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
“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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Apr
12
Written by:
Diana West
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 1:56 AM
Recon Marine Cpl. Todd Love (above) got a hero's welcome in his hometown of Acworth, Georgia this week. Love lost both legs and his left arm in an IED explosion in Afghanistan a few months ago. The Washington Examiner story below by Sara Carter tells us that even if US forces had photographed the bomber in the act and captured him with bomb traces on his hands, they would then have had to feed him, clothe him ... and let him go.
This is another Afghanistan scandal that should get Congress pounding tables and demanding answers from the Pentagon and the White House. It should get readers doing the same. After all, we pay $350 million a day for this.
Carter writes:
Several Taliban detainees who had been captured in February after being observed placing bombs in the culverts of roads used by civilians and military convoys near Kandahar were fed, given medical treatment, then released by American troops frustrated by a policy they say is forcing them to kick loose enemies who are trying to kill them.
Despite what American soldiers say was a mountain of evidence, which included a video of the men planting the bomb and chemical traces found on their hands, there was nothing the soldiers who had captured them could do but feed and care for them for 96 hours and then set them free.
In another incident, members of a unit attached to 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment survived an attack by a suicide bomber on their convoy when his device failed to detonate. Soldiers managed to capture the would-be martyr, but he too was released after being held for four days.
"We put our lives on the line to capture the enemy," a soldier with the Stryker regiment told The Washington Examiner. "Since my deployment, every insurgent we've captured has been released."
Come again?
Since my deployment, every insurgent we've captured has been released."
International Security Assistance Forces officials contacted by The Examiner admitted that releases like these were common. The officials said ISAF forces can hold detainees for up to 96 hours, during which time detainees are "screened and a decision is made whether to release the individual, transfer them to appropriate Afghan authorities, or to the detention facility in Parwan [at Bagram Air Base]."
ISAF spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian said things are expected to change. He said Afghanistan's Ministry of Interior, supported by Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435, is implementing a system for fingerprinting captured insurgents.
"This program is going to make a huge difference, dramatically reducing insurgents' ability to hide among the general population," he said. "It will also improve the ability of Afghan and coalition forces to gather evidence of insurgent activity that will hold up in court."
Since when do soldiers have to gather "evidence" on their enemies? Welcome to COIN.
However, the program is not yet operational. Like many plans associated with the Afghan war, there are many potential setbacks ahead.
Troops say top commander Gen. David Petraeus has not fulfilled promises he made to Congress last year to review and, where appropriate, change rules of engagement that have restricted troops' ability to stop the enemy.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan. promised that ISAF would have control of at least 40 Afghan districts by the end of 2010. That promise also was not met.
Troops say it's impossible to hold the terrain when insurgents know that, if captured, they cannot be held.
The policy of releasing insurgents is expected to continue for now, officials said.
The Afghan legal system has no Western-style standards of prosecution that would allow suspected Taliban to be held in civil detention, ISAF officials said.
Um, the Afghan legal system (sharia-based) has no Western-style standards of anythiing.
"While there may be ample evidence to detain an individual, the same evidence may be insufficient to obtain an indictment or bring the detainee to an evidence-based trial," Dorrian said. "In other instances, individuals may be detained based on legitimate intelligence, but the intelligence may be classified and thus not able to be presented in open court. In some instances, this results in the individual being released."
ISAF general staff meeting.
James Carafano, senior defense analyst for the Heritage Foundation, said releasing suspected insurgents is not only a problem for U.S. troops but civilians who have been tormented under Taliban rule.
"The real issue is what is the right thing to do?" Carafano said. "Putting Taliban fighters back in the field who may kill or terrorize Afghan civilians as easily as U.S. soldiers is never the right thing to do. The U.S. troops will not be there forever --
Sez who?
-- and local officials need to start thinking about the long-term interests of their own people."
American troops say the policy is a morale killer.
How about just plain "killer"?
They say the inability to hold suspected insurgents is one of the reasons why the U.S. has been unable to suppress the Taliban.
Detainees can be held at various field detention facilities throughout Afghanistan. "Capacity is not an issue as to whether an individual remains detained," an ISAF official stated.
"How much more evidence do you need when they are captured on video and tested positive for ... chemicals on their hand?" a military official in Afghanistan said. "That's not enough evidence for our forces to transfer the detainees to a permanent facility before they try to kill U.S. troops again? It's unacceptable."
So don't accept it.
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