Book excerpts from a variety of educational nonfiction sources focusing mainly on current events and history of the activities of the US Government and the Multi-national Corporations that influence it

Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler and Brendon Smith “In the Name of Democracy”

Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995

James Carroll “House of War” 2006

Noam Chomsky Deterring Democracy”

Noam Chomsky “Failed States”

Noam Chomsky “Imperial Ambitions”

Noam Chomsky “World Orders Old and New”

Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies”

Barbara Coloroso “Kids Are Worth It” 1995

Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger”

Douglass "JFK and the Unspeakable”

Catalogue of books available online

Page two: quotes for authors K-Z

…. “I know that there are transgressors, who, if they knew themselves, and the only condition upon which they can obtain forgiveness, would beg of their brethren to shed their blood,” …. (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.31-2 JOD)

“All mankind love themselves, and let these principles be known by an individual, and he would be glad to have his blood shed. That would be loving themselves, even unto an eternal exaltation. Will you love your brothers or sisters likewise, when they have committed a sin that cannot be atoned for without the shedding of their blood? Will you love that man or woman well enough to shed their blood?” …

“This is loving our neighbor as ourselves; if he needs help, help him; and if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, spill it. …. That is the way to love mankind.” (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.32 JOD)

One of the revelations that so impressed Alma was that Owen and his family were soon to visit the city of Enoch. This was quite an undertaking, since Enoch was located on the North Star.

To prepare for the journey, and to avoid the risk of burning during reentry …. Had good suntans. (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.59)

Wesley Ross LeBaron lives today on a dilapidated farm on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, his church consisting of himself and a herd of goats. In his cluttered yard are the rusting hulls of the flying saucers he began building in the 1950’s…… (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.62)

As boys in Colonia Juarez, Joel and Ervil had been allies in making mischief, tying tin cans to dogs’ tails fashioning homemade zip guns for use on other kids, sneaking into corrals to ride the cows.

Even then, however, there was a decidedly competitive side to their relationship. The brothers would egg each other into riding the waves down the Green River during flood stage. Brother Verlon remembers watching the two play “Burn Out,” in which they would throw base-ball-sized gourds to each other as hard as possible. The first one to wither from the pain of catching the whizzing projectiles was the loser. When Joel and Ervil were young teens, Alma had given them boxing gloves so they could learn how to defend themselves against the anti-LeBaron bullies in town; more often, the brothers used the gloves on each other, standing toe to toe and punching away until both were bloody. Much of this must have seemed like normal sibling rivalry at the time; it is only in hindsight that the intensity of their boyhood relationship appears a harbinger of the bitter rivalry that would ultimately consume them both. (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.69)

“He was the type of person that would go out and entertain those in the fields while they worked,” said Harold Tippets. “Read the scripture to ‘em and so on, but he never really liked to work himself. …” (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.72-3)

“You could be talking to him,” Harold Tippets remembered, “and he’d go into these trances. He would look right straight at you and just stare and stare. You could tell he wasn’t really seeing anything …..” (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.79)

In the autumn of 1974, the Prophet’s minions had been tutored in the art of warfare by a new convert to the faith, Dean Vest, a Vietnam veteran with a steel plate in his skull, Vest had assumed the role of Ervil's military adviser, instructing … (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.122)

Bob simons … After being chained to a hospital bed for five days, he was sent to a larger health facility, where he received nearly two dozen treatments of electric shock. (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.132)

After eliminating five people- Manases Mendez, Edmundo Aguilar, Neomi Zarote, Robert Simons and Dean Vest- in less than six months Ervil (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.154)

“He had started to hear voices,” recalled Investigator Dick Forbes, who remained in contact with Isaac during that time. “And those voices told him he was the One Mighty and Strong.” (Scott Anderson “The 4’OClock Murders” 1993 p.263)

TEXAS POLYGAMY: Ross LeBaron Accused by Sons of Incest Not necessarily related, however it is part of the Warren Jeffs cult

I examined the matter studiously for two years before I made up my mind to receive that book. I knew it was true, as well as I knew that I could see with my eyes, or feel by the touch of my fingers, or be sensible of the demonstration of any sense. Had not this been the case, I never would have embraced it to this day; it would have all been without form or comeliness to me. I wished time sufficient to prove all things for myself. I wished time sufficient to prove all things for myself. Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.19-20 More complete context in JD 3:91

His father was the stricter of the parents- with John it was “a word and a blow … but the blow came first (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.21)

With such a religious background it is not surprising that several of the Young boys later became exhorters…… Joseph (Young) the, next son, “was very moral and devoted,” becoming attached to religion” at an early age.

….In 1816, barely nine years old, Lorenzo had a startling dream:

….It stepped near me and the savior inquired, “Where is your brother Brigham?”…..he wanted us all but especially my brother Brigham…..

Brigham angrily retorted” “ ‘Mr. Pratt, if you will step here into the middle of the floor I will show you how to dirty coats.’ But he dared not try it.”….

On the other hand, he had inherited a religious intensity unusual even for that era in the “Burned-Over District” of Western New York, …… (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.22-5)

“Mr. Pratt, if you will step here into the middle of the floor I will show you how to dirty coats.” Comment Journal of Discourses 16:17

…. Many men will say they have a violent temper, and try to so excuse themselves for actions of which they are ashamed. I will say, there is not a man in this house who has a more indomitable and unyielding temper than myself. But there is not a man in the world who cannot overcome his passion, if he will struggle earnestly to do so. If you find passion coming on you, go off to some place where you cannot be heard; let none of your family see you or hear you, while it is upon you, but struggle till it leaves you; and pray for strength to overcome….. Journal of Discourses 11:290

In late October 1838, besides his friend Heber, only Parley and Orson Pratt and the unstable William Smith remained of the original Twelve.

ON October 27, Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs issued his "Exterminating Order," which instructed the militia commander: (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.66)

On April 1, the twelve assembled in…. If one counts a few backsliders, the total number of converts approached 6,000. Clearly the twelve had set the impetus for a Mormon community …more than 38,000….to the Salt Lake Valley by 1870…..

We landed ….. as strangers in a strange land, and penniless, but through the mercy of God ……baptized between seven and eight thousand, …… (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.95-6)

Brigham later described his emotions on first learning about plural marriage:

Some of these my brethren know what my feelings were at the time Joseph revealed the doctrine; I was not desirous of shrinking from any duty, nor of failing in the least to do as I was commanded, but it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation, and to regret that I was not in the coffin, knowing the toil and labor that my body would have to undergo; and I have had to examine myself, from that day to this, and watch my faith, and carefully meditate, lest I should be found desiring the grave more than I ought to do. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.100)

(Brigham Young “Journal of Discourses” v.3 p.266)

Welcomed into Illinois for humanitarian and political reasons in 1839, the Mormons were watched with growing mistrust by other residents in the region…… then, in the summer of 1842, John C. Bennet, an opportunist convert who had become mayor of Nauvoo….. published …book called the History of the Saints; or an Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism (1842)….. In May of 1842, an attempt had been made to murder Lilburn W. Boggs, the Missouri governor who had led the drive to “exterminate” the Mormons in that state. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.103)

At issue was, as Orson Pratt put it, the "propriety or expediency now" of so doing when the church had prospered for three and a half ... I am going to go it, the Lord being my helper If I had to mouthpiece dictating…. If I see you going to the devil chastise chains fly (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.154-5)

Thomas Bullock, who had kept a detailed journal of the 1847 trek, again accepted responsibility for chronicling the day-to-day events of the 1848 "camp." He did so with a comparative eye, frequently evaluating the journey's progress in light of "what it was last year when pioneering."17 Bullock's painstaking census of Brigham's 1848 division included 397 wagons, 1,229 souls, 74 horses, 1,275 oxen, 699 cows, 184 loose cattle, 411 sheep, 141 pigs, 605 chickens, 37 cats, 82 dogs, three goats, 10 geese, two beehives, eight doves and a solitary crow.2

After spending several days on horseback between Winter Quarters and Elkhorn assuring that everything was in order, Brigham and his immediate family departed May 26. Brigham's own notation reads: "On the 26th I started on my journey to the mountains, leaving my houses, mills and the temporary furniture I had acquired during our sojourn there [Winter Quarters]. This was the fifth time I had left my home and property since I embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ."3 Brigham organized his company into groups of hundreds, fifties and tens, with corresponding leaders. General camp instructions were: "Not to abuse cattle but take care of them; not to yell and bawl or make any noise nor to be up at nights; but attend prayers and go to bed by nine and put out the fires."4

…

One disturbing incident occurred almost at the very start. A rule had been established that no wagon in the procession should stop, because this would cause a break in the train and encourage an Indian attack. Lucy Groves attempted to climb out of her wagon while it was in motion. Weak from having given birth just 10 days before, she slipped and fell in front of the front wheel. It ran over her body and broke three ribs. Her husband was standing close by and grabbed her as quickly as he could to prevent the hind wheel from running over her, too. But her leg was broken as well. Brigham went to her immediately, set her leg and gave her a blessing assuring her that she would reach Salt Lake in good condition.

Lucy's children had to walk from then on, as the bed upon which she lay took up all the room in the wagon. Her 13-year old daughter assumed her mother's tasks - cooking, washing, caring for the little children. But on the ninth day out, when it seemed that the leg was knitting satisfactorily and Lucy soon would be up, the daughter accidentally stumbled over her mother's leg, breaking it a second time. This time the pain was so severe that Lucy cried out in agony at every step the oxen took. She finally told her husband that he would have to pull out of the train and stop. When Brigham saw the wagon pull to one side, he stopped the entire train and rode back to where Lucy was. Tears were falling down her cheeks as she explained the situation and urged him to go on without them. Brigham replied that he would do no such thing - he would not leave any of his people alone. Instead, he made camp for the night, sawed off the tops and bottoms of the legs of the poster bed so there was nothing left but the frame around the mattress and the springs, which were laced across pioneer style. He fastened this to the wagon bows so it would swing easily, like a hammock. He then renewed his blessing to Lucy, promising her she would live many years. He rode by her side for several days to make sure that she had no further trouble. "With this gentle kind manner," wrote Lucy's grandson, "he won the love of Lucy and her posterity forever."5

One of Brigham's teamsters, Oliver Huntington, who had just returned from a mission to England, wrote that on the way up the Platte River, through the Black Hills and other desolate portions of the trail, they occasionally made camp early in order to take advantage of good camping grounds.

On such occasions [Brigham] would walk around the great corral formed by the 270 wagons formed in a circle, and when he came to a teamster or others that offered him an inviting occasion to sit down and "chat," down he went on the wagon tongue, ox yoke, or any thing else convenient, not refusing even the earth, where there were a few bunches of grass.

On some of these occasions I enjoyed personally his visit, and there on that old flat wagon tongue with the end resting on an ox- yoke, we sat and talked of the many places we were both acquainted with in Preston, Clithero and other shires and towns in England. Then turning conversation to the West, he related incidents in pioneering his way to the great valley of Salt Lake, the year previous, 1847. Those conversations to me were fairly enchanting. I listened with that attention that never allows the mind to forget.6…..

It was also Huntington who later commented on the general condition of the camp - and to record an incident that caused Brigham to chuckle: "As yet the camp and - in fine, all the camps had got along well, and with few accidents. Three had been run over in our camp and one wagon turned over which was brother Gates'. He blamed his women severely for it, and what mortified him worse than all, it disclosed a bottle of wine; before unknown. The wagon turned square bottom side up, no one in it. That night he quarreled with his wife and whipped her. The guard about 11 o'clock saw it and when the hour came to cry, he loudly cried 11 o'clock, all is well and Gates is quarreling with his wife like hell."7 ……

Despite the often tortuous physical aspects of the journey, not to mention the weight of his leadership responsibilities, Brigham refused to let himself be burdened unduly. In order that his body could keep pace with his mind, as he expressed it, Brigham joined with his fellow migrants in occasional dancing, songfests and comical readings. One young woman, traveling in a different company from Brigham's, recalled an exasperating visit to Independence Rock: "We heard so much of independence Rock long before we got there. They said we should have a dance on top of it, as we had many a dance while on the plains. We thought it would be so nice, but when we got there, the company was so small it was given up ... We had not a note of music or a musician. I was told afterwards by some of the girls that we had traveled with that they had a party there, but President Young had all the music with him."8 …..

The general attitude of the camp was expressed by one of the travelers, who wrote: "We are as comfortable and happy as most of the stationary communities. For if we have not all that our wants may call for, we have the art of lessening our wants, which does as well."9

About 2 p.m. on July 23, Louisa Beaman Young was delivered of male twins, "which very much delighted Pres. B.Y., the Father of the children."10 Both mother and twins were apparently in good health and arrived safely in the valley less than two months later.

By September 3, the company was traveling in view of the snow- covered Wind River mountain chain. During the day, an incident occurred that served to demonstrate Brigham's blend of compassion and discipline. The camp met two families who had left the valley and were returning to Missouri to live. President Young, according to Bullock, "gave them a very severe lecture on their going to serve the Devil among our enemies. On finishing, he told them to go in peace, but never to return to the Valley, until they knew they were Saints indeed, and their names would be blotted out of remembrance." Then, added Bullock, "he gave them 25 lb. Meal to feed them."

Between September 17 and 19, a "gathering" apparently took place among the Saints preparatory to their entry into the Salt Lake Valley. Throughout the journey various companies had been in the lead position, with others strung out behind them over many miles. In fact, Brigham's company was rarely in the forefront, for the president and his companions were often to be found assisting companies who had suffered illness, injury or mechanical breakdowns. But now, nearing the end of their long march, those ahead of Brigham's group stopped and waited. "This halt," wrote John Pulsipher in his journal, "was in. honor of President Young, the leader of Israel. The companies that have traveled ahead of him, except a few stragglers, stopped and waited until he passed into the valley in his place, at the head of the joyful multitude."11 When Brigham passed, all fell into line behind him.

Having taken the lead, Brigham and his immediate company entered the Salt Lake Valley on September 20. John Taylor, senior apostle in the Salt Lake Valley, started out on horseback to meet the president, astride "a Spanish pony." As they were riding across the fort where most of the people were living, his horse reared, Taylor was injured, and he could not proceed. Upon his arrival Brigham called to see him. According to Mary Isabella Horne, who was present, Brigham remarked that Taylor's horse was like many people, "only the people had the stiffness in their necks and the horses had it in their legs."12

The last wagons rolled into the main fort four days later. That afternoon Brigham addressed a large congregation of Saints at the Bowery (an open-air meeting place covered with limbs and leaves), erected for public meetings on Temple Square. He commended the people for their "industry" and expressed his "joy in being able to come here in safety. That this is the place he had seen before he came here & it was the place for the Saints to gather. 13

At the end of a 1,031-mile journey, Thomas Bullock recorded "86 travelling days at an average of 12 miles per day; 36 days lay still. Total 122 days from Winter Quarters to Great Salt Lake City."14

Brigham had made his long trek to Zion for the last time. He was in his new home, where he would spend the next 29 years. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.157-66)

Oliver Huntington (diary) Gates’ quarreled with his wife whipped her guard saw it at called all is well Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 extended excerpt with breaks cited at Heritage Gateways

Oliver Huntington (diary)

The Colonizer President

My soul feels hallelujah, it exults in God, that He has planted this people in a place that is ... I want hard times, so that even' person that does not wish to stay, for the sake of his religion, will leave.

Bullock's receipt was each man's title to his land. Unmarried men were not given a land allotment, but polygamists were entitled to receive one for each family. Widows and divorced women who were heads of families also participated in (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.167-8)

To a group petitioning to return to Rockport from Wanship, Utah, he wrote: I do not wish to give you any counsel upon this subject, nor to assume any responsibility connected with it. You can do as you please. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.178)

Although willing to open books for legitimate inquiries, Brigham did not welcome criticism of his use of church funds. On one occasion, he heard complaints about his project in the 1850s to build a wall around the city, as well as the Temple Block and his own estate. His reply was more testy than usual:

Some have wished me to explain why we build an adobe wall around this city. Are there any Saints who stumble at such things? (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.182-3)

God, by his spirit, has revealed many things to His people, but, in almost all cases, He has straightway shut up the vision of the mind. He will let his servants gaze upon eternal things for a moment, but straightaway the vision is closed, and they are left as they were, that they may learn to act by faith, or as the Apostle has it, not walking by sight, but by faith. Journal of discourses v.1 p.264

With that God whom we serve, who holds all things in His hands, that we know anything of; He is the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who at one survey looks upon all the workmanship of His hands; who has the words of eternal life, and holds the hearts of children of men in His hand, and turns them whithersoever He will, even as the rivers of waters are turned; who commands the earth to perform its revolutions or stand still, at His pleasure; who has given the sun, the planets, the earths, and far distant systems their orbits, their times, and their seasons; whose commands they all obey. With Him abide the true riches.

I will now notice the character who exhibited the power of true riches on the earth, though he himself was in a state of abject poverty, to all human appearances, for he was made poor that we might be made rich and he descended below all things that he might ascend above all things. When the only begotten Son of God was upon the earth, he understood the nature of these elements, how they were brought together to make this world and all things that are thereon, for he helped to make them. He had the power of organizing, what we would call, in a miraculous manner. That which to him is no miracle, is called miraculous by the inhabitants of the earth. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.204)

(Brigham Young “Journal of Discourses” v.1 p.270)

In reality there is no such thing as a mystery but to the ignorant. We may also say, there is no such thing in reality, as a miracle, except to those who do not understand the “Alpha and the Omega” of every phenomenon that is made manifest. To a person who thoroughly understands the reasons of all things, and can trace from their effects to their true causes, mystery does not exist. Yet the physical and mental existence of man is a great mystery to him. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.204)

(Brigham Young “Journal of Discourses” v.2 p.91)

Our religion embraces chemistry; it embraces all the knowledge of the geologist, and then it goes a little further than their systems of argument, for the Lord Almighty, its author, is the greatest chemist there is. (Brigham Young “Journal of Discourses” v.15 p.127)

Mormonism embraces all truth that is revealed and that is unrevealed, whether religious, political, scientific, or philosophical. Brigham Young Journal of Discourses (Brigham Young “Journal of Discourses” v.1 p.270)

In one colorful but hyperbolic statement made in 1849 he went so far as to declare: "God Almighty will give the United States a pill that will puke them to death, and that is worse than lobelia. I am prophet enough to prophesy the downfall of the government that has driven us out……Wo to the United States! ….I see them greedy after death and destruction.” (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.224)

What kind of governor was Brigham in these first months of his territorial governorship? To the federal officers, he was a law unto himself in consequence of his power as church president and the almost complete allegiance of his followers. “In a word,” they said, “he ruled as he pleased, without rival or opposition, for no man dared question his authority.” (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.229)

Brigham showed an easy flexibility in handling political matters. A good example is his impulsive decision in the middle of a church meeting in 1853 to deal with the political business of reelecting John Bernhisel as delegate to Congress.

It came into my mind when brother Bernhisel was speaking, and the same thing strikes me now, that is, inasmuch as he has done first-rate, as our delegate in Washington, to move that we send him again next season, though it is the Sabbath Day. I understand these things, and say as other people say, “We are Mormons.” We do things that are necessary to be done; when the time comes for us to do them. If we wish to make political speeches, and it is necessary, for the best interest of the cause and kingdom of God, to make them on the Sabbath, we do it. Now, suffer not your prejudices to hurt you, do not suffer this to try you, nor be tempted in consequence of it, nor think we are wandering out of the way, for it is all embraced in our religion, from first to last.

Brother Kimball has seconded the motion, that Doctor Bernhisel be sent back to Washington, as our delegate. All who are in favor of it, raise your right hands. [More than two thousand hands were at once seen above the heads of the congregation.]

This has turned into a caucus meeting. It is all right. I would call for an opposite vote if I thought any person would vote. I will try it, however. [Not a single hand was raised in opposition.] (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.231)

Utah Territory’s accomplishments in education were less than impressive, despite a number of legislative acts designed to promote learning. In his last annual message Brigham tried to put a bold face on…. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.240)

In fact, it rankled him that the government was willing to make greater appropriations for carrying out war than for preventing it in the first place.

One fourth part of the money annually expended in fighting the Indians, maintenance, and transportation of troops (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.242)

“I am and will be Governor, and no power can hinder it, until the Lord Almighty says, ‘Brigham, you need not be Governor any longer;’ (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.245)

The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to shun it….. The lord understands the evil and the good, why should we not likewise understand them? We should. Why? (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.289)

The Civil War proved to have far greater influence on Utah and the Mormons than Brigham ever anticipated. In 1862 Lincoln told T. B. H. Stenhouse, a Mormon journalist, that he intended to leave the Mormons alone:

Stenhouse, when I was a boy on the farm in Illinois there was a great deal of timber on the farm which we had to clear away. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.295)

Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” cited in Mormon America p.55

Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” cited in Mormon Experience p.170

It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and to ask my Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, to sanctify that application to the healing of my body;… (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.311)

You may go to some people here, and ask what ails them, and they answer, “I don't know, but we feel a dreadful distress in the stomach and in the back; we feel all out of order, and we wish you to lay hands upon us.” “Have you used any remedies?” “No. We wish the Elders to lay hands upon us, and we have faith that we shall be healed.” That is very inconsistent according to my faith. If we are sick, and ask the Lord to heal us, and to do all for us that is necessary to be done, according to my understanding of the Gospel of salvation, I might as well ask the Lord to cause my wheat and corn to grow, without my plowing the ground and casting in the seed. It appears consistent to me to apply every remedy that comes within the range of my knowledge, and to ask my Father in heaven, in the name of Jesus Christ, to sanctify that application to the healing of my body; to another this may appear inconsistent.

If a person afflicted with a cancer should come to me and ask me to heal him, I would rather go the graveyard and try to raise a dead person, comparatively speaking. But supposing we were traveling in the mountains and all we had or could get, in the shape of nourishment, was a little venison, and one or two were taken sick, without anything in the world in the shape of healing medicine within our reach, what should we do? According to my faith, ask the Lord Almighty to send an angel to heal the sick. This is our privilege, when so situated that we cannot get anything to help ourselves. Then the Lord and his servants can do all. But it is my duty to do, when I have it in my power. Many people are unwilling to do one thing for themselves, in case of sickness, but ask God to do it all. Journal of Discourses 4:24

From what I learn, and observe myself, you do not conduct yourself nor keep your house as becomes a saint,….unless you prefer to incur severer treatment than a brotherly hint. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.313)

It is not by the whip or the rod that we can make obedient children (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.332)

Solomon said, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son,” but instead of using the rod, I will teach my children by example and by precept. I will teach them every opportunity I have to cherish faith, to exercise patience, to be full of long-suffering and kindness. It is not by the whip or the rod that we can make obedient children; but it is by faith and by prayer, and by setting a good example before them. This is my belief. I expect to obtain the same as Abraham obtained by faith and prayer, also the same as Isaac and Jacob obtained; but there are few who live for the blessings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob after they are sealed upon them. No blessing that is sealed upon us will do us any good, unless we live for it. Whereas, if we are faithful, there is nothing which is calculated to please the eye, to gladden the heart, to cheer and comfort the body and spirit of man, everything in the heavens, with the fullness of the earth, its pleasures and enjoyments, with perfect health, without pain, with appetites made pure, all this, and more that has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive, the Lord has in store for His children. This earth, when it shall be made pure and holy, and sanctified and glorified and brought back into the presence of the Father and the Son, from whence it came at the time of the fall, will become celestial, and be the glorified habitation of the faithful of this portion of the great family of our Heavenly Father. Journal of Discourses 11:117

In some families the children are afraid to see father—they will run and hide as from a tyrant. My children are not afraid of my footfall; except in the case of their having done something wrong they are not afraid to approach me. I could break the wills of my little children, and whip them to this, that, and the other, but this I do not do. Let the child have a mild training until it has judgment and sense to guide it. I differ with Solomon's recorded saying as to spoiling the child by sparing the rod. True it is written in the New Testament that “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.” It is necessary to try the faith of children as well as of grown people, but there are ways of doing so besides taking a club and knocking them down with it. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” There is nothing consistent in abusing your wives and children. There is quite a portion of the Elders of Israel who do not know how to use one wife well. I love my wives, respect them, and honor them, but to make a queen of one and peasants of the rest I have no such disposition, neither do I expect to do it. Journal of Discourses 9:196

Brother Erastus Snow asked a question—“If my neighbor shall do wrong to me, am I thereby compelled to do wrong to my next neighbor?” I say, no. If a brother shall tread down my grain, that is ripening in the field, am I thereby compelled to run through and tread down yours? No. When a person steals my poles from the fence, am I compelled to steal yours? If my neighbor, or my brother in the Church, shall swear, and take the name of God in vain, does it necessarily follow that I must use the same language? If my brother shall do wrong in any way, it does not follow that I shall be justified in committing one single evil in all the acts of my life. Let each Latter-day Saint examine himself, and inquire, …. Journal of Discourses 1:311

“Gentile,” or “gentilism,” applies only to those who reject the gospel, and will not submit to and receive the plan of salvation. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.345)

Journal of Discourses 12:270

He “thought the classics had been used by the learned to keep the unlearned in subjection and ignorance. 42 Among other things, Brigham sent Dr. Park on a mission to the eastern states and Europe with the stated purpose of investigating various educational institutions and systems…. (free or cheap education?) (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.354-5)

Godbe and Harrison….were visited they asserted by “a band of spirits”…they received “a constant stream of communication by means of audible voices from a number of most distinguished historical personages.” (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.355-62)

When Brigham Young and his associates agreed to the passage of a legislative act giving woman the right to vote, making them the first females in the nation to vote in municipal and territorial elections, it was more an afterthought than the result of careful deliberation. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.363)

In the second place, the Saints should rely on home care and faith healing. “When you are sick,” he said, “call for the Elders, who will pray for you anointing with oil and the laying of hands; and nurse each other with herbs, and mild food, and if you do these things, in faith, and quit taking … poisonous medicines, which God never ordained for the use of men, you shall be blessed.” Childbirth, he thought, should be taken care of by midwives.

Often, however, women did not have the skills to perform the medical tasks brought to them. Martha Coray wrote Brigham that her daughter had died, apparently in childbirth, and she wrote pleading that “a class of students, women suited in mind and temper to the calling, be established in every settlement” to learn better medical practice. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.366-8)

(Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.367)

I want to say a word or two here with regard to our schools. There are many of our people who believe that the whole Territory ought to be taxed for our schools. When we have means, that come in the proper way, we can make a fund to help the poor to school their children, and I would say amen to it. But where are our poor? Where is the man or the woman in this community who has children and wishes to send them to school, that cannot do it? There is not one. When the poor complain and say, “My children ought to be schooled and clothed and fed,” I say, no sir, not so, you ought to yield your time and talents to the kind providences of our Father in the heavens according to the dictation of his servants, and he will tell each and every one of you what to do to earn your bread, meat, clothing, schooling, and how to be self-sustaining in the fullest sense of the word. To give to the idler is as wicked as anything else. Never give anything to the idler. “The idler in Zion shall not eat the bread of the laborer.” Well, they do eat it; but it is a commandment and a revelation as much as any other, that the idler shall not eat the bread of the laborer in Zion. No, let every one spend every hour, day, week and month in some useful and profitable employment, and then all will have their meat and clothing, and means to pay teachers, and pay them well. Not that they should receive more pay than others. If men have learning, and they have the faculty of imparting it to others, and can teach children to read and write, and grammar and arithmetic, and all the ordinary branches of a common school education, what better are they than the man that plows, hoes, shoves the plane, handles the trowel and the axe, and hews the stone? Are they any better? I do not know that they are. (prior quotes available only in JD) What better is the man that can dress himself nicely and labor in a schoolhouse six hours a day, than the man who works ten or twelve hours a day hewing rock? Is he any better? No, he is not. Are you going to pay him for his good looks? That is what some of our Bishops want to do. If they can get a man, no matter what his moral qualities may be, whose shirt front is well starched and ironed, they will say—“Bless me, you are a delightful little man! What a smooth shirt you have got, and you have a ring on your finger—you are going to teach our school for us.” And along comes a stalwart man, axe in hand, going to chop wood, and, if he asks, “Do you want a school teacher?” Though he may know five times more than the dandy, he is told, “No, no, we have one engaged.” I want to cuff you Bishops back and forth until you get your brains turned right side up. Journal of Discourses 16:18-9

ONE event that marred Brigham's satisfaction was the trial in Beaver, that same year,….. long-trusted friend, John D. Lee for his part in the Mountain Meadows Massacre (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.385)

Brigham's thoughts even turned to the necessity for a usable church history. He wrote to his counselors in Salt Lake:

As soon as we can we must have someone of our brethren take hold of the matter of getting out a history of the Church in a condensed form…..

... about threats said to have been made against Brigham’s life by Lee’s son….

waited for Brigham Young’s carriage, shook his fist at the prophet, and shouted in a strident voice: “Oh, you cheat! Oh, Church fraud! You coward to forsake your tools! You are th man that they should have hung instead of Lee!” (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.392-3)

His last address to a public church meeting was on August 19 at Brigham City, where he ... LESS than a week before his death and on the very eve of his final illness, at the bishops' meeting of August 23 he discussed the duties…. responsibility "to look after every member in their wards, and not retain in fellowship those who utterly refuse to attend to their prayers, tithing……

Brigham warned his people to remain apart from the nonmembers in their midst….. Brigham said, “The disposition to mix with our enemies, to hail-fellow-well-met with the wicked, is not of the Lord.” There are tens of thousands of the blood of Israel who will not embrace the Gospel, neither will they seek to destroy the people, but speak a good word for them, and do good to them whenever they have opportunity. He wished to impress this upon the minds of the elders. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.395-6)

(Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.397)

Were you to ask me how it was that I embraced “Mormonism,” I should answer, for the simple reason that it embraces all truth in heaven and on earth, in the earth, under the earth, and in hell, if there be any truth there. There is no truth outside of it; there is no good outside of it; there is no virtue outside of it; there is nothing holy and honorable outside of it; for, wherever these principles are found among all the creations of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his order and Priesthood, embrace them.

Not only does the religion of Jesus Christ make the people acquainted with the things of God, and develop within them moral excellence and purity, but it holds out every encouragement and inducement possible, for them to increase in knowledge and intelligence, in every branch of mechanism, or in the arts and sciences, for all wisdom, and all the arts and sciences in the world are from God, and are designed for the good of His people. (Leonard Arrington “Brigham Young: American Moses” 1985 p.405)

Journal of Discourses 11: 213

Journal of Discourses 13:147

The transformation of an Jacque Vallee “Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact” scribd

The Physics of High Strangeness Jacques Vallee Eric Davis - Scribd

Jacques Vallee Revelations - Scribd

Jacques Vallee - Messengers of Deception - Scribd

Jacques Vallee. UFOs and Abductions - Scribd

Jacques Vallee selected papers

Joaquim Fernandes, Fina D'Armada Heavenly Lights: The Apparitions of Fatima and the UFO Phenomenon forward at ATS

"The future of religion: secularization, revival, and cult formation" By Rodney Stark, William Sims keyword: UFOs

"Aliens adored: Raël's UFO religion" By Susan J. Palmer keyword Rodney Stark

Aliens Adored - Susan J. Palmer - Scribd

Cults by James R Lewis - Scribd

When Reagan succeeded in ousting Jimmy Carter from office, neoconservatives were quick to claim a share of the credit. A quarter of a century later, the Reagan era remains for neoconservatives a golden moment, at least according to the mythic version of Reagan’s foreign policy.

In fact, however, that is not the way that neoconservatives saw it at the time. For Podhoretz and Commentary, the Reagan era proved to be a massive disappointment, a continuation of the timorous Carter years. As a consequence, the crisis of the preceding decade continued unabated. (Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” 2005 p.49)

In a nutshell, they concluded that nothing works like force…..

The operative principle was not to husband power but to put it work-to take a proactive approach. "Military strength alone will not avail," cautioned Kagan, "if we do not use it actively to maintain a world order which both supports and rests upon American hegemony. "61 For neoconservatives like Kagan, the purpose of the Defense Department was no longer to defend the United States or to deter would-be aggressors but to transform the international order by transforming its constituent parts. Norman Podhoretz had opposed U.S. intervention in Vietnam "as a piece of arrogant stupidity" and had criticized in particular the liberal architects of the war for being "only too willing to tell other countries exactly how to organize their political and economic institutions. "61 For the younger generation of neoconservatives, instructing others as to how to organize their countries-employing coercion if need be-was not evidence of arrogant stupidity; it was America's job.

By implication, neoconservatives were no longer inclined to employ force only after having exhausted all other alternatives. In the 1970s and 1980s, the proximate threat posed by the Soviet Union had obliged the United States to exercise a certain self-restraint. Now, with the absence of any counterweight to American power, the need for self-restraint fell away. Indeed, far from being a scourge for humankind, war itself-even, or perhaps especially, preventive war-became in neoconservative eyes an efficacious means to serve idealistic ends. The problem with Bill Clinton in the 1990S was not that he was reluctant to use force but that he was insufficiently bloody-minded. "In Haiti, in Somalia, and elsewhere" where the United States intervened, lamented Robert Kagan, "Clinton and his advisers had the stomach only to be halfway imperialists. When the heat was on, they tended to look for the exits."" Such halfheartedness suggested a defective appreciation of what power could accomplish. Neoconservatives knew better. "Military conquest," enthused Muravchik, "has often proved to be an effective means of implanting democracy." Michael Ledeen went even further, declaring that "the best democracy program ever invented is the U.S. Army. "66 "Peace in this world," Ledeen added, "only follows victory in war." (Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” 2005 p.84-5)

Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” also cited in the third world traveler

How to achieve this aim? For his part, Carter vowed to put an immediate cap on oil imports. He promised massive new investments to develop alternative sources of energy. He called upon the Congress to pass legislation limiting the use of oil by the nation's utilities and increasing spending on public transportation. But he placed the larger burden squarely in the lap of the American people. The hollowing out of American democracy required a genuinely democratic response. "There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice," he insisted, calling upon citizens as "an act of patriotism" to lower thermostats, observe the speed limit, use carpools, and "park your car one extra day per week."

Carter plainly viewed the imperative of restoring energy independence as an analogue for war. But despite his allusions to metaphorical battles and battle standards, nowhere in his speech did he identify a role for the U.S. military.' For Carter, the "crisis" facing the nation could not have a military solution. That crisis was at root internal rather than external. Resolving it required spiritual and cultural renewal at home rather than deploying U.S. power to create a world order accommodating the nation's dependence upon and growing preoccupation with material resources from abroad. (Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” 2005 p.101-2)

(Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” also cited in the Third World Traveler

In 1980, Ronald Reagan, although twice married, an indifferent parent, I and an irregular churchgoer, presented himself to evangelicals as one who understood their message and embraced their cause. In private conversation with Falwell, Reagan let it be known that he too believed that "we are approaching Armageddon... maybe not in my lifetime or yours, but in the near future. Campaigning against the incumbent Carter in August 1980, Reagan told the Religious Roundtable's National Affairs Briefing, "I know that you can't endorse me. But... I want you to know that I endorse you." The stratagem worked, to great effect. While Norman Podhoretz and his doughty band of literary intellectuals fancied that they had elected Reagan president in 1980, Jerry Falwell and his far larger evangelical following could make a much stronger claim for actually doing so.

What did Christians get in return for that support? In many respects, as was the case with Reagan’s neoconservative followers, the answer is not much. When it came to rhetoric, evangelicals could always count on Reagan to say the right thing and to say it with evident sincerity. When it came to translating words into action, however, they soon discovered that they could count on very little. (Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” 2005 p.136)

It was an Iraqi missile attack on the USS stark on May 17, 1987, that brought things to a head. Iraq claimed that the incident, which killed thirty-seven sailors, had been an accident and offered compensation. However, the Reagan administration used the Stark episode to blame Iran for the escalating violence. (Andrew Bacevich “The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by war” 2005 p.187-8)

When it came to choosing subordinates, Dulles prized zeal rather than balance. Those he placed in top jobs possessed impressive talents and flawed personalities: Frank Wisner, his deputy director for covert operations and then station chief in London, succumbed to madness and committed suicide; James Jesus Angleton, the alcoholic chief of CIA counterintelligence, famously descended into paranoia; William K. Harvey, station chief in Berlin, toted pearl-handled pistols, consumed a daily pitcher of martinis with lunch, bragged incessantly of his sexual expoits; and Tracy Barnes, a compulsive adventurer, combined extra-ordinary bravery with a complete absence of common sense. Dulles himself was an inveterate womanizer and indifferent father.

Whatever their personal flaws, Dulles’s men shared their chief’s profound sense of duty. Without hesitation or question, they would literally do anything the Agency asked of them. By their own lights they were honorable men, unswervingly committed to a righteous anticommunist crusade. William Colby, one of Dulles’s eventual successors, likened the ethos of the early CIA to “an order of Knights Templar,” out “to save Western freedom from Communist darkness.” (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.39)

No more dangerous threat existed, however, than the possibility that outsiders-not Russians, but Americans- might gain access to the secret world over which the CIA exercised something like a near monopoly. Perpetuating the Agency’s (and the director’s) hold on power demanded the preservation of that monopoly. The prying eyes that caused Dulles most concern belonged not to the president, Congress, or the press-all of whom, if for different reasons, tended to defer to the CIA-but to the American people.

Dulles was determined to refute the proposition that allowing powerful agencies to operate without effective oversight might be at odds with democratic practice. “It is not our intelligence organization which threatens our liberties,” he wrote. “The danger is rather that we will not be adequetly informed of the perils which face us.” Therefore, “the last thing we can afford to do today is to put our intelligence in chains.” Keeping the CIA unchained implied allowing the Agency to decide how much information to dole out and what information to conceal. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.42-3)

…. worst should occur— to obliterate a city at one blow.”

For this mission everything human and therefore fallible must be dispensed with, must be trained out of them. Systematically the Strategic Air Command seeks to perfect its men, in the hope of honing out human error, doubt, and frailty.

This fact did not deter LeMay. He is a thoroughgoing professional soldier. To him warfare reduces itself to a simple alternative: kill or be killed. He would not hesitate for a moment - indeed he would not consider any moral problems to be involved at all - in unleashing the terrible power that now lies in his hands....LeMay is a tough man: the kind of man the Russians respect.

In May 1956, appearing before a Senate subcommittee, Lemay testified that the Soviet aircraft production was outpacing that of the United States……….The only problem with this flap: Both qualitatively and quantitatively, Soviet air capabilities lagged well behind those of the United States-which Lemay almost certainly knew. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.49-50)

(Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 excerpts from a new Anti-Federalist

(Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.)

(Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.)

(Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.)

Lemay refused to tolerate freethinking, sloppiness, or lapses in judgment. Dulles valued daring. Lemay demanded conformity-strict adherence to procedures that SAC spelled out in great detail.

