, which usually involves opening the country up to corporate exploitation. Further, as long as the country does not embark on projects involving poverty relief, then that is fine as well. There have been a number of South American countries who have elected socialist governments in an attempt to address the poverty of the region, only to discover that the US government has not only allied with their political opponents, but armed them as well (the Sandanistas in Nicuragua and Salvadore Allande on Chile both ring a bell).

 

While it was a noble and just idea to go into Iraq to remove Sadam, this was not the reason that they wanted to do it. There are numerous other dictators (as mentioned) that are just as brutal and dangerous as Sadam, but they are on the US' side. Sadam clearly was not, so he had to be removed. Further, the reason to allow the Iraqis to determine their own destiny but to rather install their own corporate friendly government in the country and open up the population to the free market. It was also intended that the oil wealth of Iraq not go to the Iraqi's, but straight into the coffers of the oil barons. However, things did not turn out the way they expected. They expected that the country would be in such as shock that they could move in, change everything, install a Pizza Hut and McDonalds on every corner, and then move out just as fast. However, it did not turn out like that. Immediately after the government collapsed the people went on a looting soree, and six months after the invasion Iraq was on the brink of civil war.

 

One of the other important things that Zinn discusses in this book is history and education. This goes in hand with the idea of media manipulation. With the media concentrated in the hands of (I believe) seven megacorporations, and the expense involved in attempting to establish an alternate source, our understanding of the past and the present is presented to us in a sanitised package promoting the ideas that the complex wants us to accept, and to rewrite history in a way that we can never know the truth of what really happened. Take Vietnam for instance: it was an embarrassment for the US government, and they had to get out of there as soon as possible. What was more of an embarrassment was that the media was not controlled. We saw a similar incident in Somalia (which is ironically forgotten, and has been sanitised so that only the heroic actions of a small few are all that is remembered by what turned out to be another embarrassing loss). Now information from the warzone is much more tightly controlled. In Vietnam the journalists wrote about and filmed what we saw, and for the first time, on our television screens, we saw the true horror of war. However, come Iraq, journalists are embedded with American troops, and those that go out on their own are told that their life is in their own hands. There are even allegations that journalists who would not follow the official line and remain where they were told to ended up dead. The same went for human rights activists and other NGOs that went into Iraq. The powers that be do not want us to know the truth, and as such limit what we can find out. They will even resort to murder to keep the truth out of our ears (if we even are able to remember it).

 

Education is another thing that is under attack. Education is dangerous because it teaches people to think for themselves. With funding being withdrawn from public schools, and these schools becoming little more than daycare centres, the bulk of the population is being denied a right to education. It is only the wealthy that are able to afford a good education, and even then I suspect that what is taught in the prep-schools is a sanitised, official version, that is not questioned. I suspect that people in those schools are not taught to think but rather taught the official line, and are expected to follow it. There are numerous works on this issue of education, but one film that springs to mind is Dead Poet's Society. In brief it is about a maverick teacher that comes to a prep-school and begins to teach students literature. However, this backfires when the parents find out that their prized possessions (their children) have decided to become actors rather than doctors, and as a result one of the students commits suicide, and the teacher is blamed. It is interesting that none of the parents actually acknowledge that maybe they are in the wrong, it is much easier to externalise blame, and to tarnish another's name just to give one a sense of self-justification.

 

I have probably written enough on this book and on Zinn's ideas for now. There are other books in my collection that also deal with the issues that are raised here, and no doubt I will return to them soon.

Based on what I have seen on Goodreads maybe I should have read Corporate Warriors instead of this book because people have described that book as 'the quintessential book on the private security industry' but the reason I ended up getting this book was because the title caught my attention when I was perusing Amazon and decided to place an order. In a nutshell it is an interesting book that explores the aspects of the private security industry that has arisen since the Iraq War but I found that Pelton seemed to spend a lot of time simply telling stories and would only then spend a small amount of time outlining the pros and cons of this relatively new industry. Not all of his stories were bad, though most of the time he seemed to just waffle.

 

Now, the idea of private security is nothing new because there have been firms providing security for as long as I have known, but in an advanced democracy these firms (at least here in Australia) tend to be kept on a very short leash. As a private security contractor in Australia you simply cannot be trigger happy. For instance, while a bouncer at a night club (and they generally work on a contractual basis, though the proper term for them is a crowd controller) can break up fights and eject people, they have to do it in a way that they cannot open themselves up for prosecution or civil penalties (such as a lawsuit).

