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Tracking Deception: Bush Mid-East Policy Paperback – August 25, 2005

by William A. Cook (Author), Wiilliam A. Cook (Author)

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"Bill Cook in his splendid book speaks for many knowledgeable and honorable Americans like him who have the courage and eloquence to speak out against Bush and his immoral war on Iraq under the cover of a fraudulent War on terror (with its blatant double standards vis-à-vis Iraq vs. Israel) which is nothing but a cover-up for a war of destruction, death and looting by the greedy who have too much of everything, against the starving have-nots of the world. "Tracking Deception is a compelling indictment of this Bush-sponsored New World Order of endless wars against Arabs/Moslems, relentlessly promoted by a nauseating campaign of deceit and lies at the highest levels of the US Administration in complicity with a corrupt self-serving corporate media, at the behest of a greedy so-called corporate "elite" and of the aggressive fundamentalist pro-Israel lobbies whose representatives are in dominant numbers at the White House. "God bless Bill Cook and the beautiful decent America that he represents and that we shall continue to love and respect, in spite of Bush and company." --Anthony Joseph Geha Yuja Peace and Justice Activist Florence, Italy "If as Christ said, the Devil is the father of lies, then George W. Bush is most certainly a son of the Devil. Cook's lucid and timely anthology lays out clearly the patterns of deception that have defined the tenure of this most dangerous of presidents." --Michael Ortiz Hill Author of Dreaming the End of the World "By rights this book's cover should show Bill Cook, triumphant on the flight deck of Truth, with a big sign behind him saying Mission Accomplished. He nails Bush's lethal Middle East rampages fair and square." --Alexander Cockburn, co-editor CounterPunch, Nation columnist

Print length

404 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Dandelion Enterprises
Publication date

August 25, 2005
Dimensions

5.51 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
ISBN-10

1893302830
ISBN-13

978-1893302839
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dandelion Enterprises (August 25, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 404 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1893302830
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1893302839
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.13 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #19,676,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #12,257 in United States National Government
- #133,450 in Political Science (Books)
- #204,357 in International & World Politics (Books)

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Sassy Brit

Cook brings the brutal truth about the Bush Mid-East Policy to YOUR door!

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2006

This is a complex book containing a stunning, and frankly, eye-opening amount of information about a hijacked American administration and its corporate allies who are greedily taking what they want from the middle-east and running roughshod over a beleaguered Palestinian people (amongst others).

I wouldn't like to boast that I have a handle on the way America's Middle East policy is being conducted in detail, but I thought I had a reasonable idea. This book has blown all that away. I was both fascinated and angered to discover the catalogue of horrors that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the Bush administration by their commitment to fund and support the violent repression of the Palestinian people by an ugly Israeli regime. I had no idea for example that Israel has flouted over one hundred UN resolutions and never been held to account. I had no idea that Ariel Sharon was such a barbaric character who has personally instigated many appalling crimes against the Palestinian people during his spell in the Israeli military and now is able to continue to do so from Government. I had no idea that Israel has had more American money pumped into it than any other nation in the world and by such a huge margin. It makes me wonder how in this day and age and with the technology we all have at our disposal, things like this can go on and the general public can be kept in virtual ignorance. Surely if the truth was laid before the American public in all its stark reality then the Bush regime would be dropped like a hot stone and would probably be called to account for their actions.

I was also very interested to read the author's opinions on how religion is playing a big part in determining how the Bush administration behave and how exactly they justify their actions, and how very right-wing Christian evangelists are able to exert a massive influence over certain people in the Government. I think rather than try and explain this myself; I would prefer to quote the author as he sums it up better than I could.

From the author's introduction to the book:

`I look in vain for this Christ in the Christianity practiced by the right wing, fanatical sects that preach the Book of Revelation, reveling in the glory they perceive to be their reward if they destroy the enemies they identify as the enemies of God. I wonder where in this acclaimed Christian land of TV Evangelists and literalist ministers is there a man who acts as Christ would act? I see none. I see only a God forsaken Tele-Evangelist land of vitriol and bigotry where none could say I "love the Lord my God with my whole heart and mind and soul, and my neighbor as myself." They have buried the teachings of Jesus in the quagmire of a malevolent and malicious God of the Old Testament, a God that would order one Semitic tribe to exterminate another. We have not moved beyond the racist hatred that blotted the landscape 2,500 years ago.'

It would appear from the well researched facts in Mr. Cook's book, that far from the Palestinians/Iraqis being the terrorists in the middle-east it would appear that an American funded Israeli regime are by far the biggest terrorist organization this world has ever seen.