….To ensure the survival of freedom, democracy, and liberal values, the Central Intelligence Agency engaged in activities that in our own day would satisfy the definition of state-sponsored terrorism, with Allen Dulles giving every indication that even the dirtiest tricks were acceptable as long as they were perpetrated by the honorable men of the CIA. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.54-5)

Ted Shackley, a longtime Dulles protégé, made the point explicitly, describing clandestine warfare as “the stitch in time that eliminates bloodier and more costly alternatives.” (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.56-7)

In the action-oriented era, the tempo of CIA activity actually quickened. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.82)

Fulbright’s purpose in writing the book was to expose as defective Washington’s existing approach to exercising global leadership and to offer an alternative. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.111)

When he looked at the present, he saw more lies, all of them intended to produce citizens “about as thoughtful as the inhabitants of a second-hand wax museum.” (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.116-7)

“We’re in a generational war.” He himself expected that conflict to last another fifty or a hundred years. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.183)

Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 Dan Carlin review

Back in 1965 McNamara had believed that Vietnam’s “greatest contribution” was that it was teaching the United States “to go to war without arousing the public ire.” (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.209)

Dwight D. Eisenhower for one would have been appalled. Early in his first term as president, Ike contemplated the awful predicament wrought by the Cold War during its first decade. “What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for,” he asked, “if no turning is found on this dread road?” The president proceeded to answer his own question. The worst to be feared would be a ruinous nuclear war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

The president illustrated his point with specifics:

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. (Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.225-6) link to speech at Social Justice Speeches

(Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 p.) review at Daily KO

Andrew Bacevich “Washington Rules” 2010 review from the peoples voice.org

The story of McWorld’s rise is the story of the advertising industry’s explosive growth in the same period. Global advertising expenditures have climbed a third faster than the world economy and three times faster than world population, rising sevenfold from 1950 to 1990 from a modest $39 billion to $256 billion.6 Per capita global spending has gone from $15 per person in 1950 to nearly $50 per person today. While the United States leads the pack at nearly $500 per person, countries like South Korea (whose advertising industry had an annual rate of growth of 35 to 40 percent in the late eighties) and India (where billings increased fivefold during the eighties) are racing to catch up.7 Advertising both reflects and reinforces the importance of brand over product in the global market. Brand names like Marlboro, Bud beer, Barbie doll, and Nescafé often carry their parent companies (Philip Morris, Anheuser-Busch, Mattel, and Nestlé), and both corporate names and product lines have brand values worth billions of dollars. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.62)

Computer technology has equally momentous (equally invisible) social entailments. A computer not only conveys information to users but draws them into new forms of interaction that more or less leave their bodies behind, abandoned in front of screens that are the entry to new and peculiar kinds of virtual community that (unlike, say, books) reconstructs their bodies as cyberspace members and thus suggests some kind of virtual politics. Just what kind of politics remains altogether problematic—albeit we can be sure there will be a politics of one kind or another. Even the form that information takes—video-textual, digital, programmed, timeshifted, technology-dependent—will inevitably impact culture and politics and the attitudes that constitute them. It has been speculated that video-game players acquire hand-eye skills critical to certain professions—fighter pilots, for example, or laboratory technicians handling dangerous materials by remote control; it has also been speculated that players may develop diminished capacities in other domains such as imagination or human sympathy. There have been no decisive empirical studies of such linkages, but it certainly seems likely that linkages exist and will have important political implications. Those interested in democracy, culture, and civic life cannot afford to leave the discovery of their character to chance. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.74)

McWorld’s culture speaks English 􀀮rst but it possesses an even more elementary Esperanto to which it can turn when English fails. Is there a locale so remote in today’s world that a traveler will fail to be understood if he resorts to the brand name—trademark lexicon? “Marlboro? Adidas … Madonna … Coca-Cola … Big Mac … CNN … BBC … MTV … IBM!” he will say, and Babel recedes. Not too long ago, asked about what had turned him into a random killer, a sniper overlooking Sarajevo replied: “I am protecting you against Islamic fundamentalism, someone has to do the dirty work. And by the way, how is Michael Jordan doing?” McWorld’s integrating Esperanto trumps the divisive hatred of Jihad’s killing fields.

The soft hegemony of American pop culture is not just anecdotal. It is everywhere visible in hard data about four key elements of that culture: 􀀮lm, television, books, and theme parks. But it is not limited to such elements, for they are but pieces of a mesmerizing global mediology that su􀀷uses consciousness everywhere. This mediology uses advertorials and infomercials, faction as well as 􀀮ction, myth-making and myth-making’s modern cousin imagemongering, to make over life into consumption, consumption into meaning, meaning into fantasy, fantasy into reality, reality into virtual reality, and, completing the circle, virtual reality back into actual life again so that the distinction between reality and virtual reality vanishes. Indeed, distinctions of every kind are fudged: ABC places its news and sports departments under a single corporate division; television newsmagazines blend into entertainment programs, creating new teletabloids that (in the new parlance) are reality-challenged; 􀀮lms parade corporate logos (for a price), presidents play themselves in 􀀮lms (President Ford in a television special), while dethroned governors (Cuomo and Richards) do Super Bowl commercials for snack food in which they joke about their electoral defeat, Hollywood stars run for o􀀸ce (Sonny Bono, no Ronald Reagan, was elected to Congress in 1994), and television pundits become practicing politicians (David Gergen and Pat Buchanan have crossed and recrossed the street to only mild chastisement from peers). Politicians can do no right, celebrities can do no wrong—homocide included. Nothing is quite what it seems.

Recognizing the power inherent in these forces, corporations from the parallel worlds of publishing, of telecommunication hardware, transmission and software, and of entertainment are 􀀮ghting for the right to swallow one another up, converging, merging, and buying each other out as fast as financing can be found and stockholders bribed. The courts step in not to preserve a public good nor to impede a developing monopoly but only to assure that stockholder profitability will be the only criterion of a deal (as happened when the Delaware high court insisted Paramount reject a lower “friendly” bid from Viacom and entertain a higher unfriendly bid from QVC). Under the banner of synergy, which is how Mickey Mouse strong-arms the competition, they are doing and spending whatever it takes to secure monopolistic control over what they now see as a single, integrated high-tech mediological package that can dominate the global economy and all of its once diversi􀀮ed markets. While the megacorporations 􀀮ght, governments (including the government of the United States) sit it out making small clucking noises about free markets, as if no public interests were involved or as if the radically skewed markets of McWorld would resolve matters judiciously all on their own. They cannot and they will not. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.84-5)

A few countries still try to maintain some control, if not monopoly control, over the traditional broadcast media, but with diminishing success against the diversifying technologies that undergird new media. As communication shifts from broadcast spectra and cable to computer faxes, telephone lines, and satellites the very idea of governmental regulation—let alone “totalitarian” control—loses its credibility. Congress is currently threatening to privatize or abolish public broadcasting. In theory, this might seem to be a good thing: in dismantling state monopolies, the market puts an end to monopoly altogether. In practice it merely eliminates public monopolies and with them accountability and civic responsibility and leaves the 􀀴eld to new, relatively invisible, private monopolies that, unlike government, are not even accountable in theory, let alone in practice. These monopolies are today becoming ever more visible as companies from the once distinct realms of program creation (software), program distribution (networks and broadcast companies), delivery systems (cable, telephone, satellite), and hardware (the people who make the television receivers and computers) gobble one another up. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, but it owns a global array of media-interlinked companies and services including, in the United States: Fox Television; Fox Video; New York magazine; TV Guide; HarperCollins Publishers; Delphi Internet Services; Scott Foresman educational publishers; News and Electronic Data information services; Kesmai video game development corporation; Etak, Inc., the Digital map data company; Mirabella, the fashion magazine; and literally dozens of newspapers and independent television stations; and elsewhere, The Times of London along with the tabloid The Sun; Ansett Transport, an air cargo carrier; B Sky B, the English satellite broadcaster; Star TV, which is the Asian satellite network described above; Geographia Ltd., the cartography company; and Fox Video companies in Spain, Japan, France, Germany, New Zealand, and Australia. Murdoch’s News Corporation is a one-company, one-man infotainment telesector unto itself. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.114-)

Choosers are made, not born. For free markets to o􀁇er real choice, consumers must be educated choosers and programming must pro􀁇er real variety rather than just shopping alternatives. Much of McWorld’s strategy for creating global markets depends on a systematic rejection of any genuine consumer autonomy or any costly program variety—deftly coupled, however, with the appearance of in􀀴nite variety. Selling depends on 􀀴xed tastes (tastes 􀀴xed by sellers) and focused desires (desires focused by merchandisers). Cola companies, we have seen, can no more a􀁇ord to encourage the drinking of tea in Indonesia than Fox Television can encourage people to spend evenings at the library reading books they borrow rather than buy; and Paramount, even though it owns Simon & Schuster, cannot really a􀁇ord to have people read books at all unless they are reading novelizations of Paramount movies. By the same logic, for all its plastic cathedrals, Disneyland cannot a􀁇ord to encourage teenagers to spend weekends in a synagogue or church or mosque praying for the strength to lead a less materialistic, theme-park-avoiding, 􀀴lm-free life. Variety means at best someone else’s product or someone else’s pro􀀴t, but cannot be permitted to become no product at all and thus no pro􀀴t for anyone.

When Channel One brings television advertising into the classroom, teachers can be sure it is not in order to provide an audiovisual tool for teaching critical thinking.35 Without a concerted pedagogical e􀁇ort, television is unlikely to enhance learning: it is better at annihilating than at nurturing the critical faculties. Private consumption cannot help youngsters develop an empowering sense of the need for public goods—something that might throw the very premises of McWorld into doubt. Television enmeshed in commerce cannot but view schoolchildren as prospective consumers rather than prospective critics and citizens.36

Education is unlikely ever to win an “open market” competition with entertainment because “easy” and “hard” can never compete on equal ground, and for those not yet disciplined in the rites of learning, “freedom” will always mean easy. Perhaps that is why Tocqueville thought that liberty was the most “arduous of all apprenticeships.” To grow into our mature better selves, we need the help of our nascent better selves, which is what common standards, authoritative education, and a sense of the public good can o􀁇er. Consumption takes us as it 􀀴nds us, the more impulsive and greedy, the better. Education challenges our impulses and informs our greediness with lessons drawn from our mutuality and the higher goods we share in our communities of hope. Government, federal and local, with responsibility for public education once took it upon itself (back when “itself” was “us”) to even up the market and lend a hand to our better selves. Now via vouchers the market threatens to get even with public education. This sorry state of a􀁇airs is not the work of villains or boors. It arises all too naturally out of the culture of McWorld in a transnational era where governments no longer act to conceive or defend the common good. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.116-7)

The status of books in McWorld today teaches lugubrious lessons about the corrupting reach of the image makers into the world of print and via that world, into the world of democracy. When we allow Chris Whittle to insert advertisements into books and television (with ads intact) into public school classrooms, literacy and literary pleasure clearly are no longer our aim. When a single picture of a brutally abused soldier’s corpse takes the place of careful debate and the reasoned discourse of words in forging political foreign policy priorities, democracy itself as a deliberative practice is jeopardized.

Television and 􀀫lm do not, to be sure, wholly displace books. Rather, they are parasitic on them. Rather than making television literate, television tends to make books illiterate. Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh “write” best-sellers that are extensions of their radio and television personalities. Reading becomes another form of gossip—as in the O. J. Simpson “book,” published in conjunction with his televised murder trial. Given the scarcity of readers, the trick is to publish books that people who do not read books will nevertheless buy, whether or not they actually read them: for in McWorld, consumption demands only that we purchase but not that we actually utilize products, many of which we do not actually “need” in the 􀀫rst place. An avalanche of embarrassingly hugeselling how-to books 􀀫nally led The New York Times Book Review to remove them from the regular best-seller list, for they had come so thoroughly to dominate it that “real” books had ceased to be competitive. But the how-to’s were quickly replaced not by real books but by genre novels designed explicitly to meet the imperatives of a quick and lucrative 􀀫lm sale. In the fall of 1993, of the top ten “􀀫ction” listings on The New York Times list, seven were 􀀫lmic suspense thrillers by just two authors: Michael Crichton and John Grisham, whose previous books included the recent 􀀫lm megahits The Firm (Grisham) and Jurassic Park (Crichton). Indeed, in 1994 both authors sold future books—then not yet written, let alone published—to Hollywood for millions of dollars.

To be sure, suspense and mystery novels geared to movie adaptation have topped best-seller lists for a long time. Media incest has been spreading, however, and now dominates the non􀀫ction list as well. The New York Times non􀀫ction best-seller list for November 28, 1993, listed 􀀫ve media-linked best-sellers in the top 􀀫fteen, with “books” by TV conservative Rush Limbaugh, trash-radio star Howard Stern, and comedian Jerry Seinfeld in 􀀫rst, second, and fourth place. William Shatner’s Star Trek Memories followed in ninth place with Michael Jordan’s NBA memoir Rare Air in 􀀫fteenth on the hardback lists and simultaneously in second place on the non􀀫ction softcover list, right behind an earlier book by Limbaugh that was 􀀫rst among paperbacks—giving Limbaugh the top place on both lists. During the same week, MTV’s Beavis and Butt-head, a cartoon book based on the MTV series (whose banal cruelty and teenage knownothingness had forced producers to move it out of prime time to a later time slot), was fourth on the “Advice and How-To” list. The fastidious New York Times not only reported on but contributed to this dazzling mediocratic spectacle, o􀁍ering both daily and Sunday reviews of Howard Stern’s exercise in confessional porn (over a million books in print within a few weeks of publication and possibly the fastest selling book in publishing history) by reviewers who were astonishingly polite and respectful, as if they had before them a slightly puzzling but not unpleasing work of postmodern skepticism from a delightful cultural eccentric—an FM Oscar Wilde for our own radio times.6 Howard Stern himself recognized how pusillanimous the “literary” marketplace was. On the air, he con􀀫ded to listeners that he was already the master of radio, and everything he knew about books and publishers persuaded him that they were an easy mark. So they proved to be. When literature becomes an outpost of McWorld, laying siege to it presents little challenge to commercial hustlers of Stern’s audacity or Limbaugh’s hubris. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.120-1)

Who Owns McWorld? The Media Merger Frenzy

THE INFOTAINMENT TELESECTOR is the heart of McWorld and increasingly has the look of a wholly owned subsidiary of a small handful of powerful corporations that, by the month, grow fewer in number and more encompassing in ambition. The concept that drives the new media merger frenzy carries the fashionable name “synergy,” which describes what is supposed to be the cultural creativity and economic productivity that arise out of conglomerating the disparate industries that once, quite separately, controlled all three segments of the infotainment telesector: the software programming, the conduits and pipes that distribute it, and the hardware on which it is displayed. The production companies turning out product, the phone and cable and satellite companies, and the companies manufacturing or controlling television sets and computers and multiplexes all, in McWorld’s ideal economy, belong in the hands of one global company. Synergy turns out to be a polite way of saying monopoly. And in the domain of information, monopoly is a polite word for uniformity, which is a polite word for virtual censorship—censorship not as a consequence of political choices but as a consequence of inelastic markets, imperfect competition, and economies of scale—the quest for a single product that can be owned by a single proprietor and sold to every living soul on the planet. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.137)

This takeover mania began in the early 1980s, with quite literally hundreds of media mergers and buyouts, of which I have listed only a representative sample on the accompanying table of media mergers (see p. 141).

While everyone chatters about synergy, the arrows all point one way: nearly all of the mergers targeted companies controlling creative product, without which neither the hardware manufacturers nor the delivery system owners had anything to show or deliver. Margo L. Vignola, a media analyst at Salomon Brothers, smartly noticed that it was a “paucity of creative talent and product available and an enormous amount of technology chasing it” that ultimately fueled the mania for acquisitions and mergers. Surveying the war between Viacom and QVC for Paramount, she concludes “companies like the regional Bells and cable providers are hobbled by the fact that they don’t have product, and a company that has very mixed results like Paramount becomes the jewel of Madonna. Everyone wants it.”6

See for yourself: although many of the deals are mergers rather than takeovers, in almost every case the target is a company that controls creative product for McWorld—a movie studio, a film library, a video distributor, or a broadcast network or cable company. And these represent only a select number of the largest deals. Each of the companies in play already was involved in smaller acquisitions and mergers, which accounts for the variety of entities owned by what is technically a movie studio like Paramount. Paramount is a veritable festival of McWorld’s goods and products. Back in 1989 when it tried to prevent Time’s merger with Warner Communications via a $10.7 billion hostile bid for Time, it already had added to its extensive 􀀽lm and video properties the publisher Simon & Schuster (itself a publishing conglomerate including Prentice-Hall), as well as Madison Square Garden along with the basketball and hockey teams that play there (the Knicks and Rangers now spun off by new owner Viacom to still another infotainment company, Chuck Dolan’s Cablevision Systems, with 􀀽nancial backing from ITT). Time, Inc., on which Paramount was mounting an unsuccessful raid, meanwhile controlled along with its traditional magazines (including Life, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Money), the Home Box O􀁅ce cable network, Cinemax, the American Television and Communication Corporation cable operating company, Time-Life Books, and Little, Brown and Company. By the time Paramount was in play at the end of 1993, by then itself the target of a bidding battle between friendly (and ultimately victorious) suitor Viacom and unfriendly raider QVC, its properties also included the Trans-Lux Theater Corporation, USA network, Famous Music Corporation, the Miss Universe organization, and Paramount Theme Parks. No conglomerate is complete without its signature theme parks. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.140-4)

Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” cited at the George home page

The victory of the dollar over every other conceivable interest, public or private, entails not just a crass commercialism in the place where quality information and diversi􀀽ed entertainment should be, but also a monopoly antipathetic to democratic society and free civilization, if not also to capitalism itself. That “creative geniuses” like Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Ge􀀾en join up gives their rivals nightmares, but will not necessarily enhance competition—or even creativity, though observers will once again celebrate synergy. Yet how can an Edgar Bronfman (Seagram) take on a Matsushita/MCA/ Universal Pictures without creating his own megamonopoly? Whatever else McWorld’s mergers may serve in the vital infotainment telesector, they serve neither culture nor liberty nor democracy.

This lugubrious conclusion brings us back to the same questions raised in the previous section by the impact of economic markets generally in McWorld. Spectators can vote with their dollars as well as with their private viewing and purchasing prejudices, but who speaks in the Hollyworld domain of McWorld for the public? Is there a global equivalent of even so weak an institution as the F.C.C.? If theme parks are now talking about “privatizing government,” and taking over many of the functions of a state, is there a way for citizens to do the opposite and “publicize private markets,” compelling them to be accountable, and demanding from them at least some degree of public-interestedness? Which institutions can exert countervailing pressures on malls or theme parks or media monopolies in the name of quality or diversity or community?

The nations that have tried a modest dose of regulation in recent years are regarded as mercantilist bogeys, and 􀀽nd themselves under duress from free traders and market zealots to let go—in the ancient phrase, laisser-faire. There are few democratic governments around today, certainly not in America or England, that display much taste for regulation or control in the name of the public weal. Governments have become the targets of alienated and disa􀀾ected clients and are not likely to be regarded as the instruments by which citizens can tame wild capitalism for some time. Markets have emerged triumphant from a war against the nation-state and the public interests they represent that has been waged at least since Adam Smith. Kenichi Ohmae of Japan, Herbert Henzler of West Germany, and Fred Gluck of the United States—three competitors in search of consensus—agreed back in 1990 on a “Declaration of Interdependence Toward the World in 2005.” Its paramount innovation was a call for the role of central governments to “change, so as to: allow individuals access to the best and cheapest goods and services from anywhere in the world; help corporations provide stable and rewarding jobs anywhere in the world regardless of the corporation’s national identity; coordinate activities with other governments to minimize con􀁒icts arising from narrow interest; avoid abrupt changes in economic and social fundamentals.”9 Abrupt changes like democratization? Narrow interest like national environmental or employment policies? The declaration calls on the nation-state to participate in its own liquidation. In many regions of the Western world, the state seems to be obliging, with the complicity of outraged women and men who clearly prefer their rights as clients and consumers to their responsibilities and freedoms as citizens.

Perhaps they are making a virtue of necessity. For where governments still try to regulate or censor or subsidize or intervene, their e􀀾orts are increasingly futile, because the market for entertainment and information has become so global, the technologies so impervious to local control, and the ideology of free trade so pervasive. In the United States, regulatory advocates like Vice President Gore have pushed for “universal service” on the new information superhighway, urging that the “schoolchild in Carthage, Tennessee” should “be able to plug into the Library of Congress and work at home at his own pace … regardless of [his] income.”10 Speaker Gingrich has even proposed ways of getting computers into the hands of the poor. Pretty thoughts, but about as unlikely as anything imaginable in the hostile climate of antigovernment sentiment and transnational markets that dominates our times. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.148-9)

German-Switzerland

SWITZERLAND EXEMPLIFIES THE problems Europe faces as a whole, for as a nation it has chosen to defy Europe and the supposedly irreversible pressures of McWorld’s markets from the contradictory stance of a highly successful practitioner of market economics. In doing so it has also managed to open up deep inner 􀀳ssures that threaten to destabilize Switzerland’s own confederal equilibrium. Long a loosely federated neutral nation forged from German, French, and Italian (and Raeto-Romantsch) fragments, the Swiss (like the Americans) have seen themselves as an exceptionalist country —Sonderfall Schweiz!—and on the basis of their unique geographical position astride Europe and their long-standing armed neutrality, have resisted e􀀰orts at integration into a greater Europe, and refused entry into the United Nations in a 1967 national referendum. At the end of 1992, following an unnerving Danish “no” to the Maastricht Treaty, the Swiss also voted no on membership in the European Free Trade Association (as a preamble to membership in the Common Market). Their negative vote followed cultural fault lines with the French Swiss voting overwhelmingly for Europe and the German Swiss overwhelmingly against.13 It had been hard enough for the German Swiss to surrender their precious semisovereignty to a new federal government back in 1848 when the “modern” constitution eroded certain crucial cantonal privileges. In 1992 it was not so much Switzerland, whose elites—the federal government, the major parties both conservative and liberal, as well as corporate, banking, and even many union leaders—fully supported Europe, but rather the cantons and communes that led the obstinate resistance. The elites spent millions trying to prod the citizenry out of its democratic parochialism, warning them that a “no” vote could put the Swiss multinationals out of business (or at least out of Switzerland) and turn Switzerland into “the Nepal of Europe.”14

Europhile observers, that is to say the greater part of the European press, were utterly befuddled, muttering darkly about Switzerland’s “re􀁍exive traditionalism” and its self-defeating “neoisolationism,” and predicting that unless it permitted itself to be awoken by Europe’s economic “electroshock” it was doomed to become a “third-world country.”15 Yet the Swiss have one of the highest standards of living in the world (higher than the United States), are committed free traders, and have been participants in the building of the 􀀳nancial ectoskeleton of McWorld. They are not stupid. What was at stake for Switzerland’s reluctant “Europeans” was not a reactionary Jihad against modernity. Rather, the German Swiss in particular, but also the Italian Swiss who in the canton of Ticino voted nearly 62 percent no, were struggling against Europe in the name of cultural autonomy and regional democracy—two frequently disjunctive values that for unique historical reasons have intersected in Switzerland. Indeed, in Europe’s oldest and most decentralized democracy, not just the cantons but the communes enjoy prerogatives few other constitutions in the world a􀀰ord to people locally. Gemeindefreiheit (communal liberty) and kantönligeist (the local spirit of the canton) apparently remain values worth 􀀳ghting for, even at the cost of the rewards of economic integration. But the tradition to which the Swiss cling is local democracy, and their loyalty may in part be due to the powerful impression left by Euro-technocrats and McWorld marketeers that democracy is simply not part of the global game they are playing.

In Switzerland, then, the struggle against McWorld is to a degree a self-conscious struggle on behalf of a parochial culture that happens to be generically associated with self-government and regional liberty. Perhaps alone among the partisans of Jihad, the Swiss are struggling to preserve a traditional culture against modernity in the name of democracy. Where elsewhere isolationists 􀀳ght against both markets and democracy as twin products of a homogenizing modernity they fear, in the Alps they oppose homogeneity because it imperils democracy. Since it came to Switzerland long before the Enlightenment, even the Enlightenment’s most savage critics can count democracy as their ally rather than their enemy.

The refusal of the Swiss to buy into the McWorld for which their economic success has prepared them was again underscored in February 1994 when, in still another display of referendum obstinacy, they voted to ban all heavy cargo truck traffic through the Alps, ruling that by the year 2004 cargo must be carried exclusively by rail. In doing so, they turned the clock back nearly a century to the time when the citizens of the canton of Graubünden legislated a ban on all automobile tra􀁓c from that canton’s extensive and still virgin territory (a quarter of Switzerland’s land mass). The automobile, the denizens of Davos and St. Moritz and Chur had agreed, was a threat to regional autonomy and local liberty.16 Switzerland remains to most Europeans an inexplicable maverick: a rich nation that seems prepared to put its wealth at risk for principle; a stubborn nation whose obstinacy sometimes looks like prescience, and whose prescience is often written off as obstinacy.

For all their brave pre-Enlightenment wisdom in resisting McWorld, however, along the way the Swiss are jeopardizing their prudent multicultural equilibrium. The francophone Swiss are far less attached to German Swiss localist traditions and far more anxious to follow France into a greater Europe than their German, Italian, or Ladin cousins. With only some of the parts willing to 􀀳ght for the continuing national autonomy of the whole, the whole risks dis-integration—a development that would defeat Switzerland’s confederal democracy as surely as abject surrender to Europe. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.175-7)

China and the Not Necessarily Democratic Pacific Rim

IN AREAS OUTSIDE of Europe and North America that have been relatively successful in both economic and political terms, what is most o􀀥ensive about McWorld to local protagonists of Jihad is its cultural aggressiveness. Indeed, in many Asian nations Jihad proceeds without fear of o􀀥ending democrats since democracy has had little to do with modernization. The trick in that part of the world has been to 􀀭gure out how to exploit the bene􀀭ts of economic modernization and capitalist markets without capitulating to either the political values (openness, rights, liberty, democracy) or the cultural habits (suburban, materialist, consumerist) attached to them. On the whole it has been easier to counter the West’s political ideas than McWorld’s seductive lifestyles. The authoritarian experiments, Communist and non- Communist alike, in Vietnam, Singapore, Korea, and China are proof of how easy it is to sever free markets from free political institutions. Democratic India and Japan are proof of how di􀀵cult it is to sever free markets from McWorld’s way of life.

In nondemocratic Asia, markets have been cautiously welcomed in the setting of a prudent, background mercantilism where governments 􀀭rst establish and then try to control the inchoate but productive forces markets unleash. The democratic institutions that (Westerners argue) are necessary to the operation of markets remain wholly unwelcome. Market liberals of Milton Friedman’s or Je􀀥rey Sachs’s persuasion have assured us that the two cannot be uncoupled in the long run, but the long run here may be several lifetimes—far too long to sustain the credibility of their argument.1 Indeed, there is no better refutation of the libertarian argument than the wildly successful controlled capitalist economies of Vietnam, China, Singapore, and Indonesia. “China’s dream,” says a Western diplomat in China, “is to become another Singapore,” where the attraction is “that it has achieved Western living standards without being infected by Western political standards.”2

China has had the fastest growing economy in the world in recent years, despite—or is it because of?—the brutal repression of individual rights and political liberty during the horrendous events at Tiananmen Square and ever since.3 China, like its neighbors, struggles against Westernization at the same time it struggles for economic market productivity and for trade with the rest of McWorld. Understanding the priorities of its trading partners in Japan and the United States, as well as the logic of markets, which demands autonomy from politics and is thus indi􀀥erent to state organization, it refuses to budge on political rights. For rights, along with their accompanying ideology of political individualism, are seen as appurtenances of the resistible culture (easily separable from the irresistible market) and China’s successful pursuit of the latter without yielding to the former is proof of the accuracy of its leaders’ perceptions. As Perry Link describes it, the happy bargain Deng Xiaoping o􀀥ered the Chinese was basically “Shut up and I’ll let you get rich,”4 a formula that worked not only for his own subjects but with the American State Department as well.5 In the spring of 1994, China won extension of its Most Favored Nation status with the United States (without which its exports to the United States would be subject to tari􀀥s at least twice as large as they are) without it having to make a single signi􀀭cant political concession. Ironically, it was only its obstreperousness with respect to intellectual property rights (it refused to shut down pirate video and cassette operations) that 􀀭nally elicited American trade sanctions and a clamp-down on the pirates in 1995. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.184-5)

Jihad in fact has little more use for citizens than does McWorld. Its denizens are blood brothers and sisters de􀀱ned by identities they also are not permitted to choose for themselves. It is possible to be both a sister and a producer, a brother and a consumer, but neither identity a􀀻ords individuals any real sovereignty over their life plans, which are busily arranged for them by roots and blood on the one hand, or production and consumption on the other. Sovereignty is the provenance of citizenship. The sovereignty of democratic states, which gives politics a regulative function with respect to all other domains, is nothing other than the sovereignty of citizens who, in their civic capacity, make advertent common decisions that regulate the inadvertent consequences of their conduct as private individuals and consumers. In a future world where the only available identity is that of blood brother or solitary consumer, and where these two paltry dispositions engage in a battle for the human soul, democracy does not seem well placed to share in the victory, to whomsoever it is delivered. Neither the politics of commodity nor the politics of resentment promise real liberty; the mixture of the two that emerges from the dialectical interplay of Jihad versus McWorld—call it the commodi􀀱cation of resentment—promises only a new if subtle slavery.

Nonetheless, for all my skepticism about the dialectic of Jihad and McWorld, I do not think that democracy is impossible in an era after the eclipse of the nation-state. Democratic success stories suggest that democracy is a slow, developmental process that comes into being not through a single magical moment of founding, but through a long evolution in which the founding is usually only a culminating symbolic moment. Those who would construct some form of global democracy require patience. They also require stubbornness, however, for to preserve, let alone extend, democracy under these rapidly evolving conditions will require acts of bold political imagination and self-conscious political willing that cannot in themselves be expected to emerge from the dialectical interplay of Jihad and McWorld. Patience, political will, and boldness: not an easy combination of traits to cultivate, above all when democracy is under duress.

Traditional Global Institutions in the New World Disorder

THE EASY ANSWER to the hard question of how to order a supranational world has often been: globalize law!—establish new international institutions or fortify traditional ones like the United Nations and the World Court. From the nineteenth-century faith in the Concert of Powers and its balance of power politics, to Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the League of Nations (which America never joined) that grew from its following World War I, and on down to the United Nations established after World War II as a manifestation of the cooperation of the Allies in overcoming fascism, the hope has been that sovereign states will somehow overcome their national interests and sectarian policies; that they will cede a degree of their sovereignty to supranational bodies capable of ensuring peace and cooperation among them. Although law speaks the voice of sovereign authority, the quest for world order has placed its faith in a global law whose voice will not be muted by the absence of a global sovereignty. Unhappily, however, while law is power’s solemn voice that legitimizes its brute force, power is law’s indispensable condition without which its legitimacy has no muscle. Consequently, the law has always been the destitute camp follower of the itinerant armies of transnationalism—earlier, the armies of imperialism, communism, international commerce and markets; today, those of telecommunications, ecology, 􀀱nancial and currency markets, and global pop culture. It facilitates rather than constrains the powers it serves. As go the fortunes of nationstates, so go the fortunes of international law.

Ironically, this linkage cripples law when states are strong since they refuse to allow global law to curb their sovereignty. Yet when they are weak, it leaves international law without an enforcer. Law does not lead but stumbles along behind real power in a manner that belies its claims to transnational regulatory competence. Fans point to the law of the seas, human rights conventions, space treaties, and the new thrust toward global environmental regulation (the Montreal or Rio treaties for example); they boast with some reason about the role the European Court of Justice has played in fostering European integration. Yet events in Europe since Maastricht—indeed, since the founding of the League of Nations10— suggest the continuing priority of power over law, whether it is the power of national sovereignty to obstruct and negate international law, or the power of international markets to de􀀪ate and circumvent international fishing or environmental regulations. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.224-5)

Free-market advocates like Wriston boast about the failure of the Bretton Woods Treaty (by which sovereign nations tried to govern the international currency exchange after World War II)—proof that “Big Brother” (his caricature of all states, democratic as well as autocratic) has been forced out of business. Unfortunately, Big Brother’s role as a guardian of social justice has also been superseded and the many junior siblings who have displaced him turn out to be both more intimidating and far less accountable. National regulatory commissions can curtail in-country labor exploitation with minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and safety regulations, but who can set and enforce such standards for the global market where unrooted companies can chase lowwage labor from country to country as they please? Far more today than in the nineteenth century, the workers of the world need to unite to o􀁎set the exploitative consequences of monopoly capital on a global scale. Yet never has there been less likelihood that they could do so.

Multinationals cannot be blamed for promoting high pro􀀭ts at the price of high unemployment or sacri􀀭cing the local environment to the economic bene􀀭ts of free trade. It is the job of civil society and democratic government and not of the market to look after common interests and make sure that those who pro􀀭t from the common planet pay its common proprietors their fair share. When governments abdicate in favor of markets, they are declaring nolo contendere in an arena in which they are supposed to be primary challengers, bartering away the rights of their people along the way.

Markets simply are not designed to do the things democratic polities do.22 They enjoin private rather than public modes of discourse, allowing us as consumers to speak via our currencies of consumption to producers of material goods, but ignoring us as citizens speaking to one another about such things as the social consequences of our private market choices (too much materialism? too little social justice? too many monopolies? too few jobs? what do we want?). They advance individualistic rather than social goals, permitting us to say, one by one, “I want a pair of running shoes” or “I need a new VCR” or “buy yen and sell D-Marks!” but deterring us from saying, in a voice made common by interaction and deliberation, “our inner city community needs new athletic facilities” or “there is too much violence on TV and in the movies” or “we should rein in the World Bank and democratize the IMF!” Markets preclude “we” thinking and “we” action of any kind at all, trusting in the power of aggregated individual choices (the invisible hand) to somehow secure the common good. Consumers speak the elementary rhetoric of “me,” citizens invent the common language of “we.”

Markets are contractual rather than communitarian, which means they stroke our solitary egos but leave unsatis􀀭ed our yearning for community, o􀁎ering durable goods and 􀁄eeting dreams but not a common identity or a collective membership—something the blood communities spawned by Jihad, reinforced by the thinness of market relations, do rather too well. Cybernetic and automatic rather than deliberative and genuinely voluntary, markets produce collective consequences that cannot be foreseen in the simple feedback loops established by consumers making individual choices and markets responding to them. What Ludwig von Mises blithely called the “daily plebiscite in which every penny” gives consumers the right to “determine who should own and run the plants, shops and farms” is a charming fraud; for the self-interested motives on the basis of which consumers spend their pennies have nothing to do with who runs anything, let alone with the kind of civil society these same consumers hope to live in or the civic objectives they forge together as citizens in democratic political arenas in order to control the public and political consequences of their private consumer choices.23 Recall Felix Rohatyn’s warning that markets entail “a brutal Darwinian logic … They are nervous and greedy (and) … what they reward is not always our preferred form of democracy.”24

Democracies prefer markets but markets do not prefer democracies. Having created the conditions that make markets possible, democracy must also do all the things that markets undo or cannot do. It must educate citizens so that they can use their markets wisely and contain market abuses well; it must support values and a common culture in which the market has no interest and does not try to reward; it must deploy mechanisms that prevent the market from self-destructing via anarchy or via monopoly; and it must secure an alternative form of choice that permits common choosing as a remedy to the inadvertent social consequences of individual choosing. Take the transportation debate raised earlier. When I choose to buy a car, I choose to get from here to there e􀀤ciently and perhaps pleasantly; however, among the consequences of my choice may be air pollution, resource depletion, the disadvantaging of public transportation, pressure on hospital facilities, and the despoilation of the natural environment by a highway system. As a consumer, the only way I can avoid these consequences is to refuse to buy a car—an irrational act from the narrow economical perspective and one that throws a wrench into the market economy. So I play the consumer and buy the car. Capitalism is served and so am I—as a consumer. But in a democratic society, I am not just a consumer, I am a citizen. And as a citizen, I can act in common with others to modify the untoward public consequences of my private choice. As a citizen I can join with others and redress the ill e􀁎ects of my car purchase: we can outlaw leaded gas, fund electric engine research, subsidize public transportation, mandate hospital insurance for drivers, and limit highway construction in scenic regions. These civic activities do not curb our market freedom, they facilitate it. Democracy makes markets work by allowing us the freedom of our consumer choices in the knowledge that we can counteract their accompanying vices. To do so, however, we must have alternative nonmarket institutions, and in the international arena such democratic tools are entirely absent.

Even within nation-states, we are eschewing the tools we have. The dogmas of laissez-faire capitalism that have su􀁎used the politics of America and Europe in the last few decades have been reinforced by the resentments of an alienated electorate that has lost con􀀭dence in its own democratic institutions; together, they have persuaded us that our democratic governments neither belong to us nor function usefully either to limit markets or to help them work. The expiration of Marxist and command economy dogmas has breathed new life into free market and laissez-faire dogmas and forced us back into Friedman’s choice of radical collectivism or radical individualism. We condemn politicians as if they were not chosen both by us and from among us, and turn on governments as if we still lived under the absolute monarchs of the eighteenth century—as if constitution building were aimed exclusively at curtailing tyranny and not also at facilitating common democratic action. Citizens abjure the common “we” and allow it to be identi􀀭ed exclusively with corrupt politicians or totalitarian despots. Democratic authority and the abuse of democratic authority become synonymous.

