Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace Review

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(More customer reviews)I stumbled across the original H/C version of this book at an antique dealer's shop. I was suprised by the title, I thought that Gore Vidal wrote the only book with that designation.
Upon reading the dust jacket and introduction, I knew the book was for me, as the editor drops the name of Charles A. Beard into the mix. (Beard is one of the few recent historians that Gore Vidal praises.)
The book is considered a 'revisionist' tome, and rightly so. The irony is that the original 'revisionists', (like Beard), sought to clarify the FACTUAL historical record. This book lays the case for foreknowledge of Japan's 'suprise' attack by the Roosevelt administration, and a series of maneuvers to incite Japan to land the first punch at Pearl Harbor.
With the help of the FOIA, Robert Stinnet recently wrote 'Day of Deceit' which vindicates much of what these authors were writing back in 1953. Vidal wrote 'The Golden Age' as a fictionalized account of FDR's maneuvers, and I think he also used the FOIA, and came to nearly identical conclusions.
You can disagree with the authors' product, but you cannot dispute the factual case laid out in detailed, indexed black & white truth.
Cuts through propaganda like a hot knife through butter. Still relevant over 50 years after publication. That's impressive for a foreign policy book.

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Gestapo Chief : The 1948 Interrogation of Heinrich Muller Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of four books that have appeared since 1995 on the postwar association of former SS-Gruppenfuehrer Heinrich ("Gestapo"-)Mueller with the American Intelligence community. From the outset, it is well worth having by every scholar or educated laymen interested in the last phase of World War II in Europe and its aftermath. The content is, to put it mildly, volatile, or certainly would be in an age less indifferent to such revelations. The public, particularly the academic public, has a right to be skeptical. Recall, after all, what embarrassment was visited upon the British historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, when seventeen years ago he pronounced the "Hitler Diaries" authentic. Douglas clearly is not impressed with academics. Perhaps rightly so, given the 1983 fiasco. One recalls Hegel's allusion to the "Hofhistoriker," the "court historians," and all of the ramifications of such a designation. Douglas provides photocopies of documents from the US Army and several Intelligence agencies, all of which, were they fakes, might easily have been refuted over four years ago. That has not happened. People are named whose relatives, where the statements made in this volume and those that followed not true, would most certainly have had recourse to litigation. That, apparently, has also not happened. The revelations concerning Mueller should be seen within the wider context of CIA engagement of former Gestapo agents such as Klaus Barbie (a small fish, in comparison to Mueller) as experts in the West's anti-communist efforts, which reached a fever pitch in the late 1940s. It is, of course, a paradox that, while the Army CIC (Counter Intelligence Corps) continued to search for Mueller as a war criminal, the CIA had already recruited him as one of their top agents, moved him to the Washington area (where he entertained in his home the 33rd President of the United States and became a card-carrying member of the Democratic Party), and protected his identity for decades. To be sure, there is much here that will require greater study by scholars. Few will accept the idea that Hitler left the Reichskanzlei with others on April 26th bound for Spain, four days prior to the day on which he is assumed to have committed suicide in the bunker of the Reichskanzlei. The German playwright Rolf Hochhuth and the French writer Pierre Joffroy will be astounded to learn that the SS officer, Kurt Gerstein, according to volume 1 of this series, was the man originally responsible for the mass slaughter of Jews by gassing in Poland, and not quite the "just man" anxious to expose the crimes of others as which he has been described by Joffroy.If there is anything "troubling" about Douglas's volume and those which have followed about "Gestapo"-Mueller in the interim, it is the fact that no compelling counter-evidence has emerged from any quarter in the past four years or more to contest the material contained therein. The silence is, in fact, deafening.

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D-Day: A Day That Changed America: They Fought to Free Europe from Hitler's Tyranny Review

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(More customer reviews)If the first twenty minutes of Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" gives young students a graphic understanding of what it was like to storm the beaches at Normandy on June 6, 1944, then "D-Day: A Day That Changed America" will put the invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe in perspective. After all, the sub-title of Shelley Tanaka's book is "They Fought to Free Europe from Hitler's Tyranny." Consequently, this illustrated volume, with paintings by David Craig, both explains why this was the turning point of World War II in Europe and how the small parts of the invasion that readers might have seen in "Saving Private Ryan" or "Band of Brothers" fit into the big picture on D-Day (if you want the cinematic equivalent of what this book is trying to do then check out "The Longest Day," even though it is in black & white).
Tanaka tells the story of D-Day from the perspective of four eyewitnesses who survived the invasion: paratrooper Don Jakeway, fighter pilot Quentin Aanenson, seaman Bob Giguere, and combat medic Jack Fox. The order that we meet these four American soldiers allows the invasion to proceed chronologically. Young readers should appreciate the personal perspective of the story, which allows Tanaka to talk about what was happening with the entire invasion while also providing the intimate memories of her four soldiers, who were all in their eighties when they shared their stories. She makes it clear that not only was America changed by D-Day, but so where these four men. In addition to Craig's detailed paintings the text is complemented by historic photographs, pictorial maps, diagrams, and D-Day artifacts. There are also informative sidebars and features on topics like what the "D" in "D-Day" stands for and how the Allies fooled the enemy before and during the invasion. The result is a solid enough juvenile history of D-Day to provide young readers with a basic understanding of the invasion to build upon when they move on to more advanced works.
When I looked at the cover of this juvenile history of the Normandy Invasion I immediately agreed with the idea of this series and this particular example as "A Day That Changed America." After all, today is the third anniversary of 9/11 and the attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. There was a good indication of how much that particular day changed America in a new poll that reports over 70% of Americans believe the war against terrorism will never end. However, as much as those two days clearly fit the bill I have to say that the other volumes in the series are not as on point. After all, "Gettysburg" was a three-day battle, although Pickett's Charge on the third day is certainly considered the high-water mark of the Confederacy, "The Alamo" was a thirteen day siege and it was the Battle of San Jancinto that won Texas independence while having nothing to do with the United States until the republic was annexed, and the San Francisco "Earthquake!" did not really change much outside of the Bay Area in California. My point is that recognizing days in American history that truly changed the nation is a worthy effort and attention must be paid to what does and does not fit the bill.

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Uss Arizona: Warship, Tomb, Monument Review

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(More customer reviews)I would recommend this book to anybody that's into WWII. It's very informative and has some great pictures.

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The story of the USS Arizona encompasses far more than the milli-second BOOM! that split her hull and snuffed out the lives of 1177 men aboard her. The huge battleship led a fascinating life before her demise, and--as a poignant symbol of the attack that thrust the United States into World War II--has impacted millions of lives since. She lays where she sank, in the silt of Pearl Harbor, spanned now by a graceful white memorial that pays tribute to her dead. MacKinnon Simpson's newest book, USS Arizona - Warship Tomb  Monument, pays tribute to the ship, her crews, and her symbolism through the years. Packed with many rarely-before seen images, the book includes such unlikely characters as Elvis Presley, whose benefit concert helped trigger the fund-raising for the Memorial, and Henry Williams, a three-year-old boy who placed the first bolt in her keel in 1915 and read a newspaper by the light of her raging fires as a lieutenant at Pearl Harbor in 1941. USS Arizona - Warship Tomb Monument tells a story that needed to be told, of why the Arizona is still so important to people from around the world who trek to visit her each year.