 

What changed with the Iraq War was that these firms began to operate in overseas jurisdictions with limited oversight. At this stage the American Army was not actually outsourcing the combat aspects of the assignment, but rather they were outsourcing security for dignitaries such as the UN and the pro-consul Paul Bremer. However, in a place that was as chaotic as Iraq, the normal restraint that can be shown in a Western Democracy would probably end up getting you killed. The concern is that there is limited oversight over their actions and even if they do get involved in a fire fight that they start, they can easily vanish with no repercussions.

 

The US army had been outsourcing operations for quite a while, and an economic way that is understandable. It is better to outsource the minor details of the army such as catering, maintenance, and even laundry services because it means you do not need to keep full time staff on the payroll. You only pay what you use. This is the same with security details because it frees up the troops for combat orientated roles and also, theoretically, keeps costs down. While they still have mess halls, I have seen films of the bases in Iraq where there are Pizza Huts and Subways on base which, I must admit, does offer better variety than the simple mess hall.

 

There are problems with that though, as Pelton points out. For instance, the idea of cost plus (being the cost of providing the service plus profit) may at first seem cost effective, but these costs can quickly spiral out of control. There is one incidence where there were at least four layers of cost plus contracts (that is the initial contract which is sub-contracted to another company who then sub-contracts to another company and so forth). This also applies to other areas such as cantering because the company that won the contract (on a no bid basis) then goes and sub-contracts out to another. Further, because corporations operate purely on a profit motive, and because the average soldier does not get a choice as to the provider the soldier wishes to use, there is no incentive to provide a quality product. If the company doing the laundry service does a rubbish job then the soldier is stuck with that. I have actually heard that soldiers were not allowed to wash their own clothes but had to use the contractor who charged the American government an inordinate price for the service.

 

Many of us think of private security contractors as earning huge amounts of money and living a high lifestyle, however Pelton blows that myth to smithereens. The people making the money are those that sit at the top of the food chain, that is the executives. While the contractor may be earning $600.00 a day, this is not steady income and there is no guarantee that their contract will be renewed after the next stint. Then there is the threat of injury and/or death, separation from their families, and the fact that their skills are not really transferable. Once they are back home the best they can get is a minimum wage security job, and even then only if they are physically capable. It is highly unlikely that they would be offered insurance, so the only thing that their families have to rely on in case of death is a small amount given by the US government (about $65000.00).

 

Naomi Klein mentioned in her book 'Disaster Capitalism' that the next bubble would the the private security bubble. I thought she was talking about Homeland Security but I suspect that she was talking about this industry. From what I gathered there are a lot of companies and once the war in Iraq is over (which I believe it technically is) there is going to be little to no work for these companies. I suspect that many of them have already folded, that is if they were not wound up beforehand and the executives made off with a tidy profit. However, many of these companies aren't listed on the stock exchange (Blackwater isn't) so I suspect most of the operators knew that this was only going to be a short term venture. By the way, Eric Prince, founder of Blackwater, as since left the company and the company has also changed its name twice so is no longer known as Blackwater.

 

The last chapter was particularly interesting because it was about the failed coup attempt in Equitorial Guinea that involved the son of Magaret Thatcher. I remembered that clearly because it involved the son of Margaret Thatcher. What I thought was odd was that Pelton was writing as if this coup was something new and something that had arisen from the Iraq War. In reality it is not. It was not so much like Executive Outcomes, a South African security firm that would be hired by African dictators to put down rebel forces, but rather a bunch of out of work special forces operatives that where brought together to get rid of a dictator and steal Equatorial Guinea's oil resources. Further, I don't actually think that it is all that ironic that they got caught in Zimbabwe. It is not that Mugabe would have particularly been concerned about some coup plotters, but what would have concerned him would have been the fact that the people pulling the strings behind the coup were all white. Okay, it all came about by accident, but for a guy that sought to evict all of the white farmers from Zimbabwe I highly doubt he would have turned a blind eye where a coup against an African government was being orchestrated by white power brokers.

everybody knows, so to speak, that the Brits have an edge in literature and non-fiction writing, but is it possible to quantify this edge? and does the UK, a nation of 63 million, really produce more and better material than the US, population 310 million and economy correspondingly 6x the size? I was thinking of scribbling out this screed on a Simon Winchester entry, but intellectual tasks happen when they do. we can't go around planning everything of course.