When peoples emerging from communism become frustrated by wild capitalism, they turn not to discredited parliamentary institutions but back to the tougher party apparatchiks who have survived the passing of the very Communist regimes whose legacy has delegitimized parliamentarianism.25 These developments have meant that democracy has had an increasingly hard time inside nation-states a􀁒icted with radical market ideology. Western analysts have pushed so hard for the liberation of markets that they have “thrown out the state-controlled baby with the bath water.”26

If laissez-faire ideology has made it this di􀀤cult to conjure up a noncollectivist democracy, how can a transnational democratic polity ever be imagined? Even if we could overcome our political di􀀤dence, which mechanisms might a􀁎ord us the chance as citizens to undo the inadvertent evils of global markets? The eclipse of the national “we” in the shadows of both Jihad and McWorld is trouble enough. Now we face their consequences in the absence of any global civic “we,” prepared to act beyond national boundaries. When the only transnational “we” available has to be drawn from anarchic congeries of greedy “me’s,” the market ultimately fails on its own terms. We get the goods but not the lives we want; prosperity for some, but despair for many and dignity for none. McWorld’s twenty-six thousand or more international nongovernmental associations are no match for its Fortune’s top 􀀭ve hundred multinational corporations. Cartels show little hospitality to citizens. McWorld is not and cannot be self-regulating. Nor is it likely to produce the kinds of democratic civic bodies it needs to stay in business. This is McWorld’s paradox. It cannot survive the world it inevitably tends to create if not countered by civic and democratic forces it inevitably tends to undermine. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.242-5)

In combination, these technologies potentially enhance lateral communication among citizens, open access to information by all, and furnish citizens with communication links across distances that once precluded direct democracy or, indeed, interaction of any kind. If the scale of ancient democracy was bounded by the territory a man could cross on foot in a day on his way to the assembly, telecommunications at the speed of light turn the entire globe into a wired town of potential neighbors—McLuhan’s global village. Of course, if democracy is to be understood as deliberative and participatory activity on the part of responsible citizens, it must resist the innovative forms of demagoguery that accompany innovative technology. Home voting via interactive television could further privatize politics and replace deliberative debate in public with the unconsidered instant expression of private prejudices. Democracy calls not only for votes but for good reasons, not only for an opinion but for a rational argument on its behalf. Talk radio and scream television have already depreciated our political currency, and newer technologies are as likely to reinforce as to impede the trend if not subjected to the test of deliberative competence.

Futuristic idealism must then be treated with a certain skepticism. The history of science and technology is at best a history of ambivalence. In each of the instances explored here, we can speak only of potentiality, not of actuality. The double edge of technology’s sword has been well known to us at least since Mary Shelley 􀀮rst told the story of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, and our technologies today possess potentialities as monstrous as any she imagined.

Telecommunications technology has the capability for strengthening civil society, but it also has a capacity for unprecedented surveillance and can be used to impede and manipulate as well as to access information. Left to the market, which is where McWorld leaves technology, monsters may end up with a free and mightily pro􀀮table reign. As we have already noticed, the market has no particular interest in the civic possibilities of technology—unless they can generate a respectable pro􀀮t (generally they cannot). When pro􀀮tability is the primary object, technological innovation is likely to reinforce extant inequalities, making the resource-and-income-poor informationpoor as well. Computer literacy has become as important as language literacy and numeracy in the job market, and is likely to be vital to civic literacy as well. The division of labor into symbolic analysis workers and more traditional durable goods and service sector workers has actually accelerated the growth of social inequality in America.

Robert Reich has drawn a disturbing American portrait in which privileged information/communication workers increasingly withdraw public support from the larger society. His grim analysis portrays them moving to insular suburbs and buying private recreational, schooling, security, and sanitation services for their own gated communities, which the public at large cannot a􀀽ord. They are then positioned to refuse to pay taxes for the declining public services they no longer need. Their withdrawal (Reich labels it the politics of secession) leaves the poor poorer, the public sector broke, and society ever more riven by economic disparities.3 A similar pattern of “secession” by the new symbolic elites can be discerned on a global scale where elite nations secede from their global public responsibilities as fast as elite professionals secede from their public responsibilities within elite nations. The Third World becomes a series of urban ghettos within every First World society as well as a series of poor nation ghettos within international society. The “restructuring” of the global economy to meet the demands of the new age information/entertainment sector further reinforces the boundaries between the privileged and the rest.

Even when we set social and class issues aside, the market in technology can have untoward consequences. Technology can as easily become an instrument of repression as of liberation. Thoreau worried about how easily we become the “tools of our tools;” the new tools of the post-Gutenberg age of electronics con􀀮rm his fear. Interactive television is a powerful surveillance instrument: as consumers tell shopping networks what they want to buy and tell banks how to dispense their cash and tell pollsters what they think about abortion, those receiving the information gain access to an extensive catalog of knowledge about the private habits, attitudes, and behaviors of consumers. This information may in turn be used to reshape those habits and attitudes in ways that favor producers and sellers massaging the marketplace. The current antiregulatory fever means that the new information banks being compiled from interaction and surveillance are subject neither to government scrutiny nor to limitation or control (such as a sunset provision that would periodically destroy all information). The Federal Communications Act of 1934 promised to “encourage the larger and more e􀀽ective use of radio in the public interest,” but the multiplication of broadcast channels across the electronic spectrum has led the government to withdraw its regulatory presence.

Fred Friendly has been calling for an “electronic bill of rights” for a number of years, but government has been moving in the opposite direction, with the Clinton administration, despite its apparent belief in open access, committed to letting the market make the moves with a minimum of regulation. The “public airwaves” are still auctioned o􀀽 to private vendors who sell them back at exorbitant rates to the public during election campaigns— increasing the costs of democracy and the dependence of elections on money at the very moment when government has backed away from regulation. The 1984 Cable Act gives local franchisers (cities and towns) rather than the federal or state government control over cable, in e􀀽ect abandoning it to market forces that have shown scant regard for public needs.4 In 1994, Senator Inouye introduced a bill into Congress directing the Federal Communications Commission to require the “reservation for public uses of capacity on telecommunications networks.” His aim was to guarantee the public some voice in development of the Information Superhighway. His bill received little press attention and expired without action at the end of the 103rd Congress. Fear of government has incapacitated the public’s only agent in diverting the new technologies into public channels. The model of Channel One, a classroom network (started by Whittle Communications and now controlled by K-III Corporation) that extorts classroom advertising time from needy schools in return for desperately wanted hardware, suggests that the public is likely to be served by the new technologies only in as far as someone can make serious money off it.5

It may be a cause of satisfaction, as Walter Wriston insists, that nowadays it is the citizen who is watching Big Brother and not the other way around. To be sure, in most post-Communist societies, as in our own market societies, Big Brother is no longer watching you; but neither is he watching those who are watching you, and even adversaries of regulation may 􀀮nd reason to be disturbed by that omission. If the classical liberal question used to be who will police the police, the pertinent liberal question in today’s McWorld ought to be who will watch those who are watching us? Who will prevent the media from controlling their clients and consumers? Who will act in lieu of a government that has demurred from representing the public’s interests?

There would perhaps be less cause for concern if technology and telecommunication markets were truly diversi􀀮ed and competitive. But as we have seen, the conglomeration of companies focused on programming, information, communication, and entertainment suggests that government’s erstwhile big brother has been dwarfed today by Ma Bell and her overgrown babies, who are currently buying up the cable market and trying to purchase entertainment and software production companies as fast as they can. Their aim is to stay competitive with infotainment companies like Time Warner. Thus US West bought a significant minority interest (along with Toshiba and C. Itoh) in Warner Brothers 􀀮lm studio and Home Box O􀀾ce only to have Time Warner acquire Cablevision ($2.2 billion) and Houston Industries ($2.3 billion) in 1995, and thereby regain control. The harder the American government tries to stay out of the development of a free market information highway, the harder the development of a free market information highway, the harder corporate multinationals are trying to get in; and if they cannot e􀀽ect a total takeover of the digital thoroughfare, they aspire at least to gain control of its gateways and tollbooths.

Democrats should not be the Luddites Jihad’s anxious tribal warriors have become; they cannot a􀀽ord to make technology and modernity enemies of self-determination and liberty. Technology is a neutral tool: allied to democracy it can enhance civic communication and expand citizen literacy. Left to markets, it is likely to augment McWorld’s least worthy imperatives, including surveillance over and manipulation of opinion, and the cultivation of artificial needs rooted in lifestyle “choices” unconnected to real economic, civic, or spiritual needs. (Benjamin Barber “Jihad Vs. McWorld” 1995 p.270-3)

She was an African American convert who arrived in Nauvoo in time to meet Joseph and Emma Smith. Jane lived in the ...

She was refused. In the years since the death of Joseph Smith, the leaders of Mormonism had grown increasingly uncomfortable with the place of African Americans in Mormonism. In Winter Quarters a (Mathew Bowman “The Mormon People” 1945 p.176-7)

In 1940 Twentieth Century-Fox released Brigham Young, an epic retelling of the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo and settlement in the Great Basin ….

Hollywood’s embrace seemed the definitive sign of inclusion in American culture, and the Mormons accepted it gladly. David O. McKay, who served as president of the church from 1951 to 1970, embraced Hollywood back, making his (Mathew Bowman “The Mormon People” 1945 p.184-5)

Fielding Smith also maintained for fifteen years a column called “Answers to Gospel Questions" in the ...

The authoritarian tone that McConkie in particular employed can be read as an attempt to reclaim the charismatic authority of men like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith within the institutional boundaries of correlation. McConkie’s declaration to a Mormon academic who disagreed with him on a point of doctrine is instructive: “God has given apostles and prophets … It is my province to teach to the church what the doctrine is. It is your province to repeat what I say or remain silent.” Such assertions of authority would be anathema to any protestant fundamentalist, but they would not have been out of place coming from Brigham Young. BothMcConkie and Fielding Smith were important participants in the great ongoing dialogue about Christianity, scripture, revelation, and humanity that Joseph Smith inaugurated. There theology and the religious culture it produced dominated Mormonism for two generations and remained influential at the end of the twentieth century.

While most of Fielding Smith’s important work was done in the 1950s, Bruce R. McConkie was prolific through the 1980s, …. It strongly dissented from the rational theology of B.H. Roberts, John Widstoe, and other thinkers of the progressive age, particularly their willingness to draw upon non-Mormon thinkers, though its organization in the form of an encyclopedia, with entries from “Adam” to “Zion,” mirrored Progressive belief in the use, if not the authority, of reason. McConkie declared that God’s truths could be discerned only through the revelation received in scripture and the statements of prophets like joseph smith, not through rational investigation or logical deduction. McConkie’s positions were stark and uncompromising: “When the Lord speaks he has spoken. His word is to be obeyed if men expect to receive salvation.”

For instance, though Heber J. Grant’s First presidency had left the question of pre-Adamites and evolution unresolved. McConkie’s ten-page entry on evolution in Mormon Doctrine drew heavily on Fielding Smith's Man: His Origin and Destiny to (Mathew Bowman “The Mormon People” 1945 p.201-3)

(Mathew Bowman “The Mormon People” 1945 p.201-3)

As a matter of historical record, the Security Council did consider military intervention in Rwanda but was blocked repeatedly by its permanent members, including the U.S., the U.K., and France. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.29 for complete text see previous source from Center for Economic and Social Rights)

Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” entire article from original source BBC

Q: so you don’t think there was a legal authority for the war? A: I have stated clearly that it was not in conformity with the Security council- with the UN Charter. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.33) Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” entire article from original source BBC

Iraq: Civilians Under Fire

Amnesty International (AI) is deeply concerned about the mounting toll of civilian casualties in Iraq and the reported use of cluster bombs by U.S. forces in heavily populated areas.

The scenes at al-Hilla hospital on 1 April showed that something terrible had happened. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.39) Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” Entire article from original source Amnesty International

U.S. Violations of Occupation Law in Iraq Although Russian, German and French companies built much of Iraq’s infrastructure; the U.S. refuses to import spare parts from these countries, instead contracting with American companies to rebuild entire facilities. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.63)

One official was quoted as saying, “We don’t kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them.” An official who had supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists said "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job?...I don’t think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this.” (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.84-97) also quoted in “Blackwater” by Jeremy Skahill Partial Original source is the Washington post

Also quoted in declare peace.org (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.84-97 complete article from original source Human Rights Watch)

(Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.127 )

(Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.128-30 )

Former Assistant attorney General Jay S. Bybee, as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel-an office once known as the conscience of the U>S Department of Justice-issued a formal legal opinion in 2002 interpreting the Convention Against Torture and a related law enacted by Congress prohibiting torture. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.128 )

The Gonzales Indictment (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.133-5)

Mark Danner (Author): When you have these military reports that are commissioned by the government, they can only look down the chains of command. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.1)

The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom- and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.143-7)

Congressional research Service report on the use of Preventive Military Force International Socialist Review on the Shock doctrine AKA the Bush Doctrine The Coming Wars by Seymour Hersh

George W. Bush’s reëlection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.148-52)

You might think that the debacle in Iraq would be enough for the Pentagon, that it would not be in the mood to seek out new routes to unnecessary wars for the United States to fight. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.153-4)

Terminating the Bush Juggernaut (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.251)

Morality, international law, the U.S. constitution, and common sense provide many compelling reasons to take affirmative measures to bring the Bush administration’s war crimes to a halt. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.248)

The scope and depth of the American antiwar movement, which had marched and lobbied and blocked traffic throughout the country in 2003, was most strikingly revealed, I think, by its enormous effort in 2004 to elect a candidate who supported the war. Had Howard Dean been the nominee, instead of the tedious and finger-to-the-wind “centrist” John Kerry, (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.275)

New Hampshire peace Action New Hampshire peace Action http://www.nhpeaceaction.org/

We have talked to many veterans from various wars who have told us that there I a quota they have to fulfill every month, and that it really doesn’t matter if they lie because in the contract the new recruit signs there is a clause that protects the U.S. military from being held accountable for any remark made by the recruiter. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.297-8)

At the Nuremberg tribunals that followed World War II, America insisted that the surviving leaders of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan be neither shot when captured nor set free, but rather prosecuted as war criminals in a court of law that gave those accused a full opportunity to present a defense. (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.301)

“If I were doing the Security Council today, I’d have one permanent member because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world…[and that member would be] the United States.” (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.310) also cited on Source Watch

Just what is a war Criminal? www.insightmag.com/news/1999/08/02/SpecialReport/ (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.)

“It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so- because over the long term… those who think that international law realy means anything are those who want to constrict the united States.” Original source (http://www.insightmag.com/news/1999/08/02/SpecialReport/Just-What.Is.A.War.Criminal-215455.shtml) (Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” 2005 p.)

also cited at Insights

Jeremy Brecher, Jill cutler and Brendan Smith “In the Name of Democracy” American Empire Project

When he was fourteen years old, he wrote, he was troubled by religious revivals in the neighborhood and went into the woods to seek guidance of the Lord.

It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally. I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction. But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction--not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being – just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.

It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other--"This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)--and which I should join. I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof."He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.21-3)

When Harris returned, word went about that Anthon had declared the characters to be ancient shorthand Egyptian. Eventually the scholar learned that his name was being used to advertise the Book of Mormon and he wrote a violent denial. “The whole story about my having pronounced the Mormonite inscription to be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false.” ... The whole story of the Golden Bible was either “a hoax upon the learned” or “a scheme to cheat the farmer of his money." ….

Joseph was desperately poor, Emma was pregnant, and the coming of the grim, determined woman whom they could ill afford to offend must have made hideous the fortnight she remained. For she ransacked every corner and cupboard in the house, badgered relatives and neighbors, and even searched the woods for signs of freshly dug soil. With mingled cajolery and cursing Harris finally persuaded her to return home, and then, taking up where Emma left off, he began to write down the story of the Book of Mormon.

A blanket flung across a rope divided the room where they worked. On one side sat Joseph staring into his stones, and on the other was Harris writing at a table. Joseph warned his scribe that God's wrath would strike him down should he dare to examine the plates or look at him while he was translating. Harris never betrayed his trust, though he once admitted that he tried to trick Joseph by substituting an ordinary stone for the seer stone.

They worked together for two months. Progress was painfully slow, less than two pages a day, for during this period only 116 pages of foolscap were completed, including what Emma had written during the winter. For all his facility in the local debating society, Joseph had yet to learn how to write. Moreover, his sentences had to be compounded correctly, for Harris believed that the translation was automatic, and revision was therefore unthinkable. (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.52-3) cited at OoCities.org formerly Geocities

No one can walk in the woods in May without an exaltation of spirit, and when the two men knelt in prayer Cowdery was overcome with a vision of heaven. “The voice of the redeemer spake peace to us,” he said, “while the veil was parted, and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked-for message, and the keys of the Gospel of repentance. What joy! what wonder! what amazement! While the world was racked and distracted—while millions were groping as the blind for the wall, and while all men were resting upon uncertainty, as a general mass, our eyes beheld, our ears heard, as in the "blaze of day;" yes, more—above the glitter of the May sunbeam, which then shed its brilliancy over the face of nature! Then his voice, though mild, pierced to the center, and his words, "I am thy fellow-servant," dispelled every fear. We listened, we gazed, we admired! 'Twas the voice of an angel from glory, 'twas a message from the Most High! And as we heard we rejoiced, while His love enkindled upon our souls, and we were wrapped in the vision of the Almighty! Where was room for doubt? Nowhere; uncertainty had fled, doubt had sunk no more to rise, while fiction and deception had fled forever!

Joseph also described this vision, but without the hyperbole. He wrote simply that the angel was John the Baptist, who had conferred upon them the true Hebraic priesthood of Aaron and had ordered them to baptize each other. Ten years later Cowdery left in disillusionment, yet he wrote of this season as hallowed and said of the vision: “ …the angel was John the Baptist, which I doubt not and deny not.” (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.74) Cowdery quote cited in Christian Standard at Dale Broadherst stites.

To plague Joseph further, the twin babies he had adopted contracted measles. Their illness in another man's house was not easy to bear. At this point word came from the Missouri colony that a rebellion was brewing, and Joseph realized that only a personal visit to Independence would prevent serious apostasy. When news of his going spread through the town, a gang of Mormon-baiters led by Symonds Ryder determined to hasten his departure in characteristic frontier fashion. Fortified by a barrel of whisky, they smashed their way into the Johnson home on the night of March 24, 1832 and dragged Joseph from the trundle bed where he had fallen asleep while watching one of the twins. They stripped him, scratched and beat him with savage pleasure, and smeared his bleeding body with tar from head to foot. Ripping a pillow into shreds, they plastered him with feathers. It is said that Eli Johnson demanded that the prophet be castrated, for he suspected Joseph of being too intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda. But the doctor who had been persuaded to join the mob declined the responsibility at the last moment, and Johnson had to be content with seeing the prophet beaten senseless. * Rigdon likewise was beaten and dragged into unconsciousness over the frozen ground.

After a time Joseph sat up and began to tear at the tar which filled his mouth. His lips were bleeding from a glass vial that he had crushed between his teeth when someone tried to force it down his throat. He made his way back to the house stiff with cold and pain. Emma opened the door. In the half light the great blotches of tar on his naked body looked to her like blood and she fainted on the doorstep.

Throughout the night Emma and her friends patiently scraped at the tar. The next day was the Sabbath, and Joseph had been expected to preach. Into the Mormon congregation came several of the assailants, taking their seats with cynical expectancy. To their astonishment the prophet walked into the assembly at the appointed hour, fresh scars and bruises showing on his face and hands.....

* See Brigham Young's [sic] sermon of November 15, 1864, Journal of Discourses, Vol. XI, pp. 3-4, and Clark Braden: Public Discussion of the Issues between the Reorganized Church... and the Church of Christ, Disciples (St. Louis, 1884), p. 202. Nancy Johnson -- later Mrs. Orson Hyde -- eventually became one of Joseph's plural wives. See Appendix C. (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.119) cited at Solomon Spalding.com

Soon William brought a complaint against a father for beating his fifteen-year-old daughter, and Joseph, suspecting William’s concern to be more amatory than humanitarian, sided with the parents. William in a towering rage resigned his apostleship and went up and down the Kirtland streets exclaiming against his brother. The Saints were mortified, and the gentiles grinned to hear him.

The other apostles, who would have been pleased to see him excommunicated altogether, were bitterly opposed to his reinstatement in the quorum. But William had now poisoned Samuell’s mind, and Joseph could ill afford two apostate brothers. Finally he was forced to resort to a revelation to convince the angry apostles that his brother must be forgiven: “As for my servant William, let the Eleven humble themselves in prayer and in faith, and wait on me in patience, and my servant William shall return, and I will yet make him a polished shaft in my quiver, in bringing down the wickedness and abominations of men; and there shall be none mightier than he, in his day and generation,[[nevertheless if he repent not speedily, he shall be brought low, and shall be chastened sorely for all his iniquities he has committed against me; nevertheless the sin which he has sinned against me is not even now more grievous than the sin with which my servant David W. Patten, and my servant Orson Hyde, and my servant William E. M'Lellin have sinned against me, and the residue are not sufficiently humble before me.]]

Using the whip upon the apostles rather than upon his brother was a mistake, for William came back into office more impertinent than before. He organized a debating society which soon became known for malicious and carping criticism. …. (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.163) excerpt cited at BYU studies

The bank was said to have been established by a revelation from God, and a rumor skipped through the town that the prophet had predicted that like Aaron’s rod it would swallow up all other banks “and grow and flourish, and spread from the rivers to the ends of the earth, and survive when all others should be laid in ruins.” ......

None of the men who remained faithful to Joseph ever publicly discussed the true financial situation of the Kirtland bank. But several apostates at different times related an identical anecdote which suggests something of the quality of the bank's assets. Lining the shelves of the bank vault, they said, were many boxes, each marked $1,000. Actually these boxes were filled with "sand, lead, old iron, stone, and combustibles," but each had a top layer of bright fifty-cent silver coins. Anyone suspicious of the bank's stability was allowed to lift and count the boxes. "The effect of those boxes was like magic;" said C.G. Webb. "They created general confidence in the solidity of the bank and that beautiful paper money went like hot cakes. For about a month it was the best money in the country."

Joseph’s secretary, Warren Parrish, who was cashier for a short time, wrote in 1838: “I have been astonished to hear him declare that we had $60,000 in specie in our vaults and $600,000 at our command, when we had not to exceed $6,000 and could not command any more; also that we had but about ten thousand dollars of our bills in circulation when he, as cashier of that institution, knew that there was at least $150,000."

The Painesville Republican, a paper generally friendly to the Mormons, remarked dryly on January 19, 1837: “With respect to the ability of the Kirtland society to redeem their notes we know nothing farther than what report says. It is said they have a large amount of specie on hand and have the means of obtaining much more, if necessary. If these facts be so, its circulation in some shape would be beneficial to community.” (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.196-7) Mormon Think

(Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.) 20 truths about Mormonism

[[The original article according to Uncle Dales is slightly different.]] With respect to the ability of the Kirtland society to redeem their bills, we know a thing further than what report says. It is said they have a large amount of specie on hand and have the means of obtaining much more, if necessary. If these facts be so, its circulation in some shape would be beneficial to community, and sensibly relieve the pressure in the market so much complained of.

If however the Kirtland society wish to have their paper obtain a circulation, we think it would be well for them to obtain and publish the legal opinion of some [able] jurists as to the validity of the act of 23d February 1816, and also inform the public thro' the public prints, and over the signature of some number of individuals in whom the public would place confidence, of the amount of specie which they have on hand, showing their ability to redeem their bills.

For the purpose of affording all the light on the subject in our power we give the following proceedings of the society, which we copy from the Cleveland Daily Advertiser. The Painesville Republican Thursday, January 19, 1837.

The Mormon apostles who went to England had seen America’s worst panic, and thought they knew something about the poverty attendant upon economic depression. But in England they found in addition to financial chaos and unemployment the appalling housing of the urban slums and a fearful burden of taxes weighing on the thin shoulders of the poor. The hated Corn Laws were still in force, stifling trade and doubling the cost of bread. Thousands of workers were crowded into squat tenements, built without water and sewers, and almost without windows. Sporodic strikes were suppressed with vicious cruelty, and the reform movement known as Chartism was looked upon as the dread specter of revolution. George A. Smith wrote back to Nauvoo: “I have seen more beggars here in one day than I saw in all my life in America.” George A. Smith letter

(Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.264-5)

One visitor, Henry Caswell, an Episcopalian preacher from a St. Louis college, armed himself with and ancient manuscript psalter written in Greek and, pretending to be ignorant of its contents, offered it to Joseph for his scrutiny. Under the prophet's questioning he finally admitted that he believed the language to be Greek, but this Joseph contradicted. Caswell, exaggerating the imperfections of Joseph's grammar, later related the story as follows:

"No, it ain't Greek at all," Joseph said, "except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian; and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable. It is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics." Pointing to the capital letters at the commencement of each verse, he went on: "Them figures is Egyptian hieroglyphics, written in reformed Egyptian. Them characters is like the letters that was engraved on the golden plates."

When the prophet left the room, Caswell turned triumphantly to the men present and exposed the trick. "They appeared confounded for a while," he wrote, "but at length the Mormon doctor said: 'Sometimes Mr. Smith speaks as a prophet, and sometimes as a mere man. If he gave a wrong opinion respecting the book, he spoke as a mere man.'" *

* The City of the Mormons, or Three Days at Nauvoo (London, 1842), pages 35, 43.

This defense Joseph would readily have subscribed to himself. Weary of the restrictions imposed by the dignity of his office, annoyed by the tales of converts who apostatized when they saw him playing with his children or wrestling with his friends, Joseph often said impatiently: “A prophet is a prophet only when he is acting as such.”

Perhaps the most deliberate hoax ever played on Joseph Smith was contrived by three men in the near-by town of Kinderhook. One of them, Bridge Whitton, cut six copper sheets into the shape of a bell, and the other two, Robert Wiley and Wilbur Fugate, covered them with fanciful writing by a simple etching process. They smeared acid over the plates to corrode them, bound them together with a piece of rusted hoop iron, and carefully buried them along with some Indian bones in an Indian mound near by that had been an object of much curiosity and desultory digging. Wiley spread the story that he had dreamed of buried treasure three nights in succession, and invited assistance in hunting for it.

Two Mormons were present when the plates were found. Although they had suspected a hoax, the sight of the corroded plates banished their mistrust. Shouting for joy, they begged to take them to the prophet for deciphering. But before giving them up, Wiley was careful to clean them with sulfuric acid so that the "hieroglyphics" could be easily read.

The whole of Nauvoo soon buzzed with the discovery. The Times and Seasons published full reproductions as further proof of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, and the printing office sold facsimiles at one dollar a dozen. Joseph stated in his journal that he "translated a portion" and discovered it to be a history of the person whose bones lay in the mound, “a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt." (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.290-1)

By the spring of 1842 Joseph realized that he was nurturing a volatile and dangerous rival. He suspected Bennett of plotting to have him “accidentally” shot at the Legion target practice. But the actual spark that set off the explosion of his expulsion seems to have been ignited by a rivalry for the affections of nineteen-year-old Nancy Rigdon, daughter of Sidney.

….. The next day Joseph made the mistake of dictating a letter to her: Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness and keeping all the commandments of God, but we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them ……

Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all good things will be added. So with Solomon: first he asked wisdom, and God gave it him, and with it every desire of his heart, even things which might be considered abominable to all who understand the order of heaven only in part, but which in reality were right because God gave and sanctioned by special revelation….. full letter

(Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.310-1)

If Joseph was cleared from the involvement in the Boggs shooting Porter Rockwell was not. He remained all winter in Philadelphia lonely and penniless. However Rockwell may well have been guilty, for he later boasted of the Boggs shooting, and his subsequent career as henchman for Brigham Young did not exactly establish a reputation for innocuousness. Yet it should be noted that Joseph A. Jackson, one of the less savory characters Joseph Smith had in his employ for a time, confessed that the prophet in 1843 had offered him $3,000 to “release Porter, and kill old Boggs.” (Fawn Brodie “No Man Knows My History” 1945 p.330-1)

The secret visit did achieve its basic purpose: it conveyed to the Chinese that American support for the democratic upheaval in Poland did not apply to China. ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.55)

I proposed a modest covert program designed to support the quest for independence by the non-Russian nations of the Soviet Union. ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.60)

The paradox of an objectively secure and mighty America, victorious in the Cold War, searching for global demons to justify its subjective insecurity created fertile soil for the fears that became so pervasive after 9/11. ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.89)

The arrogance that swept the Bush White House was captured in a story in the New York Times Magazine by Ron Suskind (October 2004) in which a senior Bush aide derisively dismissed criticism from what he called the “reality-based community.” Said the official, “That’s not the way the world really works anymore….We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.137)

“ Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” By RON SUSKIND NYT 10/17/04

Google officials quote includes Daily KO, Democratic Underground and well over 500 other sites

Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 Business book mall quotes poorly organized

Third World youth are particularly volatile. The rapidly expanding demographic bulge in the twenty-five and under age bracket represents a huge mass of impatience. This groups revolutionary spearhead is likely to emerge from among the millions of students concentrated in the often intellectually dubious tertiary-level educational levels of developing countries. Semimobilized in large congregations and connected by the internet, they are positioned to reply, on a far vaster scale, what occurred years earlier in Mexico City and Tiananmen Square. Revolutionaries-in-waiting, they represent the equivalent of the militant proletariat of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

To sum up, the political awakening is now global in geographic scope, comprehensive in social scale (with only remote peasant communities still particularly passive), strikingly youthful in demographic profile and thus receptive to rapid political mobilization, and transnational in sources of inspiration because of the cumulative impact of literacy and mass communications. As a result, modern populist passions can be aroused even against a distant target, despite the absence of a unifying doctrine such as Marxism.

Only by identifying itself with the idea of universal human dignity—with its basic requirement of respect for culturally diverse political, social, and religious emanations—can America overcome the risk that the global political awakening will turn against it. Human dignity encompasses freedom and democracy but goes beyond them. It involves social justice, geneder equality, and, above all, respect for the worlds cultural and religious mosaic. That is yet another reason why impatient democratization, imposed from outside, is doomed to fail. Stable liberal democracy has to be nurtured by stages and fostered from within. ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.203-4)

“Military Insanity & Homeland Insecurity” includes “Why They Hate Us (I & II): on military occupation” by Stephen Walt and many others

BlackhawkPartners.com Blog's List includes “On the New Power Elite Shaping the New World Order” By - Ziad K. Abdelnour

“ Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution? North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 1” By Andrew Gavin Marshall

( previous blog also posted on Global Illumination Council

Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 International Socialist Review

“Obama Campaign Linked To Chechen Terrorism” at Webster Tarpley blog

Given America’s growing global indebtedness (it is now borrowing some 80 percent of the world’s savings) and huge trade deficits, a major financial crisis, especially in an atmosphere of emotionally charged and globally pervasive anti-American feeling, could have dire consequences for America’s well-being and security. The euro is becoming a serious rival to the dollar and there is talk of an Asian counterpart to both. A hostile Asia and a self-absorbed Europe could as some point become less inclined to continue financing U.S debt ( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 p.211-2)

( Zbigniew Brzezinski “Second Chance” 2007 cited at Above Top Secret

Asael, like Murray, put his trust in salvation by grace alone. In “A few words of advice" he (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.27)

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.35)

My mind was much agitated during the whole night. Sometimes I contemplated heaven and heavenly things; then my thoughts would turn upon those of earth — my babes and my companion. During this night I made a solemn covenant with God, (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.37)

Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 also cited in “Rough Stone” p. 24

The reason became clear in one of the prophetic dreams, which Lucy took seriously enough to record verbatim. In the first dream in Royalton around 1811, Joseph, Sr., found himself traveling in a barren field covered with dead fallen (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.39)

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.50)

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.52)

Joseph Smith, Jr., became to be concerned about religion “at about the age of twelve years.”….. “My mind became seriously imprest with regard to all important concerns for the welfare of my immortal Soul,” …..

In their sensitive and unsettled frames of mind, the Smiths responded to the stimulus of the revival preaching much as they had before. At some unspecified date Lucy finally overcame her reservations and joined the Western Presbyterian Church in Palmyra, probably the best established church in the village and before 1823 the only one with a building of its own. Hyrum, Sophronia, and Samuel joined with her.32 Joseph, Sr., and [p.54] the other sons held back. Joseph, Jr., "became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect," and came close to joining, but could not overcome his reservations. Two printer's apprentices at the Palmyra Register who knew Joseph remembered his Methodist leanings. One said he caught "a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road." The other remembered that Joseph joined the probationary class of the Palmyra Methodist Church. Joseph himself confessed "some desire to be united with them." He later said "he wanted to get religion too, wanted to feel and shout like the rest but could feel nothing."33……

For, notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased; yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more bpretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—priest contending against priest, and convert against convert; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.53-5)

“History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet” BH Roberts

Additioanl Google excerpts

By 1832 when he first wrote it down Joseph knew that his vision in 1820 was one of the steps in “the rise of the Church and the eve of time,” along with Moroni’s visit, the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, and the reception of the “high Priesthood.” (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.56)

Like countless other revival subjects who had come under conviction Joseph had received assurance of forgiveness… Three years later in 1835 and again in another account recorded in 1838, experience had enlarged his perspective……

Joseph did tell a Methodist preacher about the vision. Newly reborn people customarily talked over their experiences with a clergyman to test the validity of the conversion. The preacher's contempt shocked Joseph. Standing on the margins of the evangelical churches, Joseph may not have recognized the ill repute of visionaries. The preacher reacted quickly, not because of the strangeness of Joseph's story but because of its familiarity. Subjects of revivals all too often claimed to have seen visions. In 1825 a teacher in the Palmyra Academy said he saw Christ descend "in a glare of brightness exceeding tenfold the brilliancy of the meridian Sun." The Wayne Sentinel in 1823 reported Asa Wild's vision of Christ in Amsterdam, New York, and the message that all denominations were corrupt. At various other times and places, beginning early in the Protestant era, religious eccentrics claimed visits from divinity. Nathan Cole, a Wetherfield, Connecticut, farmer and carpenter, recorded in his “Spiritual Travels” that in 1741 “God appeared unto me and made me Skringe; before whose face the heavens and the earth fled away; and I was shrinked into nothing….”

The visions themselves did not disturb the established clergy so much as the messages that the visionaries claimed to receive. Too often the visions justified a breach of the moral code or a sharp departure in doctrine. By Joseph's day, any vision was automatically suspect, whatever its content. "No person is warranted from the word of God," a writer in the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine said in 1805, "to publish to the world the discoveries of heaven or hell which he supposes he has had in a dream, or trance, or vision. Were any thing of this kind to be made known to men, we may be assured it would have been done by the apostles, when they were penning the gospel history." The only acceptable message was assurance of forgiveness and a promise of grace. Joseph's report on the divine rejection of all creeds and churches would have sounded all too familiar to the Methodist evangelical, who repeated the conventional point that "all such things had ceased with the Apostles and that there never would be any more of them."51 (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.57-9)

His remorse came to a head in the fall of 1823. On September 21, after the others in the crowded little cabin had gone to sleep, Joseph, Jr., remained awake to pray "to Almighty God for forgiveness of all my sins and follies…..

He had a loose robe of the most exquisite whiteness. It was whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. His hands were naked, and his arms also, a little above the wrist; so, also, were his feet naked, as were his legs, a little above the ankles. His head and neck were also bare. I could discover that he had no other clothing on but this robe, as it was open, so that I could see into his bosom. Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.61)

Joseph Knight Jr., said his father thought Joseph Smith, Jr., was “the best hand he ever hired.” …. Stowell believed he had located the site of an ancient Spanish mine where coins had been minted and buried……

…with orthodox Christian faith in the minds of common people.92

The forces of eighteenth-century rationalism were never quite powerful enough to suppress the belief in supernatural powers aiding and opposing human enterprise. The educated representatives of enlightened thought, newspaper editors and ministers particularly, scoffed at the superstitions of common people without completely purging them. The scorn of the polite world put the Palmyra and Manchester money diggers in a dilemma. They dared not openly describe their resort to magic for [p.72] fear of ridicule from the fashionably educated, and yet they could not overcome their fascination with the lore that seeped through to them from the past. Their embarrassment shows in the affidavits Hurlbut collected. William Stafford, who admitted participation in two "nocturnal excursions," claimed he thought the idea visionary all along, but "being prompted by curiosity, I at length accepted of their invitations." Peter Ingersoll made much more elaborate excuses. One time he went along because it was lunchtime, his oxen were eating, and he was at leisure. Secretly, though, he claimed to be laughing up his sleeve: "This was rare sport for me." Another time he said he "thought it best to conceal my feelings, preferring to appear the dupe of my credulity, than to expose myself to his resentment. . . ." Willard Chase and the Staffords said nothing about their personal quests for treasure and reliance on stones other than Joseph's.93 Despite the disdain of the educated, ordinary people apparently had no difficulty reconciling Christianity with magic. Willard Chase, perhaps the most vigorous of the Palmyra money diggers, was a Methodist class leader at the time he knew the Smiths, and in his obituary was described as a minister. When Josiah Stowell employed Joseph to use his seerstone to find Spanish bullion, Stowell was an upright Presbyterian and an honored man in his community. The so-called credulity of the money diggers can be read as a sign of their faith in the reality of the invisible powers described in scripture. Christian belief in angels and devils made it easy to believe in guardian spirits and magical powers.94……

When he failed after three attempts, Joseph spontaneously cried out, “Why can I not obtain this book.” Moroni then appeared to say, “Because you have not kept the commandments of the Lord.” ……

The transcripts of a purported trial in March, 1826, in South Bainbridge sheds further light on the Smith family’s state of mind on the eve of receiving the plates…… (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.69-75)

Apparently without returning to Harmony…. In Harmony Joseph and Emma met Isaac Hale for the first time since the marriage. The old man tearfully rebuked Joseph for stealing his daughter and said he would rather follow her to her grave than have her married to Joseph…. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.77)

In September, 1827, according to Joseph Knight, ……Knight remembered Joseph saying that the angel told him "if he would Do right according to the will of God, he mite obtain [the plates] the 22nt day of September Next and if not he never would have them." According to Knight, he was at….. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.81)

Lucy Smith said that Mrs. Harris dreamed of an angel and the plates that night, and awoke the next morning believing. She offered to lend Joseph $28 and, to satisfy her, Joseph accepted. Martin himself arrived a few days later when Joseph was off working for Peter Ingersoll to earn some flour….

Martin hefted the box containing the plates and went home. He later said that he went to his bedroom, prayed, and was shown by God that “it was his work, it was his work and that it was designed to bring the fullness of his gospel to the gentiles….”

Martin “the Lord appeared unto him…. He must go to NYC with the characters linguist… (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.84-6)

Anthon and Harris differ drastically in their accounts of what happened. Anthon wrote letters in 1834 and 1841 to critics of the Mormons, denying that he had verified Joseph’s translation or the authenticity of the characters. Anthon claimed he saw through the hoax at once, feared that Martin was about to be cheated of his money, and warned the “simple-hearted farmer” to beware of rogues. Unfortunately Anthon contradicts himself on an important detail. In the first letter Anthon said he refused to give Harris a written opinion; according to the second, the opinion was written “without any hesitation,” in an attempt to expose the fraud. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.) Even in the midst of the translation questions flickered across Martin’s mind. During a break the two men sometimes went to the river to throw stones. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.90)

Emma said no. Joseph at that time of his life "could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well worded ... The whole thing was as marvelous to Emma as to any one. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he ... Lucy Smith said Oliver became so obsessed with the story he heard from the Smiths (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.96)

Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” Read the Book of Mormon By David Frischknecht at LDS Business College Devotional

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” Joseph's translation shows remarkable consistency By Michael R. Ash, For the Deseret News

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” additional Google results of quote

When Martin had taken dictation from Joseph, they hung a blanket between them to prevent Martin from inadvertently catching a glimpse of the plates contrary to the angel’s instructions. By the time Oliver arrived, they did not always follow that rule….

