Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond

My father served in the Marine Corps Air Service in China in the 1920's. When I was a child, I asked him what he was doing there. "Making the world safe for Standard Oil", was his reply. Parenti's essay brings focus and clarity to that statement uttered more than 40 years ago. Agree or not with Parenti, his devastating account of the antecedents to the horrible attacks of 9/11 and our response should give pause for careful reflection of what we are and where we are going. One point of disagreement. Parenti presents most Americans as uninformed victims of a careful, calculating government grand plan. My position is that most Americans are too damn fat and happy to care, if unknowlingly complicit as he aserts -- just look at election turnouts.

Michael Parenti's comments on the September 11 catastrophe are to the point: it was a horrendous shock for everybody and certainly for Main Street, chloroformed by the media's rosy picture of the state of the Union.In a small book like this one, the author could not develop the deeper reasons, which, he beliefs, are behind this horrible attack and why the US is so hated in certain parts of the world: the US military interventions and the military aid to protect the various ruling oligarchs and multinational corporate investors, to destroy reformist movements, labour unions, peasant organizations, democratically elected reformist governments.In a nutshell: the imperialist goals of the US to create a global hegemony (a world of client states).Although his analyses are globally right, he should have paid more attention to the fact that the attacks were carried out by Muslim fundamentalists, who were partially (the Taliban) financed by the US.Like Gore Vidal, he fulminates rightly against the massive US defence budget, the biased media, monopolistic free trade, big money corporate capitalism, religion laced with violence and intolerance and environmental damage.This is a harsh, but much needed, pamphlet, because it lays bare some undeniable facts, which are crucial for world politics.Not to be missed.

I have all his books and many of his tapes. His work is well-researched and documented. He and Chomsky and others do a great job providing Americans with information that is not available in the mass media. However, most Americans do not go beyond Time Magazine and Dan Rather for their information and so they will likely be disturbed by the contents of this and other publications. It will indeed shake up your belief system but that's what truth does; it makes one uncomfortable and demands change.

I've only recently begun reading the works of Michael Parenti, but I can not recommend them enough to those uninitiated with his analysis of history and contemporarty American culture. In particular, this work on the tragedies of 9-11 takes a very broad view, looking not only at the acts themselves or their immediate aftermath, but also at decades of preceding policies as well as the propaganda that accompanied them, AND how it relates to the ongoing and newly implemented policies of today.Mr. Parenti is lesser known than many other social critics, and you won't often see or hear him on the commercial media, but I strongly suggest that you do yourself a favor by embarking on a google search for his writings and lectures. You'll find many of his talks available, in audio and text format (even some video), available free on the web. I've listened to many of them and found them to be entertaining, challenging and very informative. So, please, if you're not familiar with Michael Parenti, don't take my word for it, listen or read for yourself. But I stronly suggest that you don't pass up the opportunity to hear his thoughts on these events. The book is short, very readable and thorougly enlightening. Do yourself a favor and listen to what he has to say.Josh

This little book is a masterful creation. It's short, easy to read, and hard-hitting. Parenti explains in plain language why the American government is so despised around the world. He shows that the U.S. kills civilians elsewhere on a regular basis (e.g. 30,000 in Nicaragua during the Reagan years, 2 million in Vietnam), but makes no apology for it. He shows that the U.S. government cares about oil, money, and corporate profits far more than about global problems such as AIDS, hunger, or deforestation. His chapter on Afghanistan is particularly helpful, especially when showing that Afghan women were doing very well before the U.S. supported the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and fueled a war which killed 1.5 million Afghans. As a college instructor, I will surely assign this to my students, who will enjoy debating Parenti's arguments. Highest recommendation!