Military Law Books

This book is a travesty, a misuse of important historical sources. These letters, rediscovered by the Dodd family in 1990, should have been compiled into a book by a historian of the Nuremburg trials, combined with letters by Dodd to other correspondents, with notes filling in context and their relation to the historical record. In this way, they would have provided interesting views of Germany after the war and insight into how the Nuremburg prosecutions were put together. Instead, Chris Dodd has put the letters from Thomas Dodd to his wife into a campaign book, with family photos, purporting to show the human side of Dodd. The great romance which is supposed thereby to be revealed amounts to a lonely husband complaining that his wife--who is taking care of five children, one a toddler--is not writing long enough letters. These passages are repetitive and boring. By all means read the book for the historical information--but then go find a good history of the Nuremburg trials.

Dodd's letters truly present the allies (except the USSR) effort to insure that future generations would see the fairness and lawfullness of their deliberations.It comes at a time in history that individuals are being held by one of the allies without trial 5 years after their capture. Nuremburg 1 1/2 year Gitmo 6 years The Taylors, Jacksons and Dodds would be ashamed.Aside from the Legal?Historical perspective the book is an excellent example of a husbands love and devotion. Christopher Dodds has good genes.

After reading Ellie Wiesel's characterization of this book as "an important contribution to history", I wonder if he actually read the book or just skimmed some pre-publication proofs. Mr. Dodd's letters provide more detail about his living accommodations, dinner meetings, and travels than about the war crimes trials or the defendants. The defendants' cases are glossed over. You keep reading, waiting for details, waiting for insight. It's not there. The book is mildly interesting, but adds nothing to our knowledge of the war criminals or their trials.

This is a great book that provides a unique perspective on the Nuremberg trials. Highly recommended.

This book was nothing like expected from the reviews I read before purchase. It started out a little interesting, but quickly became dull, boring, and endlessly repeating, repeating, repeating. I expected the excitement to build, it never did. His fathers letters should have remained a family secret,well hidden if possible, they have no business in print for rest of the world. I wouldn't buy this book again if it was on the $1.00 table at a rummage sale.

Future War would have been a great work of fiction. It's intriguing subject matter and there are some really entertaining scenarios that would keep you turning pages long into the night.

However. If you're in the market for a well-researched, factual account, you should probably look elsewhere, especially if you are, like myself, a relative new-comer to the whole non-lethal weapons field.

Col. Alexander gets some extraordinary things wrong. He uses Ruby Ridge as an example of law enforcement gone wrong and to point up the need for non-lethal alternatives to lethal force. No arguments there. But he must have been thinking of a different Ruby Ridge, because in this one, Kevin Harris doesn't survive. I found that interesting, seeing as how Kevin Harris ended up giving a report to the FBI and getting tried in a court of law after the standoff ended. Reports of his death in this book are greatly exaggerated.

Col. Alexander would also like us to believe that Tazers don't burn. Even in the Nineties, law enforcement was aware that Tazers burn the skin. Several court cases have included evidence of the burn patterns unique to different models of stun guns. He also seems to take great pleasure in claiming that they are never lethal, which is an interesting claim to make about something meant to deliver tens of thousands of volts of electricity into the human body. "Never" is a word that an ostensibly learned man should not have employed to describe such a weapon, even given the state of knowledge in the 90s.

I won't spend this space dissecting the plethora of other errors I've found. I just want to present a caution to anyone incautious enough to buy this book: before getting excited about any one claim, make sure you get the facts from another source. You can't trust this book to be right.

This is an excellent book covering all the weapons that are available to fight an enemy,now and in the near future.Of course,as the title suggests, it leans on non-lethal weapons.This is not a book of Si-Fi stuff because we have already seen the use of many of the weapons described,although many have been used in various degrees,locations and purposes.As the author shows,there are many forms of weapons that do not involve a projectile or explosives but nonetheless have huge impact in warfare.Elimination of supplies,exploitation of media,disruption of communications,just to name a few.Non-lethal weapons have the greatest effect when the enemy has little or no knowledge of the other sides capability or use involved.Breaking of the German and Japanese codes was an excellent example of this 50 years ago.There has never been any magic bullet nor any new weapon that lasted too long before the other side found a counter weapon;so the way to maintain superiority lies in the ability to keep ahead.The reason America has managed to keep ahead in this is the extremely high value it places on the safety and security of every one of its citizens.Above all else this is the number one responsibility of the government.
This book shows not only the types of weapons that are available but also the thought process that goes into deciding which best solves the threat involved.Reading this book will convince you why any nation which truly values it freedoms must spend the resources to maintain superiority in all forms of weapons. Being second best is not an option.

Future war is a brilliant look at the varied types and systems of Less, Less Than, and Non-Lethal technologies.(and the difference between the three)
Dr. Alexander is very creative and colorful when it comes to conceptualising situations that these technologies could be utilised, both in Law enforcment and military/peace keeping engagements, as well as pulling out actual cases and tests.

While heavily footnoted, the book avoids becoming too overly technical, but could possibly bog down a reader not familiar with some of the terminology. Unfortunatly the book also doesn't go into nearly enough technical detail as some might hope, and in some cases leaves the reader confused about certain devices and aspects.

Another aspect about this book is that it was written several years ago, and the technologies talked about are in a relativly rapidly advancing field. By today, some of the things mentioned have been phased or or dropped, and whole new one have cropped up.

But all things considered this is a good book, and a nice read, and makes a dandy reference.

As US/Allied forces this very day are engaging in military operations against Iraq, the emphasis is not only on victory but on the minimization of casualties, both military and civilian. This book discusses several approaches to the latter, via the use of "non-lethal" weapons, and some of these may in fact be employed in Operation Iraq Freedom. The discussion is fascinating, and one can only hope that future technological developments will make war less probable because of the ideas expoused by the author. In the foreword to the book, the author lets Tom Clancy remind the reader of the unique American viewpoint on warfare. Americans, because of the nature of the government in which they have chosen to create and participate, have always been reluctant to go to war. Every soldier is precious, indeed, human life is precious, and is not to be taken lightly. It is therefore not a surprise that precision-guided and non-lethal weapons have and are undergoing intense development in the last two decades in the United States. Hopefully this attitude will continue in this, the best of all centuries. The author seems confident that it will, and indeed we are fortunate to have individuals in the U.S. military who have his attitude and share his philosophy.

Some of the more interesting technological developments in non-lethal weaponry discussed in the book include: 1. Electromagnetic weapons: man-portable laser weapons, blinding weapons, isotropic radiator weapons, pulse weapons, stun guns. 2. Chemical non-lethal weapons: antimateriel chemical agents, superacids, pheromones. 3. Acoustic weapons, such as pulsed periodic stimulus, which causes perceptual disorientation in the individual.

This book has a pretty good introduction to the growing science and technology of non-lethal weapons. It should serve you well if you're looking for something to get you started on building your knowledge of this field. However, you will be disappointed if you are looking for in-depth details on specific systems and technology (these are in most cases still probably classified in any case). The book is still definitely worth reading, though.

This book defeats itself. Its description of America's imperial stretch is extremely tame. His analysis is overly deceitful. Twice in this book, Mr. Newhouse has claimed that the Iraqi liberation has ended. I suppose your thoughts can be scuttled when you rely heavily on what Chalmers Johnson considers the "establishment press- the Washington post, the new York times, or the los angeles times."
Although the book is a botched attempt at capturing historical fact, his brief interlude into North Korea's talks with president Clinton toward HEU reduction, and missile disarmament is interesting, nothing in this book is thought provoking in the manner in which it is intended.
Who decided to print this book? Mr. Newhouse, don't read your daily paper. It will only infect your mind with trivial matters that are not newsworthy at all.