…..A revelation put Oliver’s doubts to rest….. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.97)

“When Martin Harris had taken dictation from Joseph, they at first hung a blanket between them to prevent Harris from inadvertently catching a glimpse of the plates, which were open on a table in the room. By the time Cowdery arrived, translator and scribe were no longer separated. Emma said she sat at the same table with Joseph, writing as he dictated, with nothing between them, and the plates wrapped in a linen cloth on the table. When Cowdery took up the job of scribe, he and Joseph translated in the same room where Emma was working. Joseph looked in the seerstone, and the plates lay covered on the table. Neither Joseph nor Oliver explained how translation worked, but Joseph did not pretend to look at the ‘reformed Egyptian’ words, the language on the plates, according to the book’s own description. The plates lay covered on the table, while Joseph’s head was in a hat looking at the seerstone, which by this time had replaced the interpreters.” (Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, pp. 71-72) “When he [Joseph Smith] ‘translated’ the Book of Mormon, he did not read from the gold plates; he looked into crystals of the Urim and Thummim or gazed at the seerstone. The words came by inspiration, not by reading the characters on the plates…Joseph translated Abraham as he had the characters on the gold plates, by knowing the meaning without actually knowing the plates’ language.” (Rough Stone Rolling, pages 291-292) debate at Mormanity

Later in April, in a subsequent revelation, Oliver was promised that by asking in faith he would receive "a knowledge concerning the engravings of old records (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.99)

In the middle of the prayer, in the brightness of day, an angel descended in a cloud of light. He said he was John the Baptist and that he had been sent by Peter, James and John. Joseph and Oliver (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.100-1)

Mary Whitmore, Peter Sr,’s wife, experienced her own miracle, according to David….. She met an old man who said, “you have been faithful and diligent [sic] in your labors, but you are tired because of the increase in your toil; it is proper therefore that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened." The old man then showed Mary Whitmore the plates, which had been hidden in the barn for safe keeping. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.103 see above link for Google quote) this goes to Mary Whitmore page at Whitmore College

Joseph knew his story was difficult to accept….

The March revelation answering Martin's query emphasized that "I, the Lord, am God, and have given these things unto you, my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and have commanded you that you should stand a witness of these things (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.104-5)

additional quotes from Google books

While Book of Mormon critics complained about the absence of miraculous proof, they had some explaining of their own to do. How did these 584 pages of text come to issue from the mind of an untaught, indolent ignoramus, notable only for his money-digging escapades? That caricature had to be reconciled with the large, complex, intense volume that Mormons carried in their satchels. (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.124)

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” also cited in "Believing history: Latter-day Saint essays" By Richard L. Bushman, Reid Larkin Neilson, Jed Woodworth

I. Woodridge Riley “The Founder of Mormonism” (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.)

The Book of Mormon offered as reasonable an explanation as any for the time. From the seventeenth century on, ministers in Europe and America had argued the Indians were Israelites on the grounds of similarities in Hebrew (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.134) same excerpt cited in “Believing history: Latter-day Saint essays” p.123 By Richard L. Bushman, Reid Larkin Neilson, Jed Woodworth

The Book of Mormon's mission was to convert the Indian fragment of Israel along with all the other dispersed remnants, ... The reason was that Mormons and a Congregational minister like Ethan Smith could never agree on the role of the (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.138)

Parley Pratt said “as I ?

read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists.”….

... Parley Pratt remembered speaking (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.140-1)

(Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” additional Google excerpts including rough Stone p. 107

…"The Book of Mormon and the holy scriptures are given of me," a revelation said, "for your instruction."

On the other hand, the Book of Mormon did not become a handbook for doctrine and ecclesiastical practice…..

…Mormons were much more likely to seek revelations from their prophet… (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.142)

It was not narrowly conceived as a mechanism for spreading the Book of Mormon or converting the Indians; rather, it was to call men back to Christ in the full power of the Gospel. A revelation to David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery in June, 1829, expressed the thrust of the work and the message:

Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God; For, behold, the Lord your Redeemer suffered death in the flesh; wherefore he suffered the pain of all men, that all men might repent and come unto him. And he hath risen again from the dead, that he might bring all men unto him, on conditions of repentance. And how great is his joy in the soul that repenteth! Wherefore, you are called to cry repentance unto this people. And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father! (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.145-6)

"Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints" at Sacred Texts 18. Revelation to Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer, Fayette, New York, June 1829.

The revelation told Martin to repent, not to covet his neighbor’s wife, nor to seek his neighbor’s life. In direct answer to his request, he was commanded not to "covet thine own property, but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon. . . ." The revelation also spoke on a doctrinal point that may have been bothering him (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.155)

Joseph Through the summer Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family began to conceive of themselves as independent authorities with the right to correct Joseph and receive revelation. Oliver had witnessed at least three major revelations with (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.166)

In 1851 Franklin D. Richards published the words of Moses and the Prophecy of Enoch in England, and in 1880 they were officially accepted as scripture by the church in Utah.22 The delay in publication was not an indication of the (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” 1988 p.187)

"Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints" at Sacred Texts

Here are some additional quotations from the book: "(In the First Vision) Joseph had two questions in his mind: which church was right, and how to be saved. The two questions were actually one." (Pg. 54) "In his first narrative Joseph said only that he saw the Lord in the light and heard His words of forgiveness... By 1838 Joseph understood how significant it was that God the Father had appeared to introduce the Son. A new era in history began at that moment. Joseph's personal salvation paled in comparison to the fact that the God of Heaven had set His hand again to open a new dispensation." (Pg. 57) "For a time Joseph probably used the (seer) stone to help people find lost property and other hidden things, and his reputation reached (Josiah) Stowell... All of this was later turned against Joseph Smith." (Pg. 69-70) "The very existence of a (1826) trial record, if it is indeed authentic, attests to the popular interest in stone looking and treasure hunting." (Pg. 75) "Even in the midst of translation questions flickered across Martin's mind. During a break the two men sometimes went to the river to throw stones. Once Martin found one that resembled the seerstone and made a substitution without Joseph's noticing." (Pg. 90) "While Book of Mormon critics complained about the absence of miraculous proof, they had some explaining of their own to do. How did these 584 pages of text come to issue from the mind of an untaught, indolent ignoramus, notable only for his money-digging escapades? That caricature had to be reconciled with the large, complex, intense volume that Mormons carried in their satchels." (Pg. 124) "Almost everything Ethan Smith (in View of the Hebrews 1825) worked so industriously to prove, the Book of Mormon disproved or disregarded." (Pg. 136) "Alexander Campbell (in his Delusions: an analysis of the Book of Mormon : with an examination of its internal and external evidences, and a refutation of its pretences to divine authority ...) thought the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's attempt to decide 'all the great controversies,' but neither Joseph nor the early Mormons used the book that way. Mormons were much more likely to seek revelation through their Prophet. Despite the effort that went into the translation, Joseph Smith did not make the book the foundation of the church." (Pg. 142) (Richard L. Bushman “Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism” excerpts from Amazon review

"Cowdery, Oliver" Richard Lloyd Anderson Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” additional excerpts available at solomonspalding.com

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” additional excerpts at BYU.edu Chapters 7 & 8 PPT document

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” additional Google excerpts

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/45852833

I was treated by my master as his property and not as his fellow mortal; he taught me to work, and was very careful that I should have little or no rest (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.10)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” A Narrative of Solomon Mack at Oliver Cowdery.com

As the operation began, … He was “pale as a corpse, and large drops of sweat were rolling down his face, whilst upon every feature was depicted the utmost agony!”

After three months of constant pain, Joseph Jr. passed the crisis, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.21)

My mind was much agitated during the whole night. Sometimes I contemplated heaven and heavenly things; then my thoughts would turn upon those of earth — my babes and my companion. During this night I made a solemn covenant with God, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.24)

Lucy had no premonitions of such a future for her son. She remembered him as a “remarkably quiet, well disposed child,” “much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.35-6)

In 1826 a preacher at the Palmyra Academy said he saw Christ descend "in a glare of brightness, exceeding ten told the brilliancy of the meridian Sun." The Wayne Sentinel in 1823 reported Asa Wild's vision of Christ in Amsterdam, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.41)

Thoughts of the money value of the plates troubled Joseph. The angel had cautioned him about the temptation to get rich. He was told that he must have “no other object in view in getting the plates but to glorify God, and must not be influenced by any motive than that of building his kingdom.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.45-6)

Finally Joseph said quietly “I have taken the severest chastisement I have ever had in my life.” The angel had met Joseph on the road near Cumorah and warned him that he "had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.56 see excerpt just below)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited in “The Beginnings of Mormonsim”

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited in Mormon Enigma

I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us….

Joseph Smith stood on the line dividing visionary supernaturalism from rational Christianity—one of the many boundaries between the traditional and modern world in early-nineteenth-century America. He was difficult to place along that line because he faced in both directions. Joseph looked backward toward traditional society's faith in divine power communicated through stones, visions, dreams, and angels. At the same time, he turned away from the money-diggers' passion for treasure and reached for higher, spiritual ends. The gold plates and angels scandalized rational Christians, while the religious impulse confused the money diggers. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.57-8)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” cited in Institute for Religious Research

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited in Mormon Metaphysics

The Smiths’ effort to keep the plates secret were of no avail. … Brigham Young said the conjuror traveled the sixty miles three times that season. “The man I refer to was a fortune-teller,” Young said, “a necromance, an astrologer, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.60)

Lucy and Martin Harris combined credulity and suspicion. …. That night Mrs. Harris dreamed of an angel and the plates and awoke more eager than ever. …

…. “If it is the devil’s work,” Harris answered, “I will have nothing to do with it; but if it is the Lord’s, you can have all the money necessary to bring it before the world,” "You must not blame me for not taking your word," he added. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.62-3)

As I've been humbled to the absolute depths of my soul, and I have been divided ..... He “pressed his hands to his head and cries out in a tone of deep anguish, ‘Oh, I have lost my soul! I have lost my soul!’” Joseph …. “Yes it is gone,” replied Martin (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.67)

Joseph went back to Harmony in July 1828, suffering, as he later wrote, much “affliction of soul.” As he later told the story, the angel appeared and returned the interpreters, which had been taken from him when Harris went off with the manuscript. Through them Joseph received his chastisement: …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.68)

Lucy Smith said that Joseph received the interpreters again on September 22, 1828, and he an Emma did a little translating, but the need to prepare for winter intervened. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.70)

“When Martin Harris had taken dictation from Joseph, they at first hung a blanket between them to prevent Harris from inadvertently catching a glimpse of the plates, which were open on a table in the room. By the time Cowdery arrived, translator and scribe were no longer separated. Emma said she sat at the same table with Joseph, writing as he dictated, with nothing between them, and the plates wrapped in a linen cloth on the table. When Cowdery took up the job of scribe, he and Joseph translated in the same room where Emma was working. Joseph looked in the seerstone, and the plates lay covered on the table. Neither Joseph nor Oliver explained how translation worked, but Joseph did not pretend to look at the ‘reformed Egyptian’ words, the language on the plates, according to the book’s own description. The plates lay covered on the table, while Joseph’s head was in a hat looking at the seerstone, which by this time had replaced the interpreters.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.71-2)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 also cited at Mormon Coffee (Moderate Mormons?) “The Book of Mormon in Context”

The transcription theory has Joseph Smith “seeing” the Book of Mormon text in the seerstone or the Urim and Thummim. He saw the words in the stone as he had seen lost objects or treasure and dictated them to his secretary. …. Knight said: “Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkened his Eyes then he would take a sentance and it would appear in Brite Roman Letters then he would tell the writer and he would write it then that would go away the next sentence would come and so on. But if it was not spelt rite it would not go away till it was rite, so we see it was marvelous. Thus was the hol [whole] translated." (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.72)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at Mormon Think

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at the Institute for Religious Research

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.73-4)

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.75)

Even before the Book of Mormon was published in March 1830, the press had an explanation for its creation. In its first announcement in June 1829, the Wayne Sentinel commented that "most people entertain an idea that the whole matter is the result of a gross imposition, and a grosser superstition." The book was part of a scheme to swindle gullible victims. In this case, Martin Harris, "an honest and industrious farmer," was thought to be Joseph Smith's mark. Everyone else in town, the Palmyra Freeman reported, treated the gold plates story "as it should have been -- with contempt." 16 They discouraged publication to stop Joseph Smith from ensnaring more victims like Harris.

In a slightly more philosophical spirit, the editors offered an additional explanation. They placed Joseph Smith in a long line of false prophets beginning with Muhammad. Abner Cole, the obstreperous editor of the Palmyra Reflector, listed a set of examples as he began his account of Joseph Smith: "By way of introduction, and illustration, we shall introduce brief notices and sketches of the superstitions of the ancients -- the pretended science of alchymy... of Mahomet (properly Mahommed) and other ancient impostures... the Morristown Ghost, Rogers, Walters, Joanna Southcote, Jemima Wilkinson, &c."

Joseph was categorized as a false prophet with the usual following of ignorant dupes. Hapless uneducated souls always stood ready to believe the most extravagant tales. As Cole put it: "The page of history informs us, that from time immemorial, MAN has more or less been the dupe of superstitious error and imposition; so much so, that some writers in derision have called him 'a religious animal,' and it often happens that the more absurd the dogma, the more greedily will it be swallowed."

The categories were well entrenched and beyond contradiction; the only question was why Joseph Smith's appearance in an enlightened age. "It was hardly to be expected, that a mummery like the one in question, should have been gotten up at so late a period, and among a people, professing to be enlightened." 17 In mock despair, Cole lamented the failure of humanity to progress.

The categories of false prophet, superstition, and dupe so commanded the thinking of most editors that credit has to be given to the best informed of the early critics, Alexander Campbell, for reading enough of the Book of Mormon, to offer a reasoned critique. Founder of the Disciples of Christ and one of the country's most notable theologians and preachers, Campbell turned his attention to the Book of Mormon when Mormon missionaries made converts in one of his strongholds in northeastern Ohio in 1830 and 1831 and won over Sidney Rigdon, a luminary in Campbell's reformed Baptist movement. Campbell's critique appeared in his own Millennial Harbinger on February 7, 1831, and was reprinted in Boston in 1832 under the title Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon; with an Examination of Its Internal and External Evidences, and Refutation of Its Pretences to Divine Authority. The words "internal and external evidences" in the title referred to the usual methods for proving the Bible in Campbell's time, indicating he took the Book of Mormon seriously.

Campbell thought Joseph Smith was "as ignorant and as impudent a knave as ever wrote a book." He had cobbled together fragments of American Protestant culture, mixed theological opinions with politics, and presented the whole in Yankee vernacular. The book had touches of anti-Masonry and republican government, interspersed with opinions on all the contemporary theological questions: "infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment." (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.88-9)

“And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.”

Wherefore, because that ye have a Bible ye need not suppose that it contains all my words; neither need ye suppose that I have not caused more to be written. …

The World is a hive of bible-making, and in the end all these records will come together, and people will know one another through the bibles. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.100-1)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2 Nephi: 29 excerpts

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2 Nephi: 28 excerpts

It came in a rush, as if the thoughts had been building for decades. Talking to her son late in her life, Emma remembered how fluidly Joseph dictated:

When acting as his scribe he would dictate to me hour after hour, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.105)

When the book fell into the hands of Parley Pratt, he “read all day; eating was a burden, I had no desire for food; ... Pratt said nothing about what gripped him except that “as I read, the spirit of the Lord was upon me, and I knew and comprehended that the book was true, as plainly and manifestly as a man comprehends and knows that he exists.”….

... Parley Pratt remembered speaking (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.107

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 additional Google quotes

Far more important than any constitutional powers was a designation for Joseph revealed on the day of the church’s organization: “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.111) excerpt from “Beginnings of Mormonism” p.148

Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family began to conceive of themselves as independent authorities with the right to correct Joseph and receive ... Christian Whitmer came over to Joseph's side first and gradually the others followed. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.120-1)

Quick sale of properly to effect a sudden move inevitably meant poor prices and substantial losses. ... Men should be appointed to "look to the poor and the needy, and administer to their relief, that they shall not suffer; (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.125)

"I am Joseph the Prophet," he said on meeting the Whitney's for the first time. The declaration seemed natural when Whitney wrote almost fifty years later in Utah.1 By then, the .Mormons had built a thriving society on the premise of (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.127)

The June 1830 revelation of Moses consists of a grand vision, more far reaching than Joseph Smith’s first vision…..Joseph Smith’s Moses is a Christian, as are the prophets in all his translations. The Book of Mormon had …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.134)

The fertility of the religious landscape in the Northern United States was evident as early as the 1740s. ….Caleb Rich, an early Universalist in New England, ascended Mount Zion accompanied by a "celestial friend.” …..Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, had “astonishing visions and divine manifestations.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.147)

Soon after arriving in Kirtland, he received a revelation in response to a woman named Hubble “who professed to be a prophetess of the Lord” and wanted to set up as “a teacher of the Church.” Joseph was sensitive about rival prophets after the Hyram Page episode the preceding fall. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.151)

John Corrill was ordained an elder just three or four days after joining the Church, and within a few weeks he was on his way west on a proselytizing mission. ….

In a democratic time, the Mormons emerged as the most democratic of churches, rivaled only by the Quakers. …. No one was to go out without being “ordained by someone who had authority ….” Church leaders controlled ordinations …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.152-3)

In the view of Joseph’s revelations, inequality poisoned society. “Wo unto you rich men, that will not give your substance to the poor, for your riches will canker your souls,” declared one, and then immediately continucd “wo unto you (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.155)

Then the meeting unraveled. Joseph ordained Harvey Whitlock “command Satan to leave (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.156-7)

Not everyone was happy with the Zion mission. Ezra Booth, a convert of the preceding May, came back from Missouri disillusioned. He complained about Joseph’s behavior on the trip. In nine impassioned letters to the Ohio Star published from October through December 1831, Booth explained his reasons for considering Joseph unworthy. Booth was the first of a half dozen outspoken apostates who broke with Joseph and mounted campaigns to bring him down.. nine letters to Ohio Star (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.168-9)

In Booth’s eyes, Joseph Smith’s demeanor fell short of a prophet’s proper character. Joseph lacked “society, prudence and stability,” frequently showing “a spirit of lightness and levity, a temper easily irritated, and an habitual proneness to jesting and joking.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.170)

The mob apparently meant to castrate Joseph. The historian Fawn Brodie speculated that one of John Johnsons sons, Eli, meant to punish Joseph for an intimacy with his sister Nancy Marinda, but that hypothesis fell for lack of evidence. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.178-80)

Brigham Young held back, wanting to test its ideas and meet some Mormons. ...

For Brigham Young, as for most converts, Joseph Smith was not the issue in accepting the Mormon gospel. The Youngs studied the Book of Mormon, met other Mormons, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.190)

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.192-3)

On August 9, 1833, Oliver Cowdery arrived in Kirtland with bad news. Jackson County citizens were demanding that the Mormons leave, and, under pressure, the Church leaders had agreed to go. Within six months, the Saints were expelled from Jackson County with no realistic prospect of returning… (p.222?)

Whether they were forewarned or not, Cowdery’s arrival in Ohio with news of the citizens’ ultimatum threw Kirtland into an uproar. An emergency council first advised the Missouri Saints to look for another home, assuring them that “an other place of beginning will be no injury to Zion in the end.” The council agreed with the decision to leave. ‘There was no other way to save the lives of all the church in Zion.’ Joseph, devastated by the news, tried to comfort the brethren with a plaintive postscript wishing he was there to share the suffering. “My spirit would not let me forsake you unto death.” Be of good cheer, he urged. “Oh God save my Brethren in Zion Oh brethren give up all to God forsake all for Christ sake.”

As the days passed, Joseph became more and more troubled. On August 18, he wrote the most anguished letter of his life, all of it in his own hand, addressed to Brother William, John, Edward, Isaac, John and Sidney’—the Missouri leaders. He was driven nearly to ‘madness and desperation,’ he said, not understanding why the grand plan for Zion, the heart of the whole restoration movement, had been set back. God “will speedily deliver Zion for I have his immutable covenant,” but He “keep[s] it hid from mine eyes the means how exactly the thing will be done.” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.225-6)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 also cited at gospeldoctrine.com

Mormonism had to present itself not as the one true church but as one church among a society of churches, all on an equal plane. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.227)

Distraught and confused, Joseph began to murmur against the Lord. He asked how long Zion’s tribulations would last and was told, “Be still and know that I am God!” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.229)

The revelations did not explain how the Saints were to respond to violence. ... Zion by purchase, not violence, for “If by blood as you are forbidden to shed blood (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.235)

His followers were sometimes shocked by his flashes of anger. But in the end they backed him. The high council found Sylvester Smith at fault, not Joseph. They sensed that their prophet had the right to rebuke his followers, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.249-50)

In his concluding charge to the twelve apostles record their decisions (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.257)

Some of the visitors were strangers, curious about Momonism. By 1835, news of the Mormons was becoming public know ledge. As early as the summer of 183 1, James Gordon Bennett, ... story with the Morning Enquirer and Courier in New York City that began: "You have heard of mormonism — who has not? Paragraph has followed paragraph in the newspapers, recounting the movements, detailing their opinions and surprising distant readers with the traits of a singularly new religious sect which had its origin in this state…..” (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.270)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Newspaper article at Sidney Rigdon.com

Curious to see a reputed Jew, a number of Kirtland Saints called to meet the visitor. ... and the next day after breakfast Joseph “told him, that my God told me that his God is the Devil, and I could not keep him any longer. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.275)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Papers of Joseph Smith vol. 2 p.74

William E. MClellin, the former schoolteacher chosen apostle in February 1835… The journal he kept of a missionary journey with the twelve from May through September 1835 is the best account we have of Momon missionary work in the early years (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.279)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” The William E. McLellin Papers excerpts

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Journal of Mormon History Vol. 24, No. 2, 1998 Steven C. Harper inre William E. McLellin PDF

Mormons needed an answer to the question “What do Mormons believe?” In the October 1834 issue of the Messenger and Advocate, the Church’s newspaper in Kirtland, Oliver Cowdery attempted a summary.

That our principles may be fully known we here state them briefly:

We believe in God, and his Son, Jesus Christ. We believe that God, from the beginning, revealed himself to man, and that whenever he has had a people on earth, he always has revealed himself to them by the Holy Ghost, the ministering of angels, or his own voice. We do not believe that he ever had a church on earth without revealing himself to that church; consequently, there were apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, in the same. We believe that God is the same in all ages; and that it requires the same holiness, purity, and religion, to save a man now, as it did anciently; and that, as he is no respector of persons, always has, and always will reveal himself to men when they call upon him.

We believe that God has revealed himself to men in this age, and commenced to raise up a church, preparatory to his second advent, when he will come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

We believe that the popular religious theories of the day are incorrect; that they are without parallel in the revelations of God, as sanctioned by him; and that however faithfully they may be adhered to, or however zealously and warmly they may be defended, they will never stand the strict scrutiny of the word of life.

We believe that all men are born free and equal; that no man, combination of men, or government of men, have power or authority to compel or force others to embrace any system of religion, or religious creed, or to use force or violence to prevent others from enjoying their own opinions, or practising the same, so long as they do not molest or disturb others in theirs, in a manner to deprive them of their privileges as free citizens, or of worshipping God as they choose; and that any attempt to the contrary is an assumption unwarrantable in the revelations of heaven, and strikes at the root of civil liberty, and is a subversion of all equitable principles between man and man.

We believe that God has set his hand a second time to recover the remnant of his people Israel, and that the time is near when he will bring them from the four winds, with songs of everlasting joy, and re-instate them upon their own lands which he gave their fathers by covenant.

And further: We believe in embracing good wherever it may be found; of proving all things, and holding fast that which is righteous.

This in short, is our belief, and we stand ready to defend it upon its own foundation whenever it is assailed by men of character and respectability. And while we act upon these broad principles, we trust in God that we shall never be confounded! (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.281)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” olivercowdery.com

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Full text of "Latter Day Saints' messenger and advocate" at Internet Archive

And finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.287) this link to Skeptics copy of Book of Abraham for Rough Stone see link just below

These verses have had a troubled history. Later they were used as a justification for refusing black people the priesthood. The Abraham verses say nothing of skin color, but …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.288)

Of all the men working on the papyri, only Joseph produced a coherent text. …. In 1967, that view of translation suffered a blow when eleven scraps of the Abraham papyri, long since lost and believed to have been burned, were discovered …..

…… When he [Joseph Smith] ‘translated’ the Book of Mormon, he did not read from the gold plates; he looked into crystals of the Urim and Thummim or gazed at the seerstone. The words came by inspiration, not by reading the characters on the plates…Joseph translated Abraham as he had the characters on the gold plates, by knowing the meaning without actually knowing the plates’ language. (Rough Stone Rolling, pages 291-292)

debate at Mormanity

While Joseph was …… Benjamin Johnson, a great admirer, said, "Criticism, even by associates, was rarely acceptable, and contradiction would rouse in him the lion at once, for by no one of his fellows would he be superseded or disputed.” When one Brother (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.296)

As teacher, Joseph thought his opinion should prevail, but Pratt “manifested a…

The most violent outburst came during a dispute with Joseph's younger brother William, the most volatile of the Smiths. Near the end of October, William brought charges against a Brother David Elliot for whipping his teenage daughter (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.299-300)

Heber Kimball Journal and Record History 12/22/1834 Kirtland High Council Minutes 10/29/1835; Wyatt Brown, Hour and Violence 36-37; JS Journal 10/29/1835; PJS 2:64, 105-11 (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.619 FN 21,22) see P.623

Aaron C. Lyon: about ten days ago, the fifteen-year-old Elliott girl came to his house, complaining that:

her father had abused her, and whipped her & that some marks were found upon her arms, body &c. then she had been whipped. This circumstance took place about ten days since. … she said she would, or had a mind to make away with herself, hang herself (or something of the kind) to get rid of her trouble and affliction.

Roxana Lyon: corroborates her husband's testimony and adds that "Mrs. Elliott threatened to take the broomstick and kill her."

Sister Osgood: three years ago, as she was leaving the Elliott home, the girl said, "I know how I shall fare when you leave I shall run away or destroy myself." She went down into the well to drown herself but Sister Osgood prevented her. …. (more) Kirtland High Council Minutes 10/29/1835

preside in a case of Sister Eliots [Mary Cahoon Elliott] I did so my Mother was called as testimony and began to relate circumstances that had been brought before the church and settled I objected against such testi mony the complainant Br. William Smith arose and accused me of invalidating or doubting my Mothers testimony which I had not done nor did I desire to do39 I told him he was out of place & asked him to set down he refused I repeated my request he become enraged I finally ordered him to set down he said he would not unless I knocked him down I was agitated in my feeling at on the account of his stubournness and was about to call leave the house, but my Father requsted me not to I com plyed the house was brought to order after much debate upon the subject and we proceded to buisness & br. Eliot & his wife were both cleared from the charges prefered against them. 40 JS Journal 10/29/1835

As often happened on Grand occasions, ….. Rigdon asked the quorums to acknowledge Joseph as “a prophet and seer” and to uphold him ... asked the quorums to acknowledge the entire First Presidency as “Prophets and Seers.” ... to acknowledge the 12 Apostles who were present as Prophets and Scers. ... Depending on possible combined votes, there could have been twelve (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.316)

The dedication was over, but was ….. Frederick G. Williams testified “that while Presdt Rigdon was making his first prayer an angel entered the window and took his seat… between father Smith, and himself.” Others saw angels, and two apostles sang and spoke in tongues. … others reported “great manifestations of power, … (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.317)

JS Journal, Mar, 27, 1836, PJS 2:203 Taves Experiencing Religion (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.623 FN 48) also includes P.619

No one intimated …. Oliver Cowdery’s excommunication trial before…. Cowdery, long Joseph's friend and associate in visions, was a casualty of the bad ... In 1838, he was charged with “seeking to destroy the character of President Joseph Smith jr ...

The Far West court did not accuse Joseph of being involved with Alger. ... David Patten, an apostle, “went to Oliver Cowdery to enquire of him if a …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.324)

Widespread apostasy resulted. The volatility in prices, the pressure to collect debts, the implication of bad faith were too Inuch ... Heber C. Kimball claimed that byJune 1837 not twenty men in Kirtland believed Joseph was a prophet. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.332)

When Joseph, battered by creditors, tried to collect payment for three city lots he had sold Parley Pratt in the inflationary delirium a few months earlier, Pratt exploded in rage and frustration: “If you are still determined to pursue this wicked course, until yourself and the church shall sink down to hell, ….” Orson and Lyman Johnson brought charges against Joseph (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.337)

At one point, Joseph was looking for work cutting cordwood when a local member supplied them with funds. In Paris, Illinois, the tavern keepers turned the Mormons away until Joseph threatened to burn down one of their houses if his family was refused. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.342)

Joseph soon learned that the disaffection in the Kirtland Church had spread to Caldwell County, beginning with the Missourri Presidency. Not long after Caldwell was settled, the Missouri Saints began to doubt the faithfulness of David Whitmer, William Phelps, John Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery. John Corrill, a member of the Misourri bishopric with Edward Partridge, thought that a misunderstanding about land purchases aroused suspicion of Phelps and Whitmer, presidents of the Missouri Church. Some time in the winter of 1836-37, Church members came to doubt them “on account of their having entered the town plot and some other lands in their own names,” suggesting they were speculating in Caldwell County lands. The land was soon deeded to the bishop, the Church officer responsible for land, but complaints accumulated.

In January 1838, a group of apostles and high councilors appointed a committee to make inquiries. Soon after, “the excitement rose so high that they turned them out of their presidential office.” At a February council meeting, George Morey, a high councilor, set “forth in a very energetic manner, the proceedings of the Presidency as being iniquitous.” The four were accused of various infractions of the Word of Wisdom and of selling their lands in Jackson County, signaling a lack of faith in the Saints' return to their promised land. Cowdery admitted to drinking tea three times a day for his health and the Whitmers contended tea and coffee were not covered by the revelation. As for their property, the four threatened to leave if they were forbidden to sell their Jackson lands, Phelps said he “would move out of the accursed place.” Moreover, they “would not be controlled by an ecclesiastical power of revelation whatever their temporal concerns.”

Considering the answers unsatisfactory, the council removed the four from office. By this time popular feelings were at fever pitch. …..

The individual complaints against the Missouri Presidency blended with the larger issue of loyalty to Joseph Smith. …. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.346-7)

This republican language …”Danites” or “Daughters of Zion,” were organized. ….”They Ran into awful extremes,” John Corrill later said, “for it seemed that they felt justified, and thought it was the will of God to use any measures whatever, whether lawful or unlawful, to accomplish” their end. The leader of the Danites, Sampson Avard, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.349-51)

Corrill suspected that Avard spoke for Joseph and Rigdon, but admitted “how much he was assisted by the presidency I know not.” Peck, a Danite adjutant, said, “Dr. Avard, in speaking to the society, remarked, that it would be impossible for the presidency to explain the object of the society to every member, but that the presidency would explain their views or wishes to the head officers, and they to the members of society.” After a secret meeting, Corrill approached Rigdon, and “he told me I ought not to have any thing to do with it; that they would do as they pleased.” Yet later, the Presidency blessed the officers at a meeting. Corrill testified:

There was at this meeting a ceremony of introducing the officers of the society to the presidency, who pronounced blessings on each of them, as introduced, exhorting to faithfulness in their calling, and they should have blessings. After this, President Smith got…. And live in peace.

Peck observed that Dr. Avard “did not explain to the presidency what his teaching had been in the society.” Corrill remembered strong talk. Joseph said that “if they came on to molest us, we would establish our religion by the sword; and that he would become to this generation a second Mahomet.” Although Avard may have concealed the Danite oaths, Joseph certainly favored evicting dissenters and resisting mobs.

Corrill and Peck used republican language to combat the Danites. “It was clearly evident to me,” Corrill wrote the next year, “that the leaders of this faction intended to set up a monarchical government, in which the Presidency should tyrannize and rule over all things.” (Corrill p.32) those words made the authority of the prophet, otherwise considered to be a blessing to the Saints, appear tyrannical. Once the language of the American Revolution snapped into place, the divine powers of the Prophet became oppressive, and the issue became one of freedom rather than truth. When Joseph attempted to reinstate the consecration of properties at Far West, Peck charged that “no manarch on earth ever had supreme power over his subjects more than they over the inhabitants of Caldwell county.”

On the Sunday after the apostates were driven from Far West, Sidney Rigdon attempted to explain the treatment of the dissenters. He preached on the republican basis of their expulsion, admitting that “certain characters in the place have been crying ‘you have broken the law—you have acted contrary to the principles of republicanism.’” … (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.352-5)

The Testimony given before the judge of the fifth judicial circuit of the State of Missouri, on the trial of Joseph Smith, jr., and others for high treason, and other crimes against the State…..

Sampson Avard, a witness produced, sworn, and examined on behalf of the State, deposeth and saith: …. I consider Joseph Smith, jr., as the prime mover and organizer of the Danite band. (p.1) Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” original trial in Congressional Edition, Volume 378 larger excerpt from P.12

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” selective excerpts from Congressional Edition, Volume 378 in HTML at Mountain Meadows Massacre site

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Mormonism: embracing the origin, rise and progress of the sect: with an examination of the Book of Mormon 1844 By James H. Hunt, G. W. Westbrook

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” Danites Research Secret Mormon Killers By Jerry Stokes

I have received by Amos Rees Esq. of Ray county and Wiley C. Williams, Esq., one of my aids, information of the most appalling character, which entirely changes the face of things, and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State. Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operations with all possible speed. The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary, for the public peace…

Josephs Happy Prospects had faded quickly… (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.356)

Complete Extermination Order of L. W. BOGGS Governor of Missouri

The Mormons were “in the attitude of an open and avowed defiance of the laws, and of having made war upon the people of this State.” “Your orders are, therefore, to hasten your operations with all possible speed,” Boggs declared. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.365)

Everything Corril said was true…… Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Williams, Phelps Orson Hyde, Martin Harris, and Thomas B. Marsh all left him in 1838, worn down by failures and perceived missteps.“ Six of the seven—all but Whitmer—returned to the Church before they died, and Phelps and Hyde within a few (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.379)

On the number of Danites see LeSuere, “Danites Rconsidered (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.628-9 FN 23-47)

The majority of the state witnesses were or had been Mormons. Josephs old allies Thomas .Marsh, Orson Hyde, and John Whitmer spoke against him, along with the negotiators he had trusted, George I tinkle, John Corrill, and Reed Peck. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.369)

The literature on the Mormon war in Missouri did have a long-term effect on Mormonism's public image. Mormons were depicted as a persecuted minority who hail suffered unjustly for their religious beliefs…..

The persecution literature told one Mormon story, but there were others…. Mormonism Exposed. After that, the assaults kept coming year after year as Mormonism proved to be good press. Three of the 1838 anti-Mormon pamphlets were published in New York; the other in England.

Mormonism had been noticed in the national press but never with such intensity. The earliest stories had passed off the Book of Mormon and Joseph’s visions as entertaining diversions. Mormonism was a folly, not a threat. Serious criticism came primarily from the people close to Mormonism. Ezra Booth, the author of nine acrimonious letters printed in the Ohio Star in 1831, was a disillusioned Mormon. Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, an excommunicated apostate, collected afidavits about the Smiths’ money-digging in Palmyra. Eber D. Howe’s 1834 Mormonism Unvailed, which included both Booth’s and Hurlbut’s writings, was the work of a newspaper editor in nearby Painesville, Ohio. The people most exercised about the Mormons were disaffected former adherents and their neighbors. The Cambellite leader Alexander Cambell, who published a critique of the Book of Mormon in 1831, was a former colleague of Sidney Rigdon. He was moved to attack the book when he heard of conversions among his Kirtland followers.

In 1838, the menace of Mormonism began to concern a much wider circle. The first of the three anti-Mormon pamphlets to appear that year was the work of Origen Bacheler, a polemicist who had no direct contact with the body of the Mormons. The pamphlet was the published version of a debate between Bacheler and Parley Pratt (with Pratt’s side omitted). Pratt had come to New York in the summer of 1837 to purge himself of his ill feelings toward Joseph after the Kirtland bank debacle. He had faltered when Joseph tried to collect payment for a Kirtland city lot and was alienated from the Prophet for three months. In New York, he wrote A Voice of Warning and debated Bacheler. Bacheler gave credit to Pratt for his personal demeanor. "To be sure, you have a very demure countenance; you are quite modderate in your manner of speech; and you appear very cool and self-possessed," but, he added, are not many knaves "smooth as razors dipped in oil?" Pratt withdrew from debate after six meetings, but Bacheler unloaded his criticisms twice more and still was not finished with Mormonism. The back of the pamphlet advertised eight additional points he intended to argue in a subsequent work.

Bacheler focused his criticism on the Book of Mormon. He gave example after example of errors in style, reasoning, and historical fact, much in the spirit of Thomas Paine's iconoclastic attack on the Bible in The Age of Reason, published in 1794. In fact, Bacheler patterned his treatment of Mormonism after Paine. Paine had brought evidence "to show the imposition and falsehood of Isaiah" and every other book in the Bible. His aim, he said, was "to show that the Bible is spurious, and thus, by taking away the foundation, to overthrow at once the whole structure of superstition raised thereon." ...Bacheler administered the same medicine to the Book of Mormon: slashing prose, scorn for the text, and complete confidence in rational analysis.

Bacheler arranged his evidence in categories like "Barbarisms," "Improbabilities," "Absurdities," and "Contradiction of Fact." He lumped together the colloquial New England language as "Jonathanisms," which he thought unworthy of God. Some phrases struck Bacheler as ridiculously funny: "'ye wear stiff necks and high heads' ...Bacheler denied the Mormon claim that the book harmonized with the Bible. Where in the Bible did Smith find the prophet Lehi, whose visions are given in the first chapter of the Book of Mormon? "Now ask the Jews if they ever had such a prophet; and they are quite as likely to know, as the juggling, money-digging, fortune-telling impostor, Smith."

As Bacheler went on laying out one absurdity after another, his outrage at "the miscreants who are battening on the ignorance and credulity of those upon whom they can successfully play off this imposture" intensified. The Book of Mormon is "the most gross, the most ridiculous, the most imbecile, the most contemptible concern, that was ever attempted to be palmed off upon society as a revelation." Joseph Smith and his witnesses are "perhaps the most infamous liars and impostors that ever breathed." The deceit they practice on the unsuspecting believers is nearly criminal. "By their deception and lies, they swindle them out of their property, disturb social order and the public peace, excite a spirit of ferocity and murder, and lead multitudes astray on the subject in which, of all others, they have the deepest interest." Bacheler believed they must be dealt with: "They can be viewed in no other light than that of monstrous public nuisances, that ought forthwith to be abated."