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Days of Infamy: Macarthur, Roosevelt, Churchill-The Shocking Truth Revealed : How Their Secret Deals and Strategic Blunders Caused Disasters at Pear Review

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(More customer reviews)There are few events that prompt as much spontaneous discussions regarding the possibility of conspiracy and guilty prior knowledge as those involving the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Indeed, there are a whole catalogue of titles dealing with the possibilities, the associated issues, and with the substance of arguments surrounding all of the varied possibilities, which seem to have endless permutations and countless variations. So too here in British author John Costello's excellent exposition, the fascinating world of this "what did the President know, and when did he know it" whodunit is deftly explored by a virtual master of the genre. Also the author of such notable titles as "The Pacific War" and "And I was There", Costello addresses himself to a welter of issues and conditions that paint an indelible picture of what he conceives to be the actual circumstances surrounding the Japanese attack.
Indeed, the author not only asks a number of interesting rhetorical questions regarding the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor itself, but also delves into the shocking related attack on the American forces in the Philippines later the same day. Why, he asks, given his being warned so far in advance, did General Douglas MacArthur allow the Japanese forces to destroy the greatest single concentration of American air power in the Pacific region some nine hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor? And, in answering the question by way of detailing the complex series of miscommunications and fumbles surrounding MacArthur's mishandling of the circumstances, the author also raises the issue of MacArthur's unlikely escape from the blame game following in the aftermath of the attacks. Seems that those in power in Washington were so intimidated by MacArthur's positive image and reputation among the press that they dare not attack him openly by court marshalling or reprimanding him. In essence, his political connections saved him. Instead, after ordering MacArthur off the island, ostensibly to take command of all the Pacific forces regrouping in Australia, Roosevelt rewarded the general with the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
Also discussed here is the half million dollar payoff that the Philippine Government gave to MacArthur as he departed the islands, as is the desire of the Philippine government to try to maintain their neutrality, an exercise in futility that may have played fatefully into the hands of the Japanese, and which the author suggests may have influenced MacArthur in his decision not to attack or save the pacific-based American planes under his command. Yet the book spends much more energy and time covering the ways in which the diplomatic and military miscalculations on the part of both Roosevelt and Churchill played almost perfectly into the hands of the Japanese. Yet it was, according to Costello, more the loss of the Pacific air power rather than the losses at Pearl Harbor that so severely limited and hampered American efforts to stem the rising tide of Japanese hegemony over the Far East in 1942.
The author writes with considerable skill in arguing that it was the combined blunders, bungling, and malfeasance on the part of Roosevelt, Churchill and MacArthur that left the western world in such mortal danger at the end of 1941. For one thing, Roosevelt had committed the United States to a secret agreement with the British to aid in the defense of the British empire's Far Eastern reaches, a pact that was likely both illegal and unconstitutional. For another, the decision to move the bulk of MacArthur's army forces 5,000 miles west of Hawaii to the Philippines left Hawaii weak and overexposed to a potential Japanese attack. Finally, the combined neglect of countless encrypted messages concerning the details of the attack as well as MacArthur's failure to mount a preemptive air attack despite being directly ordered to do so doomed the American hopes for any quick resolution to the conflict once it had started. In sum, it was the colossal lack of good leadership that led us into the disaster of December 7, 1941, and in spite of the fact that all three men are held in high regard and remembered warmly, they were largely responsible for the American failure to prevent the disaster at Pearl Harbor in a day of infamy. This is an interesting book and a worthwhile read. Enjoy!

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American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone Review

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(More customer reviews)The authors of this important book argue that Senator Paul Wellstone's death, 10 days before the 2002 elections, was an assassination, most likely ordered by the Bush administration.
Directly confronting the widespread tendency to reject all "conspiracy theories," the authors point out that "the idea that every theory that implies the existence of conspiracy ought to be rejected out of hand" is no more rational than the idea that every such theory should be accepted. Rather, "each case has to be evaluated on the basis of the evidence that is relevant and available in that case." On that basis, they argue, if we look at ALL the relevant evidence and employ the scientific method of inference to the best explanation, we must conclude that the theory that Wellstone was assassinated is far more probable than the official theory, according to which his airplane crash was an accident.
The evidence includes several facts suggesting that the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) colluded with the FBI in a cover-up:
1. FBI agents from Minneapolis arrived at the crash site within 2 hours after the crash, even though the trip from Minnesota to Duluth to the crash site would have taken at least 3 hours--so they must have departed before the plane crashed.
2. When asked for the times at which private flights had arrived in Duluth that morning, the FAA said the records had been destroyed.
3. Considerable disinformation about weather conditions was quickly given to the press.
4. Although regulations called for the investigation to be carried out by the NTSB, not the FBI (because the crash site was not designated a crime scene), the FBI agents were there for 8 hours before the NTSB team arrived.
5. The FBI, even though there illegally, prevented the local "first responders" from taking photographs.
6. Although it was the NTSB's responsibility to determine the cause of the crash and although the FBI's prior presence was illegal, the NTSB leader publicly accepted the FBI's declaration, made before the NTSB's investigation, that there was no evidence of terrorism.
7. When the NTSB team finally carried out its own investigation, it was unable to find either the cockpit recorder, which it assumed the plane had had, or the black box.
8. The NTSB held no public hearings, claiming that it was not a sufficiently "high-profile" case.
9. The NTSB's final report concealed the fact of the FBI's participation.
10. The NTSB investigation was headed by Acting Director Carol Carmody, a Bush appointee who had earlier ruled that there was no foul play in the small airplane crash in 2000 that took the life of Governor Mel Carnahan of Missouri, the Democratic candidate for the Senate who was killed 3 weeks before his expected victory (over John Ashcroft).
The evidence also includes some facts strongly suggesting the falsity of the NTSB's official conclusion, which was that the plane crashed because the pilot failed to maintain proper speed, causing the plane to stall.
1. The plane would have stalled only if it slowed to below 70 knots, yet it was equipped with a device that emitted a loud warning at 85 knots.
2. The plane was being flown by two experienced and fully certified pilots, a fact--obfuscated in the NTSB report-that makes this kind of pilot error very unlikely.
3. The NTSB's theory fails to explain why, about two minutes before the crash, all communication was abruptly terminated and the plane began going off course.
The evidence also includes facts suggesting that the plane was instead brought down by an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon:
1. The plane's fuselage burned, although it was separated from the wings, which contained the fuel.
2. The plane's electrical system, which would be affected by an EMP, was in the fuselage, and the fire from the fuselage gave off blue smoke, which is indicative of an electrical fire.
3. An EMP could explain why the plane simultaneously went off course and lost its radio about two minutes before the crash.
4. At the same time, cell phones and garage doors in the area behaved in a way consistent with the occurrence of an EMP.
5. An NTSB spokesman professed ignorance about the existence of EMP weapons that could have brought down the plane, although the existence of such weapons had been known for several years.
An important part of the authors' case is the fact that the Bush administration would have had several motives:
1. Wellstone's defeat would return control of the Senate to the Republicans.
2. Wellstone's death 10 days before the election meant that $700,000 in the Republican campaign chest could be transferred, the very next day, to the (successful) effort to defeat Max Cleland in the Senate race in Georgia.
3. Wellstone was the biggest obstacle in the Senate to several Republican policies, such as those involving Iraq, Colombia, the SEC, tax cuts, and Homeland Security, and he was the strongest voice in Congress calling for a full investigation into 9/11.
4. Two days before his death, Wellstone reported that Cheney had told him: "If you vote against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you."
5. Wellstone had developed a 7-point lead in the polls over Norm Coleman, the Bush administration's hand-picked candidate.
Finally, with regard to the question whether the Bush administration would commit such a heinous act, the authors argue that an administration that "compounded lie upon lie to . . . send hundreds of thousands of young American men and women into harm's way [in Iraq] is not an administration that would hesitate to kill a single senator."
The authors conclude that the evidence shows beyond reasonable doubt that Wellstone was assassinated. They have, in my view, made a convincing case.
David Ray Griffin, author of "The New Pearl Harbor" and "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions"




