A Nation Unmade by War (TomDispatch Books)

This is a good book as far as it goes— warmongering, Trump (a lot on him), our infrastructure problems, the “war on terror,”and a lot more— but he has nothing, NOTHING, to say about Israel’s role either in the problems of the Middle East or Israel’s influence on our foreign policy there. The American democratic process is being corrupted at every level in the interests of Israel, and Engelhardt gives no attention to this whatsoever. One stunning example of this influence occurred before the last election. At one time during the nominating process for the Republican candidate for President, every single aspirant to the nomination except Trump made a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to kiss the money ring of Sheldon Adelson, whose only declared interests are Israel and online gambling. In addition, Haim Saban of the Brookings Institution played a similar role in the Democratic party. He has said: “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.” He promised to contribute as much money as needed to elect Hillary Clinton, someone who believes that Israel has a right to exist as a “Jewish state,” with Jerusalem (an international city for millenia) as its capital (something no country in the world approves of, not even the USA, until recently). Is this the American democratic process in action? Is this what the Constitution intends? Is this our America? Engelhardt avoids discussing the areas of dual citizenship and dual loyalties (American citizens in the Israeli Defense Force); espionage (industrial and military: Jonathan Pollard); yearly billions to Israel with no benefit to the US; media control (no debating the facts of history; no Palestinians allowed to articulate and disseminate their narrative); tax exemption for money which goes to Jewish interests as well as the illegal settlements in Israel; perversion of education (forced Holocaust information but no discussion; anti-assimilation); foreign policy (the war with Iraq for the benefit of Israel); the demonization of Iran; no condemnation of Israel’s nuclear capability in spite of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; use of the US veto in the UN in Israel’s interests; Middle East “regime change” wars; Israeli and Jewish influence in Congress (money, intense lobbying by AIPAC and free trips to Israel), and financial contributions only to candidates who are unequivocally pro-Israel, in some cases very large sums of money. The point is that all of this is being done in spite of the wishes and best interests of the American people and even of Israel. It’s not as though the American people voted to do bad things to the Palestinians: kill them, starve them, imprison them, steal from them, and control them. Quite the opposite: unbiased polls indicate that most Americans show no such support for Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and believe that if both sides would abide by international law, the Geneva Conventions, and the UN resolutions relating to Palestine, peace could be achieved between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, But Zionism has a different agenda, an agenda that will use any means legal and illegal to promote its interests by getting the United States to back it up. And that agenda is the problem because it is built on non-negotiable beliefs. The Israeli ambassador to the UN recently flaunted the Bible (Old Testament) and exclaimed that it represented Israel’s deed to all of Palestine. The US, in spite of itself, continues to support this cruel charade against its own interests and at the expense of neighbors, friends, allies and innocent parties in Palestine and elsewhere in the world. How can Tom Engelhardt avoid discussing any of these issues when discussing the perilous condition of America today?

Largely I am in agreement with Mr. Engelhardt. I do have a problem with his prolonged beating up on the US military and losing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. First, the military would not have gone into Iraq but for an order from the commander-in-chief, President Bush. Further The military, generally well read in history, especially recent history, wold acknowledged without hesitation that Afghanistan and Iraq, the former especially, would be exceedingly difficult military nuts to crack. No one has ever successfully conquered Afghanistan being exceedingly tribal and corrupt. There is no basis for building loyalty to the central government. Rather similar to Viet Nam. Mr. Engelhardt singles out Trump's generals as bad guys encouraging military adventurism. It's the generals that are largely responsible for keeping Trump's impulsiveness under control. This is not to say that 'the generals' are fault free. They are not but they are far better that Trump's usual sycophants. Sort of a give away that there might be some issues with this book is Mr. Engelhardt stating that Washington, DC was NOT built on a swamp. Perhaps not literally but it was built on swampy ground. Having worked on The Mall, we periodically had our basement flood after a heavy rain, in part due to having being built on a swamp.

Englehardt is such a caring, bright, human being. His commentaries about our military's utter unaccountability to the needs of all of us Americans is always eye-opening, and accurately analyzed. Although the book is a series of blogs, it doesn't read like it...and I appreciate that. It reads like a book written to enlighten the populace as to how the new president ties in with our military's assault across the globe, indebting our nation, ignoring the needs of our society, cloaked under the euphemism of "protecting" us against terrorism, and wreaking havoc on those in the Third World in the way (probably creating a lot more "terrorists" than it is eliminating). It is good to just keep up with Englehardt's books as they come out. This one was not disappointing in any way.

Tom Engelhardt is one of the best of our journalists. He investigates what needs to be investigated and not just regurgitates the latest foolishness tweeted out of Washington. This books looks at the cluster of Wars the US is involved with and how it has distorted our political system and society. He examines the Roman farce of our leadership that resulted in the Greek tragedies that we have today.

If you want to know why billions of dollars spent on “The War on Drugs” is never gonna end it, read this book!

More eloquence over etail or specifics. and at times a tedious moral agrument, convincing but cliche. Good detail and data on military spending and economic priorities. - Gary

This is a book everyone should if the future of the world is worth thinking about. One cannot leave the future to one of the great nations of this world.