Publishing conventions for over a century had permitted feverish writing on public issues. Bacheler's rhetoric did not distinguish him from scores of other polemicists of his time. Still, the anger in his words raises the question of why Mormonism was so threatening. Why did Bacheler write so passionately against the productions of a "blockhead" like Joseph Smith Why did he claim the Mormon conspirators were "the most vile, the most impudent, the most impious knot of charlatans and cheats with which any community was ever disgraced and cursed"?

Bacheler had earlier attacked Universalism and later wrote against Episcopalianism. Like other rationalists of his day, he may have felt crushed between skepticism on the one hand and superstition on the other. On one side, Paine and the infidels were assaulting Christianity, and on the other, the uneducated masses were falling into the clutches of charlatans like "Joe Smith." In 1831 Bacheler published an exchange of letters with the atheist Robert Dale Owen on belief in God and the authenticity of the Bible. For ten weeks the two traded blows on God and then launched into a debate on the Bible. While skeptics were closing in from the rationalist side, Mormonism was spreading superstition on the other. Joseph Smith's success seemed to show that the popular masses would put their faith in any cockeyed story. The foundation on which rational Christianity stood was proving to be uncomfortably narrow.

In the introduction to a later edition of the letters, Bacheler put the issue as he saw it. "Religion is the all-important thing, or else it is a gross imposition on mankind.... If it is true, it ought to be maintained; if false, overthrown." Everything hung on religion's rationality. The thousands of Mormon conversions posed the question: Was faith in orthodox Christianity any different? Was it another religious imposture battening on human credulity just like Mormonism? The pretensions of Joseph Smith put all revealed religion to the test. Unless Mormonism could be distinguished from rational religion, all of Christianity was in danger. While protecting the innocent from the Mormon imposture, Bacheler was defending Christianity itself. The critics' writings largely controlled the reading public's image of the Prophet for the next century, with unfortunate results for biographers. The sharp caricature of "Joe Smith" as fraud and con man blotted out the actual person. He was a combination of knave and blockhead. No one had to explain what motives drove him. He was a fixed type, the confidence man, well known in the literature of antebellum America. Americans knew all about these insidious scoundrels who undermined social order and ruined the lives of their unsuspecting victims. Joseph Smith became the worst of the type -- a religious fraud who preyed upon the sacred yearnings of the human soul. James M'Chesney, the author of another of the anti-Mormon pamphlets in 1838, thought the Mormons were "miserable enemies of both God and man -- engines of death and hell." Combat with them was "desperate, the battle is one of extermination." (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.398-401)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at solomonspalding.com “Mormonism Exposed”

Ezra Booth, the author of nine acrimonious letters printed in the Ohio Star in 1831.

He did not make the Earth “out of Nothing; for it is contrary to a Rashanall mind & Reason. that a something could be Brought from a Nothing.” In Joseph's view, God assembled the earth from preexisting material and then drew a cohort…. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.421)

WSJ, 60-61 (Jan. 5 1841), WJS 9, (DC 93: 29-35) Ethan Allen (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.642)

Joseph’s leading critic from the summer of 1841 to the end of his life was Thomas Sharp,…

Joseph noted the hostility of the courthouse crowd and realized that popular opinion was turning against ... Growing a little testy, Sharp warned that if Mormons "as a people, step beyond the proper sphere of a religious denomination, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.427-8)

A man saved no faster than he gets knowledge for if he does not get knowledge, he will be brought into captivity by some evil power…

By the middle of 1842, the time of peace in Nauvoo was drawing to a close. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.436)

They married because Joseph's kingdom grew with the size of his family, and those bonded to that family would be exalted with him.

In October 1841, Joseph married Zina Huntington Jacobs, wife of Henry Jacobs. Zina was a pious young woman of twenty.….Zina changed her mind after her brother told her about the angel threatening Joseph’s “position and his life.”….

The personnel anguish caused by plural marriage did not stop Joseph from marrying more women. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.439)

Joseph told the twelve about plural marriage soon after their return in 1841, and they began marrying other women soon after. Before Joseph died, as many as twenty-nine other men had married at least one additional wife under his authorization. The practice had to be generalized because the revelation tied marriage to the highest form of exaltation. . . . The plural marriage revelation [D.&C. 132] still describes the modern Mormon view of marriage and family, although Latter-day Saints abandoned plural marriage more than a century ago. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.443)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at Utah Light Ministry

In an August letter to the New York Herald, John C. Bennet, Joseph’s Judas, called for war on the Mormons: (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.459-65)

Sarah Pratt….. Bennett claimed that while Pratt was in England with the other apostles in 1 841, Joseph had proposed marriage….

...No contemporary report of Sarah's own version remains (save Bennett's account), but forty years later, ... she had left the Church, she told a story that substantially supported Bennett (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.466)

Orson Pratt statement… Brigham Young to Parley Pratt 7/17/1842 manuscript (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.650)

Joseph was on the run in the summer of 1842, trying to elude arrest for his suspected complicity in the attempt to assassinate Lilburn W. Boggs, the former governor of Missouri. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.468)

On August 18, Joseph wrote to Newel and Elizabeth Whitney (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.473)

Blog review of Whitney letter from “In defense of Joseoph”

During the spring of I843, he and Willard Richards became absorbed in another kind of knowledge. On March 10 at 6:50 PM, they observed a light in the form of a sword in the Southwest sky (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.488)

JS, Journal, Mar 10-11, 13-14 Woodruff Journals, 2:219 on astrology (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.653)

Not long after the Miller excitement, Joseph’s prophetic powers were put to the test. In April, a dozen men in Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois, said they had dug twelve feet into a mound on the property of a local merchant, Robert Wiley, and found six small bell-shaped brass plates with undecipherable writings on them. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.489)

… Lucy worked as Emma's maid while going to school.

In 1842, when Lucy was fifteen or sixteen, Joseph told her, “I have a message for you. I have been commanded by God to take another wife, and you are that woman.” Lucy was astounded…. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.491-2)

In response, the Utah Church secured scores of affidavits from people who knew of the practice in Nauvoo. ... facts that might have been omitted had not the Utah Mormons been determined to prove that Joseph and his plural wives were married as completely as (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.493-4)

Everyone The aide also implied that votes for the Whigs in the August elections might reverse the decision. Backenstos returned to Xauvoo with the news that unless the Saints voted Democratic, the militia would be dispatched (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.508)

He proposed to pay owners with revenues from the sale of public lands.“ ]oseph's antislavery policy was not devised just for ... “I have always advised such to bring their slaves into a free country,” was ]oseph's reply; “set them free,

Joseph’s antislavery policy was not devised just for the campaign. When asked about slavery during his Springfield trial in December 1842, he had come out for manumission. Orson Hyde wanted to know “what would you advi[s]e a man to do who come in hte [Church] having a hundred slaves?” “I have always advised such to bring their slaves into a free country,” was Joseph’s reply; “set them free, Educate them and give them their equal rights.” A few days later, Hyde pressed the question again: “What is the situation of the Negro?” he wanted to know. Joseph had a ready answer:

They come into the world slaves, mentally and physically. Change their situation with the white and they would be like them. They have souls and are subjects of salvation. Go to Cincinati and find one educated [black man who] rid[e]s in his carriage. He has risen by the power of his mind to his exalted state of respectability. Slaves in Washington [are] more refined than the president.

Hyde was concerned that the blacks would try to rise above the whites. Of course they would, Joseph said. “If I raised you to be my equal and then attempted to oppress you would you not be indignant and try to rise above me?” At that point Joseph’s sympathy for the blacks began to waver. “Had I any thing to do with the Negro,” he said, voicing the view of many antislavery partisans, “I would confine them by strict Laws to their own species [and ] put them on national Equalization.” Probably by “confinement to their own species” he meant no intermarriage.

Joseph Smith was proud of his Views. He read the pamphlet to visitors and printed 1,500 copies for distribution to politicians and newspaper editors. Idealistic but politically impractical, Views revealed him at his exuberant best. ….

I would, as the universal friend of man, open the prisons; open the eyes; open the ears and open the hearts of all people, to behold and enjoy freedom, unadulterated freedom; and God, who once cleansed the violence of the earth with flood; whose Son laid down his life for the salvation of all his father gave him out of the world; and who has promised that he will come and purify the world again with fire in the last days, should be supplicated by me for the good of all people.

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.516-7)

(Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” General Smith’s “Views” of the powers and policy of the government of the United States

As we have lately been credibly informed that an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, by the name of Hiram Brown, has been preaching polygamy and other false and corrupt doctrines, in the county of Lapeer, state of Michigan.

This is to notify him and the Church in general, that he has been cut off from the church, for his iniquity. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.526)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at Utah Light Ministry

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at truthandgrace.com

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited in “Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy”

“Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy”

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” additional Google Quotes

On April 18, four dissenters were excommunicated Robert Foster, Wilson Law, William Law, and Jane Law. They were given no opportunity to defend themselves or bring witnesses. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.531)

Mounting opposition outside of Nauvoo made dissension within the … an attempt by Nauvoo law enforcement officers arrest Milton Cook (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.532)

To put teeth in their campaign, the seceders brought charges against Joseph in Carthage courts. On May 1, Francis Higbee charged Joseph in circuit court with speaking “false scandalous malicious and defamatory words” concerning Higbee’s character. Three weeks later, William Law charged Joseph with living in adultery with a plural wife, Maria Lawrence. A Carthage grand jury issued indictments for perjury and polygamy on the witness of Joseph Jackson, Robert Foster, and William Law (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.538)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” also cited at gospeldoctrine.com

At the city council meeting the next day, Joseph argued that the paper was “a nuisance, a greater nuisance than a dead carcass.” The term “nuisance” came from a passage in Blackstone that he would use to justify suppression of the paper. The Expositor was a “nuisance” because it threatened to bring the countryside down on the Mormons. “It is not safe that such things should exist, on account of the mob spirit which they tend to produce.” Joseph would later quote Blackstone to Governor Thomas Ford to prove the city council acted legally.

The legal fine points were lost in the subsequent chaos. The city council met for six and a half hours on Monday, June 10, “investigating the Merits of the Nauvoo Expositor.” They seemed to realize they were taking a huge risk when they finally passed an ordinance concerning libels, but they concluded that the action was necessary and legally justified. Joseph, as mayor, ordered the city marshal, John P. Greene, to destroy the Expositor and the major general of the Nauvoo Legion to assist. “About 8 p.m. the Marshall returned and reported that he had removed the press, type, and printed papers, and fixtures into the street, and fired them.” The posse, consisting of about a hundred men, gathered in front of Joseph’s house after the work was done to hear a speech. “I would never submit to have another libelous publication… established in this city.” He told them. “I cared not how many papers there were in the city if they would print the truth but would submit to no libe[l]s or slander.”

In the “considerable excitement” the day after, the dissenters stormed about saying “the Temple shall be thrown down Joseph[‘s] house burned & the printing office torn down,” possibly thinking of an anti-Mormon invasion. Francis Higbee predicted “in 10 days there will not be a Mormon left in Nauvoo.” Joseph’s enemies were persuaded that he had crossed the line in closing the Expositor. Whether or not the law of libels or abatement of a nuisance justified the action, he had trespassed freedom of the press, which had become nearly a sacred right in the United States. Joseph was deaf to these ideas. He did not grasp the enormity of destroying a press, especially one that was attacking him. Fear of another mob drove his action……. Joseph failed to see that suppression of the paper was far more likely to arouse a mob than the libels. It was a fatal mistake. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.540-1)

Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 missing portion cited at gospeldoctrine.com?

of Alton told Ford: “You now got the principle men under your control, they are all you want, what more do you want? When they are out of the way the thing is settled, and the people will be satisfied, (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.548)

FN 77 Ford, History of Illinois, 342; Jonathan. Wright affidavit 1/13/1855 (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.664 not shown just 663 and 665)

Strang attracted two thousand followers, among them Martin Harris, and John C. Bennet, whose dreams of a religious empire despite his opposition to Joseph. (Richard L. Bushman “Rough Stone Rolling” 2007 p.555-6)

“A History of Illinois” 1854 By Thomas Ford

The Latter-Day Saints millennial star, Volume XV

“The Contributor: representing the Young men's and Young ladies ..., Volume 14” By Junius F. Wells

The Young woman's journal, Volume 11 By Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

“The Contributor: representing the Young men's and Young ladies ..., Volume 16” By Junius F. Wells

search: whipped, scolded, beating etc. p.429, 466 “The Contributor: representing the Young men's and Young ladies ..., Volume 12” By Junius F. Wells

The prevalence of murder in Edgefield in the mid-nineteenth century can be crudely measured through the county coroners’ reports of juries of inquest. From 1844 to 1858, the Edgefield coroners' officially recorded sixty-five murders. That is probably an undercount, since a number of deaths were attributed to natural causes or "acts of God" that by a less charitable interpretation might have been the result of deliberate violence, such as a person who drowned after being beaten. Nevertheless, that works out to an annual rate of 18 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. In 1992, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, only one state in the entire country, Louisiana, approached this figure, with a homicide rate of 17.4 per 100,000. (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.8) Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” also cited in E-campas

She made a switch out of a big branch of the tree in the back yard and beat him. (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.82)

Even Butch’s grandmother supported his fighting when challenged. “I tell my children to fight it out,” she told the neighbors. “If Butch don’t fight, I’m going to beat him myself.” (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.85)

When Laura saw Willie, he remembered later, her eyes narrowed and her voice grew cold. “Get your ass over here, right now,” she commanded between clenched teeth. (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.210)

“Why am I so angry toward the system?” Willie continued. “Well, the reason is because I’m only a monster that the system created-a monster that’s come back to haunt the system’s ass. And I’ll dog this system until it’s in its grave, because it’s a wrong system.” (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.316)

“Ladies and gentlemen. This trial will not bring any justice to Earl Porter. It is not going to bring justice to Willie Bosket either for all his trials and tribulations at the hands of the system. But it can bring justice to thousands of children.” (Fox Butterfield “All God's Children” 1995 p.322)

In any case, the declaration carried grave implications for the war’s duration, the war’s conclusion, and the shape of the conflict that would follow the war. If Churchill opposed Roosevelt on this point, it was not because he was indifferent to shoring up Stalin, nor because he had learned history’s lessons less well than Roosevelt, nor because he was softer — more “Wilsonian” — than his American counterpart. Churchill, after all, had spent the century up to his elbows in the blood of Britain’s imperial wars. That was the experience he was drawing on. Churchill knew that by foreclosing any possible negotiations toward surrender, the Allies were making it more likely that the Axis powers would fight to the bitter end, at a huge cost in lives on both sides, resulting in a level of devastation that would itself be the seedbed of the next catastrophe. This was so because “unconditional surrender” could be taken by an enemy as promising the destruction not just of its armies but of its whole society. Indeed, Joseph Goebbels would tell Germans that this demand issued at Casablanca meant the Allies were set on making slaves of their entire nation.27 To put such dread in the breast of an enemy population was to make inevitable a fight to the death — or, as Churchill had put it about his own people earlier in the war, when they faced the prospect of conquest by an ascendant Germany, a fight “on the beaches.” Knowing of his own ferocious readiness to resist to the last breath, the last ounce of blood, Churchill might have cited Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese theorist of war, who wrote, “When you surround an army leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”

….

Ironically, Roosevelt would learn at Tehran, ten months after Casablanca, that Stalin, whom he hoped to encourage with the demand of unconditional surrender, was completely opposed to it. Even the harshest conditions, Stalin argued — and if he did not aim to enslave the German population, he certainly aimed to impoverish them — would bring about a settlement far sooner than none at all.31 Stalin’s army, imposing itself “unconditionally” on Germany from the east in the war’s last months, would lose a million more men. (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.8-9) James Carroll “House of War” for Prologue and first 12 pages click here

Groves moved to stop Szilard by challenging the petition as a criminal violation of security. He ordered the scientists to give it to no one whose security clearance was lower than Szilard’s own, a tactic eliminating many scientists from merely looking at the petition. (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.69-70)

…Groves was the first to put into words the harsh corollary of this assumption-namely, the United Sates had to be prepared to use its nuclear advantage to prevent any enemy from matching it. (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.75)

“But that was later,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And at the time, in 1945, you didn’t really appreciate what had happened in Tokyo.”

“No Not then.”

“And now? What do you make of it now?”

McNamara’s eye’s abruptly filled. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“Well it was a war crime.” All at once he was on the verge of weeping. “It was one of the war crimes with which I can be charged.” (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.97)

LeMay probably had this declaration in mind when, long after the war, he explained the rationale for his campaign by telling Michael Sherry, “There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not fighting an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.” (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.99)

2. Stimson’s September 11

Of all the people who participated in the decisions that led to that carnage, one in particular had worked to prevent it from happening ever again, Henry Stimson…..

If we were truly realistic, instead of idealistic, as we appear to be, we would not permit any foreign power with which we are not firmly allied, and in which we do not have substantial confidence, to make or possess atomic weapons. If such a country started to make atomic weapons, we would destroy its capacity to make them before it has progressed far enough to threaten us. (James Carroll House of War” 2006 p.111-22)

James Carroll House of War” also cited in James Carrolls editorial

Byrnes, as we saw, had made Stimson nervous, with the bomb “rather ostentatiously on his hip” and with his bullying early approach to Molotov. Byrnes had been among the first to recognize grave political differences with Moscow, but he did not believe they foreordained a global conflict. And he had soon seen where the ideologically driven bullying tactics were leading. (James Carroll House of War” 2006 p.133)

Kennan had begun by defining the Soviet leaders as being at the mercy of paranoid hallucinations about threats from the west, but soon those threats were not hallucinatory. Kennan had argued that only fear of an outside enemy would enable Stalin to retain power and then Kennan sponsored exactly that fear. (James Carroll House of War” 2006 p.137-40)

The next day, Forrestall noted, the newspapers were “full of rumors and portents of war.”…. In response to events in Czechoslovakia, Truman had said that “moral, god-fearing peoples…must save the world from Atheism and totalitarianism.” And now he showed what that meant. (James Carroll House of War” 2006 p.143)

When a reporter presses, Truman cut him off saying, “It’s a matter that the military people will have to decide. I’m not a military authority that passes on these things…The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of the weapons, as he always has.”

His press secretary soon issued a “clarifying” statement, that the atomic bomb remained under the president’s sole authority and that no decision to use it had been made. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.191-3)

James Carroll House of War” also cited in Truman Library

At a banquet celebrating the first successful test of the Soviet H-bomb, Sakharov proposed a toast: May all our devices explode as successfully as today’s, but always over test sites and never over cities.” He later recalled that his stunned colleagues reacted “as if I had said something indecent.” (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.198)

Behind her back we would call her M.T., as in “empty,” but she was anything but. A stern woman, she was not to be ignored or disobeyed. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.202)

Dulles had written the most warmongering planks of the Republican platform, denouncing, for example, “the negative, futile, and immoral policy of ‘containment,’ which abandons countless human beings to despotism and Godless Communism.” (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.204-5)

10. the Missed Opportunity

When Stalin died, on March 5, 1953, tectonic shifts occurred in the Communist world-his trusted henchman Lavrenti Beria would soon be shot, for example-but Eisenhower and Dulles, viewing that world monolithically, missed them. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.207-9)

“Essentially,” Lindsey continued, “LeMay had built an air force that could only get off the ground for a first strike.” (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.222)

In March 1958, the Soviets had proposed that the stationing of nuclear weapons in central Europe be prohibited, effectively making a nuclear-free zone of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East and West Germany. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.239)

Since Kennedy's own election campaign had made the missile gap the nation's burning question, McNamara knew he had to deal with it at once. If the Soviet Union was far ahead of the United States in rocket manufacture and deployment, the kind of turnaround McNamara would have to orchestrate in the Pentagon was clear. If, as some hold, Kennedy was disingenuous in warning of the missile gap, McNamara would establish that, too. He had to know what the facts were and how they were arrived at. "So I went up to the Air Force on that first day," he said.

He had no reason to know that the day he was referring to was the one I had come to regard as the Pentagon's eighteenth birthday. "I went to A-2 [the chief of air intelligence]. I can't think of his name. He was a major general, very nice guy. I said I want to see the basis of your study, the underlying data. So he got out photographs and everything. Well, the photographs were U-2 photographs and were very, very limited, in the sense that you couldn't be sure -- at least I couldn't be sure -- what the hell we were looking at. The A-2 seemed to be quite certain, but as it turned out, he was looking at them through Air Force glasses."

McNamara compared the U-2 photographs with those from the new reconnaissance satellite Discoverer, and what he found was not only that the missile gap charge was false-Arthur Schlesinger, not an uninterested observer, later wrote that it was “in good faith overstated”-but that was the intelligence system on which he and the president had to depend was a shambles.

Each of the five services had its own intelligence operation. When McNamara asked the Army for its estimate of deployed and ready Soviet missiles as of January 1961, he was told ten; the Navy put the number at less than half that. The Air Force set the figure at more than fifty, and perhaps as high as two hundred. Within the Air Force, the Strategic Air Command had yet another, independent intelligence operation, and it insisted on higher numbers yet. And there were equivalent disparities on projections of the gap in the future. The Air Force had been the main source of all missile gap alerts, beginning in 1957 with the Gaither Committee's and including Stuart Symington's warning that the Soviet Union by the early 1960s would have three thousand ICBMs. When McNamara demanded that Air Force intelligence officers justify their estimates in light of the Discoverer photographs, they could not. "Even Air Force analysts were embarrassed by the pictures," the historian Fred Kaplan wrote. "The images starkly rebutted the estimates of Air Force intelligence." Soon it would be "discovered" that the actual number of deployed Soviet ICBMs was four.

McNamara saw what was happening, what had by then become a regular feature of Pentagon information gathering. Of the Air Force intelligence chief, McNamara said to me, "I'm absolutely certain he was not trying to mislead anybody -- the Air Force chief of staff, the president, or the secretary of state, or anybody." In fact, it was worse than mere deception. As we have seen again and again, each service branch assessed enemy capacities based less on objective readings of Soviet arsenals than on the branch's own procurement wishes. Thus what Navy intelligence emphasized were sonar soundings that showed a dangerous growth in the Soviet submarine force. The Army saw the Red Army's drastic expansion of conventional divisions and tank brigades on the edge of Europe and the prospect of Communist aggression in brushfire wars in the Third World. And the Air Force saw everything through the lens of its plans for the new B-70 bomber and for the ten thousand Minuteman missiles a worst-case reading of missile gap required.

As McNamara indicates, none of this is to indict intelligence agencies for outright dishonesty. Intelligence assessments moving up a chain of command have a way of confirming presuppositions at the top. We saw how, during World War II, Allied bomber generals wanted to believe an air war against cities would destroy enemy morale, and British intelligence assessments (disputed by some Americans) said it would be so. In the late 1940s, Harry Truman wanted to believe in a long-term American nuclear monopoly so that he could berate Moscow -- and Leslie Groves and then the CIA assured him it would be so. The same pattern would be repeated when Lyndon Johnson was told what he wanted to hear about Vietnam, and when Ronald Reagan's obsession with the "evil empire" drew support from intelligence that missed the significance of nonviolent democracy movements -- the opposite of "evil" -- behind the Iron Curtain.

What Mc. was seeing was the third-generation effect of intel. entities whose missions were defined so emphatically by the individual services that thier ability to serve a broader national interest was almost entirely destoryed….

I concluded that we just had to get rid of five independent intel. services" Mcnamara said to me...... So I concieved of forming the Defense Intelligence Agency, with a commitment to gathering and evaluating info. based on a higher loyalty than to any service"....

Still-- and knowing that if he could not rely on the basic data about and interpretation of enemy capacity and intention, all else was meaningless-- he remained determined to take control of such information...... but intelligence gathering was the most jealously guarded activity in the military. Everything from mission to budget to battle order began and ended with the assessments of J-2, A-2, and ONI, and no service chief was going to willingly surrender an inch of that turf. Mcnamara was a shrewd enough manager to see a fight coming, but it soon became a test for him-- not so much of his own authority but of the constitutional principle of civilian control. By taking control of information and its interpretation, he would bring the Pentagon behemoth to heel. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.255-8)

(James Carroll House of War” also cited at the Education Forum

Even before Kennedy took office, at a transition briefing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on January 13, 1961, his people were confronted with a proposal, according to a Chicago Sun-Times report three weeks later, “that the U.S. launch a preventive atomic attack to stop Communist infiltration of Laos.” As the newspaper reported another three weeks later, the proposal came from LeMay.

…All the civilian control in the world meant nothing as long as the general’s strategic planning-how, when, and at what a nuclear strike would be launched- was not subject to oversight, much less to criticism….

….A military command’s greatest responsibility is for war planning that reflects the actualities of an anticipated battlefield, but SAC, was engaged in planning for its own bureaucratic and budgetary self-interest….. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.264-7)

The CIA concluded that there were only four operational ICBMs, all on low alert, at a single, easily targeted site called Plesetsk, in Russia….

But don’t relax. The discovery of the Soviet Union’s radical strategic inferiority brought with it a new kind of threat, because an enemy that knows of its relative weakness has all the more reason to strike first, especially once the weakness becomes known to the other side….

….When Kaysen went to the SAC headquarters in Omaha to more fully inform himself on the SIOP, his questions to the generals were greeted with bristling responses. “None of your goddamn business” is how Kaysen described their attitude toward him….

….At last a SAC general was standing in the oval office and putting it to the president: “If a general atomic war is inevitable, the U.S. should strike first.” (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.270-4)

….As Kennedy eventually found it possible to reject any move toward a nuclear strike, so did Khrushchev, presumably deflecting on his side the dangerous contingency plans of his rational advisors and the mad urges of his bomber generals…. (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.277-8)

As it was learned only years later, Kennedy made a solitary decision to resolve the crisis by proposing what was an anathema to almost all of his advisors: a trade of the fifteen U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey for the Soviet missiles in Cuba. The Jupiters were outmoded anyway, but Nitze called the idea "absolutely anathema ... as a matter of prestige and politics." 143 But Kennedy knew that prestige and politics were issues as much for Khrushchev as for him. The missile swap was a face-saving arrangement that Khrushchev accepted.

And then an odd thing happened. The Senate confirmation of the nominee should have been routine, but a conservative young Republican congressman from Illinois, looking to make a mark by embarrassing the Kennedy administration, attacked Nitze from out of nowhere. The congressman charged him with having attended a National Council of Churches meeting years before, an event at which disarmament had been advocated by some in attendance. Disarmament! Showing his ignorance, the congressman charged the author of NSC-68 and the Gaither Report, two of the most hawkish statements ever to come out of Washington, with being “soft.” The proponent of a first strike over Berlin and an all-out air assault on Cuba was a disarmer! It was a ludicrous charge and hardly honest. Even if the young congressman was ignorant of Nitze’s militant history going back to the Stategic Bombing Survey, he had to have known that John Foster Dulles, secretary of state at the time of the Council of Churches meeting, had also attended, had even given the keynote speech. It was hardly a gathering of pinkos. And Nitze had, in any case, publicly argued against disarmament positions. But the attack was launched, and others in Congress picked it up, a club with which to hit the Democrats. Nitze’s nomination to a job he did not want was nearly defeated. The wound of the insult would never quite heal. The first-term congressman who slandered him was named Donald Rumsfeld.

…..Indeed in his crisis-ending communication to Kennedy on October 28, Khrushchev suggested that the Soviet Union “should like to continue the exchange of views on the prohibition of atomic and thermonuclear weapons, on general disarmament and other problems relating to the relaxation of international tensions.” Kennedy promptly affirmed the same hope: “Perhaps now, as we step back from danger, we can make some real progress in this vital field.”

11. At American University (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.280-9)

James Carroll House of War” also cited on Education Forum

James Carroll House of War” also cited on Bad Attitudes

One official who witnessed such a process up close in the early days of the Vietnam War described the unfolding, within the “institutional culture,” this way: “They begin by lying to Congress and the public, all for the best of reasons; in this case the felt necessity of ‘containing’ communism in South Vietnam. Next they lie to each other, concealing information and even private opinions that might introduce a note of discordant doubt. And finally, they lie to themselves-having become so profoundly, psychically committed to the wisdom of their actions, having raised the stakes so high, that any admission of error would be a failure of unacceptable dimensions.” (James Carroll House of War” 20006 p.306)

….speech he gave at the United Nations on September 25, 1961

Then he put forward the first comprehensive plan for complete nuclear disarmament since the Baruch Plan had called for international control of atomic energy in 1946. (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.315-6)

Kennedy speech at the United Nations 9/25/61

Thinking of the children with whom he had huddled underground in Hanoi, Daniel wrote a statement for the group: “Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, and the burning of paper instead of children… We could not so help us God do otherwise For we are sick at heart our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children.” (James Carroll “House of War” 2006 p.319)

Statement of Daniel Berrigan

Curtis LeMay….“I think most military men think it’s just another weapon in the arsenal…I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons… I don't believe the world would end if we exploded a nuclear weapon." A world of mine ended that day. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.320) (James Carroll “House of War” also quoted on 1968 timeline

Johnson, for example reported a recurrent dream in which, as recalled by one of his aides, “He would wake up in the night, pick up his red telephone, and say, ‘Secretary of Defense, you there? Joint Chiefs, you there? CinC-SAC, you there? This is your Pres-I-dent. I’ve been tossing and turning, and I’ve decided that we’ve got to hit the Russians with all our A-bombs and H-bombs. So, I’m putting my thumb on the button. And I’m mashing it down.’ Johnson would then stop and say, ‘And do you know what they say to me? They say, ‘Fuck you, Mr. Pres-I-dent.’”…

There was the dilemma: absolute dread of a coming nuclear war and absolute requirements to prepare for it. At the collapse into buffoonery of bomber-turned-political-candidate LeMay showed, the contradictory pressures were breaking men right and left. All of this amounts to the powerful pressure exerted on its leadership by an American population, which at since 1945 had been conditioned to expect the worst from an omnipotent Kremlin, in response to which the only security was an ever-upward escalation of American arms. Nitze had preserved in a kind of bureaucratic amber the paranoid mindset that originated with his mentor Forrestal, and that had been vigorously inflicted on the national consciousness for a decade, ”It’s a we/they world,” Nitze told Pentagon colleagues after he had been named deputy secretary of defense. “It’s us against the Soviets. Either we get them first, or they get us first.” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.324-5)

The justification for the major shift was the startling discovery” to which Laird testified a week after Nixon’s announcement: the frightening new conclusion that Moscow had abandoned the nuclear balance of deterrence in favor of a strategy aimed at wiping out the U.S. retaliatory capacity with a surprise (“first strike”) attack, a “knockout blow.” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.331-3)

Now Laird did respond: “We have not done that, Mr. Chairman, I want to make that very clear. We have not arrived at a different position from the intelligence estimates in this whole matter…I have not overstated the case at any point. I have always used the intelligence estimate, the agreed upon estimate.” To which Fulbright replied, “I am not trying to level an accusation.”

But he was. The intelligence estimate had made the clear assertion that the Soviet Union’s going for a first strike was “highly unlikely.” The Defense Intelligence Agency concurred in that conclusion, and had reiterated it at least twice during June alone. Laird was hoist on his own petard, and by the summer, with the Senate split and the issue roundly politicized, the ABM system was in jeopardy. Nixon and Kissinger were on Laird’s back; he was blowing it. Then a strange thing happened. Helms was not fired, but an adjustment was made in the National Intelligence Estimate. In an “updating” of the estimate of the Soviet IBM capability, the key sentences that were causing Laird such problems disappeared, and when the update was published, the offending words were gone.

Richard Helms had too high a profile and too influential a political constituency to be fired by Nixon in the midst of this dispute, and he was also a man who knew when to yield a point. “After an assistant to Secretary of Defense Laird informed Helms,” in the words of the Senate investigation, “that the statement contradicted the public position of the Secretary,” Helms ordered the deletion. “A willingness to compromise,” his biographer comments in relation to this incident, “was both Helm’s strength and his weakness… To get along, he often had to go along.” Helms himself later said that when the CIA chief “clashes with the Secretary of Defense, he isn’t a big enough fellow on the block.”

But General Carroll, the less powerful and deliberately anonymous agency chief deep inside the Pentagon, was something else. If one thing had distinguished his career, it was an inbred inability to go along. For years, his main consistency had been Robert McNamara, as together they tried to transcend the parochialism of interservice rivalry, but Carroll had no constituency now. His primary loyalty had been not to the Joint Chiefs, not to his own Air force, but to McNamara’s demand for uncorrupted intelligence. The newspapers were full of the dramatic push and pull between Laird and Fulbright’s committee, including leaked reports about the contradictory secret testimony of “intelligence chiefs.” Whatever testimony my father offered in the matter did not become public. At the time, I asked my mother about it, and she told me that Dad had been called to testify. Later, I asked my father, and he demurred. When I pressed him, he told me that his assessment had been and continued to be the same as Helm’s: there was no evidence of a soviet intention to go for a first strike. “Dick Helms and I agreed on that,” he said.

Within days of Secretary Laird’s having testified before Fulbright’s committee that his Pentagon intelligence sources were in complete accord with the soon to be adjusted USIB estimate on the Soviet intention, my father was removed as head of the DIA. The crucial deletion of text, to which Helms agreed eliminating evidence of Laird’s contradiction of his own intelligence service, did not occur until after my father’s demise, but my conclusion, first reached thirty years ago, seems reasonable. In 2003, I spoke to a former DIA analyst who worked for my father at the time, and he remembered the end of General Carroll’s tenure vividly, and how it was tied to the ABM debate as it approached a climax on Capital Hill. “We were all aware of it. I am sure they said something like, ‘Now, Joe, can’t you give us a break on the ABM?’ to which he would have said, ‘Don’t make an argument for a weapon system based on corrupted intelligence.’”

In 2005, on the other hand, I spoke to the official historian of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He had no knowledge of the dispute, but he did recall that General Carroll had clashed over “organizational issues.”

General Carroll never made public any point of contention between himself and Secretary Laird, which was consistent with his long-standing commitment to maintain the lowest of profiles. The DIA historian’s impression was that my father could have continued as director “into the 1970s,” but I know from my mother that this is not true. In July 1969 my father was abruptly told that he was being transferred to a new job. I recall my mother telling me that the position was at an Air Force base in Texas. This assignment, to a slot tied to the rank of a major general, entitled a demotion, a loss of the third star my father had worn for a decade. My mother was crushed by the news, and indicated that my father was as well. In a classic instance of psychosomatic reaction, his back “went out” just then.

Stress is opportunistic, physicians tell us, and it finds the body’s weak point. My father’s chronic problem with a slipped disk suddenly became acute, nearly paralyzing him, and his doctor urged an operation. Within days of having been told of his transfer, he was admitted to the hospital at Andrews Air Force Base, and I went at once to Washington. I did not know it, but military medicine had his own diagnosis for the condition my father was suffering: “hysterical conversion symptoms,” a kind of behind-the-lines shell shock. For a decade, day in day out, he had been facing impossible challenges, with little or no support, under orders to create an enterprise that the very institution he served was determined to defeat. In the end, defeat came. My father would have been the last person to compare his condition to what GI’s were suffering in Vietnam, but his physical collapse mimicked that of men brought down on the battlefield. Even then, as I heard from Mom, yet knowing nothing, I had a vague sense of him as a casualty of the war. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.333-5)

James Schlesinger and Henry Kissinger understood the link between the two kinds of power in ways that few others in government had, and they both wanted to secure nuclear-based dominance to foster America’s recovery from Vietnam….. They wanted to make nukes usable and they wanted to make nuclear war winnable…… (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.348)

As it was, Nixon repeatedly ordered his military forces, including the nation’s strategic nuclear forces, to a level of alert one step short of nuclear war. Except for Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, no other president has done this even once, and it is instructive to note that the Soviet Union never ordered its nuclear forces to such a state of alert. Under Nixon, U.S. strategic forces were brought to a war footing at least three times, and his closest advisors worried that, for his own insane purposes, he would do it even more.

….“I’d rather use the nuclear bomb,” Nixon said at one point. “The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you? I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ’s sake.”

For example, the general in charge of Strategic air command, on his own authority, without informing Washington and without complete knowledge of the alert’s purpose, ordered the B-52 squadrons based on Guam not to participate in the nuclear alert…. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.350-2) James Carroll “House of War” also cited on Citapedia.com James Carroll “House of War” also cited in Oh My News

… Kissinger, on his own authority, assembled the National Security Council in the white House Situation Room, although without the president or vice president-“the statutory membership of the National Security Council minus these two men.” So it was that without any input from, much less the control by, the nation’s elected leaders, Kissinger and others decided how to respond to the Soviet ultimatum….

Schlesinger issued the directive that “any emergency order coming from the president” be first shown to him, the secretary of defense, before any action was taken. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.354-6

The man on whom Ford depended as he sought to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of Kissinger and Schlesinger was his White House chief of staff, a former fellow congressman named Donald Rumsfeld. As a conservative Republican from an affluent Illinois district, Rumsfeld had routinely voted against legislative vestiges of the War on Poverty, federal programs designed to help the poor, but that had not prevented Nixon from naming him director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the antipoverty agency. Rumsfeld's job was to gut it. This was the beginning of the right-wing republican campaign to roll back the "big government" bequeathed by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, a movement that would gain great success under Ronald Reagan. Rumsfeld's two young deputies there were Richard Cheney and Frank Carlucci. Rumsfeld had left OEO to serve in the Nixon White House. He was spared the poison draught of Watergate by having been named ambassador to NATO at the end of 1972. When Ford succeeded Nixon, he immediately turned to his trusted ally Rumsfeld for help. And Rumsfeld, appointed chief of staff, once again named Cheney as his deputy.

At Ford's elbow, Rumsfeld out maneuvered Henry Kissinger, undercutting the uncertain new president's faith in the entire project of détente. (Its opponents loved to point out that the French word meant both "relaxed tension" and "trigger.") Rumsfeld was one of the first to resuscitate, from its Truman-era iterations, the moral argument against the Nixon-Kissinger real-politik project of making big-power deals with the wicked Communists, an appeal to which Ford, the moralistic midwesterner, was susceptible. It was not only that the Soviets were not to be trusted, but the link between arms control concessions and Soviet behavior on human rights, in particular emigration policies and the repressive treatment of dissidents, had to be reestablished. Détente was taken to be a form of incipient ethical relativism, a signal of the Vietnam-induced rot of American character.