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Senator Paul Wellstone was, "the first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. Senate." In Senate Race 2002, the White House made defeating Wellstone priority #1. Karl Rove hand-picked arch Republican Norm Coleman to run against him. Despite massive funding, Coleman was trailing the popular Wellstone two weeks before election day. Then, tragedy struck. On the morning of October 25th, 2002, Wellstone was killed after a mysterious communication cut-out and crash of his small aircraft. He died alongside his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, three staff members, and two pilots, while trying to land at Minnesota's Eveleth airfield. CNN's Wolf Blitzer insisted to his reporter at the scene that foul weather was the lethal factor in the crash, despite the statements to the contrary from the CNN correspondent. To this day, the public tends to blame the weather.Ph.D. Professors James Fetzer and Don "Four Arrows" Jacobs present the harrowing truth. The plane wasexceptionally airworthy. The weather didn't bring down Senator Wellstone. Nor were the two pilots incompetent, as the report of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would eventually claim. The facts point elsewhere.The FBIarrived at the remote rural crash scene less than two hours after the crash. Could they have knownabout it in advance? The FBI forbade the ambulance and fire teams to take photos. Even the AP photographer on hand was intimidated, delayed and then highly monitored. For some reason, a member of the U.S. Capitol Police Dignitary Protection Division was also present.Why did the FBI state that they were treating the site as a "crime scene" although there were "no indications of any criminal activity"? How could the FBI so very swiftly conclude and state publicly, before NTSB arrived, that there was "no evidence of terrorism" involved?Why did the NTSB search for a "blackbox" for a day and a half andthen conclude that there hadn't been one, after all?AMERICAN ASSASSINATION confirms the worst fears of a nation. Senator Paul Wellstone was murdered.Both authors are decorated university professors. A Native American, Four Arrows (a.k.a. Dr. Don Jacobs) teaches educational leadership and is a staunch critic of US foreign policy. Dr. Jim Fetzer is a published expert on U.S. political assassinations and the logic of science.Although no one can prove exactly what happened in the events leading to Wellstone's death, these two Ph.D.s point out the official story's inconsistencies and deliberate omissions. With a methodical argument, they present evidence of an official cover-up, a compelling motive for Wellstone's assassination and advance a more likely explanation for how Senator Wellstone's plane was taken down.Their findingsinclude new evidence and alternative hypotheses that were never considered by the NTSB:• There was never any distress call from the pilots. Communication was somehow cut off shortly before the crash.• NTSB's Carol Carmody handled the Wellstone case. A former CIA official, Carmody is a damage-control expert who handled the NTSB's investigation of the suspicious aircraft crash of Democratic Senatorial candidate Mel Carnahan, exactly two years earlier.• NTSB is legally mandated to take jurisdiction over a crash scene, yet it allowed the FBI to control the scene--and then neglected to cite the FBI's involvement in presence in the NTSB's final report. • Some witnesses heard the engines cutting out, a phenomenon not consistent with a stall. • Others reported odd cell-phone and garage-door phenomena that were taking place about the same time the plane lost both communications and control.• The NTSB's own simulations, which replicated properties like those of King Air A-100s under similar conditions, were unable to bring the plane down—even when conducted under abnormally slow speeds! • One of the members who actually signed the report, Richard Healing, admitted that they really had no idea what had caused the plane to crash. Since becoming active in this issue, local residents have contacted Professor Fetzer and related strange electronic interference in the area at the time of the crash. One experienced an odd cell-phone phenomenon with a form of static he had never heard before. Its auditory pattern appears to be similar to that of "electro-magnetic pulse" (EMP) weapons recently developed by the Pentagon to jam the computer-assisted controls of enemy aircraft. Reports of garage doors that mysteriously opened in the immediate vicinity are surfacing. And radar images from the time of the plane crashes of Senator Carnahan and of Senator Wellstone are suggestive of EMP imprints. These weapons not only jam a plane's electronics but also disable its radio communications. In the wake of the crash, 69% of Minnesoteans blamed a "GOP Conspiracy" for Wellstone's death. This bookmakes the case that, in this case, at least, the people had it right. In appendices to AMERICAN ASSASSINATION, Paul Wellstone's courageous stands against the rich and powerful continue to inspire us. It presents highlights from Wellstone's platform andincludes his important speech, "On Iraq." His opposition to the Bush administration helps the reader to understand why the Senator was a likely target for assassination. When the reader meets Wellstone in his own words, his vision is kept alive and lives on in each of us.

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Surprise, Security, and the American Experience Review