I applaud Mr. Cook for his courage in speaking out against these people. The ordinary honest American can not be blamed for not knowing these facts, as I found myself to be just as ignorant, as we are only exposed to what bland corporate controlled media wants us to see.

It is obvious that Mr. Cook has left no stone unturned is his quest for the truth and he certainly doesn't shy away relaying these facts in concise and sometimes stark detail. This grim reading is occasionally broken with some lighter moments and I certainly enjoyed the `Agony of Colin Powell: A Dramatic Monologue in One Act'. I think this not only displays the author's talent to convey a message but also shows he enjoys and is dedicated to what he does. Bringing the truth to the people in whatever form can only be a good thing. The world relies on people like Mr. Cook, who dedicate their lives to finding out the truth, and instead of just accepting it and shrugging their shoulders, get out there and do all in their power to bring it to the world's attention. I would recommend that anyone who wants to know more about how the Bush Administration is really conducting business in the Middle-East, then they need look no further than this book.

About the Author

Dr. Cook traces his roots to the first Dr. William A. Cook, honorably discharged by General George Washington from the Revolutionary forces after six years of service. He, too, battled a despotic George, a madman of his day not unlike our own would-be Emperor, George W. It is in the blood to ensure that democracy is not denied or stolen.

Sassy Brit

Owner

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Bill for brother Jack

Unspeakable Narrative: review by Edward Jayne submitted by author

Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2011

Tracking Deception, by William A. Cook, offers a sustained diatribe against Israel and the United States, comprising forty-three articles published between September, 2002, and April, 2005, when the two governments were escalating hostilities against their respective enemies of choice. Not more than thirty-two months transpired, but Cook's articles went into print on the average once every three weeks for this entire period. The result is something more than a book.
Most histories relax somewhat to let the story tell itself, as may be seen, for example, in the impressive investigative books about Iraq by such authors as Thomas Ricks, Bob Woodward, and Chalmers Johnson that were published at about the same time. In contrast, Cook's admixture of data and acrimony was persistent in all his articles and therefore throughout his text as a whole. Dates, laws, quotes, sources, and fascinating lists of names and transgressions abound to illustrate and justify his sense of outrage. Granted, his "hard" information is now and again incorrect (usually on the short side of the truth), but this is typical during warfare, and in retrospect it is obvious that Cook's distortions were far more accurate than most of the reportage in the respectable press at the time.
Apparent toward the end of 2002, when the book begins, was that a major invasion was imminent in Iraq and that Israel's Prime Minister Sharon had been doing everything he could to intensify the conflict with Palestinians since he came to power eighteen months earlier, most notably by having scuttled negotiations both at Taba and in response to the generous Saudi Peace Plan. By spring, 2005, when Cook's diatribe ends, the invasion of Iraq had degenerated into outright warfare that culminated in the siege and total destruction of Fallujah once Bush was reelected. Meanwhile, Israeli troops had isolated Arafat in his Ramallah compound, where he would be "contained" until his death, and Sharon had refused to negotiate with his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, despite his generous peace plan that began with a unilateral ceasefire.
Predictably, American activists were outraged by the development of events, if with far more concern about Iraq than Israel. Cook's articles, most of them published by CounterPunch, rectify this imbalance by focusing on the tactics of Israel as well as its enlarged dependence on the United States since 1948. Most of them discuss the two in combination with an emphasis on Israel's tactics. Obviously, Cook was willing to risk displeasure from the predictable chorus of angry Zionist apologists who go after anybody who dares to criticize Israel.
2
Tracking Deception`s final essay, "The Destructive Power of Myth," at least double the length of any of the rest, turns out to have been written in response to the 9-11 catastrophe a full year later. It seems intended as an appendix providing a final overview of Cook's historic perspective, but it can also be appreciated as a theoretical introduction that clarifies his effort throughout the text to challenge the merits of public mythology exemplified by both Zionist ideology and the misbegotten patriotic support of Bush's foreign policy shared by the vast majority of the American people. Contrary to Marxist base-superstructure assumptions, Cook features the paramount impact of ideology at the expense of economics, but then traces chauvinistic enthusiasm in both Israel and the United States to the highly successful effort of relatively small but powerful minorities in distorting this shared consciousness to meet their own needs. Crucial to their success, he argues, is their ability to manipulate relatively simple myths to serve this purpose. Such myths, he argues, usually put to use the perceived virtues of the community at large (e.g., a nation's presumably unique dedication to freedom or its right to occupy its ancient "homeland") as well as the need to take action now and again in defense of these virtues.