Rumsfeld had a hard-liner's sympathy with Schlesinger, but the arrogant secretary of defense had impossibly alienated his insecure superior, and Ford wanted to escape his shadow even more than Kissinger's. In the fall of 1975 -- a "Halloween massacre" -- Ford's chief of staff made his move. Now throughly under Rumsfeld's sway, the president fired Schlesinger outright, removed Kissinger from his position as national security adviser, banishing him to the relative harmlessness of Foggy Bottom, and replace William Colby at the CIA with George H.W. Bush. (Rumsfeld saw Bush as his own main rival to become Ford's vice president in 1976, and the intelligence post removed him from contention.) In the most dramatic move of all, Rumsfeld had Ford appoint as Schlesinger's replacement at the Pentagon none other than himself….

It is hard to believe that observers could have taken Rumsfeld's maneuvers as anything but a triumph of traditional anti-Soviet ideology, given what they put in place. Rumsfeld immediately sought major increases in defense spending, reversing the dramatic downturn in the percentage of the gross national product that had been spent on the military under Nixon. Rumsfeld's move to the Pentagon marked the definitive end of détente, destroyed any chances for SALT under Ford, and laid the groundwork for a post-Vietnam generational shift that would aim at, and ultimately accomplish, the restoration of America's overwhelming military dominance, a supremacy unapologetically based on nuclear weapons. Among those empowered by Rumsfeld were his acolyte Cheney and his factotum Carlucci, each of whom would follow him as secretary of defense, together with Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who would, from within the government and outside it, be permanent Pentagon tribunes of American hegemony. They would be joined by the likes of Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice. The group Rumsfeld put in place, shaping policy through the Reagan years and then coming fully into their own when Rumsfeld returned to the E-ring office over the River Entrance in the early twenty-first century, would eventually become known as the Vulcans, a name James Mann used as the title of his book on the group. What they all had in common was a hunger for martial dominance that was born of the failure of Vietnam…..

Its triumph, however, would not come easily. In the first post-Vietnam instance of military challenge, within weeks of the fall of Saigon, Ford's team would stumble badly -- and an ominous shadow would fall over the future. A U.S. cargo ship, the SS Mayaguez, was raided by a Cambodian naval force in May 1975. Another of the Kissinger legacies in the region had been the fall of Cambodia, a month before, to the Khmer Rouge, and the new Communist regime was flexing its muscles. Ths ship's thiry-eight American crew members were taken prisoner. Rumsfeld, with Kissinger's concurrence, persuaded Ford to bypass diplomacy and display his toughness, first by bombing the port city of Kompong Som and then by ordering an operation aimed at rescuing the crew. Ford denounced "an act of piracy," and U.S. Marines, like swashbucklers, swung aboard the captured ship (the first such hostile boarding at sea since 1826), only to find it abandoned. In another foreshadowing, the Rumsfeld circle had based its action on ridiculously flawed intelligence. Hundreds of other Marines invaded an island where the captured crewmen were thought to be. In the battle there, forty Americans were killed -- for nothing. It was then discovered that the Mayaguez crew had been released unharmed shortly after being captured, set adrift in a Thai fishing vessel. Despite vast differences in scale and intention, the incompetent rescue attempt was a kind of overture, complete with the music of bombing, for the war Rumsfeld would orchestrate against Iraq beginning in 2003. The Mayaguez action was overwhelmingly popular with Americans, lethal to young U.S. soldiers --and it was unnecessary. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.358-61) James Carroll “House of War” also cited in dumb monkey

It was Reagan’s obsession with military power and military solutions that blinded him to the significance of Solidarity, a movement that resolutely renounced violence. Reagan would embrace the savage, death-squad-dominated Contra movement in Central America in the name of opposition to Communism, but he and his administration ignored the far more significant, and ultimately triumphant, solidarity movement because they could not imagine nonviolent resistance as powerful…. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.378-80

Leonid Brezhnev could not ignore it either. Indeed, on June 15, in a speech at the United Nations, the Communist leader pledged that the Soviet Union would never be the first to use nuclear weapons-a pledge that neither Reagan nor any of those who succeeded him as president would match…..

Yet anything a man from Moscow advocated had to be regarded as supect…..

….The freeze was truly moving the earth below them. The president’s rhetorical extremity was a signal of how concerned Reagan and his circle were about a popular movement that was picking up steam…. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.387-9)

To ask where Reagan got the idea for SDI is to enter the twilight zone of his zany imagination…. Hollywood is as likely a source for the president’s proposal as any physicist working at RAND…. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.392)

In Nicaragua, the brutal Somoza regime had been in power since the 1930’s. FDR had called Anastasio Somoza Garcia a son of a bitch, “but he’s our son of a bitch.” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.399)

The Reagan administration’s attitude toward the murdered Catholics, whom many regarded as martyrs, was eloquently summed up by U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick when, in testimony before Congress, she dismissed the Catholic women slain in El Salvador as “not real nuns.” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.401)

Jeanne Kirkpatrick

13. Enter Gorbachev

Within a month of coming into office in March 1985, Gorbachev unilaterally stopped the deployment of Soviet Missiles in Europe. He then called for a bilateral halt to nuclear weapons testing and for cuts in strategic arms in excess of anything so far discussed. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.404-17)

From start to finish, the media found the Plowshares actions not newsworthy. That was especially so once the dominant story unfolding in the late 1980s and early 1990s was the thaw in the Cold War, and then the end of it. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.418-20-23)

Indeed, the new situation seemed to bring out something profoundly reactionary in Bush. As a congressman, he had been strident in his anti-Communism, and during Vietnam he had publicly supported the idea of using nuclear weapons. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.426)

Bush made the most dramatic gesture of arms reduction, that is, mainly because his military no longer wanted the weapons. The president did not explain that in his speech. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.428)

LeMay’s successor as head of the strategic Air Command, Thomas Power, as we saw earlier, defined victory in 1960 by saying, “At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win.” But LeMay’s further successor, General George Lee Butler, who was the last SAC commander before it became the U.S. Strategic Command in 1992, has said that the war plans over which he presided were “barbaric… more barbaric than…[anything] you’ll find in the animal kingdom. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.462-3)

On July 30, Soyster received a memo from a DIA analyst, reporting on reconnaissance photos that showed thirty-five thousand Iraqi troops mustered at the border of Kuwait. Of Saddam’s plans for that force, the analyst wrote bluntly, “He intends to use it.” But Soyster did not believe his analysts conclusion. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.442)

But the Pentagon had never accepted that. Getting former Warsaw Pact members into NATO, beginning with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, was less a security question, now that Russia was in decline, than an economic one, for Moscow’s former satellite nations, needing an arms buildup from scratch, represented a major new market for the Pentagon’s industrial partners. That was an argument Clinton could understand, and as a politician he saw a benefit of pleasing U.S. voters with ties to Eastern Europe….

Early in his term, the president visited an aircraft carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt. As he was piped aboard, he passed a young sailor at the head of the gangplank. The sailor pointedly declined to salute his commander in chief. Instead of rebuking such disrespect to the office of the presidency on the spot, or afterward, Clinton let the slight pass, as if it did not matter. The president's refusal to enforce due deference to authority was a graver offense against the military ethos than the sailor's contemptuous act, and every member of the armed forces took note. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.454-5)

By his own account, Powell says it was he, not Clinton, who brought up the subject of homosexuals in the military. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.459-60)

Perhaps the most important thing about the Dayton peace negotiations was who was not there. Only the men of violence were invited to the table, representatives of the killers Milosevic and Croatian leader Franco Tudjman, and of the Bosnian resistance, led by Alija Izetbegovic. But there was one figure in the Balkans who had held out hope of another way, the leader of the Kosovar nonviolent resistance, Ibraham Rugova. An Albanian professor, he was the most widely admired man in Kosovo province. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.477)

General Wesley Clark, NATO’s supreme commander, resented the Russian intervention and gave the order to move against it with force. But Clark’s British subordinate, General Sir Mike Jackson, refused saying, “Sir, I’m not starting World War III for you.” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.481)

In 1999, toward the end of a Clinton administration that had needlessly kept the nuclear arsenal near Cold War levels, Nitze denounced that cache of destruction in an op-ed piece in the New York Times. “The fact is, I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons. To maintain them is costly and adds nothing to our security.” he wrote, “I can think of no circumstances under which it would be wise for the United States to use nuclear weapons, even in retaliation for their prior use against us. What, for example, would our target be? It is impossible to conceive of a target that could be hit without large-scale destruction of many innocent people.” The man who had done more than any other to justify America’s dependence on nuclear weapons now reversed the entire thrust of his career. To Repeat, “I see no compelling reason why we should not unilaterally get rid of our nuclear weapons.” Now you tell us….

In 1992, just before Clinton took office, Wolfowitz wrote a document called “Defense Planning Guidance,” which amounted to the first articulation of a new post-Cold War military strategy. The Pentagon’s “first objective” now was “to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival. The United Sates would become the world’s permanent and preeminent military overseer, maintaining armed forces of such overwhelming superiority as to be beyond challenge. American power would be exercised alone and from above. The diplomat’s dream of cooperative internationalism, to which the United States had traditionally deferred, if it never fully submitted, was dashed in the Wolfowitz vision, to be replaced by nothing less than Washington’s unilateral reach, also known as “forward Presence.”…. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.483-4)

James Carroll “House of War” also cited on Marilyns non-violent planet

When we brought our small daughter to this place, she stood before the Maya Lin masterpiece, silently taking in the fifty-nine thousand names. Then she said, “The Vietnam War?” Yes, we said. To which she said, “Then where are the Vietnamese names?” (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p492.)

Officially promulgated “National Defense Strategies,” under the rubric of “forward defense of freedom,” did away with the once firm tradition of defensively deployed forces, linked to allies and ready to react to conflicts instead of initiate them. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.496)

On larger questions, dissention could be just as loud. For example, a 2003 Pentagon report argued that the most serious threat to U.S. security was not Islamist terrorism but environmental degradation. Complaints and reports like these were mostly ignored. (James Carroll “House of War” 20006 p.502)

Admiral Rickover came to support a testing program for school children similar to the one we have in Georgia, an all-out effort on organized-crime control, and an end to the giveaway of patents taken out by contractors whose new discoveries were developed using federal money. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.72)

It would be easier if I was a dictator and didn’t have to worry about the Congress or other foreign leaders who didn’t agree with us…..

King was pastor of a church in Albany, Georgia, who had disrupted our worship services in Plains during 1976 by demanding membership in our Plains Baptist Church. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.81-2)

Grenada is the smallest country in our hemisphere, and Gairy was primarily concerned with mysticism, the definition of God and a resolution that he sponsored for years before the United Nations to investigate unidentified flying objects.

I remember with particular clarity that when he opened the wrong briefcase to… (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.95)

Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” excerpts along with excerpts from Kenedy “Keeping the Faith” quotes

Senate is still deadlocked on the energy package. The influence of the oil and gas industry is unbelievable, and it’s impossible to arouse the public to protest themselves. The strict partisan alignment and animosity that now prevails in the Congress did not exist twenty-five years ago. On many issues regarding defense or controlling deficits, I received more support from Republicans than from Democrats. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.110)

An unaroused American public is no match for the legions of tenacious and well-funded Washington lobbyists. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.258)

When I became president, most of the regimes in South and Central America were military dictatorships. Historically, the U.S. government under both Democratic and Republican presidents had supported the dictators and strongly opposed-often with U.S. Marines or army troops-any popular uprisings of indigenous or minority citizens that threatened the status quo. The reasons for this were obvious. Many of the leaders had been trained at West Point or Annapolis, were fluent in English, conversant with our free enterprise system, and eager to form lucrative partnerships with American corporations that had an interest in the national resources of the country involved. These included bananas, Pineapples, bauxite, tin, iron ore, and exotic lumber. It was politically convenient to brand any indigenous people or other groups as Communists or simply revolutionaries. Catholic priests who supported the poor and subjected citizens were condemned by the Vatican as practicing “liberation theology.” We became strongly involved in promoting human rights in all these countries, condemning injustices, interceding with abusive leaders, using economic pressure, and giving public support to human rights activists. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.346)

I worked on hospital cost containment [bill] in the afternoon, calling the members of congress, many of whom have been bribed by the hospital industry. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.370)

The most thorough analysis of this question was October Surprise, written by Gary Sick in 1991. Gary is a retired navy captain who served on the National Security Council staffs under President Ford, me, and Reagan. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.480)

December 5 I decided to hold all aid to El Salvador because we have information the security forces were involved in the murder of several Catholic nuns, some of whom were Americans. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.491-3)

Haig and Allen have refused to be briefed on the Iranian situation! We’ve no contact with the Reagan people in Defense. (Jimmy Carter “White House Diaries” 2010 p.504)

"Hey, don't shoot the messenger, friend. CIA forgot to tell us about them." Dale Watson was one of the good guys at FBI. He had been trying hard to get the Bureau to go after al Qaeda in the United States with limited success. "Dick, we need to make sure none of this gang escapes out of the country, like they did in '93." In 1993 many of the World Trade Center bombers had quickly flown abroad just before and after the attack. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.13)

For now, however, the President shifted to the economic damage. Somehow he had learned that four shopping malls in Omaha had closed after the attacks. "I want the economy back, open for business right away, banks, the stock market, everything tomorrow." Ken Dam, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, filling in for the traveling Paul O'Neill, pointed out that there was physical damage to the Wall Street infrastructure. "As soon as we get the rescue operations done up there, shift everything to fixing that damage so we can reopen," Bush urged. Turning to Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta, he pressed for resumption of air travel. Mineta suggested that flights could begin at noon the next day. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.24)

Charlie Allen had his hair on fire. That is the way that Steve Simon, then the head of the State Department politico-military analysis team, put it. "You better talk to him. He thinks Iraq is really going to do it." (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.55-6)

The Saudis were eager for us to involve other Arab nations. Cheney flew on to Cairo to persuade Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak to send troops to the Kingdom. Wolfowitz and I flew on to Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Salalah to gain approvals for American aircraft to land at air bases in the smaller Gulf countries. In the United Arab Emirates, we were greeted by the unusual sight of ali of the emirs of the seven federal states sitting together led by President Zayed. They had expected us to ask to land forty-eight fighter aircraft. When we asked to base two hundred, there was an audible gasp. Zayed, however, had been trying to warn America for weeks that Saddam would invade Kuwait. A week earlier he had asked for U.S. tanker aircraft to help his aircraft defend UAE oil flelds from Iraq. He now knew that the Americans were serious this time and ordered construction of more fighter aircraft support areas immediately. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.60)

The Pentagon, civilian and military, was outraged that the President would launch an investigation of military laxness. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.113)

Freeh had told senior FBI officers that the White House staff were all “politicals” who could not be trusted. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.114)

The U.S. military are particularly sensitive to civilians telling them how to do their job, or even asking them how they intend to do it. The officer corps have all been taught to tell civilians “Just give me the objective. I’ll figure out how to do it.” This response has its roots in Vietnam, when Lyndon Johnson sat in the Situation Room going over maps and pictures, ruling out bombing targets. It was this tradition that prevented us from knowing how the military would go after Aideed in Somalia-otherwise, we would have suggested that repeated daytime raids from helicopters in a city was not a good idea. It was this tradition that also meant I could not formally become involved in discussions about what platforms would be used to launch the cruise missiles. Nonetheless, I called my friend s on the Joint Staff to raise the issue that the Pakistani military might detect strange U.S. Navy activity off their coast long before Joe Ralston was sipping curry soup. I was assured the missiles would be fired from submerged attack subs. There might be a destroyer employed, but there was often a U.S. destroyer passing by the Pakistani coast. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.187)

The only way to stop it is to work with the leaders of Islamic nations to insure that tolerance of other religions is taught again, that their people believe they have fair opportunities to participate in government and the economy, that the social and cultural conditions that breed hatred are bred out. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.263) Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 also cited by Shipman

The message sent to the Iraqi commanders through a variety of creative means was “Don’t Fight,” just let us get rid of Saddam. Because of those messages, many Iraqi commanders did not fight and actually sent their troops home. Yet after Jerry Bremmer was appointed pro-consul of Iraq, the U.S. had another message: “You’re all fired.” (including teachers, doctors, nurses etc.)…. pensions they had planned on when hitting retirement age would not be there. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.271-2)

Elsewhere we were now seen as a super bully more than a super power, not just for what we did but for the way we did it, disdaining international mechanisms that we would later need. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.273)

On a 2003 visit to the United States, General Musharraf complained that the U.S. was offering him military assistance funds which he did not need and not providing economic development help he desperately required. (Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 p.280-1)

(Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” http://www.scribd.com/doc/6531685/Richard-a-Clarke-Against-All-Enemies

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 1

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 2

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 3

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 4

CASEY’S CLASSMATES were the sons of New York City policemen and firemen. Almost 60 percent were Irish Catholic, and many others were Italian. Casey rode the bus to Fordham University in the Bronx from his family’s modest suburban home in Queens. In the early 1930s, the Depression’s shocking deprivations caused many young Americans in the lower middle classes to be drawn to radicals who preached socialist equity or even communist unity. Not William Joseph Casey. His father was a clerk in the city sanitation department, one of tens of thousands of Irishmen who owed their government jobs to the city’s Democratic patronage machine. But Casey would break early with his family’s liberal political inheritance. Fordham’s Jesuit teachers filled his mind with rigorous, rational arguments that Catholicism was truth. The Jesuits “let him know who he was,” his wife said later. He was no renunciant. At Fordham he guzzled bootleg beer and gin with his friends and bellowed Irish Republican Army songs as he staggered home.8

On July 12, 1941, five months before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of the Coordinator of Information, America’s first independent civilian intelligence agency focused on overseas threats. He named as its first director William Joseph Donovan, a wealthy Irish Catholic corporate lawyer from New York. Donovan had run two private fact-finding missions for Roosevelt in Europe and had urged the president to create a spy service outside of the military or the FBI. A year after its founding Roosevelt renamed the agency the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS.

In September 1943, Casey, a Navy lieutenant, junior grade, was a landing craft production coordinator shuffling papers around a stifling Washington office. He had resolved not “to spend this war goosing ship builders,” and he had heard through his office grapevine about the outfit usually referred to as “Oh So Secret.” Casey knew a lawyer who knew Donovan, and he pushed himself forward. He was interviewed, lobbied as best he could, and within weeks was in the presence of Donovan himself, a paunchy, blue-eyed, white-haired teetotaler with red cheeks and an appetite for new ideas. Fearless in battle against rivals and relentless in the task of building his government empire, Donovan had won Roosevelt’s personal loyalty. He had recruited to his fledgling spy service du Ponts, Morgans, Mellons, and what a Washington newspaper columnist called “ex-polo players, millionaires, Russian princes, society gambol boys, and dilettante detectives.” With the war raging in North Africa and the Pacific, the OSS had swelled to fifteen thousand employees. Casey won a job in headquarters. It changed his life and his destiny.9

“I was just a boy from Long Island,” Casey said later. “Never had I been in personal contact with a man of Donovan’s candlepower. He was bigger than life. . . . I watched the way he operated, and after a while, I understood. You didn’t wait six months for a feasibility study to prove that an idea could work. You gambled that it might work.”10

Casey shipped out to London. Nineteen days after D-Day he rode an amphibious truck onto Normandy’s Omaha Beach. The British had forbidden the OSS from running its own spy operations in Europe. They especially regarded running spies on German soil a doomed mission, needlessly wasteful of agent lives. After the Normandy invasion the British relented. In September 1944, Casey wrote Donovan a classified cable titled “An OSS Program Against Germany.” He noted that hundreds of thousands of foreign-born guest workers in Germany—Russians, Poles, Belgians, and Dutch—moved freely in and out of the country with proper papers. Exiles from those countries could be equipped as agents and placed behind Nazi lines under cover as workers. In December, Donovan told Casey, “I’m giving you carte blanche. . . . Get us into Germany.”11

As he recruited and trained agents, Casey reluctantly concluded that he needed to work with communists. They were the ones ardent enough in their beliefs to endure the enormous risks. Donovan had taught Casey that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, Casey said later. In Hitler he was fighting a greater evil, and he would recruit unsavory allies if they were needed.

Casey had parachuted fifty-eight two-man teams into Germany by the end of April 1945. He would see them off at night from unmarked airstrips in Surrey, England. Some died in plane crashes; one team was dropped by error in sight of an SS unit watching an outdoor film; but many others survived and flourished as Germany crumbled. Ultimately Casey judged in a classified assessment that about 60 percent of his missions succeeded. He had sent men to their deaths in a righteous cause. He did not make large claims about his agent penetrations, saying later, “We probably saved some lives.” Their greatest value may have been that “for the first time, we operated under our own steam.” He concluded that the OSS probably could have run agents in Germany successfully a year earlier. The British ban on such operations bothered him for years afterward. Who knew what lives they might have saved?12

After the war Casey earned a fortune in New York by analyzing tax shelters and publishing research newsletters. He dabbled in Republican politics and accepted a tour under President Nixon as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. There he cut secret deals, obfuscated about his investments, and barely escaped Washington with his reputation. As he aged, he hankered again for high office and respectability. He was invited into Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign as its manager and helped pull out a famous 1980 primary victory over George H. W. Bush in New Hampshire. After the triumph over Jimmy Carter, he moved to Washington to join the Cabinet. His first choice was the State Department, but when the offer to run the CIA came through, Casey’s history with Donovan and the OSS made it impossible to resist. He would take on the Soviet empire in many of the same ways he had taken on Germany, and in the same spirit.

Perched on a rise above the Potomac River, CIA headquarters sprawled across a wooded campus behind a chain-link fence laced with barbed wire. But for the satellite dishes and antennae sprouting from every rooftop, the compound would be indistinguishable from the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company. The director’s office, which was on the seventh floor of a bland concrete and glass building near the center of the campus, overlooked a bucolic wood. It was a large office but not ornate and had its own private elevator, dining room, and bathroom with shower. Casey moved in and began banging about the place as if he owned it. At 9 A.M. meetings three times a week he exhorted his fourteen top deputies to action.

The CIA “had been permitted to run down and get too thin in top-level people and capabilities,” he wrote Reagan early on. As Casey’s executive assistant Robert Gates put it, telling the new director what he wanted to hear, “The CIA is slowly turning into the Department of Agriculture.” Casey wanted more human agents working outside of embassies, using what the agency called “nonofficial cover” as businessmen or academics, and he wanted to draw more heavily on American immigrant communities to find agents who could penetrate foreign societies. He came across as a whirlwind. Gates recalled of their first encounter: “The old man, nearly bald, tall but slightly hunched, yanked open his office door and called out to no one in particular, ‘Two vodka martinis!’ ” There was “panic in the outer office” because the director’s suite had been dry under Stansfield Turner. This was Casey, Gates reflected. “He would demand something be done immediately which the agency no longer had the capability to do. He would fire instructions at the closest person regardless of whether that person had anything to do with the matter at hand. And he would not wait around even for confirmation that anyone heard him.”13

Perhaps that was because he was so difficult to hear. Casey mumbled. In business his secretaries refused to take dictation because they couldn’t understand what he was saying. He had taken a blow to the throat while boxing as a boy and he had a thick palate; between these two impediments the words refused to flow. Ahmed Badeeb, Turki’s chief of staff, called him “the Mumbling Guy.” Attempting to translate during meetings with Crown Prince Fahd, Badeeb could only shrug. Even President Reagan couldn’t understand him. During an early briefing Casey delivered to the national security cabinet, Reagan slipped Vice President Bush a note: “Did you understand a word he said?” Reagan later told William F. Buckley, “My problem with Bill was that I didn’t understand him at meetings. Now, you can ask a person to repeat himself once. You can ask him twice. But you can’t ask him a third time. You start to sound rude. So I’d just nod my head, but I didn’t know what he was actually saying.” Such was the dialogue for six years between the president and his intelligence chief in a nuclear-armed nation running secret wars on four continents. Casey was sensitive about the problem. “I can tell you that mumbling is more in the mind of the listener than in the mouth of the speaker,” he said. “There are people who just don’t want to hear what the Director of Central Intelligence sees in a complex and dangerous world.”14

Casey believed that his mentor, Donovan, had left the CIA to the United States “as a legacy to ensure there will never be another Pearl Harbor.” Since Casey could envision only the Soviets as the authors of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor’s scale, he focused almost entirely on Moscow’s intentions. Spy satellites and signals collection had made it likely that the United States would have advanced warning of a Soviet military strike, Casey conceded; in that sense, Donovan’s goal had been achieved. But Casey thought the CIA had to do much more than just watch the Soviets or try to steal their secrets. “The primary battlefield” in America’s confrontation with Marxism-Leninism, Casey said, “is not on the missile test range or at the arms control negotiating table but in the countryside of the Third World.” The Soviets were pursuing a strategy of “creeping imperialism,” and they had two specific targets: “the isthmus between North and South America” and “the oil fields of the Middle East, which are the lifeline of the Western alliance.” The latter target explained the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Casey believed.15

In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev had laid out Soviet plans to gain ground worldwide by aiding leftists in wars of national liberation, and the next generations of Soviet leaders had reaffirmed his doctrine. Just as European leaders had failed to understand that Hitler meant exactly what he said when he announced in Mein Kampf that he planned to conquer his neighbors, so the United States had placed itself at risk by failing to grasp and respond to the Soviet Union’s announced ambitions. The CIA’s role now, Casey said, was to demonstrate “that two can play the same game. Just as there is a classic formula for communist subversion and takeover, there also is a proven method of overthrowing repressive government that can be applied successfully in the Third World.” It was in Afghanistan that he was beginning to make this “proven method” of anticommunist guerrilla war work. As his classified briefings to Reagan proved, “Far fewer people and weapons are needed to put a government on the defensive than are needed to protect it,” Casey said. He boasted on another occasion: “Afghan freedom fighters have made it as dangerous for a Russian soldier or a Soviet convoy to stray off a main road as it was for the Germans in France in 1944.”16 (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 5 “Don’t Make It Our War”

AHMED SHAH MASSOUD charged up the face of Ali Abad Mountain on the west side of Kabul, with a ragtag crew of a dozen soldiers in tow. Ali Abad was nothing more than a dusty, rock-strewn hill slouched in the middle of the 6,200-foot-high capital, but occupying its top would give Massoud a commanding position. He could gaze to the south at the pine-tree-laden campus of Kabul University, the country’s premier institution of learning. To the north was Kabul Polytechnic Institute, a reputable science school dominated by the Soviets. To the east sprawled the city’s downtown area. All around stood the jagged snowcapped peaks that walled the city in, cradling Kabul Valley in a cool embrace. Just before Massoud reached the hill’s crest and faced his enemy—a rival faction of similar size—he sent a detachment of loyalists around the opposite side. The enemy never saw them coming. They surrendered immediately, and after briefly savoring his victory, Massoud paraded his captives back down the hill and into a ditch by the side of the road where he kept all of his prisoners of war. Then, with a wave of his hand, he dismissed his soldiers and freed his captives. From across the street his mother was calling him for dinner.

It was 1963, and he was eleven years old. His family had moved to Kabul only recently. Massoud did not consider the city home, but he had quickly mastered the heights of its bluffs and the depths of its ravines. There was no question among his peers as to who would play commander in neighborhood war games.1

His father was a colonel in the army of King Zahir Shah, a position of some prestige but little danger. From the 1930s until the early 1960s the entire span of the elder Massoud’s military career, Afghanistan had remained at peace. Massoud led a transient life during his first decade. He had lived in Helmand in the south, Herat in the west, and then Kabul. But he and his family always considered home the Panjshir Valley town of Massoud’s birth: Jangalak, in the district of Bazarak, several hours’ drive north of the capital.

For seventy miles the Panjshir River cuts a harsh diagonal to the southwest through the Hindu Kush Mountains before spilling onto the Shomali Plains thirty miles above Kabul. On a map it looks like an arrow pointing the way directly toward Afghanistan’s capital from the northeast. On the ground it is a chasm cut between bald, unforgiving cliffs that plunge steeply into the raging current. Only occasionally do the cliffs slope more gently, offering room for houses and crops on either side of the riverbed. There the valley erupts in lush, wavy green fields, and the river sits as placidly as a glacial lake, braided by grassy sandbars.

In front of the Massoud ancestral home in Jangalak, almost exactly halfway up the valley, the water is at its calmest. The Massoud family settled on this site on the western bank of the river around the beginning of the twentieth century. A relatively prosperous family, they initially built a low,mud-brick compound that, like countless other valley homes, appeared to rise organically from the rich brown soil. When Massoud’s father inherited the place, he built an addition on the back that stretched farther up the mountainside. It was there that Massoud’s mother gave birth to Ahmed Shah, her second son, in 1952.

The Panjshir of Massoud’s birth had changed little in centuries. Along the valley’s one true road—a rough, pockmarked dirt track that parallels the river’s course—it was far more common to hear the high-pitched cry of a donkey weighted down by grain sacks than the muted purr of a motor engine. Food came from terraced fields of wheat, apple and almond trees that sprouted along the river banks, or the cattle, goats, and chickens that wandered freely, unable to range far since the valley is only about a mile at its widest.

Few in the Panjshir could read or write, but Massoud’s parents were both exceptions. His father was formally educated. His mother was not, but she came from a family of lawyers who were prominent in Rokheh, the next town over from Jangalak. She taught herself to read and write, and urged her four sons and four daughters to improve themselves similarly. A stern woman who imposed rigid standards, Massoud’s mother wanted her children to be educated, but she also wanted them to excel outside the classroom. Her oldest son, Yahya, once came home with grades putting him near the top of his class, a status the Massoud children often enjoyed. Massoud’s father was thrilled and talked about rewarding his son with a motorbike. “I’m not happy with these things,” his mother complained. She rebuked her husband: “I’ve told you many times: Teach your sons those things they need.” She fired off examples: “Do your children ride horses? Can they use guns? Are they able to be in society and to be with people? These are the characteristics that make a man.” Yahya did not get the motorbike.

Ahmed Shah Massoud’s mother meted out family discipline, and because he was a child who seemed naturally inclined to mischief, his reprimands came often. She never struck her children physically, her sons recalled, but she could wither them with verbal lashings. Years later Massoud confided to siblings that perhaps the only person he had ever feared was his mother.

By the time Massoud reached high school in the late 1960s, his father had retired from the military and the family had settled in an upper-middle-class neighborhood of Kabul. They lived in a seven-bedroom stone and concrete house with panoramic views. It was the finest building on the block. Massoud attended the Lycée Istiqlal, an elite, French-sponsored high school. There he earned good grades, acquired French, and won a scholarship to attend college in France. The scholarship was his ticket out of Kabul’s dusty, premodern alleys, but Massoud turned it down, to his family’s surprise. He announced that he wanted to go to military school instead and to follow in his father’s footsteps as an Afghan army officer. His father tried to use connections to get him into the country’s premier military school, but failed. Massoud settled for Kabul Polytechnic Institute, the Soviet-sponsored school just down the hill from the family home.

In his first year of college, Massoud discovered he was a math whiz. He set up a tutoring service for classmates and talked hopefully about becoming an engineer or an architect. As it happened, he was destined to knock down many more buildings than he would ever build.

The Cold War had slipped into Afghanistan like a virus. By the late 1960s all of Kabul’s universities were in the grip of fevered politics. Secret Marxist book clubs conspired against secret Islamist societies in damp concrete faculties and residences. The atmosphere was urgent: The country’s weak, centuries-old monarchy was on its way out. Afghanistan was lurching toward a new politics. Would it be Marxist or Islamic, secular or religious, modern or traditional—or some blend of these? Every university professor seemed to have an opinion. (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 6 “Who Is This Massoud?”

Mujahedin operating along the Pakistan border took heavy casualties in these Spetsnaz helicopter raids. They also had a few rare successes. Pakistani intelligence captured from Soviet defectors and handed over to Piekney the first intact Mi-24D ever taken in by the CIA. Langley ordered a team to Islamabad to load the dismantled prize on to a transport jet and fly it back to the United States; its exploitation saved the Pentagon millions of dollars in research and development costs, the Pentagon later reported.17

Encouraged by the CIA, Pakistani intelligence also focused on sabotage operations that would cut Soviet supply lines. But the missions often proved difficult because even the most ardent Afghan Islamists refused to mount suicide operations.

In his Wile E. Coyote–style efforts to blow up the Salang Tunnel north of Kabul, Yousaf tried to concoct truck bomb missions in which ISI would help load fuel tankers with explosives. Soviet soldiers moved quickly to intercept any truck that stalled inside the strategic tunnel, so there seemed no practical way to complete such a mission unless the truck driver was willing to die in the cause. The Afghans whom Yousaf trained uniformly denounced suicide attack proposals as against their religion. It was only the Arab volunteers—from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and other countries, who had been raised in an entirely different culture, spoke their own language, and preached their own interpretations of Islam while fighting far from their homes and families—who later advocated suicide attacks. Afghan jihadists, tightly woven into family, clan, and regional social networks, never embraced suicide tactics in significant numbers.18

Afghan fighters also often refused to attack bridges or trade routes if they were important to civilian traders or farmers. The Afghan tolerance of civilian commerce in the midst of dire conflict frustrated visiting Americans. A congressman on tour would fly over Afghanistan, see a bridge standing unmolested, and complain loudly on his return to Washington that it ought to be blown up. But when the satellite-mapped attack plan was passed down through ISI to a particular Afghan commando team, the Afghans would often shrug off the order or use the supplied weapons to hit a different target of their own choosing. They took tolls from bridges. The livelihood of their clan often depended on open roads.

Still, the CIA shipped to Pakistani intelligence many tons of C-4 plastic explosives for sabotage operations during this period. Britain’s MI6 provided magnetic depth charges to attack bridge pylons, particularly the bridge near Termez that spanned the Amu Darya. After 1985 the CIA also supplied electronic timing and detonation devices that made it easier to set off explosions from a remote location. The most basic delay detonator was the “time pencil,” a chemical device that wore down gradually and set off a bomb or rocket after a predictable period. It had been developed by the CIA’s Office of Technical Services. Guerrillas could use these devices to set an explosive charge at night, retreat, and then watch it blow up at first light. After 1985 the CIA also shipped in “E cell” delay detonators, which used sophisticated electronics to achieve similar effects. Thousands of the delay timers were distributed on the frontier.

Speaking in an interview in July 1992, seven months before the first Islamist terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, a U.S. official closely involved in the CIA supply program was asked by the author to estimate the amount of plastic explosives that had been transferred by Pakistani intelligence to the mujahedin with CIA and Saudi support. The official spontaneously chose these words: “We could have probably blown up half of New York with the explosives that the Paks supplied.”

CIA lawyers and operators at Langley were more sensitive than ever about second-guessing from Congress and the press. Casey’s Nicaragua operations were going sour just as the covert Afghan war began to escalate. The agency was criticized sharply for placing mines in Nicaragua’s harbors. There was a feeling taking hold in the Directorate of Operations by late 1985 that perhaps Casey had gone too far, that the agency was headed for another political crash.

In the Afghan program the CIA was now supplying many “dual use” weapons systems, meaning weapons that could be used against legitimate military targets but also could be employed in terrorism or assassination. These included the new electronic detonators, the malleable plastic explosives, and sniper rifle packages. The rough rule at Langley was that the CIA would not supply any weapon where “its most likely use would be for assassination or criminal enterprise,” as one official involved put it. Since the CIA was not running the commando operations itself but was relying on Pakistani intelligence, “most likely use” could only be approximated. Langley’s Afghan task force chief, the rough and aggressive anticommunist Gust Avrakatos, tried to evade CIA lawyers. “These aren’t terrorist devices or assassination techniques,” Avrakatos told his colleagues when weapons such as sniper rifles had to be described in cables and memos. “Henceforth these are individual defensive devices.” He discouraged officers from putting too much in writing. When the Islamabad station sent a cable describing a borderline guerrilla tactic, he wrote back that the message had been garbled and that the station should not send “anything more on that subject ever again.” He shopped in Egypt for sabotage devices such as wheelbarrows rigged as bombs that could be used to target Soviet officers in Kabul. “Do I want to order bicycle bombs to park in front of an officers’ headquarters?” Avrakatos recalled asking. “Yes. That’s what spreads fear.” He endorsed a system run by Pakistani intelligence that rewarded Afghan commanders for the number of individual Soviet belt buckles they brought in.19

American law about assassination and terrorism was entering another of its periods of flux. The executive order banning assassination, enacted by President Ford in response to the exposure of CIA plots from the 1960s, had been sitting unexamined on the books for a decade. Not even the hardliners in the Reagan Cabinet wanted the ban removed, but they had begun to question its ambiguities.When did targeting a general or head of state in war or in response to a terrorist attack drift across the line and become assassination? Was the decision to target that general or head of state the issue, or was it the means employed to kill him? What if a preemptive assassination was undertaken to stop a terrorist from attacking the United States? The questions being debated were both strategic and pragmatic. For American national security, what policy was morally defensible and militarily effective? What, technically, did the Ford-era assassination ban cover? This had to be spelled out, CIA officers argued, or else agents and even civilian policy makers might inadvertently expose themselves to criminal prosecution.

Reagan’s lawyers at the White House and the Justice Department believed that preemptive attacks on individuals carried out in self-defense—such as against a terrorist about to launch a strike—were clearly legal. But there were many questions about how such a standard should be defined and implemented.

In the Afghan program sniper rifles created the greatest unease. They were known as “buffalo guns” and could accurately fire large, potent bullets from distances of one or two kilometers. The idea to supply them to the Afghan rebels had originated with a Special Forces enthusiast in Washington named Vaughan Forrest, who wrote a long report for the CIA and the National Security Council about how the mujahedin might counter Soviet Spetsnaz tactics by hitting Soviet commanders directly. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you need to hit them hard, you need to hit them deep, and you need to hit his heart and brains,” Forrest said. His enthusiasm extended to a broader campaign of urban sabotage that some on the NSC interagency committee regarded as outright terrorism. But the idea of targeting Soviet commanders with the sniper rifles found support. “The phrase ‘shooting ducks in a barrel’ was used,” one participant recalled. The sniper program’s advocates wanted to “off Russian generals in series.”20

Through the CIA station in Islamabad, Pakistani intelligence endorsed a formal written request for the buffalo guns, plus supporting equipment such as night-vision goggles and high-powered scopes that would allow a shooter to hit his target from a mile away under cover of darkness. The incoming cable set off alarms in the general counsel’s office at the CIA. The night-vision equipment and scopes were clearly intended for missions that, if not outright assassination under the law, seemed uncomfortably close. Should the operation go sour, the Islamabad station chief might end up in handcuffs.