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(More customer reviews)The surprise attack of September 11 brought about, in the eyes of many learned observers, a radical shift in American national security policy. Since World War II and up until the collapse of the Soviet Union there was a policy of containment and deterrence. During the 1990s, in the wake of the collapse, there was a feeling that democracy and capitalism would eventually triumph everywhere; the Clinton administration reasoned that the US "only needed to engage and the rest of the world would enlarge the process."
In response the 9/11 attack the Bush administration formulated a new strategy, outlined in the national security speech at West Point on June 1, 2002. This speech called for a new strategy which looked like a departure from American tradition. The key elements of this new strategy were preemption, unilateralism, and hegemony. In the beginning, it was little noticed; however, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, people began to examine this strategy more closely.
Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis, in this short and well-written little book, argues that this was not a new policy, in fact it had deep roots in American history that go back to the earliest days of the republic. Gaddis demonstrates that after the British attack on Washington DC during the War of 1812, the then secretary of state, John Quincy Adams asserted the same three principles. Preemption was the rationale for Andrew Jackson's invasion of Florida, the "failed state" of its day being a haven for marauding Seminoles, runaway slaves and profiteering pirates. With the diminishing authority of the Spanish in Latin America, the US sought to restrict the influence of other European powers in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was a unilateralist declaration even though the US did not have the means to enforce it without the backing of the British navy. And in the end, the policy of John Quincy Adams was to be the predominant power in the Western Hemisphere, or at least on the North American continent - a hegemon in all but name.
Preemption, unilateralism, and hegemony was indeed a US strategy up until World War II. The US was seeking merely to assure its security by keeping the European powers out of the hemisphere. Most Americans believed it was a mistake to seek an oversees empire as the brief foray into the Phillipines proved in the early part of the 20th century.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt was forced the build alliances with the Soviet Union and other great powers in order to defeat Germany and Japan. It was thus necessary to forgo preemption and unilateralism in deference to the alliance. During and after World War II, the US took the lead in building multilateralism institutions - a multilateral system that not only ensured American hegemony, but made it desirable at the same time. Forgoing preemption gave the US the moral high ground, which it maintained until the invasion of Iraq.
The Bush administration's invasion of Iraq had all the elements of a grand strategy: preemption, unilateralsim - when multilateralism failed - and American hegemony. There was also an innovation to this strategy: there would be an active promotion of democracy in the Middle East. This idea swayed many liberals to the cause, including members of the media and the academic community.
The problems with this strategy became apparent after the invasion. They are too numerous to go into and obvious to anyone following the news. The mistakes made during the occupation leaves the Bush Doctine with only a few remaining supporters. The failure to enlist the great powers, not to mention many of the smaller powers, destroyed our status as a benign hegemon and jepardizes our moral high ground.
Gaddis does an excellent job of explaining the grand strategy and showing that it has precedents in history, better than Bush or anyone in his administration. However, he does not show that this strategy is justified, morally or legally, and he does not seem to fully appreciate that many of our friends and allies find this strategy frightening and repugnant. They do not call us arrogant for nothing.
Nevertheless, the jury is still out. Immediately after the invasion, it looked as though one regime after another would fall in the region, along the lines of the dominoes of Eastern Europe. At the present writing, with the Iraqi elections approaching, a decent outcome seems remote and a civil war possible. Yet, there are stirrings of hope and change elsewhere in the Middle East, such as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The upheaval in Iraq is also creating debate that did not exist before in Egypt and the Gulf States. The pendulum may again swing the other way and the grand strategy may be working inspite of itself.

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Carrier Battles: Command Decision in Harm's Way Review

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(More customer reviews)This book ought to have been a significant contribution to the analysis of the War in the Pacific. Unfortunately, it is instead a step backwards. There are so many inaccuracies, unsupportable biases and wierd causalities proposed by the author that it strips all credibility away from what ought to have been the strength of the book, a senior naval officer's assessment of the effectiveness of various US commanders in carrier battles. Add to it some really muddled thinking and imprecise writing and you have a book that is damaging to the study of naval history of the period.
There are lots of things that the author says that are just plain wrong. For example, He states that 21 ships were sunk at Pearl Harbor (correct answer: 8). Later he asserts that in the opening months of the war the Japanese had "sunk or disabled nine battleships," where the correct count is 7 (5 at Pearl Harbor, plus the battleship Prince of Wales and the Battlecruiser Repulse). He states that "Hong Kong and Thailand would be overrun as a prelude for moves against Burma and Malaya." In fact, Malaya was the opening attack in the war, and Thailand would not be "overrun," but its government would side with Japan. He states that the Japanese added drop tanks to Zeros for use against "the Dutch and British oil holdings in Southeast Asia." No, they were developed in order to allow Zeros to escort bombers from Taiwan to the Philippines, and thus freeing two carriers for the Pearl Harbor attack (see Okumiya and Horikoshi, ZERO!). In discussing the surface battles around Guadalcanal, he states that the battlecruiser "Hiei was so well armored that she was impervious to broadside gun fire" Presuming that by "broadside gun fire" Smith means gunfire against the ships belt armor, in fact, Hiei was only armored to battlecruiser standards, meaning an 8-inch belt thinned to 3 inches at the ends. The 8-inch/55 guns on the San Francisco class heavy cruisers could penetrate 8 inches of armor at 13,000 yards or less; the battle where Hiei was lost to cruiser gunfire was fought at ranges well under 10,000 yards. Smith also implies that Hiei's steering machinery compartment was part of the ship's vulnerable "topside compartments and superstructure," as he asserts that the rest of the ship was "impervious," leading one to wonder if this is just a case of imprecise writing, or if Smith is unaware that Hiei's steering machinery was located below the waterline.
Then there is my favorite: "... the first reserve officers who saw service in the war entered the Naval War College with the class of 1942." Incredible.
There are many more examples of this ilk. In addition to getting facts wrong, it is painfully obvious that the author does not know or understand naval combat in WW II in the Pacific - there are too many "throw-away" comments that attest to this lack of understanding. For example, Smith asserts that battleships were not moved to the Pacific after Pearl Harbor because "most were required in the Atlantic Theater." In the Atlantic, the Germans had Tirpitz operational and two battlecruisers damaged at Brest. The British had 3 battleships in the home fleet, one at Gibraltar, and one in workups in the Caribbean for a total of 5 battleships in theater, plus two more in home yards being repaired. The British felt sufficiently secure in their battleship numbers in the Atlantic theater that they had dispatched 5 battleships to the Far East. While the British would cartainly appreciate any reinforcements, there was no "requirement" to keep US battleships in the Atlantic, much less the 5 that were there in January 1942. The real reason was fuel: tankers were in such a shortage that the US could not deploy and support their existing Pacific Fleet battleships to Pearl Harbor, much less accommodate transfers of LantFleet battleships. Smith obviously has not read the current literature on US battleship employment during the war, and the reasons why the battle squadron remained on the US West Coast. In fact, in several places in the book Smith is totally oblivious to the logistics constraints of the Pacific Theater, which contributes to the lack of credibility of many of his arguments.
Smith's idea of causality is often strained. For example, he states that "as a result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor ... only fourteen destroyers, seven heavy cruisers and one light cruiser were available to support the American Carrier groups [at Midway]." Let's examine that bizarre idea. On 1 May 1941 US forces totaled 13 heavy cruisers, 11 light cruisers and 80 destroyers in the Pacific. Pearl Harbor deducted 2 light cruisers and 2 destroyers, or under 4% of the total number of ships. One has to suspect that there were reasons other than the attack at Pearl Harbor for a shortage of ships to support the carriers at Midway. Smith's assertion that the shortage was due to "Pearl Harbor" is not credible.
So, Smith's book suffers from poor fact checking and poor understanding of causality. He also contradicts himself in several places, making for some very confusing reading. For example, the number of fighters the Japanese were to land on Midway was given in one place as 22 and in another as 33, and the carrier Shoho either carried 18 or 31 aircraft. His analyses are similarly muddled: when looking at the Coral Sea campaign, he first says that the US attack on Tulagi was *good* as it was necessary to eliminate a Japanese reconnaissance base, and later he says it was *bad* because the US forces revealed their position and might be "trapped." Trapped? By what? Where did that come from? Good or bad? Both?
All of this is prelude to the biggest problem with this book: the assertion that the evil battleship admirals of the "Gun Club" unfairly (yes, "unfairly" is the word Smith uses) held back the development of the aircraft carrier as an independent strike platform. Here Smith parrots the arguments and biases of O'Connell's truely monumental disaster, "Sacred Vessels." "Sacred Vessels'" arguments have been exploded by a number of critics; it is sad that Smith did not consult them before echoing O'Connell in his dissertation. But even then, most of the arguments that he puts forward about the path of aircraft carrier development between the wars is destroyed by Hone, Friedman and Mandeles book "American and British Aircraft Carrier Development 1919-1941," which is in Smith's bibliography, but which he apparently did not read, or perhaps just did not decide to discuss their arguments in his work. How did that get past the committee?
Smith asserts that the US Navy was in the grips of the Gun Club to keep the aircraft carrier as an auxiliary to the battleship. "Mainstream thinking within the Navy's top leadership held that naval aviation was an adjunct to battle fleet operations rather than an integral part of its offensive lethality. The Japanese attack established beyond doubt that this philosophy was seriously in error." He goes on to say that "... the most forward -looking elements of technology and doctrine were conspicuously absent from naval education of the interwar period." He complains about "the study of gun platform battles bereft of radar (not available until 1936) ..."
There are lots of things wrong with these statements. First, on a purely factual note, radar was not available in 1936. The first experimental set went on the destroyer Leary in April of 1937, and the first production radars (the CXAM) began installation mid-1940. It would be rather hard for the NWC to teach about radar's "forward-looking elements of technology" when the characteristics and performance of the technology was yet to be established at sea.
"This bias in the senior Navy hierarchy was reflected in the War College course of study." He criticizes the curriculum for concentrating on the "study of gun platform battles". In WW II in the Pacific, there were 5 carrier v. carrier battles; over that same time Vincent O'Hara has documented 40 gun engagements.
He complains that in 1925 the Navy "lacked a concrete plan for employing its air assets in operations with fleet units." In 1925! Langley was not commissioned until late 1924, and the Sara and Lexington not available to participate in fleet training until 1929. It would take experimentation and practice to determine how many aircraft could operate off a carrier, in what size groups, and with what lethality and loss and accident rates. Smith's argument that the lack of a "concrete plan" in 1925 exhibits a bias against carrier aviation shows that he does not understand the process of innovation in the inter-war navy, a process that depended very heavily upon a very sensible policy of testing and experimenting before committing the Navy to any long-range plan. Any navy "concrete plan" developed in 1925 would have had to depend greatly upon the British examples, who were at that time the leading operators of carrier aircraft at sea. A plan based on the British example would have resulted in a very different carrier force than the one that was available to the American Navy in 1941.
The American carrier development relied on experimentation and trial and error. As a result of this experimentation, US carrier aviation developed very differently than that of the British. Had we followed the British example, US carriers would have been restricted to about half the number of aircraft that they eventually carried, and would be capable of strikes out to only about 125 nm rather than over twice that distance. Strikes would have been in penny packets rather than full-deckloads of 70 aircraft or more. Smith's argument not only does not hold water, it betrays a fundamental weakness in his understanding of the Navy's process of development and progress in the carrier air arm, and...Read more›