This book catalogues the foreign policy actions and inactions by the first administration of George W. Bush that have angered foreigners and foreign governments. The author examines the administration's logic behind these actions, and lists alternatives to them. The facts presented by this author are correct, but the argument of the book must be placed into perspective, both with foreign policy actions unmentioned in this book, and actions by previous presidents. First, the former. One unmentioned foreign policy action by the Bush administration is the crackdown on sexual slavery and the sex trade. Though unsung and unmentioned in the popular press, this fight against smugglers, pimps and kidnappers often saves the lives of innocent women and children. Another unsung policy by the Bush administration is its apathy towards border control. Specifically, many in the Republican Party want to stop illegal immigration and kick out illegals currently in the country. The Bush administration, through their actions and inactions, have made it clear they would rather legalize those already here and keep our borders open. Illegal immigration of Hispanics to America is probably the most important foreign policy issue with regards to Latin America.

For the latter point, previous presidents have made policy as audicious as the Bush's administration stances in the War on Terror. A good example is the Monroe Doctrine, in which the US basically told all of Europe to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. In general, this book is alright, though not great.

No surprise that only nine of us have bothered so far to comment about this book. It's old news; word bytes from the various news/cable media; we've heard it before. A tedious read, the writing style is "word salad" at best, and it is hard to find the real tomatoes and cucumbers in there. Must have had a tight deadline to get this out to strike while the opportunities presented (sort of like the recent Clark book), and before the bytes became stale. Though the title and content is what the post Clintonian partisans seem to want. But it is very skimpy on real facts to support the book title and the author's global views and assertions. In some sections he even seems to contradict the book title premises. Anyway, what could we reasonably expect from recent authors whose government service was in the last two years of the Clinton administration?

If you are compelled to read this book, buy a used one for $1.95....difficult to justify even at that lofty price, I think. I was lucky to receive it free, from a friend in the news business who received it as a promo. copy, but who knew what it was about without even opening it. On the shelf, fiction section, next to the Clark book it goes.

John Newhouse calls Bush II and his colleagues radicals, members of the Republican party's hard right (its dominant wing). He illustrates it by evaluating the US foreign policy and more sporadically national legislation.

Ignoring internatinal institutions and against the will of some of its allies, the Bush II governmemt went on a lonely and for the author, catastrophic ride. It acts as if time is on its side. But, it isn't so.
The Iraq war was (and is) foolish and self-injurious. It is fought within the framework of the long-standing point of view that no regional power can be allowed to control the oil in the Middle East. But, it was inspired by Israel's Likud government.
For North-Korea, Bush II cut off the promising Clinton negotiations.
In Iran, he reinforced the interests of the hard-line mullahs against the secular reformers.

Apparently, the Bush II goverment needs (and creates) enemies in order to justify its massive and highly profitable military budget. For the author, the redundancy of the defense investments 'exceeds realistic threat assessments'.

Nationally, the author sees a jingoist security policy, mammoth deficits and biased massive tax cuts; e.g., 42 % of the profits of the elimination of dividend taxation go to the top 1 percent tax payers.
Under Bush II the US became the biggest debtor in the world, needing constant cash inflows from its main rival, China. A suicidal long-term policy.

John Newhouse's book gives an excellent analysis of historical facts (ex. the Halloween massacre), but, all in all, it lacks the broader vision of W.G. Tarpley, W. Bello, M. Chossudovsky, N.M. Ahmed or W. Engdahl.

A worth-while read.

Given the title of this book (IMPERIAL AMERICA: THE BUSH ASSAULT ON THE WORLD ORDER) one might be forgiven for assuming that this is a standard left-wing screed laying all the evils of the world at the feet of George W(MD) Bush. However, in this case, the cover isn't a great indicator of what lies beneath. There's blame for the Bush Administration aplenty, but the information is covered in a calm, rational narrative voice, and the author (John Newhouse, senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information) is more interested in detail than in rhetoric.

Newhouse's basic premise is that Bush failed in the aftermath of 9/11/01. After the terrorist attack, the outpouring of support given to America was without precedent. A French newspaper proclaimed, "We are all Americans." A moment of silence for the victims was held at an Iranian soccer match. But instead of seizing upon this moment to, for example, push for significant reform in Iran or demanding that Russia pay more attention to its dangerously unguarded stockpiles of nuclear weapons, the Bush Administration let these opportunities slip away.

Newhouse spends time focusing on one specific area of the world at a time. He describes many of the local problems, and details how those conflicts affect America and American interests. He then describes what position the Bush Administration found itself in, and then he offers possible solutions or diplomatic routes that the Administration could have followed. He compares these possible directions to where Bush actually went, and in most cases it's: "Bush decided to ignore the problem and instead focused on Iraq" (but we knew that already). Newhouse carefully shows how the absurd attention given to Saddam Hussein's (strangely absent) Weapons of Mass Destruction has actually weakened the global fight against terrorist extremists. It's interesting to note that this book came out well before Richard Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 committee, yet contains a lot of echoes and concerns about an Administration focusing exactly on the wrong areas.

IMPERIAL AMERICA doesn't cover a lot of new ground; a lot of what is contained here has already been reported on in the press (though much of it has been buried underneath the latest Michael Jackson scandal, or whatever your media of choice has decided to waste time reporting). However, Newhouse conducted many interviews with government officials, so there is a little bit of insider information scattered here and there. My favorite tidbit of gossip was the official who likened a pre-9/11 Donald Rumsfeld to a cranky old man sending annoying, whining internal memos that interested no one.

I was frankly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Again, I was expecting something more along the lines of a Michael Moore-like screed, but what I got was a thoughtful, detailed and well-researched document. It certainly educated me to a lot of what is going on in the world outside of the Hot Spot Of The Week, and has given me a great start into more reading on these subjects. Recommend for anyone looking for a detailed, reasonable critique of the current Administration's rather glaring missteps.

A recent but very welcome trend in the study of the Cold War era is the emergence of books that don't seek to rehash worn out partisan fighting. The authors are going back to the source material, seeking out new source material and weighing the facts rather than resorting to received wisdom. In doing so they don't claim that everyone subjected to HUAC or other investigation as a "communist" was wrong accused (although some clearly were) or automatically "guilty. They investigate both sides and seek to answer why the accused were unfairly or unreasonably treated, without punishing the accused for their political beliefs or granting them absolution based on the politics of their accusers. Perhaps more importantly they seek to learn what those dark events mean for our times and what fueled the motivations of all sides. This is what real history is supposed to do.

A Shadow of Red is one fine example of this trend and Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass wars is another, even better example. White thinks and writes like the legal scholar that he is. He's weighed the evidence and determined that Alger Hiss was correctly convicted of perjury and that Whittaker Chambers was truthful when he accused Hiss of being a spy for the Soviets. The question he seeks to answer in this book is "why did he going on claiming to be innocent for so long regardless of the emotional or reputational costs to everyone else?" Given the preponderance of evidence, this is a question worth asking.

White traces the source of this deception back to Hiss's youth when he argues he needed to create secret places in his life in order to deal with the stress and demands of life with his widowed mother. This isn't a hatchet job by any means, White doesn't treat Hiss like a monster, instead he seems fascinated by Hiss's calm and cool ability to lie and manipulate and raise the stakes while doing so.

