The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America Review

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(More customer reviews)Robert Scheer's powerful new book, The Pornography of Power (How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America), examines what happened after an inattentive and largely apolitical public, led by a poorly prepared, intellectually insecure, and petulant president was confronted by deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It's a frightening story, but it is crisply told, well researched, and convincing. After decades of incisive investigative reporting, including extensive interviews with five presidents, Scheer is unrivaled in his ability to explain the complex interactions that have created this perfect (political) storm.
As Scheer tells it, the Cold War probably began to unravel with Richard Nixon's policy of détente, but the definitive end had to wait until the disappearance of the Soviet enemy. Unfortunately, what was seen as an opportunity for most was perceived as a disaster by others, especially defense executives and neocon ideologues. No Cold War meant no superpower enemy and that meant the end of unlimited military spending. Then came 9/11 and, as Scheer observes, unlimited military spending was back stronger than ever. Thus the focus of the book: the unlikely and illogical linkage between terrorist attacks accomplished by hijacking commercial airliners with box-cutters and annual military spending that has exceeded that spent during the Cold War.
In the aftermath of 9/11 the neocons were ready with a fully developed theory for a 21st century Pax Americana. They had a fully developed answer for whatever problems Bush saw emerging in the wake of 9/11. Scheer meticulously lays out how Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle "went to work on an untutored president." Their agenda had clearly been laid out in the 1997 founding statement of the Project for a New American Century which, as Scheer illustrates, was to boost military spending to create a world "favorable to American interests." At its center were plans for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Never mind that there was no connection between Hussein and al Qaeda.
Scheer's convincing evidence demonstrates that little attempt was made, by Bush and company, to identify the nature of the problem presented by the attacks on 9/11. Instead, the President and his neocon advisors used 9/11 as justification for "solutions" that featured expensive weapons originally meant to counteract technical advances by the old Soviet Union. If you wonder why the United States continues to build the F-22 Raptor (at $65 billion) or the F-35 joint fighter (at $300 billion) Scheer explains in precise detail. Never mind that the terrorists have no air force. Never mind that the F-16 flys perfectly well. If you wonder why the Congress has funded new Virginia class submarines (at $2.5 billion each) to fight terrorists who don't have a navy Scheer makes it distressingly clear.
But the executive branch cannot spend all this money without congressional approval and, from the beginning, congress was cooperative. A critical mass of Republicans and Democrats alike are shown to be open to the influence of the likes of Lockheed, Halliburton and Boeing. Such influence, Scheer shows, does not stem from campaign contributions alone, but from the promise of jobs. It is not for nothing that the various facets of military production are spread into as many congressional districts as possible. All of this, the author concludes, is "proof that when it comes to the defense budget, there is bipartisan support for endless waste."
Gore Vidal once observed that the United States is no longer a "serious country." What he meant is that we have become a nation with little sense of our own past and with little commitment to political discourse. What one learns from The Pornography of Power is that such apathy comes at a price. That price is an American foreign policy that has become little more than the search for new enemies.
The Pornography of Power is a compelling investigation into senseless war, greed, congressional pork, neocons, neoliberals, and seemingly limitless debt. It is the story of a republic turned empire. But underlying Scheer's reporting is a conviction that it doesn't have to be this way. Understanding is the first step and he clearly lays out, for all willing to read, what is driving trillions of dollars in illogical and unnecessary spending for Bush's global war on terror.
This is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future, or who wonders why we can't take care of our sick, repair our bridges, or fix our schools. Buy this book, read it, and find a way to discuss it with your friends and neighbors.

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Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy Review

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(More customer reviews)The demise of Great Britain's aviation industry in the aftermath of World War II is an oft-repeated object lesson among the aviation policy community in Washington, D.C. Usually it is interpreted as a warning to American policymakers not to decrease federal funding for both aeronautical technology and infrastructure, lest the U.S. decline as an air power like the British did after World War II. As Jeffrey A. Engel shows in "Cold War at 30,000 Feet: The Anglo-American Fight for Aviation Supremacy" the story of British fortunes in aeronautics after World War II is both more complex and interesting than the simplistic morality play that policy analysts have used repeatedly to turn back the budget cutters.
Instead, we learn that both the U.S. and Great Britain recognized aviation's primacy in not only winning the war but also in ensuring continued sovereignty and hegemony in the postwar world. It would become, as leaders on both sides of the Atlantic realized, a critical linchpin in cold war rivalries. Accordingly, as "Cold War at 30,000 Feet" makes clear, these two allies jockeyed for position in controlling the aviation business after the war. They knew that supplying airplanes to the world--both commercial and military--would help ensure economic well-being, create well-paid jobs, enhance international trade, tightly link postwar allies, and assure nuclear superiority. Both sought to control this situation, but the U.S. had the advantage in industrial capacity left intact despite the war. Moreover, its prewar aviation industry had built excellent transport aircraft in large numbers, especially the incomparable DC-3 of which thousands were flying by 1945.
The Americans intended to use this advantage to control postwar international relations with the Soviet Union and China, as well as others. The British sought to concentrate on this high-technology capability to help recover from the desolation of war. As early as 1942, Engel reports, the two nations fashioned an agreement in which Britain concentrated on fighter and bomber production, an historic strength of its firms, while America built transports to go along with its military aircraft. This was a win-win during the war years, but aided the Americans long-term. As Engel concludes: "The 1942 Arnold-Powers agreement did more than just rationalize Anglo-American wartime aircraft production; it also placed American producers in an overwhelmingly advantageous position for postwar civil aviation dominance" (p. 31).
British leaders voluntarily gave up transport production knowing full well that it would damage their aeronautical competitiveness for at least five years after the war, but desperation reigned in 1942. The best they could hope for was to emphasize outstanding technologies and Britain did so remarkably effectively. Its aircraft engines, its military airframes, and its jetliners all led aviation technology in the 1940s and much of the 1950s. For example, the "Comet" jet transport beat Boeing's 707 airliner to the market by a full five years, did very well in international sales, and prompted major complaints from the American aeronautical industry which pulled out all stops to lessen its popularity.
The majority of "Cold War at 30,000 Feet" outlines a succession of parries and thrusts, bobs and weaves, and competitive actions and countermeasures between the United States and Great Britain to gain the upper hand in international aeronautical policy. The United States sought to ensure its hegemony in relation to aviation, especially in military capabilities, while denying advanced technology to opponents in the cold war. At the same time, this approach had from the perspective of American leaders the advantage of ensuring that such allies as the British remained dependent on American aeronautical technology. The British, while sympathetic to cold war concerns over dual-use technology reaching its rivals, were much more focused on selling aircraft and components to other nations, including China and the Soviet Union. They viewed this as important for their own economy and as a counter to American hegemony. Engagement, they reasoned, had the added benefit of improving East-West relations.
These divergent priorities and policies led to a series of tense episodes between the U.S. and Great Britain, much tenser as Engel explains in this book than previously appreciated by most scholars. At some level, readers may be reminded of Carl L. Becker's famous conclusion about the American Revolution; it was not only a question of establishing "home rule," but also a conflict over "who should rule at home." Engel demonstrates that cold war aviation diplomacy from the American perspective was not only about ensuring U.S. hegemony vis à vis the Soviet Union, but also about ensuring American dominance in the marketplace. "Cold War at 30,000 Feet" is a fascinating account of the Anglo-American rivalry carried out under the larger cooperative efforts to oppose the Soviet Union in the cold war. It adds an important new perspective on the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Great Britain in the twentieth century.

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