FINALLY -- IN AUDIOBOOK!
ALSO AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK
"It is not simply a good book about history. It is one of those books which makes history. ... "
-- Vladimir Bukovsky, co-founder of the Soviet dissident movement and author of Judgment in Moscow, and Pavel Stroilov, author of Behind the Desert Storm.
"Diana West is distinguished from almost all political commentators because she seeks less to defend ideas and proposals than to investigate and understand what happens and what has happened. This gives her modest and unpretentious books and articles the status of true scientific inquiry, shifting the debate from the field of liking and disliking to being and non-being."
-- Olavo de Carvalho
If you're looking for something to read, this is the most dazzling, mind-warping book I have read in a long time. It has been criticized by the folks at Front Page, but they don't quite get what Ms. West has set out to do and accomplished. I have a whole library of books on communism, but -- "Witness" excepted -- this may be the best.
-- Jack Cashill, author of Deconstructing Obama: The Lives, Loves and Letters of America's First Postmodern President and First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the Attack on America
"Every once in a while, something happens that turns a whole structure of preconceived ideas upside down, shattering tales and narratives long taken for granted, destroying prejudice, clearing space for new understanding to grow. Diana West's latest book, American Betrayal, is such an event."
-- Henrik Raeder Clausen, Europe News
West's lesson to Americans: Reality can't be redacted, buried, fabricated, falsified, or omitted. Her book is eloquent proof of it.
-- Edward Cline, Family Security Matters
"I have read it, and agree wholeheartedly."
-- Angelo Codevilla, Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Boston Unversity, and fellow of the Claremont Institute.
Enlightening. I give American Betrayal five stars only because it is not possible to give it six.
-- John Dietrich, formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy.
After reading American Betrayal and much of the vituperation generated by neoconservative "consensus" historians, I conclude that we cannot ignore what West has demonstrated through evidence and cogent argument.
-- John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons
"A brilliantly researched and argued book."
-- Edward Jay Epstein, author of Deception: The Invisible War between the KGB and the CIA, The Annals 0f Unsolved Crime
"This explosive book is a long-needed answer to court histories that continue to obscure key facts about our backstage war with Moscow. Must-reading for serious students of security issues and Cold War deceptions, both foreign and domestic."
-- M. Stanton Evans, author of Stalin's Secret Agents and Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies
Her task is ambitious; her sweep of crucial but too-little-known facts of history is impressive; and her arguments are eloquent and witty. ... American Betrayal is one of those books that will change the way many of us see the world.
-- Susan Freis Falknor, Blue Ridge Forum
"American Betrayal is absolutely required reading. Essential. You're sleepwalking without it."
-- Chris Farrell, director of investigations research, Judicial Watch
"Diana West wrote a brilliant book called American Betrayal, which I recommend to everybody ... It is a seminal work that will grow in importance."
-- Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker
"This is a must read for any serious student of history and anyone working to understand the Marxist counter-state in America."
-- John Guandolo, president, Understanding the Threat, former FBI special agent
It is myth, or a series of myths, concerning WW2 that Diana West is aiming to replace with history in 2013’s American Betrayal.
If West’s startling revisionism is anywhere near the historical truth, the book is what Nietzsche wished his writings to be, dynamite.
-- Mark Gullick, British Intelligence
“What Diana West has done is to dynamite her way through several miles of bedrock. On the other side of the tunnel there is a vista of a new past. Of course folks are baffled. Few people have the capacity to take this in. Her book is among the most well documented I have ever read. It is written in an unusual style viewed from the perspective of the historian—but it probably couldn’t have been done any other way.”
-- Lars Hedegaard, historian, journalist, founder, Danish Free Press Society
The polemics against your Betrayal have a familiar smell: The masters of the guild get angry when someone less worthy than they are ventures into the orchard in which only they are privileged to harvest. The harvest the outsider brought in, they ritually burn.
-- Hans Jansen, former professor of Islamic Thought, University of Utrecht
No book has ever frightened me as much as American Betrayal. ... [West] patiently builds a story outlining a network of subversion so bizarrely immense that to write it down will seem too fantastic to anyone without the book’s detailed breadth and depth. It all adds up to a story so disturbing that it has changed my attitude to almost everything I think about how the world actually is. ... By the time you put the book down, you have a very different view of America’s war aims and strategies. The core question is, did the USA follow a strategy that served its own best interests, or Stalin’s? And it’s not that it was Stalin’s that is so compelling, since you knew that had to be the answer, but the evidence in detail that West provides that makes this a book you cannot ignore.
-- Steven Kates, RMIT (Australia) Associate Professor of Economics, Quadrant
"Diana West's new book rewrites WWII and Cold War history not by disclosing secrets, but by illuminating facts that have been hidden in plain sight for decades. Furthermore, she integrates intelligence and political history in ways never done before."
-- Jeffrey Norwitz, former professor of counterterrorism, Naval War College
[American Betrayal is] the most important anti-Communist book of our time ... a book that can open people's eyes to the historical roots of our present malaise ... full of insights, factual corroboration, and psychological nuance.
-- J.R. Nyquist, author, Origins of the Fourth World War
Although I know [Christopher] Andrew well, and have met [Oleg] Gordievsky twice, I now doubt their characterization of Hopkins -- also embraced by Radosh and the scholarly community. I now support West's conclusions after rereading KGB: The Inside Story account 23 years later [relevant passages cited in American Betrayal]. It does not ring true that Hopkins was an innocent dupe dedicated solely to defeating the Nazis. Hopkins comes over in history as crafty, secretive and no one's fool, hardly the personality traits of a naïve fellow traveler. And his fingerprints are on the large majority of pro-Soviet policies implemented by the Roosevelt administration. West deserves respect for cutting through the dross that obscures the evidence about Hopkins, and for screaming from the rooftops that the U.S. was the victim of a successful Soviet intelligence operation.