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Weedflower Review

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(More customer reviews)Full-disclosure time. I did not like "Kira-Kira". I respected what author Cynthia Kadohata was trying to do and I understood where she was trying to take her book but I did not respect how she did it. So when a co-worker I trust handed me, "Weedflower" and said, "It's actually good", I eyed the title with a critical eye. It takes a very extraordinary book to lift me out of my own personal prejudices and win me BACK over to a writer. That said, it seems that Kadohata has written such a book. Insightful, intelligent, historically accurate, and chock full of well-timed and well-written little tidbits, I've not found myself wanting to keep reading and reading a children's book this good in quite some time. Undoubtedly one of this year's rare can't-miss titles.
Sumiko is just thrilled. She's just been invited to her very first birthday party with all the other children in her class. Though she lives in California on her aunt and uncle's flower farm, Sumiko doesn't know a lot of other Japanese-American children at her school. When she arrives at the party, however, the mother of the birthday girl turns her away from the house. Not long after this humiliating incident, Pearl Harbor is bombed. Now Sumiko and her family members are getting shipped off to an internment camp for the duration of the war. They eventually find themselves in one located on an Indian Reservation in Arizona. The Japanese-Americans don't want to be there and the Indians don't want them. Still, while fighting boredom and the apparent death of her dreams, Sumiko is able to meet one of the Mohave boys that make deliveries to the camp and strike up a tentative friendship. Dealing with issues as heavy as how to survive without your basic Civil Rights and balancing them with stories of growth, mischief, and frustration, Kadohata intricately weaves together multiple strands of narrative and story to serve up a tale that is wholly new and engaging.
Flower farmers don't get much play in kids' books. Ditto Japanese internment titles that discuss the Poston internment camp. On the bookflap we learn that Kadohata's father was held at Poston during WWII and that his experiences provided the impetus for this book. Most remarkable is how deftly Kadohata is able to give her characters three-dimensions while still filling in just enough story, facts, and background to provide for a well-rounded novel. Though it slows down a little at the beginning, "Weedflower" hits the ground running once Sumiko finds herself turned away from the birthday party. That small piece of foreshadowing is such a wonderful little way to begin the book with a feeling for things to come that you almost wonder if it happened to someone Kadohata or her father knew. Of course the really remarkable thing about "Weedflower" is that you feel the threat the Japanese-Americans were under without ever having to see violent or particularly nasty scenes. It's the mark of a good children's writer when the author is able to convey danger without relying on shock or cheap theatrics. A true class act.
Not that Kadohata doesn't occasionally slip back into bad habits. The bulk of my dislike of "Kira-Kira" was based on the author's tendency to pile on the despair. Things get bad, and then the author will write a sentence or a paragraph that just milks the misery for all it's worth. As far as I could ascertain, that only happens once in this book. At one point Kadohata says, "Some nights Sumiko felt too sad to be inside listening to everyone breathe. Tak-Tak's nose was often stuffed, and Sumiko hated to listen to him struggle for freath. She imagined his lungs brown with dust. And Auntie was so depressed about Bull and Ichiro leaving that she cried for hours at night. Sumiko thought there was nothing in the world sadder than listening to someone cry for hours. It was even worse than your own tears". But such sections are few and far between. For the most part, Kadohata knows how to show and not tell. She's at her best when she makes it clear how the "ultimate boredom" a person can succumb to can kill your will to do anything. Idle hands are the devil's playthings indeed.
Actually, I've a bit of a beef with the cover. Sure, a shot of a pretty Japanese-American girl looking through barbed wire while wearing a kimono is a nice idea. But when on earth does Sumiko wear a kimono in this book? I remember that she owned one and that she pushed it to the back of the closet back in her California home but mostly when she wants to dress up she wears an increasingly bedraggled mint green school dress. Yet apparently the publisher didn't think a kid wearing anything less than a piece of symbolism would do. I would have much preferred to have seen Sumiko in normal school clothes, but there's no denying that while it may not be accurate, the cover of this book is rather stunning. A cheap shot, but stunning.
There are quite a few children's books that discuss the internments of WWII. The one that I kept thinking back to while reading this book was, "Invisible Thread" by Yoshiko Uchida. Uchida's book is based on memory and is good for what it is. It just so happens that Kadohata's book may be significantly more powerful in part because she doesn't have to adhere to her own memories and in part because the situation her father was in works so well in a children's book. A book published the same year as, "Weedflower" that also follows a forced internment at the hands of the U.S. Government is Joseph Bruchac's good but long, "Geronimo". Both books have a great deal in common, but Bruchac weighs down his narrative with too little editing whereas Kadohata keeps, "Weedflower" hopping along at a fast clip. I wish I could swamp "Weedflower" for "Kira-Kira" and make IT the Newbery winner of 2004. Ah well. As it stands, I recommend it to any and all kids forced by their schools to write a book report on a recent book of historical fiction. This is one of the more charming titles out there, and definitely will be making quite a few Best Book lists for 2006. Lovely lovely lovely.