Still Hiss becomes even less likable under this scrutiny. I've long found his willingness to exploit the prevalent homophobia of his times to discredit Chambers particularly loathsome. He allowed supporters to insinuate and ultimately flat out claim that Whittaker Chambers falsely accused him because a) Chambers was gay and b) Hiss reminded Chambers of his dead brother for whom he'd harbored homo-erotic longings. "He's gay, so he must be a lunatic and a liar." To allow others to question Chambers sanity based on the suicide of his father when Hiss's own father and sister were suicides was equally sensitive. Now I can add to this Hiss's trashing of his wife - why stop at homophobia when you can add a little misogyny? Courtly, gentlemanly Alger intimated that he was trying preoccupied with preventing anyone from finding out that his wife, Prossy, had an abortion before they married that when he was questioned by the FBI. Not that there's a shred of evidence that the FBI ever questioned Hiss about his wife's health or anything that happened to his wife prior to their marriage. And he didn't want the FBI to find out but he's willing to have that fact published in a book? Emily Post would be proud, Alger. He seems to have passed this on to his son, Tony, who aside from claiming that living with his mother made him gay (I kid you, not) suggests that dear old dad "went to jail to get away from Prossy." There's a fresh conspiracy theory!

It would be easy to write Hiss off as a sociopath but White, to his great credit, goes deeper. He views Hiss's sympathies with the Soviet Union, hardly unique during the Depression, coupled with his ability to manage those "secret places" made him willing to become a spy. White makes a convincing case that Hiss's continued claims of innocence were simply his way of staying true to the spying game and that he took a perverse pride in never breaking. A greater pride, one suspects, than he did in the beliefs that lead him to spy.

If you harbor a belief in Alger Hiss's innocence, don't read this book. It will simply annoy you as White takes Hiss's guilt as a given. He assembles the evidence and presents it clearly but there's nothing new here.

The tone is lawyerly through and through but still highly readable. If you are interested in understanding the times better or in delving behind the many masks of this American enigma, this is a good book although probably not for someone new to the case. Highly recommended for those interested in Cold War politics and American History.

Kindle note: the e-book version retains the type-set of the printed version which can result in some odd hyphenation.

With the release of declassified materials in Russia and the United States, there is no doubt that Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet spy. However, Mr. White goes beyond the evident conclusion of Hiss's guilt and explores the convict's tireless campaign for vindication. Since others have posted review links at this site, I would reccomend that readers consult Dr. Stanley Kutler's review at: http://www.hnn.us/blogs/entries/7050.html

Dr. Kutler, one of the foremost historians of our time and hardly a rabid conservative(infact Ann Coulter calls him the "liberal luminary."), provides the best scholarly review of "Looking Glass Wars." He also makes an important point:

"The mystery White adeptly explores is why some liberals persisted in reacting so defensively and for so long - especially when the result was to hand a victory to the opportunistic characters who went beyond Hiss's particular guilt to indict and convict a generation of New Dealers and liberals. A rotten apple did not spoil the barrel; liberals and leftists could and should have conceded Hiss's guilt; instead, they harmed their own credibility by maintaining his innocence."

What if Truman and Acheson had not foolishly defended Hiss? Would there have been a McCarthy era? Would Truman have had more bi-partisan support in shaping his foreign policy? We will never know because Truman and many New-Dealers ruined their credibility be defending a Soviet spy that would end up having a damaging effect on the U.S. for fifty years.

Excellent book...highly reccomended

Those who believe that that human understanding progresses over time may take comfort in the fact that for all but the most ideologically besotted and intellectually corrupt the question of Alger Hiss's guilt is no longer of much interest. For G.E. White, the Traitor Hiss was self-evidently just that and the real issue instead: why did he lie, lie for 40 years after his conviction and imprisonment for perjury, lie to his supporters, lie to his friends and, most of all, lie to and thereby debauch his own son, enlisting filial devotion in his selfish and ultimately futile quest for a thoroughly underserved vindication? White, the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, organizes his study around these psychological questions, but also he supplies an admirably concise review of the Hiss case, and, most importantly, describes the intellectual climate in which the traitor and his allies succeeded for a time in muddying the historical waters, not least for a younger generation of Americans raised on tales of America's Cold War perfidy.

Alger Hiss, for those schooled after the Vietnam War persuaded much of the American Left that anti-Communism merely licensed McCarthyite hunter-gatherers to trample civil rights and cut doe-eyed New Dealers from the pack, transcended relatively humble origins to fashion an identity as a rising star of the old Eastern Establishment. As Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Boston and New York attorney, and Agriculture Department price regulator, Hiss cultivated the erect posture, firm handshake and sincere bearing that carried him to the Department of State, where he again rose through the ranks, numbering among his friends future Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius and Dean Acheson, attended the Yalta Conference, then presided over the San Francisco Conference that created the United Nations, then as now the collective repository for mugwumpish internationalist idealism.

Hiss also was a Soviet agent, and eventually was fingered as such by former Party operative Whittaker Chambers. Chambers was portly, religious, dentally challenged--- hardly the sort for whom John Foster Dulles would arrange, as he did for Hiss, a golden parachute at the Carnegie Endowment when Alger's State Department career dimmed. But Chambers had stashed away typewritten copies of purloined State Department documents, as insurance against retribution when he broke with the Party. Those copies, the FBI concluded, had been typed
on the Hiss family typewriter. A perjury conviction and 44 month jail sentence followed, after which, in 1954, Alger Hiss began his life-long campaign to re-write the history books.

White's calls this campaign Hiss's `looking-glass wars.' A natural spy, Hiss "appears to have taken pleasure in the pursuit of covert goals and in the creation of devices to shield that pursuit from others." His strategy was to cultivate a persona of temperate reasonableness; in other words to convince others that "he was not the sort of person who could conceivably have such secrets." White traces this theme through four phases of Hiss's life: his Supreme Court Clerkship, when he dissembled his way past Justice Holmes' mandate that clerks remain unmarried during their term of employment; his `pillar of the establishment' defense to Chambers' charges; his term in Lewisburg federal penitentiary, where Hiss gradually earned the respect of his fellow prisoners; and finally, the serene countenance he subsequently presented, an invitation to all who gazed upon it to conclude that a man so at peace with himself (so different in this respect than his two principal tormenters: the at-times suicidal Chambers and the tenebrific Nixon) surely was innocent.

To the extent that internal peacefulness was genuine, its true source was of course Hiss' ideological commitment to Communism and political loyalty to the Soviet Union. A traitor to the end of his days, Hiss adhered to the standard Moscow demanded of all its agents: if exposed, deny; if convicted, maintain innocence all your life. Thus, while White is persuasive on the tactics of Hiss's campaign, the most interesting parts of his book explain instead how Hiss persuaded so many of his innocence in the face of mounting evidence from U.S. and Soviet archives to the contrary. The Hiss defense, it helps to recall, amounted to the assertion that Hiss was more credible than Chambers, toward whom the Hiss forces directed a notably vigorous whispering campaign alleging among other things Chambers' homosexuality, coupled with the lame hypothesis that it was all a set-up, involving the FBI and assorted other baddies (one that rather improbably required a duplicate typewriter and a decade-long conspiracy, all to frame one self-important mid-level official). Given the weakness of Hiss's case, the thorough and damning 1978 study by Allen Weinstein (appointed Archivist of the United States by President Bush in the face of an ad hominem attack not unlike the one Hiss's allies launched against Chambers), the documents that became available after the fall of the Soviet Union and finally the release of the "Venona Papers," transcripts of coded Soviet transmissions deciphered by the National Security Agency, all of which supported Chambers' allegations, the question remains: how could any one have been taken in?

As Hiss recognized from the very first, he at least was fortunate in his enemies. Chambers was a quixotic character, and his supporter was the Prince of Darkness himself. A Democrat congressional staffer once remarked "I don't think we can clearly nail Nixon as a liar, although he undoubtedly is one, in this instance, as in all others." Given the sheer venom that much of what we today call "Blue" America directed at Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover and their ilk, Hiss shrewdly positioned himself as one of their many victims: were his accusers' reputations to suffer, ideally for misconduct toward real victims, Hiss would benefit. By depicting himself as the victim par excellence of rabid anti-Communism, Hiss similarly reaped the post-Vietnam rewards when American liberalism, with a few honorable exceptions, went AWOL for the balance of the Cold War.