-- Bernie Reeves, founder of The Raleigh Spy Conference, American Thinker
Diana West’s American Betrayal — a remarkable, novel-like work of sorely needed historical re-analysis — is punctuated by the Cassandra-like quality of “multi-temporal” awareness. ... But West, although passionate and direct, is able to convey her profoundly disturbing, multi-temporal narrative with cool brilliance, conjoining meticulous research, innovative assessment, evocative prose, and wit.
-- Andrew G. Bostom, PJ Media
Do not be dissuaded by the controversy that has erupted around this book which, if you insist on complete accuracy, would be characterized as a disinformation campaign.
-- Jed Babbin, The American Spectator
In American Betrayal, Ms. West's well-established reputation for attacking "sacred cows" remains intact. The resulting beneficiaries are the readers, especially those who can deal with the truth.
-- Wes Vernon, Renew America
|
|
|
Nov
9
Written by:
Diana West
Wednesday, November 09, 2011 3:33 AM
Dementia advances in Afghanistan, courtesy the US taxpayer, who spent about $12 billion on training Afghans between October 2010 and September 2011. Not that it stopped there: $11 billion is pledged for the year ahead through September 2012.
Just think how many perfectly gorgeous Standard Poodles you could train for $23 billion dollars. And the world would be a better place....
On a recent graduation day for over 1,000 Afghan army soldiers, Reuters reports the alarming thoughts of Amlaqullah Patyani, the Afghan general in charge of all Afghan training.
Surveying his new soldiers, Patyani said:
"We have no clue how to operate the weapons that NATO gives us. And even if we did, will the weapons keep coming after 2014?" ...
This is not a joke, not a satire. It's the gigantic Afghani$tan $candal, but it's dying alone, deprived of media oxygen in the tabloid atmosphere dominated by Herman Cain accusers and moral turpitude in the Penn State Football office.
One example given by recruits is the complex computer system used to operate Stryker armored fighting vehicles that cost around $4 million each.
Many new recruits assigned to master the system lack basic numeral skills and are unable to read the Latin script used inside.
But NATO is racing against the clock to train Afghanistan's police and army forces expected to reach 350,000-strong in order to take over fighting in an increasingly violent war, a project seen as crucial for the country to battle insurgents on its own. ...
What time is it when the clock strikes 13?
But with all the money, and over 130,000 foreign troops in the country, the mission is missing hundreds of trainers.
The 1,810-strong training force says it has commitments for another 510 troops "in the near future", and is also trying to recruit another 480 mentors -- suggesting around one-third of posts are currently open.
But finding the right skills has almost nothing to do with how much money there is or how many soldiers are in the country, NATO training mission officials say.
Air force trainers are especially needed, as are finding volunteers or spare personnel with the patience and other skills needed to mold raw and sometimes illiterate recruits into military professionals.
No problem.
But senior U.S. military officials admit that money has not always been spent in the wisest ways.
"We have received an awful lot of money from the U.S. government. We need to use it differently now," said U.S. Army Major General Peter Fuller, deputy commander for programs and resources within the NATO training mission.
That would be the same US general who was recently fired for voicing his frustration that Hamid Karzai said, among other things, that he would support Pakistan in a war with the USA. Any peep from the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department on Karzai's latest outrage?
Another U.S. official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the mission was buying up high-tech equipment to satisfy Washington, while more basic needs were ignored.
The mismatch between skills and high-tech equipment has even prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to make a plea for a focus on sustainable training.
"This could get problematic," said Major General Aminullah Karim, who oversees the army's education and training.
"We need the training to be completely Afghan-led and a success. And there must be enough NATO mentors for this," he told Reuters at the sprawling Kabul Military Training Centre (KMTC) just outside the capital.
Isn't "completely Afghan-led" training and "enough NATO mentors" a contradiction?
Never mind. Wonder how much "sprawling" cost?
NATO and Afghan officials envision the 350,000 strong force as being roughly divided equally between the army and police, though analysts say the police are becoming a paramilitary force who do not protect civilians from the scourge of daily crime.
Longer term, there are questions about how much the West will stump up for Afghanistan's army. The Afghan government hopes vast copper and iron ore mines will one day pay its bills, but they are in very early stages of development and will not bear fruit for years.
Should be US or even NATO property until accounts are paid in full, plus an endowment to care for wounded warriors in perpetuity.
Afghanistan's Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in October that a full Afghan national security force including army and police would cost about $5 billion a year.
But sources later said that Western powers are contemplating funding a security force smaller than the envisaged 350,000 men, as they grapple with shrinking government budgets at home.
The scenario Afghanistan's senior generals face now is not entirely new. The Soviet Union's exit strategy in its 1980s war was also to train Afghan forces.
The Americans are acutely aware of the comparison to their Cold War foe, said U.S. Army General William Caldwell as he traveled aboard a helicopter on the outskirts of Kabul.
Below he eyed the sandy Soviet-built KMTC training ground strewn with derelict and rusted troop carriers and wreckage from the war which lost the Soviet Union 15,000 soldiers. Three years after Moscow stopped fighting in 1989, its training was halted.
"The Soviet Union built a great air force and army which was very well-equipped. But a few years later, it collapsed," said Caldwell, who has overseen all NATO training in Afghanistan for the past two years.
Caldwell said Moscow failed because its training never transitioned into being Afghan-led, eventually paving the way for the Taliban's rise to power in 1996.
Hey, how about Karzai? Sure, he'll lead the Afghan army against the USA -- but it won't matter because they can't run the tanks and guns we give them, anyway.
Now, that's a sneaky strategy.
Tags:
|
|
|
|