I guess in goodreads terms there is a way of comparing the two entities. we can start with military writing

UK: Max Hastings, Antony Beevor, David Stevenson
US: John Toland, Rick Atkinson
advantage: UK

current/contemporary affairs; society and economics
UK: Niall Ferguson, Simon Winchester
US: Nicholas Taleb, Thomas Friedman
advantage: UK

sport/mountaineering/fishing
UK: [that US guy who moved to the UK]
US: Jon Krakauer, Sebastian Junger
advantage: US

china/japan/india
UK: Pico Iyer, (Simon Winchester)
US: Jake Adelstein, Greenfeld et al.
advantage: US (Winchester already listed)

science/medicine/evolution
UK: Steven Pinker
US: Jared Diamond
advantage: dead heat

so 2.5 to 2.5, the UK and US are exactly neck-and-neck in terms of output of brilliant non-fiction writers, BUT, of course, the UK is a much smaller country. so this leads to the next question: why?

theory number one: island nation theory

according to this theory, if you live on a small island nation, you spend all your time looking at other people rather than looking at the outside world. hence, you develop a much more sophisticated understanding of human nature, and in fact, you might begin to conclude that human beings are evil whereas broad continental pioneer societies like to meet new personalities (who might be of advantage during an ice blizzard or something)

theory number two: racial superiority theory

the British consist of proper German stock (Angles, Sachsens) who were then conquered by, of all people, the French, and then had their bloodline horribly corrupted by French genes, with the result that the British have this nagging sense that their cuisine, fashion, and sculpture are all, somehow, flawed... this leads to a sense of alienation and creates superior writers.

theory number three: imperial history theory

Brits still control territory upon which the sun never sets but other than this they have no designs on north american territory whereas the US is still engulfed with a nagging sense of desire to one day displace London's territorial control over its home islands. based on these different political ambitions, the British are spending more time writing books while the Americans are busy making money.

so there, I've outwritten Niall Ferguson. you don't even need to read his book. 4/5. not quite as good as Imperial, because he doesn't really get the US whereas in Imperial he's constantly making brilliant asides. now I'm going to go listen to Joy Division, the Cure, Morrissey, the Stone Roses, and some late Beatles. I am a punk rocker

There are a plethora of books out there about what is wrong with the world, and countless pages of research of the various countries, dictators, corporations, and Republicans (as well as Democrats) who are making this world a bad place to live, and the things that they are doing to make this world a bad place to live (as if the world has ever been a good place in which to live, but that is another story for another time), but there are very few books that talk about the victories and the people who are winning against these powers and providing hope for a better, or even a not so darker, future. This book is one of those books.

 

I guess when I picked it up I grabbed it along with a bulk of the other anti-Bush, anti-Republican party books that were filling up the bookshelves at the time to go onto the list of books to read to remind me of how bad Bush and his corporate cronies really were (as if I needed reminding, but I wanted it anyway). Actually, I guess it wasn't so much the reminding, but rather the research and the arguments (as well as indicators of the evidence of this wrongdoing) that I was interested in, but since this book fell amongst that lot, and since it looked interesting, I bought it and ended up reading it.

 

As the title says, this book is about hope, and is about those people that are winning victories against the corporate onslaught. Look, it is not impossible, difficult but not impossible, to win against these powers. People believed that it would be impossible to defeat Hitler, but we did. We also thought it impossible to bring down the Soviet Union or to end apartheid in South Africa, but once again we did (though the brighter future for both places never eventuated). Once again, it never seemed possible to end slavery in the Southern States, or to break the power of the corporate monopolies of the early Twentieth century, but once again that was achieved. So, while things may seem difficult at this time, and the corporate bosses live in luxury while those of us down on the ground struggle to make ends meet (okay, I don't, but that is because I go without things like a car or a family), there is always that hope in the dark.