By draping his cause in ideological standards, Hiss freed his supporters from contesting the still unfriendly facts of the case. And there should be no doubt that those supporters cared about defending Soviet Marxism and not the truth. When Allen Weinstein began work on Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, he was somewhat sympathetic to Hiss and expected to argue for his innocence. When the evidence persuaded Weinstein otherwise, friends of Hiss regretted bitterly their decision to cooperate with the project. "Weinstein came to see me under false colors," said one, "I never would have said a word to him if I'd known he was friendly to Chambers." Another announced tartly that the purpose of his assistance was "to prove that Alger was framed and a victim of McCarthyism. Otherwise, I was given a bum steer and my time and trouble was for nothing."

Hiss's campaign sought far more than his personal vindication. Were he to persuade Americans that prosecution of a Communist and genuine traitor was instead anti-Communist persecution of a liberal New Dealer, he would discredit anti-Communism as fundamentally illiberal and serve his Soviet masters even beyond their own ignominious demise. Among the segments of American society most susceptible to this anti-anti-Communism were the academy and the liberal media. While White does not address the former, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr's Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage more than amply plumbs how some American historians continue to prostitute themselves, debase their profession, and sully the cause of truth, the better to brand opponents of social collectivism as "McCarthyites" and worse.

White devotes considerable attention to "mainstream" media coverage of Hiss, contrasting nicely PBS's 1983 Hiss-friendly American Playhouse offering with the Reagan Administration's
decision to award the Medal of Freedom posthumously to Whittaker Chambers. Still worse was the Pavlovian response to the 1992 Volkogonov incident. In that year, Hiss cleverly wrote a number of Russian officials, asking that they attest he had never served the Soviet Union. One, the historian and former General Dimitri Volkogonov, on the basis of a mere two days research in the KGB archives (Hiss had spied for Soviet military intelligence, not the KGB) and after some prodding by a Hiss confederate issued the desired clean bill of health, which Hiss's allies released to the press on October 29.

With the publication of Volkogonov's letter, the liberal media was quick to trumpet Hiss's triumph. All three "major" television networks reported the story that very evening and CBS followed the next morning with the assertion that Hiss had been "apparently exonerated." "Hiss never spied," added USA Today while Newsweek announced the "bittersweet vindication." CNN aired a commentary asking why the U.S. government had not yet exonerated Hiss. The New Yorker afforded Tony Hiss a platform for "My Father's Honor," and, least surprising of all, National Public Radio reached into its stable of "experts," finding one who duly confirmed that the "vindication" of Hiss revealed the excesses of anti-Communism.

Unfortunately for the media pack, it only took a few weeks for Volkogonov to issue a damning retraction. "What I saw gives no basis to claim a full clarification," he wrote on November 24. His motives for writing the letter had been "primarily humanitarian" and an accommodation to Hiss's agent, who argued that Hiss "wanted to die peacefully" and "pushed me to say things of which I was not fully convinced." None of the television networks that reported Volkogonov's first letter, White observes, ever covered the retraction. No newspaper mentioned the retraction until December 17. As late as December 13, The New York Times still reported that Volkogonov had exonerated Hiss and that Chambers had never been a Soviet agent. The Palme d'Or, though, must be reserved for Peter Jennings, favorite news mannequin of Americans who otherwise take their news from the BBC. On Hiss's death in 1996, Jennings reported: "Hiss... protested his innocence until the very end.... And last year, we reported that the Russian president Boris Yeltsin said that KGB files had supported Mr. Hiss's claim."

Alger Hiss had the good sense to pass away just before the floodgates opened. In 1997, Allen Weinstein published the second edition of Perjury, grounded in primary research in the Comintern archives, and a subsequent analysis of KGB files. By 1999, these and the aforementioned VENONA transcripts had put paid to all but the most slippery claims for Hiss's innocence.

Even so, the name Alger Hiss retains enormous significance. Stripped of any respectable claim to innocence, Hiss remains a useful tool for those who would discredit his opponents--- not for accusing an innocent man but for defending freedom from a murderous ideology and the United States from an aggressive totalitarian adversary. For this reason their successors--- academic fellow travelers and media dupes--- seek to muddy the historical waters. We must not let them.

Historian Jeff Kisseloff has written an excellent debunking of G. Edward White's poorly researched and argued book on Alger Hiss. It can be found at this link: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/wars.html. To summarize:

* White never bothers to re-investigate the case, and substitutes a re-indictment for a re-trial. He presents only the evidence for the prosecution, and omits the defense. White has looked nowhere for new facts, and has instead been content to reassemble and rearrange from secondary sources all the accusations previously leveled at Hiss. His retelling of the case against Alger Hiss is a stripped-down model, thoroughly cleansed of complexity, and dismissive of any materials that might exonerate Alger Hiss. Factual errors, errors of omission, and errors of interpretation abound in the book.

* White (without the benefit of a certificate in psychoanalysis) devotes the bulk of his book to constructing a psychological profile of Hiss. White, who never met or spoke to Hiss, made no attempt to get in touch with anyone who knew Hiss well, such as his son or stepson. Hiss's lifelong quest for vindication, in this reading, somehow becomes further evidence of his guilt.

* U.S. government documents summarizing the substance of many of Chambers' interviews have been released. They contain numerous contradictions and demonstrably false allegations, so many in fact that even the FBI questioned Chambers' credibility. Hardly any of these issues, however, are examined by White.

* Regarding the search for the Woodstock typewriter, White claims that the defense didn't want it to be found. Instead of damaging Hiss's credibility, however, defense files actually support his story - consistently. Defense file documents suggested investigators check on a number of places where it might be found.

* White repeats Chambers' claim that Hiss had been a member of the underground organization the Ware Group. But while White points out that Hiss's former colleague, Lee Pressman, was an admitted member of the group, he omits Pressman's testimony before HUAC that Hiss was never a member. Two other admitted Ware group members, John Abt and Nathan Witt, said that Chambers both exaggerated the scope of the Ware group and also his own relationship with it.

* In 1992, Russian historian Dmitri Volkogonov stated that he had examined govt. archives in Moscow and determined that Hiss had never been an agent of the USSR. White erroneously claims that Volkogonov later "retracted" his statement, acknowledging that he had spent only two days looking in the KGB archive. White misrepresents both Volkogonov's research and his subsequent clarification for the press. In a follow-up interview Volkogonov was specifically asked whether he had looked through military intelligence files. Volkogonov responded, "Yes, we also asked to examine the military intelligence files and there, too, no traces of Alger Hiss have been found." Some months before the publication of "Looking-Glass Wars" - in time for White to include the information in his book, had he chosen to do so - General Julius Kobyakov, a retired Russian intelligence official, revealed that he had been the person who actually searched the files for General Volkogonov. Kobyakov in his postings said that he prepared his 1992 report that there was no indication that Alger Hiss had been either a paid or unpaid agent of the Soviet Union only "after careful study" of KGB archives and "after querying sister services" (military intelligence).

White attempts to get behind why Alger Hiss, a Soviet spy code-named "Ales", fought so hard and was able to convince so many leftists in the US (who apparently wanted to be convinced) of his innocence. Unfortunately for them (and Hiss), he was conclusively identified in the decoding of the Venona intercepts to be a Soviet spy. This information was released in 1995 & is now available to anyone who really wants to know in Romerstein & Breindel, "The Venona Secrets" (2000) and Haynes & Klehr, "Venona, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America" (2000). My criticism of White is that he skips over this information in five pages even though White's book wasn't published until 2004. The 50 year-long discourse on Hiss between those who wanted to believe that a patrician Harvard grad could not be a Communist or Soviet spy is now over. He was, and anyone (read the 1 star review) who still maintains he wasn't is delusional or has his own agenda. After all, there are still close to 200 Soviet spies found in the Venona transcripts that haven't been identified. But I.F.Stone (much respected by leftist journalists) was one (code-named Pancake), along with Julius Rosenberg, Laurence Duggan, Hiss, Harry Dexter White, Frank Coe, Lauchlin Currie, Ted Hall, Klaus Fuchs, Duncan Lee, Maurice Halperin, Harry Hopkins (yep, Roosevelt's most trusted advisor -- see Romerstein & Breindel) and Victor Perlo. The list goes on and on, a veritable "who's who" of leftists in the US. White's book as a psychological study of Hiss also throws light on the other spies and their stonewalling of the truth about their activities. The mystery is that so many people still believe that this was all a vast right-wing witch hunt. Maybe so, but the witches were there & they now (about 1/2 of them) have been conclusively identified. Watch out for those who "doth protest too loudly" about their possible activities, whether it's taking steriods or their patriotism.