After several rounds of debate and teeth-gnashing, a compromise was reached: The guns could be shipped to Pakistan, but they would be stripped of the night-vision goggles and scopes that seemed to tilt their “most likely use” toward assassination. Also, the CIA would not provide ISI with target intelligence from satellites concerning where Soviet officers lived or how their apartment buildings might be approached stealthily. CIA officers tried to emphasize to ISI the guns’ value as “antimaterial” weapons, meaning that they could be used to shoot out the tires in a convoy of trucks from a distant mountaintop or to drill holes in a fuel tanker. American specialists traveled to Pakistan to train ISI officers on the rifles so that they, in turn, could train rebel commando teams. In the end, dozens of the sniper rifles were shipped to Afghanistan.21

THE TERRORIST ATTACKS came one after another during 1985, all broadcast live on network television to tens of millions of Americans. In June two Lebanese terrorists hijacked TWA Flight 847, murdered a Navy diver on board, and negotiated while mugging for cameras on a Beirut runway. In October the Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro in Italy, murdered a sixty-nine-year-old Jewish-American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, dumped his body overboard, and ultimately escaped to Baghdad with Egyptian and Italian collaboration. Just after Christmas, Palestinian gunmen with the Abu Nidal Organization opened fire on passengers lined up at El Al ticket counters in Vienna and Rome, killing nineteen people, among them five Americans. One of the American victims was an eleven-year-old girl named Natasha Simpson who died in her father’s arms after a gunman unloaded an extra round in her head just to make sure. The attackers, boyish products of Palestinian refugee camps, had been pumped full of amphetamines by their handlers just before the holiday attacks.

The shock of these events followed the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Lebanon, which claimed the lives of some of the CIA’s brightest minds on the Middle East, and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, in which 241 Marines died. The Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah had seized American hostages in Lebanon. Casey and Reagan had been galvanized by this violence in Lebanon against official Americans and journalists. Now they confronted a new, wider wave of attacks targeting American civilians and tourists.

During 1985 about 6.5 million Americans traveled overseas, of whom about 6,000 died for various reasons, mainly from illnesses. Seventeen were killed by terrorists. Yet by the end of the year millions of Americans were canceling travel plans and demanding action from their government. Palestinian and Lebanese Shiite terrorists had captured America’s attention just as they had hoped to do.

“When we hijack a plane, it has more effect than if we killed a hundred Israelis in battle,” the Palestinian Marxist leader George Habash once said. “At least the world is talking about us now.” By the mid-1980s the American analyst Brian Jenkins’s observation had become famous: “Terrorists want a lot of people watching and a lot of people listening and not a lot of people dead.” He coined another oft-repeated phrase: “Terrorism is theater.”22

In its modern form it was a theater invented largely by a stateless Palestinian diaspora whose leftist leaders sought dramatic means to attract attention to their national claims. In the new academic specialty of terrorist studies it was common to date the first modern terrorist event as the Habash-led hijacking of an El Al flight from Rome to Tel Aviv on July 22, 1968. Thereafter inventive Palestinian terrorists attacked the vulnerabilities of aviation and exploited the new global reach of television, creating a succession of made-for-TV terrorist events that emphasized the spectacular. At the same time, because a purpose of their movement was to negotiate for statehood, they often sought to limit and calibrate their violence to create the greatest impact without alienating important political allies. As at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and at the Rome and Vienna airports in late 1985, these efforts to control public relations sometimes failed. In Washington especially the politics of antiterrorism were becoming angrier and angrier.

Shortly after the airport attacks Casey summoned the chief of the CIA’s European Division, Duane R. “Dewey” Clarridge, to his office on Langley’s seventh floor. A New Hampshire Yankee educated at Brown University, Clarridge was a cigar-chomping career officer who craved action and bridled at supervision. He had served in Nepal and India during the early Cold War, running anti-Soviet operations on obscure frontiers. He had impressed Casey as a hearty risk-taker, and the director rewarded him with full control over his secret war in Nicaragua. There Clarridge pushed the operation to the limits, running speedy Q-boats to smuggle guns and plant mines. When his harbor-mining operations created a congressional uproar, Casey moved Clarridge to the European Division in the Directorate of Operations. Now the director wanted his help again.

Reagan was putting intense pressure on the CIA to show more initiative in the fight against terrorism, Casey told Clarridge. The director wanted to reply by forming action teams that could put the CIA on the offensive in a global campaign against terrorist groups. Clarridge told Casey what the director already believed: To succeed, the CIA had to attack the terrorist cells preemptively. If not, “The incidents would become bolder, bloodier, and more numerous.”23

Casey erupted in a “sudden burst of animation” and told Clarridge to interview terrorism specialists around Washington and write up a proposal for a new covert CIA counterterrorist strategy. Clarridge found an office down the hall and started work just after New Year’s Day 1986. By late January Clarridge had drafted his blueprint, an eight- or nine-page double-spaced memo addressed to Casey.

The CIA had several problems in confronting the global terrorist threat, Clarridge wrote. The biggest was its “defensive mentality.” Terrorists operated worldwide “knowing there was little chance of retribution or of their being brought to justice.” Clarridge wanted a new legal operating system for the CIA that would allow offensive strikes against terrorists. He proposed the formation of two super-secret “action teams” that would be funded and equipped to track, attack, and snatch terrorists globally. The action teams would be authorized to kill terrorists if doing so would preempt a terrorist event, or arrest them and bring them to justice if possible. One action team would be made up of foreign nationals who could blend more easily into landscapes overseas. The other action team would be Americans. (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 7 “The Terrorists Will Own the World”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch8

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 8

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 9

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 10

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 11

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 12

It was clear and cold that early morning of January 25, 1993. Cars lined up at the headquarters gate, their warm exhaust smoke billowing in steamy clouds. Kasi pulled his car into a left-hand-turn lane, stopped, swung his door open, and stepped into the road. He saw a man driving a Volkswagen Golf and fired at him through the car's rear window, then walked around and shot him three more times. Frank Darling, twenty-eight, an officer in the clandestine services, died on the floor of his car, his wife seated beside him. Kasi walked down the line and fired at four other men, killing one, Lansing Bennett, sixty-six, a doctor who analyzed the health of world leaders for the Directorate of Intelligence. Kasi looked around. He could see no more men in the cars nearby. He had decided before his attack that he would not shoot at women. He jumped back into his station wagon, drove a few miles to a McLean park, and hid there for ninety minutes. When no one came looking for him, he returned to his apartment and stuffed his AK-47 under the living room couch. He drove to a Days Inn hotel and checked in.14 The next day he flew to Pakistan and disappeared.

The man who would become known as Ramzi Yousef was younger, then only twenty-four years old. His family, too, had roots in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. Like hundreds of thousands of other Pakistanis seeking opportunity in the oil boom era, Yousef’s father, an engineer, had migrated to the Persian Gulf. The Bedouin Arabs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, enriched by the oil bonanza, were thin in number and poorly trained in the technical skills required to construct a modern economy. They recruited fellow Muslims—drivers, cooks, welders, bricklayers, engineers, doctors, pilots—from impoverished neighboring countries such as Pakistan. For Baluchis such as Yousef’s father the Gulf’s pay scales delivered a middle-class urban life. He could send his children to private school and even European universities.

The Baluchis had been travelers and migrants for centuries, staunchly independent. They were historical cousins of the Pashtuns, with whom they mixed freely, blurring ethnic and tribal lines. Their population spilled indifferently across the borders drawn by imperial mapmakers. In the early 1990s large numbers of Baluchis lived contiguously in three countries: southwest Pakistan, southeast Iran, and southeast Afghanistan. In Pakistan their tribal leaders dominated politics and provincial government in Baluchistan, a vast but sparsely populated desert and mountain territory that ran along the Afghan and Iranian borders and south to the Arabian Sea. As with the Pashtuns, the Baluchis adhered to very conservative tribal honor codes that defined women as property and revenge as justice. (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 p.247)

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch13

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 14 “Maintain a Prudent Distance”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 15 “A New Generation”

MOHAMMED OMAR was an unlikely heir to Pashtun glory. He reflected the past through a mirror cracked and distorted by two decades of war. For a man destined to make such an impact on global affairs, remarkably little is known about his biography. He was born around 1950 in Nodeh Village in Kandahar province. His small and undistinguished family clan occupied a single house in the district, according to a biographical account given to U.S. diplomats by the Taliban early in 1995. His was an impoverished, isolated boyhood dominated by long hours in dim religious schools memorizing the Koran. From religious texts he learned to read and write in Arabic and Pashto only shakily.He never roamed far from Kandahar province. If he ever flew on an airplane, slept in a hotel, or watched a satellite movie, he gave no indication of it. In later years he had many opportunities to travel abroad but refused even a religious pilgrimage to holy Muslim shrines in Saudi Arabia. He declined to travel as far as Kabul except on very rare occasions. Kandahar was his world.15

During the anti-Soviet jihad, Omar served as a local subcommander with the Younis Khalis faction. He followed a prominent trader, Haji Bashar, who also funded a religious school in the area. He showed special ability with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and reportedly knocked out a number of Soviet tanks. By one account, he eventually became Khalis’s deputy commander for Kandahar province, a relatively senior position, despite his being neither “charismatic nor articulate,” as a Taliban colleague later put it.16

Exploding shrapnel struck Omar in the face during an attack near Kandahar. One piece badly damaged his right eye. Taliban legend holds that Omar cut his own eye out of the socket with a knife. More prosaic versions report his treatment at a Red Cross hospital in Pakistan where his eye was surgically removed. In any event, his right eyelid was stitched permanently shut.17

By the early 1990s, Omar had returned to religious studies. He served as a teacher and prayer leader in a tiny, poor village of about twenty-five families called Singesar, twenty miles outside of Kandahar in a wide, fertile valley of wheat fields and vineyards. In exchange for religious instruction, villagers provided him with food. He apparently had no other reliable source of income, although he retained ties to the relatively wealthy trader Bashar. He shuttled between the village’s small mud-brick religious school and its small mud-brick mosque. He lived in a modest house about two hundred yards from the village madrassa.18

The only known photographs of Omar depict him as a relatively tall, well-built, thin-faced man with a light complexion and a bushy black beard. He spoke Pashto in a peasant’s provincial accent. In meetings he would often sit silently for long periods. When he spoke, his voice was often no louder than a whisper. He modestly declined to call himself a mullah because he had not finished all of his Islamic studies. He sometimes talked about himself in the third person, as if he were a character in someone else’s story.

He believed in the prophecy of dreams and spoke about them in political and military meetings, drawing on them to explain important decisions. During 1994, as the Taliban gathered influence around Kandahar, Omar repeatedly said he had been called into action by a dream in which Allah appeared before him in the form of a man and told him to lead the believers.

As he began to meet with Pashtun delegations around Kandahar, he would often receive visitors outside, seated on the ground. By one account, in an early Taliban organizational meeting, he was selected as leader of the movement’s supreme council because unlike some of the more seasoned candidates, Omar did not seem to be interested in personal power.19 The story was another plank in the Taliban’s myth of Pashtun revival: The humble, quiet Mullah Omar echoed the silence of young Ahmed Shah Durrani at the Sher Surkh jirga.

He spoke rarely about his ambitions, but when he did, his language was direct. The Taliban was “a simple band of dedicated youths determined to establish the laws of God on Earth and prepared to sacrifice everything in pursuit of that goal,” he said. “The Taliban will fight until there is no blood in Afghanistan left to be shed and Islam becomes a way of life for our people.”20

When they sprang from Kandahar in 1994, the Taliban were a tabula rasa on which others could project their ambitions. The trouble was, as the French scholar Olivier Roy noted, the Taliban were different from other opportunistic Afghan factions: They meant what they said.21

BENAZIR BHUTTO also charted the future from the past. Pakistan’s sputtering democracy had shuddered through another minor miracle—a semi-legitimate national election—and voters had returned Bhutto to office as prime minister. Before her swearing-in she took long walks in Islamabad parks with old political allies. She wanted to talk candidly about her plans where Pakistani intelligence could not listen. She told her colleagues that she wanted to learn from the errors of her first term. She was determined to stay close to the Americans. She wanted to keep the Pakistani army happy as best she could—she would not pick unnecessary fights. She would have to keep watch on ISI, but she would try to listen to their demands and accommodate them. In this way she hoped to survive in office long enough to revive Pakistan’s economy. Only if she created wealth for Pakistan’s middle classes could Bhutto ensure her party’s long-term strength, she and her advisers believed.22

Pakistan suffered from widespread poverty, low literacy rates, and a weak natural resource base. Yet it also had a strong business class, international ports, and thriving export industries. How could the country create sudden new wealth through external trade the way other Asian countries had managed to do during the 1980s? To the east lay India, the Pakistan army’s reason for being and a foreign policy problem Bhutto could not hope to solve on her own. But to the west and north lay new possibilities for commerce and influence. Bhutto wanted, as she said later, to “market Pakistan internationally as . . . the crossroads to the old silk roads of trade between Europe and Asia.” Like every young student on the subcontinent, she had grown up with history texts that chronicled invasions across the Khyber Pass. These ancient conquests had been inspired by lucrative trade routes that ran from Central Asia to Delhi. “So I thought, ‘Okay, control of the trade routes is a way to get my country power and prestige.’ ” She imagined Pakistani exporters trucking televisions and washing machines to the newly independent Muslim republics of former Soviet Central Asia. She imagined cotton and oil flowing to Pakistan from Central Asia and Iran.23 (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 16 “Slowly, Slowly Sucked into It”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 17 “Dangling the Carrot”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 18 “We Couldn’t Indict Him”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 19

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 20 “Does America Need the CIA?”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Pt 2

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 21 “You Are to Capture Him Alive”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 22 “The Kingdom’s Interests”

White House aides saw the same instructions as providing the clearest possible signal that the CIA should get after bin Laden and his leadership group and kill them if necessary. Capture for trial was the stated objective of the August MON, yes, but the White House aides believed they had written the document to provide the CIA with the maximum flexibility to kill bin Laden in the course of an arrest operation. All of them, including the CIA’s managers and lawyers, knew that as a practical matter bin Laden and his bodyguards would resist capture. These were committed jihadists. They would likely martyr themselves long before they were handcuffed. Under the White House’s authorities, as soon as bin Laden’s men shot back, the CIA’s several dozen armed Afghan agents could take them out. Also, as the months passed and new MONs were written, the CIA’s authorizing language, while still ambiguous, was changed to make the use of lethal force more likely. At first the CIA was permitted to use lethal force only in the course of a legitimate attempt to make an arrest of bin Laden or his top aides. Later the key language allowed for a snatch operation or a pure lethal attack if an arrest was not plausible.

Clinton’s aides thought the CIA’s managers were using the legal issues as a dodge. The agency sometimes seemed to believe that under the MON, “unless you find him walking alone, unarmed, with a sign that says ‘I am Osama’ on him, that we weren’t going to attempt the operation,” one White House official involved recalled. “I think we were concerned that there were too many people [at Langley] who will just see the downsides and not enough people motivated to get the job done.” Yet CIA leaders and lawyers alike interpreted their instructions the same way—as orders to capture, not kill, except in certain circumstances.24

Sandy Berger later recalled his frustration about this hidden debate, confined at the time to only a few dozen officials and lawyers with the proper security clearances: “It was no question, the cruise missiles were not trying to capture him. They were not law enforcement techniques.” Berger said that if “there was ever any confusion, it was never conveyed to me or the president by the DCI or anybody else.”25 What the White House needed most was “actionable intelligence” about bin Laden’s precise location. They depended on the CIA to provide it. The agency had ample authority to put its Afghan agents into action, Berger believed.

The tension festered. It would not be resolved anytime soon.

___

IN THE SAME WEEK that bin Laden’s operatives struck two U.S. embassies in Africa, Mullah Omar’s turbaned Taliban soldiers, their ranks swollen with jihadist volunteers from Pakistan’s madrassas and aided by officers from Pakistani intelligence, finally captured their last major prize in the north of Afghanistan: the sprawling city of Mazar-i-Sharif. “My boys and I are riding into Mazar-i-Sharif,” the longtime ISI Afghan bureau officer Colonel Imam, once a close partner of the CIA, boasted in an intercepted telephone call at the height of the battle.26

Mazar’s defenders, commanders allied with Ahmed Shah Massoud, succumbed to bribes paid by Pakistani officers, Massoud told his men at a military assembly. The leading local warlord, Abdul Malik, “delivered his city for a fistful of dollars,” Massoud declared.27 Massoud and his militias still controlled the northern town of Taloqan, but increasingly they were being painted into a corner.

Just weeks after the embassy bombings Massoud wrote a letter to the United States Senate urging that America help him in his war against the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence, and bin Laden. After the expulsion of Soviet troops, Massoud wrote, Afghanistan’s people “were thrust into a whirlwind of foreign intrigue, deception, great-gamesmanship and internal strife. . . . We Afghans erred, too. Our shortcomings were a result of political innocence, inexperience, vulnerability, victimization, bickering and inflated egos. But by no means does this justify what some of our so-called Cold War allies did to undermine this just victory.” Pakistan and its Arab Islamist allies had fielded twenty-eight thousand paramilitary and military forces in Afghanistan to aid the Taliban’s drive for conquest, Massoud wrote. Afghanistan had been delivered to “fanatics, extremists, terrorists, mercenaries, drug mafias and professional murderers.” America should help him turn them away. Washington should break its long debilitating dependence on Pakistan in shaping its Afghan policies, Massoud urged.28

But the Clinton administration, especially diplomats at the State Department, remained disdainful of Massoud and his pleas. With the fall of Mazar, the Taliban seemed more than ever an irreversible force inside Afghanistan. Madeleine Albright, Undersecretary Tom Pickering, and regional specialists in State’s South Asia bureau all recommended that the administration continue its policy of diplomatic engagement with the Taliban. They would use pressure and promises of future aid to persuade Omar to break with bin Laden. The U.S. embassy in Islamabad promoted this argument in its cables to Washington. Most State diplomats saw Ahmed Shah Massoud as a spent force tainted by his recent deals to accept arms supplies from Iran and by his reliance on heroin trafficking for income. Some at State, including Inderfurth, said later that they thought it was useful for Massoud to remain viable as a military force in northern Afghanistan because he offered a check on the Taliban’s cross-border Islamist ambitions in Central Asia. But from Albright on down, the State Department certainly was not prepared to join Massoud’s military campaign against the Taliban.29 (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 23 “We Are at War”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 24

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 25

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 26

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 27

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 28

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 29

But the Bush Cabinet had no policy about the novel idea of shooting terrorists with armed flying robots. The Cabinet had barely formed, and neither the principals nor their deputies had yet held a formal discussion of bin Laden. There was some talk of an interagency policy review on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, but none had been properly organized. Iraq, Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, China, Russia, and missile defense all stood ahead of Afghanistan in the security policy queue.

Black pressed the Air Force to certify that a Hellfire-armed, laser-aimed Predator could kill bin Laden if he spent the night at his Tarnak Farm residence—without taking out large numbers of bystanders. If the CIA was to propose a lethal Predator mission to President Bush or his Cabinet, the agency would need technical proof that it could succeed. But the Hellfire had never been designed to knock down mud-brick or concrete walls. All of the missile’s manuals, specifications, and test results documented its ability to destroy tanks. In an era of expensive high-technology weapons systems, Pentagon culture emphasized precision, idiot-proof firing procedures, and the careful, scientific matching of weapons and targets. If the Pentagon was to make good on presidential orders to limit bystander deaths in a Tarnak missile strike, for example, the Air Force had to predict accurately how many rooms in a building struck by a Hellfire would actually be destroyed. This meant more tests. With CIA assistance an Air Force team built in Nevada a mockup of the Tarnak residence where bin Laden stayed. The Counterterrorist Center pushed for a speedy schedule, but there was no way to conduct such an elaborate test overnight.14

Meanwhile, Clarke argued with Black and others at the CIA over whether to send the Predator back to Afghanistan as the weather warmed, strictly for reconnaissance missions, with only cameras and sensors on board. Even though his role was waning, Clarke wanted the Predator in the air again; this had been the agreed plan back in October, he asserted. But Tenet, Black, and Pentagon officers argued that flying reconnaissance now would be a mistake. The Taliban had clearly identified the drone’s radar signature during the autumn. At the beginning of that series of Predator flights, Black had been told in a briefing that the radar cross-section of the drone was no more noticeable than a small flock of birds. Now they were discovering, Black argued, that the Predator looked on enemy radar much more like a full-sized commercial airliner flying at a conspicuously slow speed, relatively easy to identify. The CIA’s officers figured that at best they would be able to mount five or six Predator missions before the Taliban shot one down. They did not want to waste these flights, they said, before the Predator was armed. Under a new agreement with the Air Force, the CIA had agreed to shoulder half the cost of future Predator missions and losses. That meant the agency would be billed about $1.5 million for each drone that went down. Black and his colleagues also argued that a shootdown might jeopardize Uzbekistan’s cooperation with the CIA. The agency formally asked government analysts whether the Predator’s reconnaissance value justified all these risks. The analysts replied that satellite imagery and reconnaissance aircraft could do virtually as well. Clarke saw the CIA’s position as more evidence of its aversion to risk. No Predators were sent to Afghanistan.15

The CIA was divided over Black’s enthusiasm for armed drones. Some officers in the Near East Division of the Directorate of Operations remained skeptical. The feeling was “Oh, these harebrained CTC [Counterterrorist Center] ideas,” recalled one official. “This is going to be a disaster.” The internal debates and uncertainty ultimately slowed the pace of deployment.16

There was no foreign policy context for flying armed Predators in Central Asia that winter or spring. The South Asia bureau at the State Department remained leaderless until June. Al Eastham, a career foreign service officer and Clinton holdover, ran day-to-day regional affairs on an interim basis. Eastham continued to emphasize that America would not choose sides in the Afghan civil war. Neither Bush nor his senior advisers provided any contrary public signal. Clarke again pitched Rice on aid to the Northern Alliance in March, but Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley wanted to wait for a broader program that would include Pashtun opponents of the Taliban. Clarke agreed that Pashtuns should be involved but insisted that Massoud needed help immediately. He lost the argument.17

Rice and Armitage received cables and memos offering diverse and sometimes contradictory advice about Afghanistan. The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Bill Milam, sent a long cable in early February titled “Options for dealing with Afghan terrorism problem,” which suggested that Bush seize his fresh start to offer the Taliban a last chance grand bargain: large-scale economic aid in exchange for U.S. custody of bin Laden. If the Taliban refused, the U.S. could begin openly backing the militia’s opponents, seeking Mullah Omar’s overthrow. As always, the Islamabad embassy opposed any embrace of Massoud, but its political analysts thought the Bush administration could profitably support anti-Taliban Pashtuns such as Hamid Karzai if the grand bargain idea failed.18

Zalmay Khalilzad, an influential voice inside Bush’s forming National Security Council, echoed some of this advice. The Afghan-born foreign policy analyst had helped oversee the Bush transition. Rice then appointed him to run her Middle East directorate. Khalilzad was an old acquaintance of Hamid Karzai. They had run into each other in Pakistan and elsewhere over the years, and they stayed in touch. After the murder of Karzai’s father by the Taliban, Khalilzad had turned against the Taliban in the articles he published from his consulting office at the RAND Corporation in Washington. He urged Clinton to openly seek the movement’s overthrow.

Among other things, Khalilzad feared the spread of Taliban ideology to Pakistan. “The prospect of a nuclear-armed Pakistan adopting the credo of the Taliban, while unlikely, is simply too risky to ignore,” he had written a year before joining the National Security Council. Yet he also opposed any deep American alliance with Ahmed Shah Massoud. Fearful of a north-south ethnic split, Khalilzad argued adamantly that Pashtuns—exiles and royalists like Karzai—had to be the locus of any successful anti-Taliban strategy. If the goal was Mullah Omar’s demise, “too close a relationship with the Northern Alliance will hinder rather than help this objective,” he believed. Khalilzad wanted to help dissident Pashtuns who could “fracture the Taliban internally.” These views placed him at odds with Cofer Black and the bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center, who saw Massoud as by far their most valuable potential ally against al Qaeda. They also did not see how politically weak Pashtun exiles could be effective in fomenting a coup or splitting the Taliban from the inside.19

All this debate meant the Bush administration had no clear direction. It would take months to fashion a new approach. The Cabinet displayed little sense of urgency.

__

PAKISTAN’S ARMY had long enjoyed better relations with Republican administrations in Washington than with Democrats, yet it was not clear that tradition would hold this time. Musharraf’s advisers in Islamabad knew that Bush’s 2000 campaign had raised massive contributions from Indian-American businessmen. These donors pressed Bush and his advisers to tilt American policy toward India. The Republican Party platform, crafted in part to please financial supporters, emphasized relations with India over those with Pakistan. Conservative intellectuals on the Bush foreign policy team, such as Harvard University’s Robert Blackwill, recommended a strategic shift toward India to counter the menace of a rising China.20

Musharraf and his advisers in Islamabad sent Bush a confidential three-page letter that outlined common ground between Pakistan and the United States and pressed for closer ties. Condoleezza Rice met with Musharraf’s ambassador to Washington, Maleeha Lodhi, an accomplished female former journalist who like Rice had risen to the top of her male-dominated foreign policy establishment. The two governments could work together to isolate bin Laden, Lodhi pledged, but Pakistan’s army still felt that the Taliban were misunderstood in Washington. The Taliban had recently cracked down on opium poppy production, Lodhi noted. “Yeah, Stalin also got a lot of things done,” Rice answered.21

The White House delivered a confidential written reply to Musharraf early in 2001 that contained many encouraging signals about the future of the U.S.-Pakistan alliance, but the letter also linked the chances for an improved relationship—debt relief, sanction waivers, and security cooperation—with resolution of the bin Laden problem. “The continued presence of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization is a direct threat to the United States and its interests that must be addressed,” Bush wrote. “I believe al-Qaida also threatens Pakistan’s long-term interests.”

The letter arrived in the midst of an intensifying debate within Pakistan’s army and establishment over support for the Taliban. Musharraf had consolidated army rule by winning the allegiance of politically neutral civil servants such as the diplomats in Pakistan’s British-style elite foreign service. Now the civilians in his government began to openly question the army’s support for jihadists in Afghanistan. “We find practical reasons to continue with policies that we know are never going to deliver and the eventual costs of which we also know will be overwhelming. . . . Thus we are condemned to ride a tiger,” wrote Pakistan’s high commissioner in India, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, in a confidential cable that January, prepared in advance of a meeting of ambassadors in Islamabad. Pakistan had “no choice,” Qazi argued, but had to somehow “resolve the OBL [Osama bin Laden] problem before addressing any other issue.” If the Taliban refused to cooperate, Pakistan should squeeze their supplies and “undermine the authority of those Taliban leaders who refuse to cooperate.” Other key civilians around Musharraf—Lodhi; Arif Ayub, the ambassador to Kabul; and the country’s civilian finance minister—weighed in with similar arguments. Mullah Omar refused to do the Pakistan army’s bidding and refused to acquiesce even on the smallest issues, yet the United States and other world powers all adamantly believed that Pakistan pulled the Taliban’s strings. Pakistan had achieved the “worst of both worlds,” as one official recalled arguing.22

The dissidents in Pakistan’s government supported a break with the Taliban because they thought it was in Pakistan’s national interest. Mullah Omar and his jihadist allies had spooked former Soviet governments in Central Asia and alienated them from Pakistan, chilling trade. The economy sagged under debts, sanctions, and a poor investment climate. Some strains of the Taliban’s violent radicalism had blown onto Pakistani soil. Al Qaeda harbored and trained anti-Shiite fanatics who mounted assassinations and touched off riots in Pakistani cities. All of this was tolerated by Pakistan’s generals in the name of “strategic depth” against India. But what depth had they really won?

A few generals in Musharraf’s cabinet sided with the civilians. One was Moinuddin Haider, a retired three-star appointed by Musharraf as interior minister, in charge of Pakistan’s police and internal security. Haider’s brother had been killed by sectarian terrorists with links to Afghanistan. “We are losing too much,” he argued in closed gatherings with Musharraf and other generals. The Taliban “don’t listen to us on matters of smuggling, narcotics, weapons,” Haider said. “They’re not serious about this.” Even worse, the Taliban had taken to issuing threats against Musharraf. Omar wrote the Pakistani leader a private letter on January 16, 2001, urging him to “enforce Islamic law . . . step by step” in order to appease Pakistan’s religious parties. Otherwise, there could be “instability” in the country. “This is our advice and message based on Islamic ideology,” Omar warned. “Otherwise you had better know how to deal with it.”23

But Pakistan’s policy on Afghanistan ran largely on automatic pilot. Musharraf endorsed the alliance with the Taliban in part because he believed that Pakistan needed reliable Pashtun allies next door. Pakistani intelligence kept the jihadist combine churning. Even the civilian liberals in the government resented the constant pressure they received about the Taliban and bin Laden from the American government—the humiliating formal démarches and the endless sanctions and speeches. Even though they abhorred the Taliban’s philosophy, some of the civilian Pakistani elite took a little pride in how Omar and bin Laden flustered and punished the Americans. Liberal Pakistani diplomats used all their wiles to protect the Taliban from international sanctions. They obfuscated, they dodged, they rationalized. It was just a matter of being professional, they believed. However distasteful his outlook, Mullah Omar helped defend Pakistan from the existential threat of Indian aggression. The liberal civilians around Musharraf believed they could work for change gradually from within their government.24

The Taliban kept spinning off in new and bizarre directions, however. On March 1 the movement announced its intention to destroy all the statues in Afghanistan that depicted human form. Militiamen armed with rockets and assault rifles began blasting two ancient sandstone statues of Buddha believed to have been hewn in the third and fifth centuries when a Buddhist community thrived in central Afghanistan. One statue rose 120 feet, the other 175 feet. Their jewels had long ago been stripped away, and their faces had been hacked off by previous Muslim rulers. But the figures remained, glorious and dignified, legs draped by folded robes. The Taliban’s audacious vandalism provoked worldwide condemnation and shock that rarely followed the militia’s massacres of Afghan civilians. Curators and government spokesmen pleaded that the demolitions be suspended. Mullah Omar seemed puzzled. “We do not understand why everyone is so worried,” he said. “All we are breaking are stones.”25

Wealthy Buddhist nations in Asia—many of them donors to Pakistan’s sick treasury—pressured Musharraf to intervene before it was too late. The general asked Moinuddin Haider to fly to Kandahar and reason with Omar. Haider hurriedly consulted Islamic scholars to fashion detailed religious arguments that might appeal to the Taliban. Flanked by translators, note takers, and Islamic consultants, he flew by executive jet to Kandahar’s airport, circling down over Tarnak Farm. The visitors drove to Mullah Omar’s new walled suburban estate on Kandahar’s outskirts, constructed in lavish style by Osama bin Laden. It lay nestled in pine trees on a rise beneath a sharp rock mountain. There was an ornate main palace, a house for servants, a lavish guest house, and a blue mosque with white trim.

“We deliberated for six months, and we came to the conclusion that we should destroy them,” Omar explained when they were settled.

Haider quoted a verse from the Koran that said Muslims should not slander the gods of other religions. Allah would decide who was worthy on the day of judgment, Haider said.

He cited many cases in history, especially in Egypt, where Muslims had protected the statues and art of other religions. The Buddhas in Afghanistan were older even than Islam. Thousands of Muslim soldiers had crossed Afghanistan to India over the centuries, but none of them had ever felt compelled to destroy the Buddhas. “When they have spared these statues for fifteen hundred years, all these Muslims who have passed by them, how are you a different Muslim from them?” Haider asked.

“Maybe they did not have the technology to destroy them,” Omar speculated.

Omar said he feared what Allah would say to him on the Day of Judgment. He talked about himself in the third person. “Allah will ask me, ‘Omar, you have brought a superpower called the Soviet Union to its knees. You could not break two statues?’ And what would Mullah Omar reply?”

Peering from his one healthy eye, the Taliban leader continued: “On the Day of Judgment all of these mountains will turn into sand and fly into the air. And what if these statues in this shape go before Allah? What face, then, will Mullah Omar show to God?”26

__

HAIDER RELAYED an account of Omar’s visions to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, which in turn cabled a report to Washington. The embassy had largely given up on the idea that the Taliban might be persuaded to voluntarily hand bin Laden over to the United States. Omar’s rantings to Haider about the apocalypse only reinforced this analysis. (Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 30 “What Face Will Omar Show to God?”

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 31

(Steve Coll “Ghost Wars” 2004 Ch 32

How could Exxon tell the public and Wall Street one thing and the S.E.C. another? The answer involved a catalog of legalese known as S.E.C. Rule 4-10, the ..... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p. 54-7)

..... in California ...

Raymond might report on conversations he had recently had with the president of Kazakhstan or the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia. ...

ExxonMobil's interest's were global, not national. Once, at ...

"Why would I want to do that?” Raymond asked, as the executive recalled it.

“Because the United States needs it . . . for security,” the executive replied.

"I'm not a U.S. company and I don't make decisions based on what's good for the U.S.," Raymond said. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.70-3)

Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited in "10 Steps That Led To Exxon Mobil's Global Domination"

Some of ExxonMobil's Washington lobbyists (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.76-7?)

Arthur G. "Randy" Randol III, who served as ExxonMobil's senior environmental adviser For political cover Exxon increasingly worked the climate account through the American Petroleum Institute, the industry trade and advocacy group. Randol provided technical expertise, while Raymond offered authority and funds. During the ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.84-7)

Inre Arthur G. "Randy" Randol III EXXON’S WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION at Greenpeace

Security posts and unmarked interrogation houses became the settings for the blackest chapters of Aceh's conflict ...

B. N. Marbun, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, estimated that at least two thousand Acehnese torture victims lay buried in secret graves ....

On October 10, 1998, a coalition of seventeen Indonesian human rights groups issued a statement alleging that Mobil Oil “provided crucial logistic support to the army, including earth—moving equipment that was used to dig mass graves” to bury Aceh's torture victims (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.104-7)

During the first week of April 2001, United States Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard flew to Banda Aceh, the seaside provincial capital, a flat and humid expanse of low-slung, water-streaked concrete buildings shaded by palm trees. A Swiss peacemaking organization, then known as the Henry Dunant Centre, maintained a local forum for on-again, off-again talks between Indonesian and G.A.M. representatives. Gelbard scheduled separate meetings with leaders on each side of the conflict. He raised the subject of human rights with Indonesia’s government delegation: G.A.M. certainly committed abuses, Gelbard told them, but the international community holds democratically elected governments to higher standards than guerrilla groups.

ExxonMobil had no covert agenda in closing its Aceh operations, Gelbard said. The corporation had been entirely justified in its concerns about security; the United States supported ExxonMobil’s decision but had not instigated it.

The ambassador became more forceful when the G.A.M. delegation arrived. “G.A.M. is clearly responsible for the attacks on ExxonMobil,” Gelbard announced. “Some G.A.M. leaders are now even boasting about shutting down ExxonMobil.” He said that Hasan di Tiro, G.A.M.’s leader in exile, had promised in private meetings that he would issue a public statement that ExxonMobil was not a target of the guerrilla campaign; he had never done so. G.A.M.’s attacks on the oil company now were a “major mistake,” Gelbard declared.

The United States would not tolerate terrorism against U.S. citizens and economic interests. G.A.M. had been “very lucky” that no American citizens working for ExxonMobil had been killed thus far. Even so, he warned, there would be “severe consequences” if G.A.M. did not stop the attacks immediately. The Bush administration had so far refrained from naming G.A.M. a terrorist organization under American law. A terrorist designation would mean travel and banking restrictions for G.A.M. leaders. The administration might reconsider that decision, unless the assaults on ExxonMobil property and interests ended. Moreover, the United States received many requests from the Indonesia military and police for help in fighting against G.A.M. – intelligence, training and equipment.

“Do you really want us as an enemy?” Gelbard asked.

The G.A.M. representatives acknowledged responsibility for the attack on ExxonMobil. They said that Indonesian troops guarding the gas fields were fair military targets. The troops used ExxonMobil property as a “sanctuary” from which to launch raids into nearby villages. Therefore in their analysis, ExxonMobil facilitated the killing of Acehnese.

G.A.M. leaders said years later that they felt increasingly agitated at the time by ExxonMobil’s possible complicity in extrajudicial killings of their cadres. The corpses unearthed along the Pipeline road and elsewhere late in 1998 legitimized ExxonMobil as a target, they said. The corporation “seemed to support the Indonesian government,” recalled Nordin Abudul Rahman, one of G.A.M.’s political leaders. “People concluded that ExxonMobil provided heavy equipment for the burials.” Not only was “ExxonMobil land used for mass graves,” said Munawar Zainal, a G.A.M. student leader and occasional representative of the movement in Washington, but “they gave the Indonesian security forces money. This to us was unacceptable.” Gelbard, for his part, felt that ExxonMobil had “behaved very responsibly and very sensibly,” as he put it later. He regarded the corporation’s dilemma as a “textbook example” of a dangerous situation when a U.S. energy company behaved very well.

At the Banda Aceh meeting, Gelbard told G.A.M. that its guerrillas had mounted attacks on ExxonMobil’s civilian housing, employee buses, and other targets clearly unconnected to the Indonesian military. This had to end.

The ambassador flew back to Jakarta, but the Bush administration’s campaign to coerce G.A.M. to stop targeting ExxonMobil continued. On April 23, deputy assistant secretary of state Skip Boyce arrived in Banda Aceh from Washington. The envoy met Indonesian officials and assured them that the United States opposed Acehnese independence, but he urged negotiations that would address the legitimate grievances of the Acehnese.

“We are deeply concerned by attacks on ExxonMobil facilities in Aceh,” Boyce said. He warned against cracking down on G.A.M. now that the American oil corporation had withdrawn from gas production, awaiting improvements in security. “The closure of ExxonMobil should not be a pretext for launching a military offensive, which would only worsen the security situation.”

He also took up G.A.M.’s concerns about the offensive operations waged by Indonesian forces from inside the corporation’s property. Indonesian forces guarding ExxonMobil’s fields “should not perform any other mission – specifically, they should not sweep or raid neighboring villages, which only exacerbates the violence,” Boyce said.

When the envoy met G.A.M.’s leaders, he reinforced Gelbard’s earlier warning: Attacks on ExxonMobil “risked turning the U.S. into G.A.M.’s enemy.” The separatist guerrillas would want to “consider carefully before making an enemy of a superpower like the U.S.” (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.116-7)

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited on Salon "U.S. foreign policy, brought to you by ExxonMobil"

Faisal, it turned out, had heard of the Unocal lawsuit and explained that “he had a case just like it, involving Exxon,” ... took notes during interviews with victims and witnesses.

That June, just as Robert Gelbard succeeded in his unpublicized (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.120-1)

impeding their recovery, possibly through ingestion of oiled prey.

The Auke Bay scientists knew that their findings would be provocative, but the response they drew this time went beyond any line of argument they had heard before. David S.Page, a professor .... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.132-5)

During the cold war, despite his torture rooms, Hissene Habré had maintained cordial ties with the United States, which regarded him as a regional counter to Libya's leader, Moammar Gaddafi. The Reagan administration trained elements of (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.158-9)

Exxon ran the Chad project out of an office in Paris and hired French nationals ...