 

I remember reading this book a few years ago. A friend of mine had leant me a Chomsky book (Hegemony or Survival) and I literally lapped it up so when I was visiting my local library and found a copy of this book I immediately borrowed it and read it. I remember going to a 80s party around the same time and the thing that was sticking in my head was 'Ronald Reagan's War on Terror' and so to fit in with the 80s theme, I threw on a camo-shirt and went as 'Ronald Reagan's War on Terror'. I also remember (I think it was the same party) sitting around the outside fire at 6:00 am in the morning, under the influence of many substances, when one of our friends burst out onto the balcony above us and screamed out 'Ronald Reagan has just died'. There was a pregnant pause before everybody literally burst out in laughter.

The main theme of this book is summed up in a quote that he uses at the beginning of the book. Alexander the Great confronts a Mediterranean pirate and demands that he cease his pirating activities he Alexander would have to do something about it. The pirate captain replies by saying 'the only difference between you are I is that you have an army'. In essence, what Chomsky is saying (particularly since this book was originally written in 1987) was that the difference between the PLO and the American Government is that the American government has much more resources. In the end both organisations practice terrorism and are terrorists.

The idea that Chomsky is exploring in this book is how states can be terrorists and that just because a state does something it does not necessarily mean that it is not terrorism. Once again it really comes down to the concept of history being written by the winners. The example that Chomsky uses above with regards to Alexander is that he was no different to the pirate except that because of his army he could commit acts of piracy with impunity. It does not matter whether a ship of rag-tag pirates raids the city of Tyre and carries of a heap of loot, or if Alexander's army lays siege to the city of Tyre and carries of its loot: it is the same thing. The only difference is that when Alexander justifies his act of piracy he has an army to back him up.

We need to remember that when this book was written, Hamas did not exist (they came about during the second Intifada, or war of stones). In a way Fatah did not exist either, as they only came about after the PLO decided to lay down its arms and to seek a political solution. However certain groups chose not to accept the PLO ,or its leader Arafat, as to them he was a terrorist and would always be a terrorist. A similar situation occurred in Northern Ireland with regards to the IRA, and its political arm, Sin Fein. The IRA chose to cease fighting and to seek a political solution, however the protestant elements of Northern Ireland refused to have anything to do with the IRA because they were terrorists. However, from scenes of Northern Ireland that I have seen, the protestants were just as bad as the IRA.

 

 

 

 

One example that Chomsky uses in this book is when a cruise ship (The Achille Lauro) was hijacked by PLO terrorists and a Jewish man in a wheel chair (Leon Klinghoffer) was pushed off the ship and into the water. There was a huge furore over this which resulted in the bombing of Palestine. What Chomsky is demonstrating here is that there was outrage when a crippled old man was killed yet when hundreds of Palestinian women and children were killed in the retaliation there was no backlash whatsoever. Because the United States holds a position of power they can act with impunity.

This has been seen time and time again when an unfriendly government arises in a nearby country (usually Latin America) and as a result arms are supplied to certain groups that are seeking to overthrow the government. While the United States on one hand champions democracy, it is only a very narrow form of democracy that they champion: one that will allow American business interests into the country without asking any questions and to operate with impunity. As soon as a government arises that champions state owned infrastructure, the United States goes out of its way to remove said government. Further, the tight control of the media in the United States means that only a certain version of events gets shown to the public.

This was the case with Salvatore Allande in Chile. He was a socialist who was seeking socialist solutions to the country's problems. However the United States did not like him or his policies, and as such went out of the way to destroy the country economically. When it became clear that Chile's economy was going nowhere fast, a pro-capitalist dictator, Augusto Pinocet, was put in power with the help of the military: Allande and all of his supporters were rounded up and either imprisoned or killed. As a result Chile became a military dictatorship for over a decade. For a country that claims to champion freedom and democracy, their actions in Chile were outright hypocritical.

Chomsky's major gripe is with the media and how stories are selected based upon what they want the people to hear. His point is that there are many horrendous acts going on around the world, committed by pro and anti-US governments. However it is only the actions of anti-US governments that hit the media. Take for example Iran. Not a day goes by without the US media bashing Iran and its government. However there are other governments that support the US but are notorious for supressing freedom of speech and being incredibly corrupt. However, corruption also exists in the United States, it is just obfuscated using works like lobby groups and political donations.