Helps You Make the Most Out of the 2001 Tax Law!

The new, 2002 version of this book deserves more than five stars.

As background for reading and considering this review, please be aware that I am an attorney, did well when I studied tax in law school, and employ a top CPA to help me do my tax planning and prepare my returns. Despite all of this background, I find it hard to keep up with the tax laws. Since I became a member of the bar, the number of pages in the Internal Revenue Code has doubled as have the number of pages of tax regulations.

I was inspired to read this book when a conversation with my CPA left me with 14 areas that I wanted to understand in much more detail. I could have asked him, but that would be very costly because he charges by the hour and would have to do research to find out what I wanted to know. Realizing from experience that working with the IRS code and regulations could take many hours, I hoped this book would serve as a time saver, and it did! I found the answers to my 14 questions in less than an hour, and also located several hundred dollars of potential tax savings that I need to discuss with my CPA. The experience was a very satisfying one.

The Federal tax laws changed in 2001, applying to both your 2001 tax return and to future years. Whenever Congress changes the tax law, you need to be alert. If you continue to do what you have done before, you may well make costly mistakes that could lead to extra taxes needing to be paid or even worse, owing money for penalties and interest.

The Ernst & Young Tax Guide 2002 is remarkably helpful in dealing with the 2001 tax law changes. The book opens with a summary of what changed, and gives you references to the sections where you can get more details for your 2001 return. The following section goes on to describe the other changes that will be phased in during 2002 and later years.

To test the guide, I also checked out the most difficult questions that I had had to deal with in the last 20 years, where I was pretty sure the law had not changed. Each of these questions was also accurately and succinctly described.

I was very impressed that I could look up answers in any one of many different ways. The actual 2001 tax forms and instructions are bound into the volume. So that was one starting point. There were also detailed chapters on common topics, from handling mutual funds to taxes on child-care providers. So I could start there. The index was also very complete, and I could dive in from that direction. In addition, the cross-references in the text were very complete and would send me to the right section of the right page.

If you prepare your own returns and have a somewhat complicated return, you will also benefit from the many worksheets in the book. If you are about to start working with an accountant, you will save time and money by using the many lists in the book for what to collect and how to organize it (a pile of paper in a shoe box is not the right way to go!).

You might think that it's too late to affect your 2001 taxes. Actually, you still have some choices open, such as whether or not to make contributions to IRAs between now and April 15. If you are going to be late in making your last estimated tax payment in January, you may also be able to avoid penalties by filing before February 1 and paying what you owe when you file.

May your future not tax you needlessly!

This is the best tax guide on the market. We use it in conjunction with TurboTax to do our taxes, which we file electronically. The tax guide comes in handy for in-depth review of some aspects as well as having a hard-copy throughout the year (well after taxes are filed) so that we can make informed tax decisions. It is a little pricey, but the ton of information and good examples make it worthwhile.

This is the tax guide to buy each year. Unfortunately, it comes out later than the others. Fortunately, that helps ensure it is more accurate and up-to-date.

We have been doing our own taxes for many years, for ourselves, some relatives and volunteering for low-income families. This is the reference we have next to us.

The past couple years we have done BOTH paper and computer tax filing. This book is still needed with BOTH.

Actually, they should call this book Taxes for Retards. I bought it with the hope that it would make doing my taxes a little bit easier this time around. No such luck.

Most of the matter covered in the book is of a very elementary nature - that much you can figure out just by reading the IRS publications for the relevant forms.

In most instances, i found that i had to go back to the irs publication whenever i had any doubt - the book only covered everything superficially.

if you had no idea that irs publishes instructions for all forms or are among the esteemed few who think taxes are optional and/or that the slavery deduction is real- this book is for you. for others who have a fairly good idea of what you are doing, save the ** bucks and spend them elsewhere.

When it comes to understanding and preparing tax returns, or understanding taxation in general, you cannot beat Ernst and Young. When Canada first implemented the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the company of Ernst and Young was among the first to come out with a publication fully explaining this often frustrating, mind-boggling and sometimes complicated tax. Their tax guides are commonly found in many accounting firms and contain excellent resource material. As one who provides information on taxation to my business management class, I have found the information contained here to be thorough and up to date. If I have a taxation question (taxation laws are forever changing,) the Ernst and Young Taxation Guide is the first place I search for the answer. This guide is an excellent book for the resource library and one any business office should have on hand.

After reading this book, I enjoyed the funny tune that Amiry used to get to the point. But it is not even close to show the real suffering of people under occupation and harsh living condition with an enemy that is trying viciously to erase the Palestinian identity and spread rumors that it was a land without people. Another myth spread by jews.
As a Palestinian American, just visiting Palestine was a pain. Not as bad as the pain Palestinian face every day of their life. I wasn't too sure if some of the comments here made any sense. I understand that these are from Israelis that think they have right to that land.
They claim to suffer because every once awhile they are faced with a bombing, some calamity, or a lose of a loved one. But millions of Palestinians in the Diaspora are faced with the same issues in addition to a sever feeling of "waking up EVERY DAY having no land" to live in or say that this is their homeland. Please don't say that these Palestinians can live in other Arab countries. If this is the case, then similarly, jews can go and live back where they came from. And don't say, this was the promise land because jews originally came from Egypt then ran away to Palestine. Jews had existed in the Middle East, but majority of them converted to Christianity and Islam. Whoever was left was having a good life there, better than other Arabs inmost cases.
Most of the jews in Palestine are from east Europe, not even from the Middle East. They started to migrate in the late 1800's when the Ottoman empire was getting week and the rich Russian jews in addition to Hitler's plan to get red of his jews. Jews used the British influence to get a better access to Palestinian land. Especially during the British mandate, the British, used an Islamic law, Waqf, which means "for the sake of God", to confiscate land and give it to the jews. During the Ottoman Empire and according to the Islamic law, land belongs to the Islamic state (Ottomans). When Ottomans lost in the WWI, Britain took over and took all the land, and helped the jews steal other private land.

As an Israeli living in the US, I was looking forward for an eye-opener on life in Ramallah.
This may have been cute as emails, yet as a book it is one long tedious collection of cliches, full of self-pity, and quite hard to feel any real sorrow beacuase of the "Party-line" style.
My Jewish family, too, had to flee their home in Arab hostile Morocco. We recently visited and it was quite nostalgic! We do have a life in our new-found countries.
So 2 words:
As a book, it stinks;
Have a life already.

I read this book within a day, I just couldn't put it down, it was so beautifully written, and so easy to read.
Suad Amiry has a remarkable ability to say in one sentence what other writers take three pages over. A single sentence can be so thought-provoking, you consider all the many implications that follow from just one statement.
Despite the misery of her situation, Suad's defiance of her occupiers is hilarious - what a courageous and spunky woman! Her frankness and honesty of her own feelings, including her failings, are also very impressive.
Well done to Suad Amiry, I eagerly look forward to her next book - I hope she will write one!

Arafat and my hot flashes - an Israeli response to Suad Amiry's Sharon and my Mother-in-Law.