Cook also suggests that these collective myths can be political, religious, or both in combination, and remarks that they seem best promoted by a hierarchical structure (a priesthood, for example, or a political party) to "codify, justify, and implement" their enactment. (pp. 344-45) Obviously Cook tailors this definition of myth to apply equally to the American obsession with freedom inclusive of the laissez faire and Israel's even greater obsession with its unique status as a "chosen people" deserving of a theocratic state of its own.
Relevant to the collective mythology dominant in the United States, Cook warns of the ability of capitalistic enterprise to distort public opinion, and here Marxist assumptions come to the fore:
In truth, what we believe is what the corporate world wants us to believe, and they have the means to make it happen. They own communications - newspapers, television channels, magazines, movie production studios, movie distribution houses, telephone systems, and radio stations. . . . In truth what Capitalism actually does in the name of the United States is to reap the greatest profits by producing for the least possible cost, regardless of the consequences to the peoples of other countries. . . . Capitalism, not Democracy, is at fault. (p. 355).
More specifically, Cook identifies eight dominant corporations engaged in this effort to sustain a public mythology beneficial to corporate hegemony: General Electric, AT&T;/Liberty Media, Disney, Times Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom and Seagram, and Bertelsmann (p. 324). The specific identities of these corporations shift at times resulting from mergers and buyouts, but both their leadership and shared goals remain the same.
And what are these goals in the United States today? It seems, as Cook insists, that a very small elite imposes "useful" beliefs on the public at large. But useful to exactly whom? Relevant to our nation's economy since World War II, this lucrative mythology has featured the defense of American democracy and the American way of life against predators both at home and abroad. Beneficiaries include all who either directly or indirectly support themselves through their participation in what seems best and most accurately described as Keynesian militarism. These individuals extend from the very wealthiest investors to the employees of contractors and sub-contractors as well as the multitude of local stores and services that provide their needs. This turns out to be a very huge chunk of our present economy, as illustrated by the total financial costs incurred by the military establishment since the thirties.
President Clinton sought a better and more acceptable alternative by featuring globalization, but it wasn't enough. President Bush added two wars to the recipe, and, lo, the affluence of the nineties extended well into the first decade of the twenty-first century. Our nation's economic prosperity turns out to have been the most important byproduct of its military status abroad combined with the high costs involved - a double benefit difficult to ignore. Low taxes and deregulation could be thrown in for good measure. And look at America today!
Unfortunately, this financial benefit dependent on military aggression abroad is hardly admirable and needs a credible mythology to gloss over its disreputable imperfections. No problem at all. The appropriate collective narrative rooted in the robust defense of universal freedom enjoys widespread acceptance promoted by books, movies, magazines, newspapers, the popular media, and of course the round-the-clock news coverage on cable TV and the radio. As to be expected, the public has fully taken to heart this collective myth ultimately epitomized by President Reagan's notion of American democracy as a shining city on the hill, indeed a beacon of hope for oppressed people across the world.
More Americans resonate to this myth than anybody wants to acknowledge among educated friends. The Republican Party in fact seems to depend on it. The real story, of course (if such exists), is far more complicated, and with an abundance of ramifications that too often fail to reflect positively on our nation's accomplishments. For anybody interested in pursuing a more adequate narrative, a variety of standard one-volume U.S. histories may be suggested here: by Charles Beard, Samuel Eliot Morrison, Howard Zinn, Paul Johnson, Walter McDougall, and/or William Appleman Williams, among many others.
3
Cook's Preface begins with the blatant warning, "The life-blood of Democracy is truth, and Bush has murdered truth" (p. ix). Can the truth be murdered, strictly speaking? Perhaps not, but Cook obviously thinks Bush came as close to doing this as anybody in recent history. Cook then becomes more specific relevant to the Iraq invasion:
Month by month Bush's duplicity and deception mounted. His administration took America to war against a nation that had no intention of harming America, no means to harm America, and offered no threat to America.... He fabricated an enemy force of considerable might that would confront American troops once the invasion started - when in reality Iraq had been devastated by 12 years of sanctions and had no army to field (p. xii).