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Double-Edged Secrets: U.S. Naval Intelligence Operations in the Pacific During World War II (Bluejacket Books) Review

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(More customer reviews)Jasper Holmes could have chosen as his title the phrase his colleague Edwin T. Layton used for his memoirs: And I Was There: Pearl Harbor and Midway - Breaking the Secrets. As a USN reservist returned to active duty at Pearl Harbor just months before the attack, Holmes was there at the start of the war. And he remained near the center of naval intelligence activities in the Pacific until the end.
My bigggest criticism of this book has nothing to do (directly) with Holmes himself. Like many memoirs written in the decades immediately after the war, this book is limited by the fact that much of the information Holmes would otherwise have been able to share was still officially secret. It would be for later researchers to say what Holmes couldn't.
The other complaint I have is that, based on what I've read elsewhere, Holmes modestly understates the important role he played in the events he describes. It's to his credit that he's eager to praise talented and dedicated cryptologists and analysts. But Holmes frequently makes himself sound like someone standing on the sidelines watching the varsity team play. In fact, he was one of the team's key players.
What could be a highly technical memoir is leavened by a light tone and entertaining asides, like his tales of trying to drive through Honolulu with darkened headlights (a feat he describes as probably a greater danger to the citizens of Honolulu than the Japanese attack was).
Any student of the war in the Pacific, and particularly of Naval Intelligence operations or the attack on Pearl Harbor, will find this an interesting and entertaining memoir.


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President Roosevelt and the Coming of the War, 1941: Appearances and Realities Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a great and important book. It was not Beard's last book, but one that subjected him to a veritable witch hunt and his removal from his position in historical societies and organization. A progressive of the old LaFollette type, Beard simply sought to tell the truth about how Roosevelt plunged the USA into World War II before any declaration of war or attacks on the USA by Germany, Italy, or Japan.
Most of the material here comes from hearings in the US congress, some during World War II, and other shortly afterward.
It is unfortunate that Beard did not have access to the materials that have been available in the last 10 or 20 years as war time records has become declassified. His concentration is on Pearl Harbor and the naval war against Italy and Germany (most who write about submarine warfare in the Atlantic neglect the fact that there was a substantial force of Italian submarines as well as German submrines), that Roosevelt launched in 1940. Yet, this is but the tip of the iceberg in Roosevelt's illegal war against Germany and Italy and Japan in 1940 and in 1941.
Roosevelt ran the 1940 election under the slogan "I hate war" and on his many pledges not to send Americans to fight in the Second World War. As soon as Roosevelt won the 1940 election he secretly began to send American sailors, marines, and soldiers into the war.
In November 1940, Roosevelt sent the US navy into the Atlantic to attack and sink German and Italian submarines in complete cooperation with the British. This was despite the fact that the German and Italian submariners were ordered to stay out of the Western Atalantic and to avoid American ports and ships so they would not provoke US public opinion. What the Axis submariners could have done if they targeted American shipping was shown in 1941 and 1942 after Pearl Harbor. Hundreds of ships were sunk within sight of the East Coast. Britain was seriously threatened with strangulation.
The evidence that Beard prints in this book chiefly from Congressional hearings explains major incidents like the sinking of the Reuben James and the Kearny that were used to claim Germany was sinking American ships without provocation. Congressional hearings reported on in this book show both incidents were provoked by aggressive US Navy attacks on German submarines either separate from or in direct cooperation with the British and Canadian navies.
Roosevelt had the US in a world-wide naval war with Germany and Italy by 1941. American Navy pilots worked directly with the British. In fact it was an US Navy pilot, not a British pilot who flew the plane that torpedoed the Bismark and left it unable to steer. The destroyer for bases deal not only supplied the British with destroyers, but sent US troops to the bases that protected British colonies in the Americas and Africa so British troops there could be sent to the war in the Arab East.
The US Navy began to build a major base in Northern Ireland. By 1941 US Navy ships would attack, sink, or seize any German vessel they encountered on the high seas, not just in the Atlantic, but in the Pacific and Indian Ocean as well. The US fleet and "neutral" American shipping were used to convoy Australian, New Zealand, and British colonial troops from the Pacific to the US and Canada to be shipped to the British war in North Africa.
American Marines relieved the British troops who had essentially invaded and occupied Iceland, an action not really favored by the Icelandic government which had tried to stay neutral. Those same Marines were originally to have invaded Vichy-controlled Martinique and Guadeloupe, but the Vichy governor of the islands agreed to allow US Navy officers to control passage of naval vessels to those islands, keeping French warships in port on these islands until the end of the War.
In Asia, Roosevelt launched the Flying Tigers. Rather than being a mercenary program paid for by the Chaing Kai Shek government as the public was told until the relevant documents were released in the 1980s, the Flying Tigers were totally financed by the United States Army Air Force. All of the Tigers were serving Navy or Army pilots who were ordered to leave the Navy and the Army to accept positions with the Tigers. Generally, Army and Navy officers are not usually allowed to simply quit and take other positions before the end of their service, let alone in a period of coming war. Plans for the Tigers included building a huge American-staffed and paid for air force that would possess long range bombers to attack Japan. They barely had begun functioning in China before WWII began.
In late 1940 joint commissions of the US military and naval general staffs and their British counterparts were set up in both Washington and London to plan a US-British war against both Germany and Japan. Similar arrangements were worked out with Britain, Canada, and the Dutch colonial government of whatr is now knows as Indonesia for naval and military action against Japan.
Those who do not know the information Beard provides and the rest that has come out since his times, wonder why Germany declared war on the USA. They picture the German declaration of war as an erroneous and gratuitous act of solidarity with Japan. They miss the real question. The real question is why did Germany wait so long to declare war on the USA when the USA had been carrying on what American and international law clearly defined as illegal warfare against Germany since the fall of 1940.
Beard's courage on this issue was symptomatic of his rigor and independence, his relentless desire to find the truth. Just as we are ignorant of the real origins of US involvement in WWII without this pioneering work, we are ignorant of who the founders of the US government were, and what they were afraid of unless we read his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution. Beard was not just a learned man, a dilegent scholar, and pretty good writer, he was a brave man who demanded to tell the truth no matter how unpopular it was. We should all be more like Beard!