After reading Suad Amiry's novel Sharon and my mother in law I was extremely moved ... as an Israeli, living in Tel-Aviv at ta time when all around me people were "bursting at the Seams" or merely committing suicide at their leisure while taking other people's lives, limbs, children and women with them, I could identify myself with her agony at not being able to move freely...

It was Saturday eve; I always felt weird on Saturday eve, uneasy. On a verge of a panic attack. Maybe it was to do with the gloom I experienced at home, as a child on Sat. eve (My mother was a BA -graduate of Auschwitz). It was exactly 2 years ago, me and my not-such-a-great-hero, husband, who was an extremely gifted and intelligent man but the biggest coward if there's ever was one, were having a row, after a long week ... I wanted to venture out. Out of doors...out of our building; living in Tel Aviv had become a Russian roulette ... the streets were very quiet and empty ... not a dog in sight, the stray cats had totally disappeared, everyone was waiting for the next one, and we didn't know where it would come from. I wanted to go to the movies.
"Are you out of your mind?!!!" Gideon screamed. I couldn't sit at home anymore I had to go out. To a coffee place, "A coffee place?!!! Now?!!" Only yesterday one of the most popular coffee places in Tel Aviv blew up.
"Ok then, the bar around the corner is always empty! Why would a suicide bomber come there, to kill us and the barman?". I thought that was reasonable enough.
"I don't know why?" argued Gideon back "he might just get fed up half way to the Hilton, did you think about that?".
I tried the movies, again.
"Crowded places?!!! Hello? Anybody home?", pointing at my head.
"but we never had a suicider at the cinema!!", I tried to reason.
"Exactly!!!", exclaimed Gideon with a big smile, winning the argument.

I felt a hot flash coming on. It was August and I just had to have some air. "I don't care!!!", I screamed, "I am going out!!! Now!"

All of a sudden a siren was heard, and another one and another one, a string of sirens always meant a suicide bomber, and the ambulances were rushing to the scene. We looked at each other with terror and turned on the TV. There was a suicide bomber at Michael's Pub, a few minutes away from us. It was my son's favorite hang out; thank God he had been living in Holland for the last few years. He didn't even come home for a visit; I wouldn't let him, my only son...

Gideon, quickly rushed to the phone to ring his three children (from his 2 ex wives) they were all in their twenties ... that was his usual routine, every time a bomber hit the town. Then he would take his clooney (Cloonex - a tranquilizer) I was always angry when he took it, being a practitioner of Chinese medicine, it was totally against my principals. But he couldn't care less. He was slowly becoming addicted to clooney.

We stayed at home glued to the TV watching the horrible scenes of children, women, blood, screaming, etc etc. Gideon began his usual snores beside me, the clooney had knocked him out!

The next day we heard on the news that Palestinians were under curfew ....

There are always three sides to every divorce: the wife, the husband and the truth...

We are having a terrible, endless bloody row: it's time to stop talking about the past. I would expect an educated person like Suad not to live in the past, but to accept our existence in Israel and to start talking from that point. We have no where else to go, and the experience of living as a Jew outside Israel has not been very successful ... I could attach a picture of my mother's green number tattooed on her arm, she is only 74, she was 12 when they took her to the camps, one of the last survivors in the world ... Tell me Suad, the truth: this is not about the occupied territories. Barak begged Arafat to take it back. This is about Jaffa...according to your book. Do you expect my mother to go back to Czechoslovakia? And look for her confiscated home? And what about me? I was born here, am I to take a dive in the sea?

Yours sincerely,

Yael Stern O'Dwyer

I enjoyed reading this book but was chilled at the author's inclusion of "1929" as a year of Palestinian "pride" without mention of the atrocities of the Hebron pogroms. "Text without context is pretext" as the PLO's old friend Jesse Jackson used to remind us. Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (which alot of Amazon reviewers think has an anti-Zionist bias) would be a good corrective for the reader new to these issues.

Amiry is not a fanatic or a fundamentalist and this is her P.O.V. and her life. Can she address the moral failures of the Palestinian leadership, beginning with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and ending in Hamas? Maybe, but this is not that book.

I agree with all of the other positives that have been written about this book. Not only does the book provide a complete history of the Rangers, it does so with spurs jingling and guns loose in the holster. I read all of Louis Lamour's books and found this as fun to read as all but Lamour's best.

The Texas Rangers are one of the most controversial forces in United States history. Charles Robinson does an excellent job of recounting their history. The rangers were founded after independence with an idea to police the state and provide border security. Their role would change throughout time and come to a peak during the Mexican Revolution. They would fight in the Mexican American war where they would particularly abuse the Mexican populations earning them a bad reputation with US forces. Despite their brutality they were among the best soldiers trained in scouting and commando tactics that US forces lacked. They were an early special forces that earned their reputation during the war. Their story of development is expertly recounted here. For those looking for an intro to Texas history this is a great place to start.

Probably one of the best researched, and best written account of both Texas and Texas Ranger history.

I originally got the book for my own interest, but soon decided to use it as a primary resource for a major research paper.

Robinson even tells the part of The Alamo story that almost all high school Texas History teachers leave out.

This book should be one of the textbooks students should use for Texas History.

You can feel the power of Jack Hayes, the heat of the Texas desert, you fear for the men at The Alamo, and you feel like your riding along side the Rangers against the Indians.

This book is required reading for any Texan who wants to know more about the history of the state and many of its legends.

Although I have Walter Prescott Webb's classic work on the Texas Rangers, which was written decades ago, I was happy to see that there is a new history of the fabled frontier law enforcement unit had come out. The Texas Rangers were founded even before Texas independence in order to protect settlers from attacks from Comanche, Kiowa and Apache Indians, outlaws of more familiar origin, miscellaneous miscreants and eventually, after Texas joined the United States, cross-border Mexican bandits. While many of the early Ranger units were little more than sanctioned vigilantes who often conflated their law enforcement role with what can be described as extra-judicial enforcement of the law, they were tasked with an extremely difficult task - keeping Texans safe in a violent time. The Indians, who lived a hardscrabble existence on the windswept Texas plains, were resentful of intrusion of the white settlers and ranchers on their land and so more than five decades of raids ensued. Other works like the seminal "Trail Drivers of Texas" are full of stories of Texans who were killed by small war parties as the settlers pushed their way farther north and west. While Robinson does not attempt to whitewash the racism, brutality and ruthlessness of the early Texas Rangers, he puts their behavior into the proper context of the era in which they lived. His book is a narrative of short stories that illustrates live among the poorly paid Rangers and vividly portrays the heroism and endurance that was necessary to pursue outlaws and Indians across a barren and treacherous landscape. Robinson has augmented early accounts with further research that sheds light on the Rangers during the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period that followed. The history of the Texas Rangers is important for anyone who seeks to learn more about Texas as their story is intertwined with many other areas of Texas history including the rebellion against Mexico, the battle for the Alamo, post-war relations with Mexico and Texas law enforcement from the 1820's to the present day. Charles M. Robinson III, a native Texan, fills his book with truly larger-than-life characters like the immortal Captain McNelly who engendered great loyalty among his men and animosity from those he pursued. The Men Who Wore the Star provides those of us who love the American West with an excellent single volume history of the Texas Rangers. Jeffrey Morseburg

Being a native Texan I thought I had heard and read all there was with regards to the Texas Rangers, This book proved me wrong but delightfully so. An excellent book if you want the history of Texas as well as history of the Rangers. The detail with which Mr Robinson writes covers the ground they rode as well as their undying love of Texas and their duty.Although I did wish for some articles to be more detailed, it was hopefully due more to the loss of records then any intentional overlook by the author. Excellent reading, hard to put down.