In other words, the entire operation was total fraud from the very beginning. Supposedly Iraq had been invaded because it posed a dire and immediate threat to the rest of the world, whereas it was in no threat at all except when it came to combating occupation troops.
In Chapter 1 (Sept. 8, 2002), Cook complains of Bush's Manichaean assumption that America "represents the forces of good fighting against the forces of evil," supposedly justifying our nation's unilateral world domination. "You are either with us or against us," Bush explained to announce the so-called Bush doctrine of universal war against terrorists, necessitating preemptive attacks wherever this seemed needed. And of course our nation's principal ally in this holy cause was Prime Minister Sharon's government in Israel. As others have argued, however, it seems the tail just might have been wagging the dog, for Sharon actually boasted to the Knesset on one occasion, "Don't worry about American pressure on Israel; we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it" (Cook, p. 65).
Cook ridicules Bush's effort to obtain the support of the U.N. for the attack on Iraq by pointing out its earlier refusal to abide by Resolutions 686, 687, and 688. However, Cook discloses that in doing so Bush conveniently ignored the more than 55 UN sanctions that Israel had defied back to 1948 (in later pieces Cook increased this number to 155 violations), not to mention the UN Security Council resolutions, 242, 338, 262, 267, 446, and 465. Obviously a double standard was in play.
In Chapter 2 (Oct. 10, 2002), Cook uses the same comparison in response to Bush's speech of September 12 that justified rushing to war against Iraq based on four arguments, all of which could more easily be applied to Israel: (1) that Iraq had once invaded and occupied Kuwait (quite aside from Israel's occupation of 8 out of 9 principal cities in the Palestinian territory); (2) that Iraq had failed to comply with UN-imposed commitments in 1991 (quite aside from Israel having established over 30 settlements on the West Bank since Sharon became Prime Minister); (3) that Saddam had defied the UN by not complying with 16 UN resolutions (quite aside from the fact that Israel had defied the UN by not responding or complying with at least 68 resolutions); and (4) that Iraq had failed to return approximately 600 prisoners (quite aside from Israel having refused to allow the return of over one million Palestinian refugees).
In Chapter 24 (Feb. 28, 2004), titled "Israel: America's Albatross," Cook reports that more than 50% of Europe's population considers Israel to be a threat to world peace. He also goes so far as to declare more sweepingly, "Israel and America are perceived by the vast majority of people around the world as true threats to world peace" (p. 158). Moreover, he insists that Israel cannot rightfully identify itself as a democracy, since it lacks a constitution after 60 years of existence. Instead, he argues, it abides by a system of laws that seems primarily derivative of the Torah (the first five books in the Old Testament). He also deplores Israel continued refusal to deny the recognition of the Palestinian minority despite UN Resolution 181 calling for this to be done.
Cook focuses on Ariel Sharon's unique responsibility for having intensified hostilities against the Palestinians. He summarizes Sharon's three most despicable crimes against Palestinians: (1) his responsibility in 1953 for the killing of 53 civilians in a refugee camp and soon afterwards 69 more in the village Qibya; (2) his responsibility for the destruction of Had'd Street after the 1967 war, culminating in the destruction of 2,000 homes, the displacement of 16,000 people, and the assassination of 104 suspected guerrillas, and (3) his role in the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, when 1,962 men, women, and children were massacred by Lebanese Falangists under the supervision of Israeli troops. Cook then compiles a more extended list of various other crimes and provocations by Sharon that have so effectively kept hostilities brewing against the Palestinians for almost half a century.
Cook also estimates the costs incurred by the U.S. for supporting Israel to have been in the range of $1.6 trillion since 1973, an excessive amount for a total Jewish population that increased from 2 million in 1958 to 7 million today. Cook specifies that 737,166 Palestinians were evicted from their nation in 1948 and another 69,000 in 1967, and he later supplements this data, declaring that in 1948 alone Palestinian families were driven from 418 towns and villages so all the houses and property could be destroyed and replaced by Israeli settlements (p. 202).
Cook culminates Chapter 24 by listing ten ways Israel has "repaid" the American taxpayer during this period (he proposes only nine, but the last can easily be subdivided): (1) its unwillingness to return any stolen lands whatsoever to the Palestinians; (2) its total defiance of more than 100 UN resolutions (on p. 277 he cites 155 UN resolutions); (3) its frequent use of spies in the U.S. exemplified by Jonathan Pollard (and later Larry Franklin); (4) its inexcusable attack on the US Liberty during the 1967 War; (5) its heavy dependence on neoconservative influence in Washington; (6) its countless atrocities illustrated by the attack on the Jenin refugee camp and the murder of international peace observers; (7) its encouragement of Evangelical Zionist Christians to incite hatred against Arabs in the United States; (8) its defiance of the Arms Export Control Act through its use of cluster bombs acquired from the U.S. without the needed permission; (9) its lucrative arrangement that obliges both U.S. and Israel military establishments to purchase military hardware from Israel instead of the United States; and (10) its sale of U.S. classified technology to such nations as Ethiopia, South Africa, Chile, Venezuela, and China despite prior agreements not to (pp. 164-66).