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Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933-1941 Review

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(More customer reviews)As the other reviewer has mentioned this book tries to show that the US not only knew of the impending attack by the Japanese but also pushed them in the direction leading up to the attack. Although the statement in the other reviewers comments about FDR planning the attack can be misleading it does seem that he had intimate knowledge of the attack and he desperately wanted to join WWII. The author does not debate the fact that the US's entrance into the war was critical, but that the only way the US could be convinced to join the conflict (due to its isolationism). In order to be compelled to fight the US needed to be attacked in a merciless manner. Hence his argument that the Japanese move in that direction. He also points out many facts around the attack that are convincing as well.
This is an excellent read.

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The Encyclopedia of World War II Spies Review

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(More customer reviews)Encyclopedia Of World War II Spies provides a lively A-Z encyclopedia of underground spies and traitors who contributed to either prolonging conflict or achieving victory during World War 2. From Pearl Harbor to battles in Germany, this includes both an in-depth biographical sketch of individuals and remarks on historical events, tying the two together.

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Kamikaze: Japan's Suicide Samurai Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is interesting on two different levels. On one: it provides a great deal of information concerning World War II (WWII) as fought in the Pacific and as seen from the perspective of Japan's military leaders; I.e., what they were thinking, how they saw the war progressing, what their plans were, and how they tried to implement those plans. The primary thrust of the book, however, is to broadly explore the history of Japan's Kamikaze, with emphasis on WWII.
I suspect that most readers, coming new to this subject, will know very little about the Japanese Kamikaze and what little they do know will likely be based on film footage shot by U.S. Navy photographers during Kamikaze attacks toward the end of WWII. From this footage, one might conclude that these attacks were largely ineffective, and, when viewed from a Western perspective, that these suicide pilots were crazy or had been forced into such action. As this book makes clear, however, although done partly out of national desperation, these attacks were effective to some degree and the pilots were volunteers who knew exactly what they were doing.
As a case in point, consider the woman whose husband's application to become a Kamikaze pilot had been turned down several times because he had a wife and three children. To free him to become a Kamikaze, she killed her three children and committed suicide. Crazy? Perhaps, but that was the Japanese mind-set at the time.
The thing which interested me most about this book, however, was that it examined the history of the Kamikaze in Japan and then explored the Kamikaze in its larger sense. In doing so, it explained how the well known Kamikaze attacks came about and delved into lesser known Kamikaze. For example: I had never considered that the Banzai attacks carried out by Japanese soldiers on various islands in the Pacific were actually Kamikaze attacks, nor did I know that the two-man mini-subs which attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, were essentially Kamikaze, nor that Japanese fighter planes which rammed U.S. bombers during WWII were considered Kamikaze, nor that the Japanese built and deployed a fleet of torpedoes manned and guided by Kamikaze volunteers, nor that the small balloons launched from Japan and carried to the United States, 7000 miles away by the "Divine Wind" were by definition "Kamikaze," "Kami" (Japanese pantheon of Gods) "Nishi Kaze" ((West Wind).
I have only one complaint about this book. The author uses way too many repetitive and italicized Japanese words, which makes for difficult reading by a Westerner. But, if you're interested, that's the price you'll have to pay. So, if you are interested in learning a bit more about WWII history, especially from the Japanese perspective, and would like to learn about Japan's extended Kamikaze force, you should enjoy reading this book. In doing so, you'll likely find that the Kamikaze was much more than you thought it was.

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Comprehensive coverage of a complex and apparently wholly alien strategy Technical as well as psychological details Actual attacks described in full Includes human torpedoes * Kami Kaze: a 'Divine Wind' sent by the great Goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu-Omikami, to destroy the mighty fleets of the Mongol ruler, Kublai Khan, in the 13th Century.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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God Reveals The Identity Of The Beast Review

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(More customer reviews)A fascinating if not widely read book. The author claims to have been given a revelation by God that the USA is the "Beast" empire of Revelation 13 and Daniel 7. Here are some points Mr. Fraley makes in his book:
* A "beast" by definition in the Bible is always a nation or empire, not a person. "The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth..." (Daniel 7:23)
* The four kingdoms or beasts in Daniel 7:3 were Babylon, Media-Persia, Greek under Alexander the Great, and finally the Roman Empire, according to Bible scholars.
* From the immigrant peoples of that ancient Roman Empire emerged the USA. "The ten horns are ten kings who shall arise from this kingdom." The author believes those kings were 10 countries in Europe, descendants of the Roman Empire. "And another shall rise after them; He shall be different and shall subdue three kings." Fraley believes when the USA defeated England, Spain, and France early on -- those were the three "kings" subdued in the prophecy.
* Satan is the "god of this world." Jesus was offered all the kingdoms of the world by "the ruler of this world" (John 14:30), who had the power to do just that. Fraley writes that Satan has given his "throne" or world dominion to the USA as the top nation: "the dragon (Satan) who gave authority to the beast." (Revelation 13:4)
* The "deadly wound" that the beast received by a "sword" (military attack) was Pearl Harbor. (Revelation 13:3, 14)
* The USA rapidly built up its military forces after Pearl Harbor and helped defeat Germany and its allies. The USA emerged unscathed on its home turf and the most powerful nation (militarily, industrially, economically) in the world, after WWII. The whole world admired this suddenly powerful nation: "And all the world marveled and followed the beast. So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?" Fraley notes that "worship" means admiration and respect and awe.
Note: Jesus directly said that some super-religious people of his day followed Satan when they thought they worshiped God; they wanted to kill Jesus for saying that! (John 8:59) Jesus claimed the world in general does not know God. "O righteous Father! The world has not known you, but I have known you; and these have known that You sent Me." (John 17:25) So when the world worshiped the dragon, they worshiped the god of this world, according to Revelation.
* Fraley makes a painful point about many Christians in the USA: they esteem, admire, and love this country, nearly equating it with God. If you are critical of the USA and its policies "Christian-patriots" act as if you have blasphemed God Himself. They don't seem to take Jesus' words to heart: "My kingdom is not of this world." They also seem to ignore the first of the 10 commandments: "You shall have no other gods before Me."
* This beast nation or empire is given authority by Satan, the god of this world, "over every tribe, tongue, and nation." (Revelation 13:7) Other translations replace the word "authority" with power. The USA does not own or rule every nation and language and tribe, but it's influence is widespread. English is the second language of many nations. Our modern, materialistic culture has been adopted or often supplanted other nation's native cultures. Anything "American" is often the rage in smaller nations. We are the big kid on the block and many Americans are very proud of being number one in the world. Our leaders often state that it is our destiny or right to "lead the world." (It's worth noting that God hates pride and arrogance, and values humility: "To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, evil behavior, and twisted speech." -Proverbs 8:13)
* Satan has two main traits: murder and deception (John 8:55). This nation has gone to war many times to enlarge its territory and political-military-economic dominance (Mexico, Central America, VietNam, Iraq). Read "A Peoples' History of the United States." Its leaders have often falsely justified those wars as "keeping the peace" or ousting a dangerous government or dictator. The CIA has been notorious for assassinations of foreign leaders and covert, illegal actions to undermine an established government at odds with the USA's own selfish purposes. President Bush and VP Cheney and their cronies lied their way into the ongoing war with Iraq, fooling Congress and the people of the USA. The ex-head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, wrote that the reason for war with Iraq was very simple -- oil.
* Revelation 13:6 tells about the blasphemy of the beast. Fraley interprets that blasphemy as this nation's claim to be "under God" and doing God's will while often doing the opposite: war and conquest, deceiving its own people, generally working in its own self-interest while claiming to be a good-guy. The Bible says that Satan is the god of this world, while this nation claims to under the "God of Heaven." In reality it is under the intelligent yet subtle power and influence of an invisible "ruler of this world."
* Daniel 7:25 says this beast power shall persecute and wear out the saints. Fraley says Satan attacks Christianity at its center, which is the USA, with so many churches and so much world evangelism. The "prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2) weakens Christians via our American culture, according to Fraley, with materialism, constant entertainment, emphasis on money-success, and subtle contempt for Jesus and His teachings. It's not so much a direct attack on Christians but attitudes and prejudices "in the air." Christians get diverted from serving the God of Heaven ("I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit...so you will be my disciples" John 15:16,8) to serve their own self-interests or getting sidetracked (church for church's sake, endless Bible studies, campaigns against gays, religious TV). Then they wonder why they aren't very happy, with malaise settling in. (Some of this commmentary is my own and not the author's -Harlan)
Many Christians often wonder why the USA is not apparently mentioned in Bible prophecy since it has had such an impact on the world. The Bible says to not despise prophecies, yet it also says to "test the spirits" and "prove all things." There are some unresolved parts to the beast prophesy in Revelation 13 and Daniel 7, but Fraley's out-of-print book makes you wonder -- could it be true? Did God help him understand a shocking, surprising reality -- the USA is the feared beast power of Revelation and Daniel?