This is a solid book for what it is and what it covers. However, as was mentioned in another review there needs to be more. The chapters could include more details, exercises & drills, etc. As we know, just reading about a subject doesn't improve knowledge and skills, only the application of the material can lead to improvements. I think the authors could have provided more ways for direct applications. However, it's a book that I would recommend to anyone interested in personal safety with or without the use of firearms.

Ed Lovette and Dave Spaulding believe that if a person makes the desicion to carry a handgun, he has a greater responsibility toward himself - and above else to his loved ones to confront the dangers found in the modern society. They have combined their vast law enforcement and military experience to create a handbook to help in such an effort. But, as the majority of this book is about non-gun issues (mental conditoining, awareness, operating a vehicle in an emergency, medical self-help and so on), also those people who don't carry a gun will benefit form reading this book.

Usually, books like this concentrate on guns and tactics - essentially surviving an armed encounter. This book, however, places emphasis on avoiding such situations altogether. That is such an common-sense approach to the subject, one has to wonder why other gun writers concentrate on surviving the attack, and not avoiding it in the first place.

The book covers just about all the important issues of the subject, and there doesn't seem to be anything essential missing. However, this is such a broad subject that a hundred pages is way too little to cover it in adequate detail. Therefore, this book serves mainly as an introduction to the subject - although a very good one.

IN CALIFORNIA YOU ARE SCREWED IF YOU IF YOU EVER THINK YOU CAN PROTECT YOUR SELF WITHOUT BEING ARRESTED AND GIVING LOTS OF EXPLAINING. YOU BETTER JUST RUN AWAY.

GREAT BOOK A MUST FOR GUN OWNERS.

Ed Lovette captures the essence of self protection. He is clear, concise and obviously knows his subject. The problem is basically space. There is not enough of it. The topics discussed could be expanded quite a bit, especially the aspects of handgun use, carry and choice. More information could be included regarding the psychology of self defence; and, the problems associated with fear, adrenaline and actual application of learned defensive skills in extreme situations. Holding a weapon while paralyzed with fear is a real situational problem. It requires a good deal of learning, practice and conditioning before a working, self defence action can be initiated.

All in all, an excellent book. It just needs to be fleshed out a bit.

The book covers most of the important issues, however, it does not give adequate detail on any of them. If you want a broad overview of those things you should consider, this is a good place to start. If you are looking for specifics, you will have to follow-up this book with several others that contain more details.

The focus is on awareness and avoidance. Discussion of firearms only makes up a small portion of this book. For those interested in pursuing self defense firearms, Dave Spaulding's Handgun Combatives would be a good follow-up book to read.

A high point is the short discussion on night shooting. This is the first book I have seen that gives clear pictues of all the generally accepted methods of holding a flashlight and a handgun at the same time.

Worth reading if you are starting to think about what you can do to enhance your personal security.

This is a must-buy for law students taking a class in international tax. Or if you're a lawyer and want to learn the stuff on your own.

But I can see how a layman hoping to figure out how to fill out a tax return would think the book to be useless.

Covers all the important details of international tax law in a concise, easy to understand format. Highly recommended!

This was the most thoroughly informative, entertaining, and magnificent piece of literature I have ever read on any subject. Richard Doernberg sheds light on some of the most difficult concepts in U.S. tax law. His clever insights and piercing intellectual observations will make you reconsider your thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. Doernberg is truly the best thing to happen to international taxation since the check the box regulations.

The International Tax Nutshell is a wonderful overview of international tax. As some comments have indicated, it is a tough area, but Doernberg does a great job of guiding people through the various twists and turns.

Disregard reviews criticizing the technical nature of this book. I became a fond user of the Nutshell series when I was in law school; I don't think that these books were ever intended for use by the Average Joe. By its very nature, the subject matter is technical and can only be simplified so much. There is a reason why there is no such book as "International Taxation for Dummies" or "Brain Surgery for Dummies".

These books are great to use as a springboard for further research and study of the issues covered. I would recommend the book to students and practitioners of accounting, business, and taxation.

I rated this book 5* because even though it spells out 10 steps to Defeat Global Terror,it does an excellent job of detailing the approach that has been going on ever since the end of WWII,in dealing with the enemies of the Western World.
The whole idea of blameing those who are being attacked rather than those who are doing the attacking ,taking the approach that the attacker needs to be understood rather than destroyed,only extends the time,and cost in lives and resources to eliminate it. We saw this clearly with the march of Nazism,Fascism,Japanese Imperialism and Marxism. No amount of money,understanding,appeasement,negotiating,agreements;would ever had any effect in changing the will or intent of these evil powers. It took too long for that to happen,and in the end it was nothing short of a total commitment to destroy them ,that resulted in victory.
The stated object, of total destruction of western civilization, by Islam,attacks throughout Europe,Southwest Asia and America,are nothing short of declarations of war,and no different than we saw during the 1920's and 1930's ;and until they are taken as such;the future will be no different than it was then.
All that is proposed in this book is more of the same thing that has encouraged the enemy to continue on its present path.
This book scapegoats Bush over and over again as if he is the problem. This war by Islam was well underway many years before Bush came to power and will continue long after his Presidency is up.Which,by the way,is less than a year away---then who to blame? How much has been spent to date by the US .Well over $400 Billion. What have most other countries done;other than to critcize America and Bush. The message is quite clear;they would be pleased if the US lost the fight,as would many on the Left and in the media. Their heads are in the sand,if they don't understand these forces are not only out to destroy Bush and America,but themselves as well.
This book proposes huge increases in Bureauracy,American Funds,restructuring of organizations similar to the adage of "Rearranging Deckchairs on the Titanic",huge increases in security,that can never be enough to guarantee total protection,proposing that the UN and NATO will solve the problem,and on and on .
This war that Islam has embarked on must be confronted head on with the destruction of the evils they are intent on subjecting on others,and not a condition that needs to be "understood".

This book follows the thinking of Neville Chamberlain who said;

"In war,whichever side may call itself the victor,there are no
winners but all are losers."

Just imagine if the Nazis,Fascists,Marxists or Imperial Japan had won--
-now imagine if Islam were to triumph.
Where are the leaders today who safeguarded the Liberties and Freedoms
we now enjoy.Here's what they had to say;

"In war there is no subsitute for victory" Dwight D. Eisenhower

"In war there is no second prize for runner-up."General Omar Bradley

"Wars are different from baseball games where,at the end of the
game,the teams get dressed and leave the park." Harry Trumam

"The will to conquer is the first condition of victory." Marshal
Ferdinand Foch

"I say we are going to have peace even if we have to fight for
it."Dwight D Eisenhower

"A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails,and then
asks you not to kill him." Winston Churchill

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees."
Emiliano Zapata

Or in the words of Will Rogers;

"The United States never lost a war or won a conference."

This book sure looks like the way to lose.

This is one of the dumbest books I have ever read though I suggest you read it; only to understand its arguments and the flaws inherent in them. The title of this book is promising: how to defeat global terror, and the book makes several very valid points that are not fully discussed in the popular media. These points include:
1. The real cost of building Iraq into a stable democracy is quite high, and has not been fully fathomed by the Bush Administration.
2. Pakistan is quite dangerous and potentially unstable, with its political scene a couple of assasinations away from chaos.
3. The most dangerous modern day terrorism to confront America are adherents to Islamic fundamentalism primarily from Middle East countries, and the primary target of this fundamentalism is Middle East governments.

That said, this book goes on to list several steps the US must take to defeat global (Islamic) terror. None of them will stop global (Islamic) terrorism, and their listing in this book reveals a biasness to throw more money at the problem. On the other hand, there are several things not listed in this book that do contribute to global terrorism, and should be stopped.