...... oil production was likely a cause of their instability.

Exxon's exploitation of Chad's oil involved both engineering audacity (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.162-5)

Davies's strategy was to “pillory this company,” document its “wrong behavior” on ... In July 2001, Greenpeace released “A Decade of Dirty Tricks: ExxonMobil's ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.182-5)

…… The attention had reached a point where it was undermining Raymond's own cause ...

….. a single donor was responsible for $120,000 of Public Interest Watch’s $124,000 in annual revenue: ExxonMobil Corporation.

As Raymond battled Greenpeace, the international oil company he most admired after his own, Royal Dutch Shell, stunned the stock market investors by revealing that it had over stated it’s true proven reserves …..

That review in turn brought fresh attention to a …… (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.188-9)

Raymond selected Ralph Daniel Nelson, a longtime Mobil executive with ... Marine infantry officer who had served in Vietnam during the late phases of the war. Michael Shanklin, a former marine and CIA case officer from the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, who now worked for ... The local C.I.A. station relayed intelligence that Nelson himself was an Al Qaeda target (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.206-7)

At this session, Raymond was the only ExxonMobil executive in attendance. Raymond .....

That is one of the few boards I know where the whole is less than the sum of the parts.”

There was very little free-flowing discussion at board meetings. Raymond's remarks, presentations by other senior executives, and votes on board resolutions were written down well in advance and read out from sheets of paper. Board ...... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.210-1)

“Exxon writes their own checks and they are accountable to their shareholders —they're not accountable to me,” Evans told Gref. “I don't write checks for them.” Evans tried to explain that no matter what sort of agreement Washington and ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.254-5)

One way they acquired inventory was by monitoring sales of surplus U.S. government airplanes by the General Services Administration, ...

Obiang might be accustomed to coup plots, but this one was enough to make any insecure, oil-endowed dictator's head spin. ....

At Cassidy, one of Obiang's aides called Amos Hochstein, a young former Capitol Hill aide. Intrigued, Hochstein used Google to research Equatorial Guinea; the search ...

the Mann—led coup plot lingered, sowing distrust and uncertainty in the US. ...

“You can buy weapons from the US, too,” he said, but that didn't mean that ..... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.290-5)

Swiger had taken charge of charge of Africa operations shortly after the Mobil merger. there was almost nothing about ExxonMobil's relationship with the Obiang regime that the corporation wished to discuss in public, other than its charitable campaing to fight malaria. Asked occasionally about its ties to a government with such a poor human rights record, ExxonMobill spokesmen repeatedly and breifly stated that the company followed the law and condemned human rights violation "wherever they may occur." The Riggs bank scandal had exposed many of the details of ExxonMobil's financial ties to Obiang—its rental of land from regime officials, its investments in businesses controlled by Obiang relatives, and its funding of scholarships for elite Equato—Guinean children selected by the president.

"Does it bother you that you have a business partner .... Swiger (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.298-9)

Raymond continued to fund advocacy groups that promoted skepticism of mainstream climate science; he considered such funding just another example of the corporation's possessing the courage of its convictions when others lacked them. ExxonMobil traded spots from year to year with Walmart as the largest corporation ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.310-3)

Steve Coll "Private Empire" additional information about funding research on Frontline at PBS

“The facts are, with the exception of the service stations, everything we produce has no interface with the public,” Raymond told his directors at a meeting in (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.316-7)

By now ExxonMobil had made its own choice clear: It was more interested in the survival of Chad's oil production than it was in the World Bank's experiment in nation building. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.362-3)

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited in Global power of ExxonMobil spotlighted in new Coll book

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited in Too Big to Imagine

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited in Inside the Death Star — Also Known as Exxon

ExxonMobil, with whom we will continue to work.”

Two days later, a young United States senator, Barack Obama, in office less than two years, was on his way back to ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.368-9)

Baltimore County Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management Map by Gm: Tharp

The news was catastrophic: In all probability, about 24,000 gallons of toxic gasoline had been leaking into the ground for six weeks in ...

MTBE, the second dangerous element in gasoline, was developed in laboratories to raise gasoline octane ratings; after 1990, government policy encouraged its use to enhance the amount of oxygen emitted when cars burned gasoline, to reduce urban air pollution caused by tailpipe emissions. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.378-81)

An ExxonMobil security officer joined the Delta Working Group on March 14 and reported that a militant known as Comrade Owei was behind the protests and threats. ExxonMobil had in fact paid between $25 million and $30 million in restitution for the 1998 spill, but the corporation had turned away ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.456-7)

The reported death did accelerate ransom negotiations ExxonMobil maintained a firm public line against payments, but its declared policy could not constrain ... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.460-1)

From Europe Arguably, the effect of American military assistance to the Nigerian army had been to abet (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.472-3)

Some researchers and nongovernmental health lobbyists, such as those at the Breast Cancer Fund, feared that DINP might ...

Throughout the commission's review, ExxonMobil scientists and lobbyists argued that DINP was safe enough to be used ...

.... as the authors of ExxonMobil's PowerPoint slides—who favored traditional risk analysis philosophies against those who favored the precautionary principle.

ExxonMobil's scientist argued again that the amount of DINP in children's toys was so negligible as to post no realistic hazard. .....

On August 25, 2008, Mark Albers, of the upstream division, donated $350; Walter Buchholtz, the longtime lobbyist for ExxonMobil chemical, donated $350 .... (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.492-5)

Israeli trainers and consultants peddling intelligence and defense systems quietly ...

The Mossad “suggested that Obiang make a quiet trip to Israel and they would scan ...

By 2009, the Israelis had sold equatorial Guinea electronic surveillance equipment Obiang's (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.516-7)

Bob Simpson was a tax accountant who wore his slacks stuffed inside his cowboy boots. When he was a young boy, an aunt brought him periodically to downtown Fort Worth, Texas, to shop at Leonard's department store, a wonderland of toys, sporting goods, and furniture. Crumbling brick buildings dating to the Texas oil boom of the early twentieth century surrounded Leonard's. Simpson grew up in modest circumstances in a small town nearby, graduated from Baylor University, took an accounting job in Fort Worth, and never left. When he began to earn big money, he bought up and restored many of the decrepit buildings he had seen as a child. On one occasion he paid $160,000 for the grand champion steer at the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show and donated the animal to the Fort Worth Zoo. Increasingly, he was one of the city's most active patrons.

Simpson was a numbers man. He kept books and organized tax returns for others until 1986, when he founded Cross Timbers Oil. Over the next two decades he built the company into a Wall Street darling. He acquired onshore American natural gas fields abandoned by the large international oil companies as they moved overseas and into deep-water offshore oil drilling in search of large new reserves. He also managed operations and financial strategy very tightly; Simpson became a master at growing through acquisitions.

He renamed Cross Timbers as the more ticker-friendly XTO; its profits grew very rapidly, from $186 million in 2002 to $1.9 billion in 2008, which vaulted XTO to number 330 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest stock market-traded corporations headquartered in the United States. Barron's named Simpson one of the thirty most-respected business leaders in the world for four consecutive years, alongside Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs.

His thinning hair had turned gray, and as he reached his sixties, he grew a not-so-Wall Street white beard. He gave up day-to-day management responsibilities at XTO, while remaining chairman, and the beard hinted that he might be ready for a further change of lifestyle. XTO now employed three thousand people, all of them in the United States, a third of them in Fort Worth. Simpson's stock option-incented executives and his Wall Street shareholders had become used to rates of profit growth that could not go on forever, certainly not in an industry whose performance was tied to volatile commodity prices.

In the summer of 2009, Simpson and XTO's senior executives and directors attended the corporation's annual management retreat at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, tucked beneath the mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Simpson repaired to the hotel bar with Jack Randall, an XTO director who was a partner in an investment bank that specialized in oil and gas mergers. As they munched bar food, they talked about the industry and options for future strategy, including the possibility of a merger or an acquisition of XTO by one of the oil majors.

The American natural gas business was in the midst of a historic boom as new drilling techniques unlocked huge reserves of domestic "shale" gas -- natural gas trapped in shale rock formations -- and other unconventional sources. XTO was a leading producer of shale and unconventional gas. It owned positions in most of the major shale gas plays in the United States, including the Marcellus Shale on the East Coast, which was exciting interest. The corporation's headquarters in Fort Worth stood near the Barnett Shale, one of the country's best-known shale gas reserves, where XTO owned a large and lucrative position. A natural gas rush gripped Fort Worth as drillers, land men (who specialize in leasing land for drilling), and financiers scoured the region to grab positions. The nationwide boom atmosphere meant that natural gas production would likely rise and gas prices would fall. The financial crisis and recession of 2008 to 2009 had also dampened total energy demand, at least temporarily.

Also, some of XTO's success had been due to Simpson's financial wizardry in the futures and derivatives markets -- his ability to enhance profit by locking in hedges on high gas prices, to guarantee strong cash flow and protect against market price declines. If prices fell for a prolonged period, hedging wouldn't produce the same degree of benefit. Big international oil majors continued to look at unconventional gas companies like XTO with avarice, despite the falling prices, because the majors had largely missed out on the domestic gas boom that XTO had ridden. For a wily numbers man like Simpson, these factors -- prices past a peak, a boom mentality in the industry, and hungry, cash-rich corporate buyers -- all flashed "sell."

Who would be an ideal purchaser, Simpson and Randall wondered? Chevron was in the midst of a leadership transition, and the corporation was being sued in Ecuador over an oil spill that might produce a major financial liability -- at a minimum, the lawsuit was a wild card. They considered Shell, too, which was active in onshore gas plays, and a few less likely contenders. Before the check for their snacks came, they had settled on BP and ExxonMobil, both cash-rich and highly interested in the unconventional gas market. Simpson told Randall to approach both corporations to see if they might be interested in a merger or other combination with XTO.

Randall owned a significant amount of stock in XTO -- nothing as large as Simpson's holding, but enough to motivate him. Simpson also agreed to pay Randall's firm, Jefferies Group Inc., a transaction fee of $24 million if a merger were completed. Randall had previously worked at Amoco for fourteen years, landing in the company's mergers and acquisitions group. He left to form an oil and gas advisory firm that later became part of Jefferies, an investment bank. He and his fellow directors at XTO had been thinking for years about how the corporation might eventually find an acquirer; almost all successful independents in the oil and gas business ultimately merged or were acquired. That was also the common exit strategy for a founder like Simpson, and a deal now would allow all of XTO's shareholders to benefit from his foresight. Like a marriage broker of old, Randall had already been cultivating a courtship between Bob Simpson and Rex Tillerson at ExxonMobil.

Randall had a personal tie to Tillerson: They had belonged to the same marching band fraternity at the University of Texas. Randall played trumpet; Tillerson played drums. They had both been engineering students in the marching band -- that is, double nerds. Randall was a couple of years ahead of Tillerson at U.T., and the men had not known each other well at the time, but the shared history reinforced their professional relationship when Randall became a Houston-based broker of oil and gas properties. At industry and university luncheons, Tillerson and Randall would occasionally run into each other and catch up on oil and gas matters or reminisce about university days.

Around 2007, Randall had suggested that Tillerson invite Bob Simpson on a hunting trip, so the two men could get to know each other better. Tillerson agreed, and he and Simpson spent a few days shooting together on ExxonMobil's vast ranch near Alice, Texas. They got along. Each had been reared in unglamorous circumstances in rural Texas and had now achieved transforming wealth and success. Each had put down roots in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and reveled in the region's history and ranch culture. Each regarded himself as a disciplined leader devoted to operational perfection. Their corporations occasionally partnered on deals and worked compatibly.

After his Fairmont Chateau Whistler bar summit with Simpson, in late July, Jack Randall telephoned Tillerson.

"Rex, I need to come to see you," he said. "It's very, very important. It's very confidential."

Tillerson invited him to Irving, to meet in his office. When Randall arrived on August 6, he explained that Bob Simpson was thinking about a "strategic combination" between XTO and ExxonMobil. Might ExxonMobil be interested?

"Yes, I think we'll be interested," Tillerson answered. "Let me take some time to soak on it." (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.576-9)

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" four pages cited at The Deal

Mike Williams put it this way: “All the things they told us could never happen, happened.

BP's catastrophe soon surpassed the Exxon Valdez wreck as the worst oil spill in American history. The Valdez had released 257,000 barrels of oil into Prince ...

On January 28, 1969, Union Oil Platform A-21 blew out in the Santa Barbara Channel. the spill soaked thirty miles of California beaches in oil. It was the early age of color television and dramatic visual news—moon landings, ...

Florida's tourism and coastal real estate industries could not abide the risks of a Santa Barbara-scale spill, even though the states voters sometimes leaned Republican. Thus even Governor Jeb Bush, a scion of oil, would oppose offshore drilling for a time. On the Atlantic coast, Virginai, Norht Carolina, and New Jersey occasionally flirted with leasing Atlantic Ocean tracts for oil drilling in exchange for royalty revenue, but none of these states ever produced governors and political constituancies strong enough to go ahead.

After the Deepwater Horizon's blowout, it became commonplace to observe thqat big oil had captured and weakened Washington's regulation of offshore drilling, by influencing and outfoxing the weak and underfunded unit of the department of the Interior, the Minerals Management Service or MMS, which oversaw leasing and drilling in federal waters. It was certainly true that the oil industry outmatched MMS regulators and that the industry muscled through an oversight system that relied heavily on self-regulation. But the weak regulatory system was also a consequence of the segregated American politics of offshore drilling.

The most powerful national environmental lobbies, the national Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy, and the Sierra Club, did not focus heavily on the technical, regulatory, and risk management issues surrounding the Gulf's Red State deep-water drilling operations. To the extent that the environmental lobbies worked on offshore oil issues, they focused more on preventing new leasing in Alaska or in the eastern Gulf off Florida, where the oil industry sought to expand. …..

Complacency ran to the top of the American political system ran to the top of the American political system. While seeking the White House, Barack Obama excoriated John McCain for proposing to expand offshore drilling, because this would have “long-term consequences for our coastlines but no short-term benefits, since it would take at least ten years to get any oil. … When I’m president, In intend to keep in place the moratorium.” In office, he did not. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.602-7)

The spill response plans by BP and ExxonMobil on file at the time of the Deepwater Horizon blowout were almost identical, except for one feature. ExxonMobil's plan contained a forty-page appendix K, entitled “Media.” The media management appendix was more than four times longer than the plan for oil removal, and eight times longer than the plan for “resource protection."

..... “We've got opportunities all over the world.”

The Swagger was vintage Exxon, but the public policy at issue was the corporation's philosophy of risk management. Just ten days after the Deepwater Horizon exploded, a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline dumped about a million gallons of oil in coastal areas of eastern Nigeria, soiling shorelines dotted by impoverished seasides villages. the affected area lay far from American television news bureaus, and its kidnapping gangs made it a risky place to travel in any event. the spill barely registered. Not all accidents can be prevented, Tillerson and ExxonMobil's lobbyists acknowledged. Even if one accepted that ExxonMobil's own safety and self-regulatory record was exemplary, relative to peers, and even if one assumed the corporation's relatively vigilant internal practices would endure indefinitely, without ever deteriorating again, how did Exxon propose to ensure that every other corporation in the oil industry adopted its standards, if not by government regulation? Tillerson volunteered that ExxonMobil's safety systems were "not proprietary" and he would share them with other companies, but it was neither practical nor appropriate for the corporation to police its competitors.

In comparison with other regulatory schemes, supervision of oil drilling and transport involved an unusual challenge. The incentive to find new oil in a contrained world drove all the major companies to risky frontiers. Resource nationalism, the rise of gloabl state owned oil companies with favored positions in their home countries, and the struggle for annual reserve replacement at gigantic corporations like ExxonMobil had led them to deep water, to weak and conflict ridden states with vulnerable populations, and increasingly to the Arctic ice, where cold temperatures might render conventional spill cleanup techniques inoperable. The national commission concluded that BP's blowout drilling in pioneering conditions in the Gulf of Mexico was not a "statistical inevitability" because sound management and regulation could have prevented the accident. Yet the record of oil accidents worldwide over thirty years was one of repetitive spills and failures, even at the best practitioners, such as ExxonMobil after the Valdez. In commercial aviation, idiot-proof safety systems and close regulatory inspection had reduced accidents to an over-all nuisance level, although they were obviously devastating when they occurred. Marketplace incentives played a crucial role in commercial aviation. The public demanded protection from reckless airplane operators and pushed airlines companies into compliance-crashes repelled customers. By comparison, in oil's case, the environmental consequences of a single accident could be very severe, but they did not threaten the lives of of oil customers or change their purchasing behavior. The damage was typically remote, and for consumers gasoline remained a necessity. Marketplace incentives did work constructively in one respect-the high financial and reputational costs of the Exxon Valdez and the Deep Water Horizon served as a powerful deterrent to corporate recklessness at drilling sites-but an occasional catastrophic error could be managed and survived, as ExxonMobil had demonstrated and BP probably would. And because the need to find oil in hard places pushed corporations into greater risk taking, the overall effect was very different from aviation: It was as if United Airlines, to remain profitable and viable in the long run, had to fly faster and higher each year, while managing all the risks that came along with the stretching of its capabilities. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.610-5)

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" see also 10 Steps That Led To Exxon Mobil's Global Domination at Business Insider

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" also cited in Inside the Death Star — Also Known as Exxon

occur. the corporation's refinery in Billings, Montana, sprang a leak and poured about 1,000 barrels of oil into the majestic Yellowstone River. ... has happened,” corporate spokesman on July 1, 2011, ExxonMobil's Silvertip pipeline, running from Wyoming to Kevin Allexon said? ?????

On July 1, 2011 ExxonMobil's Silvertip pipeline, running from Wyoming to the corporations refinery in Billings, Montana, sprang a leak and poured about 1,000 barrels of oil into the majestic Yellowstone River. ... We deeply regret this incident has happened,” corporate spokesman Kevin Allexon said.

The Obama administration announced plans in the summer of 2011 for the first sale of oil leases in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Interior secretary Ken Salazar said twenty million acres would be put up for lease—all in the Gulf's western waters, nearest to Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. (Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.620-3)

(Steve Coll "Private Empire" 2012 p.620-3)

Too much media involvement and too little “real life” social interaction (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.120-1)

In his book: Can We Be Good Without God? Dr. Robert Buckman asks the question “Why should I behave decently?” His answer: “Because it will be a better world for the human race if we all do.” (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.125)

Days after the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado, a group of Nashville, Tennessee, students created a Web site: www.iwillpledge.nashville.com. They invited other students throughout the world to sign the following pledge: (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.174-5)

Peter Yarrow and Flora Lazar “Don’t Laugh at Me, Teachers Guide: Grades 6–8, Creating a Ridicule-Free Classroom” 2000

In my research for this book, I was unable to find any such comprehensive program for middle school and high school in either the United States or Canada. (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.181) http://www.safeteen.ca/

At San Marcos High School in San Marcos, California, a student drew up a list of his tormentors on the back of a class handout. (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.185-6)

In his book Nobody left to hate: Teaching Compassion after Columbine, Elliot Aronson wrote about this poisonous atmosphere in middle and senior high school, which he saw as one of the root causes of violence: (Barbara Coloroso “The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander” 2008 p.190)

The main source of good discipline is growing up in a loving family, being loved and learning to love in return. –Benjamin Spock, Baby and Child Care (Barbara Coloroso “Kids Are Worth It” 1995 p.27)

Children need parents who model self-discipline rather than preach it. They learn from what their parents actually do; not from what they say they do…. When parents rigidly discipline (and don’t walk what they talk), the child becomes overdisciplined…. The over disciplined child is rigid, obsessive, overly controlled and obedient, people pleasing, and ravished with shame and guilt. -- John Bradshaw, Homecoming (Barbara Coloroso “Kids Are Worth It” 1995 p.23)

The major problems arise when the teen decides he doesn’t want to please his parents anymore. More than once, brick-wall parents have said to me, “Would you look at this kid. He was such a good kid., so well behaved, so well mannered, so well dressed. Now look at him!” I say, “You know what? He hasn’t changed. From the time he was young, he dressed the way you told him to dress; he acted the way you told him to act; he said the things you told him to say. He’s been listening to somebody else tell him what to do. The problem is, it isn’t you anymore; it’s his peers. The kid hasn’t learned how to think. (Barbara Coloroso “Kids Are Worth It” 1995 p.112)

I don’t care how busy you are- you can take the time with your children. You can talk about your dreams; you can talk about your day; you can talk about your frustrations. The busier you are, the more valuable meal time is for your child. If we don’t spend this time with our youngsters, they are not going to develop healthy attitudes towards family life. –Dr. Lee Salk (Barbara Coloroso “Kids Are Worth It” 1995 p.259)

But in fact, Nixon’s childhood was much more tumultuous and troublesome than he let on. Frank Nixon, his father, was a boisterous, unpleasant man who needed to dominate everyone-“a ‘punishing and often brutal’ father.” Edward Nixon, the youngest of the Nixon children described his “mother as the judge and my father as the executioner.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.5)

Henry chose William Y. Elliot as his mentor. Recognized as the most powerful member of the Government department along with Carl Friedrich, the fifty-two-year-old Elliott was in some respects a model of what Henry wished to be. “I am interested in the practical politics of international relations,” Kissinger told Friedrich, signaling a decision to become a Government major intent on the useful applications of his learning.

Elliott was a larger-than-life figure--both physically and temperamentally-who staged cockfights in the basement of his residence and enjoyed being called “Wild Bill.” A native of Tennessee, Elliott had won distinction as an all-American football player at Vanderbilt. He was a memorable character, with the attributes of a Southern politician who would have been as comfortable in Washington’s corridors of power as in the halls of academe. He wore his service in the Office of War Mobilization during World War II as a badge of honor, and encouraged Kissinger and other students to see dual careers in government and the academy as noble ambitions.

Henry had to prove himself to Elliott, who greeted him coolly at their first meeting. “Oh God, another tutee,” he exclaimed after making Kissinger stand awkwardly in front of his desk for a bit while he attended to some business. Elliott instructed him to read twenty-five books on Immanuel Kant and write a paper comparing his critiques of pure and practical reason. Henry surprised the professor by reading all the books and completing a paper in three months that dazzled Elliott. “I want you to meet this fellow Henry Kissinger, who is a combination of Kant and Spinoza,” Elliott told another tutee. “If we put together his profundity with your elegance of style, we’ll really have something.” Elliott wrote to the Phi Beta Kappa selection committee: “I have not had any students in the past five years, even among the summa cum laude group, who have had the depth and philosophical insight shown by Mr. Kissinger.” But Elliott also noted Henry’s limits: “His mind lacks grace and is Teutonic in its systematic thoroughness.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.41)

What if a revolutionary state were in pursuit of a just cause and a status quo nation were serving unjust goals? A colleague asked Kissinger. “If I had to choose between justice and disorder, on the one hand,” Kissinger replied, “and injustice and order, on the other, I would always choose the latter.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.46)

He (Nixon) told Haldeman that he was relying on what he called “the Madman theory.” He believed that the North Vietnamese would see him as ready to “do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he is angry-and he has his hands on the nuclear button’- and Ho Chi Minh will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.106) References to the “Madman theory” were made on numerous occasions.

During the trip to Europe, after he received reports of additional Soviet construction in Cuba, he instructed Haig to take a hard line with Dobrynin. It was a mistake to give Haig, a no-nonsense general with little appreciation for diplomatic subtleties the assignment. Or it may be that Kissinger anticipated Haig’s tough talk. Haig told Dobrynin that they were violating the 1962 ban on offensive weapons in Cuba and ordered him to dismantle the base or “we will do it for you.” Dobrynin flushed angrily, and said, “In a loud voice, ‘You are threatening the Soviet Union. That is …intolerable.’”

When told of the exchange, Nixon and Kissinger were “furious…You have exceeded your authority,” Henry shouted at him over the phone. “You can’t talk to the Russians that way. You may have started a war.” Kissinger knew better, but he felt compelled to reflect Nixon’s distress at Haig’s intemperate language. He was undoubtedly pleased that Haig had said what his position of greater authority precluded him from saying. (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.229-30)

It is difficult to understand how anyone could work for someone as volatile and irrational as Nixon sometimes was. Most likely, Kissinger and others rationalized their collaboration as helping to save Nixon from himself. After all, he was a democratically elected president and they saw themselves as serving the national well-being by reigning him in. Yet what seems so striking in the record is how often the people around Nixon catered to his outbursts and flights of fancy rather than calling him back to reality by challenging some of his most unsavory and unenforceable demands. It was a way to remain at Nixon’s side but it was a disservice to sensible policy making. It also speaks volumes about the reluctance of high government officials to alienate a president and perhaps force their departure from an office they believe gives them the chance to shape history making events. (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.316)

Nixon countered, with implicit reference to the twenty-seven-year Soviet domination of eastern Europe, “Small nations object to having their fate decided by larger ones.” He then softened his remarks by declaring that “we wouldn’t want to anger Albania.” When the laughter subsided, Gromyko exclaimed sarcastically, “That is a very noble intention.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.395)

Nixon said, “Eliminate the politicians, except George Bush. He’d do anything for the cause.” (Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007 p.434)

http://singlefamilyvoice.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8677

http://singlefamilyvoice.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18441 2011

The Dobson household consisted of a mother and a father, a boy and a girl, one hamster, one parakeet, one lonely goldfish, and two hopelessly neurotic cats. We all lived together in relative harmony with a minimum of conflict and strife. But there was another member of our family who was less congenial and cooperative. He is a stubborn twelve pound dachshund named Sigmund Freud (Siggie), who honestly believes he owns the place. All dachshunds tend to be independent, I’m told, but Siggie was a confirmed revolutionary. He was not vicious or mean; he just wanted to run things—and the two of us engaged in a power struggle throughout his lifetime.

Siggie was not only stubborn, but he wouldn’t pull his own weight in the family. He wouldn’t bring in the newspaper on cold mornings; he refused to chase a ball for the children; he didn’t keep the gophers out of the garden; and he didn’t do any of the usual tricks that most cultured dogs perform. Alas, Siggie refused to engage in any of the self-improvement programs that I initiated on his behalf. He was content just to trot through life, watering and sniffing and barking at everything that moved.

Sigmund was not even a good watchdog. This fact was confirmed the night we were visited by a prowler who entered our backyard at three o’clock in the morning. I suddenly awoke from a deep sleep, got out of bed, and felt my way through the house without turning on the lights. I knew someone was on the patio and Siggie knew it too, because the coward was crouched behind me! After listening to the thumping of my heart for a few minutes, I reached out to take hold of the rear doorknob. At that moment, the backyard gate quietly opened and closed. Someone had been standing three feet from me and that someone was now tinkering in my garage. Siggie and I held a little conversation in the darkness and decided that he should be the one to investigate the disturbance. I opened the back door and ordered my dog to “Attack!” But Siggie had just had one! He stood there throbbing and shaking so badly that I couldn’t even push him out the back door. In the noise and confusion that ensued, the intruder escaped (which pleased both dog and man).

Please don’t misunderstand me: Siggie was a member of our family and we loved him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I did finally teach him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority. The greatest confrontation occurred when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn’t realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as captain.

At eleven o’clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which was a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years, I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed. On that occasion, however, he refused to budge. He was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That was his favorite spot in the house, because it allowed him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater. Incidentally, Siggie had to learn the hard way that it was extremely important that the lid be down before he left the ground. I’ll never forget the night he learned that lesson. He came thundering in from the cold and sailed through the air—and nearly drowned before I could get him out.

On the night of our great battle, I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed. Instead, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie’s way of saying, “Get lost!”

I had seen this defiant mood before and knew that I had to deal with it. The only way to make Siggie obey was to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else worked. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me “reason” with ’ol Sig. My wife, who was watching this drama unfold, told me that as soon as I left the room, Siggie jumped from his perch and looked down the hall to see where I had gone. Then he got behind her and growled.

When I returned, I held up the belt and again told the angry dog to get into his bed. He stood his ground so I gave him a firm swat across the rear end, and he tried to bite the belt. I popped him again and he tried to bite me. What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling. I amstill embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie jumped on the couch and backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him into his bed, but only because I outweighed him two hundred to twelve!

The following night I expected another siege of combat at Siggie’s bedtime. To my surprise, however, he accepted my command without debate or complaint and simply trotted toward the family room in perfect submission. In fact, Siggie and I never had another “go for broke” stand.

It is clear to me now that Siggie was saying on the first night, in his canine way, “I don’t think you’re tough enough to make me obey.” Perhaps I seem to be humanizing the behavior of a dog, but I think not. Veterinarians will confirm that some breeds of dogs, notably dachshunds and shepherds, will not accept the leadership of their masters until human authority has stood the test of fire and proved itself worthy. I got that message across to Siggie in one decisive encounter, and we were good friends for the rest of his life. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.1-6)

Just as surely as some children are naturally compliant, others seem to be defiant upon exit from the womb. They come into the world smoking a cigar and yelling about the temperature in the delivery room and the incompetence of the nursing staff and the way the doctors are running things. Long before their children are born, mothers of strong-willed children know there is something different going on inside, because their babies have been trying to carve their initials on the walls. In infancy, these children fairly bristle when their bottle is late and demand to be held throughout the day. Three o’clock in the morning is their favorite “playtime.” Later, during toddlerhood, they resist all forms of authority and their greatest delights include “painting” the carpet with Mom’s makeup or trying to flush the family cat down the toilet. Their frustrated parents wonder where they went wrong and why their child-rearing experience is so different from what they had expected. They desperately need a little coaching about what to do next. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.14)

Consider the views of Dr. John Valusek, a psychologist with whom I appeared on the Phil Donahue television show:

“The way to stop violence in Americas is to stop spanking children,” argues psychologist John Valusek. In a speech to the Utah Association for Mental health some weeks ago, Valusek declared that parental spanking promotes the thesis that violence against others is acceptable.

“Spanking is the first half-inch on the yardstick of violence,” said Valusek. “It is followed by hitting and ultimately by rape, murder, and assassination, the modeling behavior that occurs at home sets the stage: ‘I will resort to violence when I don’t know what else to do.’”

To Dr. Valusek and his permissive colleagues I can only say '"Poppycock!"' How ridiculous to blame America's obsession with violence on the disciplinary efforts of loving parents! This conclusion is especially foolish in view of the bloody fare offered to our children on TV each day. The average 16-year-old has watched 18,000 murders during his formative years, including a daily bombardment of knifings, shootings, hangings, decapitations, and general dismemberment. Thus, it does seem strange that the psychological wizards of our day search elsewhere for the cause of brutality-and eventually point the finger of blame at the parents who are diligently training our future responsible citizens. Yet this is the kind of "press" that has been given in recent years to parents who believe in spanking their disobedient child.

…..

Those same specialists also say that a spanking teaches your child to hit others, making him a more violent person. Nonsense! If your child has ever bumped his arm against a hot stove, you can bet he'll never deliberately do that again. He does not become a more violent person because the stove burnt him. In fact, he learned a valuable lesson from the pain. Similarly, when he falls out of his high chair or smashes his finger in the door or is bitten by a grumpy dog, he learns about the physical dangers in his world. These bumps and bruises throughout childhood are nature's way of teaching him what to treat with respect. They do not damage his self-esteem. They do not make him vicious. They merely acquaint him with reality. In like manner, an appropriate spanking from a loving parent provides the same service. It tells him there are not only physical dangers to be avoided, but he must steer clear of some social traps as well (selfishness, defiance, dishonesty, unprovoked aggression, etc.) (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.33-5)

There are dangers implicit in what I have stated about discipline of the strong-willed child. The reader could assume that I perceive children as the villains and parents as the inevitable good guys. Of greater concern is the inference that I’m recommending rigid, harsh, oppressive approach to discipline in the home. Neither statement is even partially accurate…. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.89)

As I’ve stated, a child’s will is a powerful force in the human personality. It is one of the few intellectual components which arrives full strength at the moment of birth...

The will is not delicate and wobbly. Even for a child in whom the spirit has been sandbagged, there is often a will of steel, making him a threat to himself and others as well….My point is that the will is malleable. It can and should be polished-not to make a robot of a child for our selfish purposes, but to give him the ability to control his own impulses and exercise self-discipline later in life. In fact, we have a God-given responsibility as parents to shape the will in the manner described in the previous chapter. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.94-6)

1. Neither child is ever allowed to make fun of the other in a destructive way. Period! This is an inflexible rule with no exceptions.
2. Each child's room is his private territory. There are locks on both doors, and permission to enter is a revocable privilege. (Families with more than one child in each bedroom can allocate available living space for each youngster.)
3. The older child is not permitted to tease the younger child.
4. The younger child is forbidden to harass the older child.
5. The children are not required to play with each other when they prefer to be alone or with other friends.
6. We mediate any genuine conflict as quickly as possible, being careful to show impartiality and extreme fairness.
(James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.179) rules also sited in this article.

One father told me recently that his son and his nephew began to argue and then beat each other with their fists. Both fathers were nearby and decided to let the fight run its natural course. During the first lull in the action, one of the boys glanced sideways toward the passive men and said, "Isn't anybody going to stop us before we get hurt?!" The fight, you see, was something neither boy wanted. Their violent combat was directly related to the presence of the two adults and would have taken a different form if the boys had been alone. Children will "hook" their parents' attention and intervention in this way.

Believe it or not, this form of sibling rivalry is easiest to control. The parent must simply render the behavior unprofitable to each participant….

(This last paragraph is different in the original book.) I would recommend that you review the problem (for example, a morning full of bickering) with the children and then say, "Now listen carefully. If the two of you want to pick on each other and make yourselves miserable, then be my guests [assuming there is a fairly equal balance of power between them]. Go outside and fight until you're exhausted. But it's not going to occur under my feet anymore. It's over! And you know that I mean business when I make that kind of statement. Do we understand each other? (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.180-1) also cited in this article

Now, if one of the Dobson’s takes a single bite of food before putting his napkin in his lap, he is required to go to his bedroom and count to twenty-five in a loud voice. This game is highly effective, although it has some definite disadvantages. You can’t imagine how foolish Shirley and I feel when we’re standing in an empty section of the house counting to twenty-five while our children giggle. Ryan particularly never forgets his napkin and he loves to catch the rest of us in a moment of preoccupation. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.224-5)

Parental power can be defined as a hostile form of manipulation in order to satisfy selfish adult purposes. As such, it disregards the best interests of the little child on whom it tramples and produces a relationship of fear and intimidation. Drill instructors in the Marine Corps have been known to depend on this form of power to indoctrinate their beleaguered recruits. (James Dobson “The Strong Willed Child” p.247)

Albert J. Beveridge: “The Life of John Marshall” 1916

James Boggs: “The American Revolution: Pages From a Negro Worker's Notebook” 1963

H. Rap Brown: “Die Nigger Die: A Political Autobiography”

retired major General Smedley Darlington Butler “War is a Racket

Noam Chomsky: "9/11" 2001 for free E-book click here

Noam Chomsky: "Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact and Propaganda" 1973 for free E-book click here

Noam Chomsky: "Deterring Democracy" 1991 for free online copy click here

Noam Chomsky: "Failed states: the abuse of power and the assault on democracy" 2006 for free E-book click here

Noam Chomsky: "Hegemony or survival: America's quest for global dominance" 2003 for free preview click here

Noam Chomsky: "Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies" 1997 for free E-book click here

Noam Chomsky: "Rethinking Camelot: JFK, Vietnam and the political culture" 1973

Richard Clarke “Against All Enemies” 2004 http://www.scribd.com/doc/6531685/Richard-a-Clarke-Against-All-Enemies

William John Cox “You’re not Stupid! Get the Truth: A Brief on the Bush Presidency”

Robert Dallek “Nixon and Kissinger” 2007

Richard Dawkins: “The Ancestor's Tale” 2004

Richard Dawkins: “The Blind Watchmaker”

Richard Dawkins: “A Devil's Chaplain” 2004

Richard Dawkins: “The God Delusion” 2006

Richard Dawkins: “The Selfish Gene”

Richard Dawkins: “Unweaving The Rainbow”

Daniel Dennett: “Breaking the Spell-Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” 2006

Daniel Dennett: “Darwin's Dangerous Idea” 1995

Henry George “Progress and Poverty” 1879 (1953 abridged edition, with modern commentary)

Michael Haas: “George W. Bush, War Criminal?” 2009

Sam Harris “The End of Faith” 2004 on line copy

Sam Harris: “Letter To A Christian Nation” 2006

Christopher Hitchens: “God is not Great” 2006

Samuels Huntington “Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” 1997

Hyde Park Chapter, Chicago Women's Liberation Union “Socialist Feminism: A Strategy for the Women's Movement”

George Jackson: “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson” 1971

George Lakey: “Strategizing For A Living Revolution” 2003

edited by Andrea Langlois, Ron Sakolsky, & Marian van der Zon “Islands of Resistance Pirate Radio”

Lawrence Lessig Free “Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity” 2004

Staughton Lynd “The Freedom Schools” 1964

Nelson Mandela's statement at his trial and his speech at his release

Alice Miller: "For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence" 1990 for free online copy click here additional material from Alice Miller also available

Olivier Maurel: “Spanking: Questions and answers about disciplinary violence” 2005 for free online copy click here additional material from Alice Miller also available

Greg Mortenson: “Stones into Schools” 2009 on line copy

Bill Moyer: “The Movement Action Plan: A Strategic Framework Describing The Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements” 1987

John Perkins: “The Secret History of American Empire”

Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962

Lewis F. Powell “The Powell Memorandum” 1971

Carl Sagan: “The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence” 1978

Jeremy Scahill: “Blackwater” 2007 on line copy at issuu.com

Jeremy Scahill: “Blackwater” on-line copy at knizky.mahdi

David Walker: “David Walker's Appeal”

Joseph Watson “Order out of Chaos”

Bob Woodward “Bush at War” 2002

Bob Woodward “State of Denial” 2006

Bob Woodward “The War Within” 2008

Robert Wright “The Moral Animal Why We Are The Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology” 2006

Howard Zinn: "A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)" 2005 for free copy click here

History is a Weapon

http://www.ebookf.com/

http://www.socialist-federation.org/Books.html

http://static.free-ebooks.net/ebook/Paradise-Lost-2/pdf

http://www.lumkan.com/leptis-magna-regularly-looted.html

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ConsentPOP_Chom.html

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/3402/

Deterring Democracy

Warren Report

Report of the Select Committee of Assassinations of the US House of representatives

Clay Shaw Trial transcripts

additional information available at History Maters.com

Copy of JFK’s “Peace Speech” at American University

Other speeches by JFK

James Douglass Ground Zero Center for nonviolent Action website

Daniel Ellsberg’s website