An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror

The book struggles to rise above that of propaganda. The books double spaced 284 pages are sparsely footnoted. Given the claims made in this book, should the authors have desired to do more than inflame and reinforce those that already agree with them, it would have served their purposes well to provide some sort of academic support. Without them, the book does not rise above that of an extended campaign speech for now-President Bush. Some of the book is ludicrous - "The clues and hints we have linking Saddams intelligence to the hijackers are inconclusive. But they are not nonexistent." (page 45) What? Where did we begin to allow such weak-minded arguments to become the basis for military action? Are we as anesthetized to logic and reason that this type of question is purported to be meaningful?

The flaccid logic this book espouses are best illustrated by using the authors own words: "Yet at this dangerous moment many in the American political and media elite are losing their nerve for the fight. Perhaps it is the political cycle: For some Democrats, winning the war has become a less urgent priority than winning the next election. Perhaps it is the media, rediscovering its bias in favor of bad news and infecting the whole country with its own ingrown pessimism. Perhaps it is Congress, resenting the wars cost and coveting the money for its own domestic spending agendas. Or perhaps it is just fatigue." (page 4) This is ludicrous - no where in this section do the authors make a meaningful effort to suggest that some peoples resistance to the "war" are on the basis of meaningful policy disputes or a desire to see our foreign policy become more consistent.

The authors are guilty of tremendous over-simplification. One such example is contained within the second chapter, where they argue that America must come to understand that resolving the civil problems in Iraq will take time, that we must be patient. Now that we are in a conflict I disagree with us originally being a part of, I would have to agree. But to support the argument by suggesting parallels to the current day Soviet Union is inappropriate and illogical. "A dozen years after the fall of communism, electricity and water sputter unreliably in much of the former Soviet Union." (page 12) That sentence is within a portion of the book arguing that the change to democracy, or perhaps better said, the vindication of Americas current policy can be shown to help the people if they will only stick with it. To say that now, given the dangerous situation developing in Russia and the poor standard of living in Russia, is shocking.

This book should reinforce peoples concerns over the neo-conservatives who have power within the Bush administration. These people view American hegemony as a good thing, and view the world in black and white terms that always portray Americas motives as pure and those that disagree with them as evil (hence this books preposterous title). In the second chapter, the authors suggest that the most recent Iraqi war "achieved at least seven great objectives." (page 32) The fourth lesson chilled me, and requires little more for me to believe that neo-conservatives have a worldview that force plays an integral part of: "We have learned valuable lessons about how to fight wars in the region and how to rebuild afterward. Nobody will pretend that mistakes were note made in the Iraqi campaign and the subsequent occupation. But we have learned from those mistakes, and they will not be repeated. The United States will continue to become more and more capable and effective in the fight against terror." (page 33) Those words are chilling. They show premeditation in the employment of force to protect US hegemony and to perpetuate American imperialism. It seems a tad bit premature to argue that we can say we have learned how to rebuild Iraq when so much remains to be done, and when our recent record in Afghanistan is anything but checkered.

I agree with the authors of this book in one area: those that oppose Bush must put forward a meaningful foreign policy that addresses the fear of Americans, the realities of the dangers in our current-day, and that forces institutional reform within those international organizations and governments that can most directly and immediately affect change.