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
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Dec
12
Written by:
Diana West
Monday, December 12, 2011 5:28 AM
If I were a psychiatrist I could find the perfect label for the depths of denial or the heights of delusion that manifest themselves in Frederick and Kimberly Kagan's latest declarations on Iraq published in the Washington Post as "opinion." "Fantasy" is a more like it. Their premise is that the American nation-building exercise in Iraq failed not because nation-building is pure academic utopianism (leftist cant) that withers in real-world conditions (Islam), but because the exercise didn't go on long enough.
They pre-emptively score Prez Obama for the happy talk that's the predictable outcome of his meeting today with Iraq's Maliki. Fair enough. The image of Iraq he is sure to present, they write, "is a mirage." But if we're talking about disconnection from reality, the Kagans have once again pulled their own plug.
They write:
Even after the last U.S. soldier departs, America’s core interests in Iraq include:
●Ensuring that Iraq contributes to the security of the Middle East, rather than undermining it through state collapse, civil war or the establishment of a sectarian dictatorship;
●Ensuring that terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or backed by Iran cannot establish sanctuaries;
●Promoting an Iraq that abides by its international responsibilities;
●Containing Iranian influences that are harmful to U.S. interests in Iraq and the region; and
●Signaling U.S. commitment to the region at a pivotal moment in history.
Is that all? Just to take the first bullet point, "ensuring" Iraq doesn't collapse, descend into civil war, or establish a sectarian dictatorship requires either an indefinite occupation on a colossal, non-supportable scale (why?), or the total transformation of Iraqi Man -- or Afghan Man (read: Muslim Man) -- which is the Frankensteinian basis of winning hearts and minds a la COIN. In another epoch, armies of Christian missionaries might have been the force of choice to rework Islamic culture to such an end; then again, Western nations haven't fared so well in such endeavors (remember the Crusades). COIN-spearheaded nation-buidling is the postmodern-day, secular alternative. Its adherents burn with a blind zeal that admits of no cultural difference between the West and Islam, that sees most arrogantly in their own Judeo-Christian-derived values a universal appeal. The only stumbling block between COIN values and Islamic acceptance, as COIN elites see it, is PR. The sales pitch. Take off those ballistic glasses, soldier. Eat parasite-ridden goat and wreck your digestive system maybe forever, grunt. Get to know the people. Walk those roads (bang) and build that "vital infrastructure," and don't call in fire support, or the "population" will think you don't trust them, and don't forget the payola.
This is not like taming a feral dog with a bone -- and that can be a dicey proposition. Remaking human beings, "re-educating" people to conform to ideological goals, doesn't work, whether the policy is enacted by nation-builders with guns bearing gifts, or comissars destroying civlization with gulags.
Back to the Kagans:
Securing these and other U.S. interests requires two basic conditions: First, Iraq must be able to control, police and defend its territory, airspace and waters. Second, Iraq must preserve and solidify the multi-ethnic and cross-sectarian political accommodation that was established in 2008 and 2009 but that has been eroding since the formation of the current government.
Not only are these beyond Iraqi competence and scope, they aren't American interests. They are Iraqi interests, if Iraqis care. They are also international interests which global interventionists arbitrarily obsess about, whether they exist in Iraq, Libya or any other hotspot de jour. It is not in America's interest whether Iraq preserves and solidifies ethnic or cross-sectarian blah blah. It is, however, in the interest of the Unreconstructed Iraq Hawks, the COINdinistas and their political allies because these are the theoretical justifications for their failed missions. In many ways, Obama's reluctant troop withdrawal, which, last time I looked, fulfilled George W. Bush's agreement with Iraq, is the best thing that has happened to them. It keeps the fantasy of "if only" alive.
"Neither condition is likely to be met in the coming years," the Kagans write. Thanks to Obama, they hereby absolve themselves of any and all responsibility for the failure of these conditions -- the conditions of COIN nation-building -- ever being met. They are free. Or so they seem to think.
They continue:
Despite enthusiastic rhetoric from Maliki and Defense Secretay Leon Panetta, Iraq is not able to defend its territory or airspace. ...
Hey, we tried. In fact, didn't Gen. Petraeus make his reputation in Iraq in part as the great trainer of Iraqi troops?
Iraqi security forces are unable to maintain their capabilities and equipment, much less meet new challenges. The only remaining U.S. training missions are for Iraqi police, and there are no agreements for training or supporting the military beyond year’s end. “How they deal with that gap” in defense capabilities, Helmick noted, “is really up to them.” ...
About time, I'd say. But the Kagans think it's up to us to continue training the obviously, patently, backwardly untrainable. And that's not all: Maliki, they take pains to explain, is actually a tinpot strongman! Maliki, they write, "is unwinding the multi-ethnic, cross-sectarian Iraqi political settlement." And it was so great before. Let freedom rain.
Despite the withdrawal of U.S. forces, Washington has leverage to affect Iraqi behavior. Iraq is a signatory to numerous treaties and a member of international organizations obliging it to respect human rights, ensure due process of law, and refrain from arbitrary or political detentions. Responsible nations should insist that Iraq demonstrate its commitment to those obligations. The president should tell Maliki in no uncertain terms that Washington will hold him to account in the international arena if Iraq does not.
Isn't that where we came in?
All bilateral military relations and security cooperation were governed by the expiring strategic agreement and must be established under new agreements. There is much that Washington could offer, including guaranteeing the security of Iraq’s land, sea and airspace until Iraq is able to defend itself and establishing a program of collective military training, exercises and exchanges to improve the quality of Iraqi forces....
Desperation.
An independent, stable and responsible Iraqi state is critical to U.S. interests in the Middle East.
No, an independent, stable and responsible domestic energy policy is critical to U.S. interests in the Middle East.
A substantive policy toward that end can result from a combined insistence that Iraq adhere to international laws and norms, pressure on Iraqi leaders to deepen the political settlements under such stress, and the positive incentives of genuine military cooperation.
The objective would not be to oust Maliki but to do what the 2008 Strategic Framework Agreement specified: “support and strengthen Iraq’s democracy and its democratic institutions as defined and established in the Iraqi Constitution, and in so doing, enhance Iraq’s capability to protect these institutions against all internal and external threats.”
We did that. It didn't work.
Such a policy would reflect U.S. values and could help ensure free, fair and inclusive elections in 2013, so the Iraqi people preserve the representative government to which so many in the Middle East aspire.
Everything looks beautiful in the view from the tower.
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