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Spy/counterspy;: The autobiography of Dusko Popov Review

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(More customer reviews)I read this book in 1974 when I was 16. I thought it was a great spy novel, along with "Escape from Colditz". The title was apparently taken from "Point-Counterpoint". The author resided with his family in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia on the Dalmation coast of Croatia (AKA Adriatic Riviera and a favorite spot of Jacques Cousteau) which was originally a Roman Seaport named Ragusa, and, after repeated enquiries, Popov described himself as Ragusan in a very Tito-like fashion. With the advent of the internet, I searched out and bought an out-of-print hardcover copy for another read. It was still a good read 30+ years later. I suspect the British Committe 20 (written committee XX), nicknamed the double-cross committee is the source for the 00 designation and its origin may be as simple as tic-tac-toe or just plain Freudian. The "M" designation in the Bond series may have originated from the names "Menzies" and/or "Masterman" who were both connected with committe 20 for training double-agents during WWII. The classic Bond casino scene is described in the book as being originated in a Lisbon casino where Popov used a substantial amount of British funds, intended for other purposes, to publicly deflate the ego of a successful, but pompous Middle-Eastern Gambler in a game of baccarat. Perhaps, Popov believed turkish cafe was the ONLY saving grace of the Ottoman occupation, who knows!? Trying to sift through Balkan history brings the word "chaos" to mind. Ian Fleming was surveilling Popov at the time of the casino encounter and Popov describes the scene, quite well in the book. I'm writing this review now after viewing the new "Casino Royale" movie which intimates the origin of the 007 myth. I believe this book would have and still will be the best jumping-off point for the fledgeling, idealistic and impetuous James Bond character in his mid-twenties during WWII developing into the wordly and vastly more experienced cold war character that Sean Connery so aptly portrayed and immortalised and has yet to be uncrowned 007.

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The Mastermind Behind Japan's Greatest Victory, Britain's Worst Defeat: The Capture of Singapore 1942 Review

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(More customer reviews)Reference the excellent review by Glen Buchanan, "Why Japan fought the White Races of Asia in WWII?" ... which underscores Colonel Tsuji's claim that Japan went to war to "emancipate" the oppressed peoples of Asia. Tsuji further claims that "... Singapore was indeed the hinge of fate for the peoples of Asia ... and as if by magic, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippine Islands one after another gained independence overnight." I wonder ... and am unconvinced that emancipation was the real reason. Perhaps one of the reasons, but surely not the sole, nor primary, reason.
A bit of a personal background, please. I am a Nisei, second-generation Japanese-American, born (1938)and raised in Hawaii. My parents were from Hiroshima and Kyoto and were puzzled and angered that their country of origin would attack America and throughout Southeast Asia. They asked, and I have too, just "why did Japan go to war"?
Tsuji writes that "war must have a morality and a reason which is understandable at home and abroad." (pg 11) Later, he offered the reason, "the emancipation of the oppressed peoples of Asia" (pg 13-14). This explanation does not fly for me in face of: 1) Japan's militarist past, including the aborted invasion of the Korean peninsula in the 15th century; 2) the 1937 full-scale invasion of China; and, the attack on Pearl Harbor, a legitimized Territorial entity of the United States (albeit, the British "takeover" of the Hawaiian Islands in late 1890's.)
Furthermore, to add to my confusion, Tsuji makes reference to Mr. Tojo's statement in the International Court of Justice, "the war activities of Japan were really unavoidable for self-defense"; and, Tsuji writes, " I, too, firmly believe that it was a war without preparation and a war which was forced upon us." I wonder ... why would a nation go to battle for the emancipation of the oppressed without "preparation" and then say that "the war was forced upon us".
So ... what would I conclude? I would not nor take offense to the conclusions of my friend, Glen Buchanan, who is much more knowledgeable regarding these matters, but I believe he gives much too much credence to the claim of emancipation. Rather, I would suggest that Japan was as much, if not more, concerned with the "anti-Japanese economic measures of Great Britain and the United States".
Admittedly, much of my thinking stem from my military background ... a geo-military/political basis for why nations make war against each other. I get the sense from reading Tsuji's book that he was motivated by altruism (an unselfish interest in or care for the welfare of others ... other yellow-skinned people, in this case), and translating that altruism to justify the Japanese military actions in China, etc ... and simply the desire for expansionism for whatever the reason ... power, ego, protectionism, etc. The latter has often been used to justify attacking Pearl Harbor (extending the "borders" of Japan as far out as possible to protect the homeland).
I am still "wondering" ... and have come to accept the inevitable; that theories abound depending on one's perspective borne of many factors (i.e., race, ethnicity, economic/social influences, experiences, training, readings, etc.
Colonel Tsuji's book is worth reading ... especially if you are interested in military strategy and tactics.
Signing off ... Tom Tamura, Colonel USAF (Ret.)


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A military account of the capture of Singapore in 1942 by the 25th Japanese Army, Malaya, this study is written by the mastermind behind the planning and execution of the operation itself. Presenting an authentic perspective, this work delves into the methods utilized in seizing a nation.

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