Regarding Sharon's presumably conciliatory "liberation" of Gaza, Cook quotes Dov Weisglass, Sharon's principal advisor, to the effect that the "ulterior motive behind Sharon's unilateral decision to withdraw from the Gaza strip was not to further the peace process but to `freeze it' in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state" (see chap. 35, p. 251). He had promised a full diplomatic settlement as a tradeoff for the American invasion of Iraq, but then reneged on his offer by substituting relatively minor concessions: the elimination of a couple of Israeli West Bank settlements as well as granting independence to Gaza. Apparently he justified this bait-and-switch arrangement with the argument that bigger concessions required by the Road Map would have been unacceptable to the Israeli public as demonstrated by one or two well-publicized demonstrations by Israeli settlers upset with the loss of their property on the West Bank. Afterwards (later than the publication of Cook's account), Sharon nullified even these concessions by besieging Gaza and imposing a tight embargo to starve its population into submission.
The final observation buried earlier in the essay, "Israel: America's Albatross," is the risk taken by American politicians who dare to resist withholding their full support of Israel's agenda. This was illustrated, Cook discloses, by the intense public relations effort against Howard Dean's presidential campaign simply because he expressed his doubts about Israel's status as a democracy. Of course he was not specifically attacked for this particular reason, but, whatever the declared reason (as much as anything his joking litany of new states to be visited), his campaign was strangled, as it were, because he lacked adequate sympathy with Israel. According to Cook, "The Israeli political forces launched a massive attack against Dean, as vicious as any mounted against Arafat, and he folded. Such is the power that controls America's Democracy" (p. 159). Cook neglects to mention the earlier exposé by Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out, published in 1985, which mentions many other public figures - inclusive of Ball, Percy, and Fulbright - whose careers were terminated for the same reason.
Cook also devotes a couple chapters to the religious bigotry of American millenarian ("end-time") fundamentalists and Arab fanatics as well as Zionist extremists obsessed with their status as God's "chosen people." Significantly, his choice of quotations by Zionists seems far more damning than for the other two. For example, he quotes Effi Eitam, the head of Israel's National Religious Party, to the effect that Palestinians "are not ordinary people, but "uncircumcised," "little people," and "evil," by contrast with the Jews who are `the blessed.'" He also quotes Gush Emunim rabbis, of another right-wing religious group, who insist that "Jews who kill Arabs should be free from all punishment," and claim that "Arabs living in Palestine are thieves because the land was Jewish and belongs to them." (p. 10).
Apparently these rabbis also find satisfaction in such Talmudic edicts such as, "those who read the New Testament will have no portion in the world to come" (Sandhedrin 90a); and "Jews must destroy the books of the Christians" (Shabbath 116a), and "Whosoever disobeys the rabbis deserves death and will be punished by being boiled in hot excrement in hell" (Erubin 21b). Of course the Talmud's principal appeal is said to consist of its arguable contradictions. However, these particular examples seem at least excessive. According to Cook, once this kind of thinking is brought into play combined with the dogma of the Christian right, the result is "a virtual whirlpool of Zionist Christian fanaticism" (p. 293).
And thus Cook takes his argument to almost every aspect of the Near East crisis since the year 2001. He scrutinizes such concerns as torture, shock and awe, extra-judicial executions, the "fence" (or wall), the roadmap, green parrots [Ed: bombs intended to be used against children; Cook p. 276], the assault on Rafah, insufficient opposition in Israel, the spread of hostility into Syria, the decline of American democracy, the unfortunate 2004 Democratic Convention, the failed Kerry campaign, the failed Camp David negotiations, the ambiguous role of Osama bin Laden, the despicable Yassin assassination, and the flawed assumptions of Leo Strauss, Richard Perle, Alan Dershowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Charles Krauthammer as well as neoconservatives in general. Last but not least, he explores in depth the critique of supposedly anti-Semitic trends summarized by the State Department. Ironically, the State Department's so-called "Country Report" almost entirely refrains from criticizing Israel in the main body of its text, but then launches into a full-scale assessment in its Appendix that is more or less in line with Cook's arguments throughout his book. The government authors of the study seem to concur with much that Cook says, but with the typical prudence to limit their concerns to an appendix easily overlooked by readers.

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