First, the US should stop selling weapons to other countries. What do people do with weapons? They kill each other! What happens when people grow up in an enviroment of killing? They become extremists and resort to killing as part of their daily lives! Look at the countries listed by this book as trouble spots; spots where Islamic fundamentalism is a growing threat; Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc... Each and every single one of them was/is a major buyer of weapons from the US or other western countries such as the UK, France, Germany and Russia/USSR.

These weapons were often sold by Western countries to Muslim countries in exchange for oil. These sales still continue as Saudi Arabia is one of the largest purchasers of American weapons. What do the recipient countries do with their newfound weapons? Several things actually. First, they can point it at their neighbors and try to intimidate each other over issues like trade agreements, water access, border disputes, etc... This is why any diplomat from the Middle East will tell you this area is like a hornet's nest; you stick your hand in there and someone is bound to sting you. Second, they can point it at their own people. Specifically, nearly all of the major purchasers of US weapons are non-democratic.. i.e. the ruling clique in each country uses these weapons to keep their country's population at bay. Both effects; hostile neighbors and a dictatorial government, generate a civil society conducive to terrorism, religious fundamentalism, intolerance, and violence. To stop Islamic jihadism dead in its tracks, this culture needs to be changed, and one way the US can help is to stop selling weapons to these countries AND prevent US corporations from selling weapons to these countries through national legislation and effective regulation. The question then arises: what should the US give to Muslim (Arab) countries in exchange for their oil? Several things come to mind, primarily, the US could allow goods from Arab countries into the US duty-free and tariff-free. This will spur job and economic growth in the Arab countries, and people are generally less likely to go jihading when they are making money.

2. Change the people who represent America abroad in the embassies and various other government agencies. The current Bush administration highlights this problem. If you look at the various ambassadors and other officials G. W. Bush has appointed to these diplomatic offices, you quickly notice that they got these offices out of patronage and not because of their skills and knowledge of these areas. For example, many of our ambassadors to Arab countries are ex-employees of oil corporations whose former employers contributed to Bush's election campaign. I wonder how many of these ambassadors know Arabic, or studied Middle East history, or are familiar with the Israeli - Palestinian issue? None probably. What they do know and what they will do in their government posts is grease the bureacratic wheels for oil companies and their subsidaries doing business in the Middle East. If the USA is really serious about stopping Islamic fundamentalism, then it should appoint individuals to ambassadorships and other offices who won't concern themselves with oil reserves in the Middle East, but instead concern themselves with civil rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, secular education, ect, ect in the Arab countries.

3. Take Arab opinions every bit as seriously as Israel's opinions. Throughout the Cold War Israel expanded gradually by taking lands owned by Palestinians, and pushing the natives of them. Time and again, Arab countries and many other non-Arab and non-Muslim countries in the world put forth UN resolutions to condemn Israel. And time and again the US vetoed these resolutions. The message these vetoes sent to private citizens in Arab countries was that their governments are powerless against the US. The result of this is that some Arabs have gone outside their government to help the Palestinians; i.e. form terrorist groups to attack Israel and the US. If the US is to expect Arab governments to control their citizens and stop terrorist groups, the US can help by stop siding with Israel against world opinion in its conflict with Palestinians.

4. Hold up our end of international agreements on security, extradition, weapons inspections, and disarmament. Throughout the Cold War, the US built up a rich web of alliances and treaties with most of the countries of thw world. These treaties and alliances fostered cooperation in tracking and controlling the flow of money and individuals between countries, and limited the spread of many classes of weapons. Some of these treaties also placed US citizens or US businesses overseas under the jurisdiction of foreign laws. Under the current Bush administration, the US has exited many of these treaties, thinking they are too much of an impedance on US security and US business interests. The result is that after 9-11, when American officials wanted to question individuals in other countries; there was minimal legal groundwork through which this could be done, and many other countries were reluctant to help. To really defeat global terror, we need global help, and to get that, America needs to get of the top of the hill and learn to cooperate with other countries as equals.

5. Support birth control and other measures to slow population growth. Religious extremism of any kind is a byproduct of too many people with too few jobs to go around. One way to solve this problem is to support birth control and family planning in third world countries. The current Bush administration will not do this because of their Religious Right supporters, and the previous Clinton administration did not do this due to opposition from the Religious Right. Public citizens in the US starting with the President need to publicly drive home the point to the Religious Right that too many people in poor countries can only lead to trouble for America and Americans.

These five steps I listed above are five things that the US is not doing, and which this book does not include as steps to defeat global terror. But, I believe these steps will go further in defeating global terror than anything said in this book.

U.S. Army War College's Dale Eikmeier is right on the money as Ullman states in his introduction: "What can and must be done to defeat this grave and gathering danger [radical Islam] is the basis for this book." Sadly, he pulls a literary bait and switch. This work is not, as implied, a formula for defeating radical Islam. Those looking for a serious and scholarly work on combating what Ullman calls "jihadist extremism" will be disappointed by the lack of research and discussion on the ideological foundations and leaders of the movement.

However, political historians may find the first half interesting as it lays out the national security positions of the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential campaign. The chapter on Operation Iraqi Freedom even opens with the Bush-Kerry debate question: "Is America safer or securer as a result." The second half, where Ullman discusses transformation of the U.S. military, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the federal government, makes an original contribution. One of his more intriguing ideas is Sarbanes-Oxley-type reform legislation designed to improve congressional and executive branch accountability. Policymakers concerned with government and defense reform may find some gems here.

Poorly organized, Ullman built a mound of tangents (Gorbachev and perestroika), distortions (hoof and mouth disease and a strike in Britain set D-Day for Operation Iraqi Freedom), factual errors ("Pakistan is both Muslim and Arab"), and partisan political statements ("President Bush must subordinate his visceral dislike for Kim to the larger goal of denuclearizing the [Korean] peninsula permanently"). To find any buried gems, you must dig. In the end the effort isn't worth it. Once you have polished the obscuration away, you'll find that Ullman's formula to defeat radical Islam is the Cold War's containment strategy with "transformed" multinational security organizations, resolution of Kashmir and the Israeli-Palestinian disputes, and a series of what he admits are prohibitively expensive Marshall plans.

If you were thinking that the War on Terror is going to be over any time soon, Harlan Ullman will quickly disabuse you of that notion. He rightly points out this is actually a War on Jihadist Extremism. Winning that war will require remedying the discontents that feed the extremism, and repositioning the United States government to be better able to do so. Most of the book is a rather dismal catalog of all the reasons for our failures to date. The background is great for those unfamiliar with this area, but sometimes the prose makes the phone book look enticingly entertaining by comparison.

But what are the "10 Steps" promised in the subtitle? They are ambitious, indeed. The first is to stop thinking about a Global War on Terror (remember the wars on drugs and poverty?), and recognize that this is a war against Jihadist Extremism. That makes sense. Next, we must realize that the danger posed by the terrorists is not the buildings they might demolish, but the institutions they threaten to disrupt--like our economic system and our personal freedoms. That, also, is imminently logical. At this point, Dr. Ullman becomes more ambitious. We must also reorganize the White House, Congress, and Defense Department, commit billions and billions to bring the "Crescent of Crisis" into the 21st Century, and force government officials to sign pledges similar to those required by Sarbanes-Oxley so that they can be held responsible for their actions. If Dr. Ullman is correct in all of this, we are in for a truly long haul.

C-Span2 Book TV has an excellent author event available. The author is very articulate and the book is brilliant. Some of the main points of the book are listed below.

1. We do not understand the danger of terrorism. We are dealing with a political movement with political ambitions. The terrorists are using religion as a cover.

2. Our government needs major reforms. Discipline and accountability has to be a responsibility of government officials.

3. We need to change our focus from national defense to national security. We need to form a national security university.

4. We need better ways to respond globally to the terrorism threat. We need to rejuvenate NATO. NATO now has a global mission.

5. The danger is in the Middle East. The real terrorist threat is to the Middle East, not so much to the USA mainland.