Tom Engelhardt - The United States of Fear

The United States of Fear

Tom Engelhardt

Haymarket Books

Chicago, Illinois

2011 by Tom Engelhardt

Published in 2011 by Haymarket Books
PO Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
www.haymarketbooks.org
773-583-7884
info@haymarketbooks.org

EAN: 9781608461547

Trade distribution:
In the US, Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, www.cbsd.com
In Canada, Publishers Group Canada, www.pgcbooks.ca
In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-uk.com
In Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, www.palgravemacmillan.com.au
All other countries, Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com

Cover design by Eric Ruder

Published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation
and the Wallace Global Fund.

Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available.

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Praise for The United States of Fear

Tom Engelhardt, as always, focuses his laser-like intelligence on a core problem that the media avoid: Obamas stunning embrace of Bushs secret government by surveillance, torture, and sanctioned assassination. A stunning polemic.

Mike Davis, author of In Praise of Barbarians and Planet of Slums

Praise for The American Way of War

A tour de force.

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater

There are a lot of ways to describe Tom Engelhardts astonishing service to this countrys conscience and imagination: you could portray him as our generations Orwell, standing aside from all conventional framings to see afresh our dilemmas and blind spots, as the diligent little boy sending in regular dispatches on the nakedness of the emperor and his empire, as a Bodhisattva dedicated to saving all beings through compassion and awareness, but analogies dont really describe the mix of clear and sometimes hilarious writing, deep insight, superb information, empathy, and outrage that has been the core of Toms TomDispatches for almost a decade, or the extraordinary contribution theyve made to the American dialogue. Check out this bundle of some of the best from that time span.

Rebecca Solnit, author of Hope in the Dark and A Paradise Built in Hell

They may have Blackwater/Xe, Halliburton, aircraft-carrier battle groups, deadly drones by the score, and the worlds largest military budget, but we have Tom Engelhardtand a more powerful truth-seeking missile has seldom been invented. Long-time fans like me will be happy to see some of his most memorable pieces reprinted here, although woven together in a way that makes them still stronger; for anyone not yet familiar with his work, this is your chance to meet one of the most forceful analysts alive of our countrys dangerous, costly addiction to all things military.

Adam Hochschild, author of To End All Wars and King Leopolds Ghost

Tom Engelhardt is the I. F. Stone of the post9/11 ageseeing what others miss, calling attention to contradictions that others willfully ignore, insisting that Americans examine in full precisely those things that make us most uncomfortable.

Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: Americas Path to Permanent War

Tom Engelhardt is among our most trenchant critics of American perpetual war. Like I. F. Stone in the 1960s, he has an uncanny ability to ferret out and see clearly the ugly truths hidden in government reports and statistics. No cynic, he always measures the sordid reality against a bright vision of an America that lives up to its highest ideals.

Juan R. Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan

Like an extended Motown shuffle with some hard-hitting Stax breaks, and never devoid of an all-too-human sense of humor and pathos, Toms book takes us for the ride.... [I]nvaluable in showing how the empire walks the walk and talks the talk.

Pepe Escobar, Asia Times

In The American Way of War: How Bushs Wars Became Obamas , Tom Engelhardt provides a clear-eyed examination of U.S. foreign policy in the Bush and Obama years, and details unsparingly how Obama has inheritedand in many cases exacerbatedthe ills of the Bush era.... [A]n important book for anyone hoping to understand how the U.S. arrived at its current predicament during the Bush years, and how it remains in this predicament despite Obamas best effortsor perhaps because of them.

Inter Press Service

Tom Engelhardts biting look at United States militarism, The American Way of War ... [is] pithy... [and] alarming.... He takes on our war-possessed world with clear-eyed, penetrating precision.

Mother Jones

Essential... seamlessly edited... establishes him as one of the grand chroniclers of the post-9/11 era.

Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post

These simple pleas for readers to reconsider an idea they might previously have taken for granted are one of the strengths of this book. Demonstrating Engelhardts experience as a professional editor, he avoids the overly strident or self-righteous condescension that characterizes too much online political writing, instead using clear and unvarnished prose to attack the fundamental principles of the postSeptember 11 mindset.

Foreign Policy in Focus

American history does not begin with 9/11, yet the worldview of so many in the United States since then has been shaped by how the mainstream media had colored events following the terrorist attacks. But to break free from that distorted perception which bears little resemblance to realityas people once knew itone needs the help of a little imagination. In Tom Engelhardts The American Way of War: How Bushs Wars Became Obamas , you could step back and see all the views that you had taken for granted challenged, as you indulge yourself in a world of ideas that are logical and straightforward but just were not quite vis-ible to you before. All of course are backed by key facts, sound analysis and invaluable context.

Middle East Online

With an excellent mind and an equally fine pen, Engelhardt demonstrates true patriotism to the American founding.... Reading such good prose invigorates like little else in this world of sorrows. But one should not consider Engelhardt merely a writer of golden prose. This body has a soul as well, and Engelhardt convincingly presents evidence as well as argument throughout the book.... The American Way of War is brimming with insights.

American Conservative

Excellent.... Anyone who wants to rebuild an antiwar movement... should read The American Way of War.... Reading this book feels like poking around with a flashlight in the unexamined corners of the post-9/11 American imperial mindset.... Sharp wit runs throughout the book. The section about the lack of media coverage of air campaigns, for example, is wonderfully titled On Not Looking Up. Not only does this humor make The American Way of War a surprisingly entertaining read given the subject matter, it reminds us of something all great antiwar movements have knownthe war machine is not just evil, its often absurd.

Socialist Worker

Praise for TomDispatch

One of my favorite websites.

Bill Moyers

At a time when the mainstream media leave out half of what the public needs to know, while at the same time purveying oceans of official nonsense, the public needs an alternative source of news. Tom Engelhardts TomDispatch has been that for me. With unerring touch, he finds the stories I need to read, prefacing them each day with introductions that in themselves form a witty, hugely enjoyable, brilliant running commentary on the times. He is my mainstream.

Jonathan Schell

Tom Engelhardt [is] the finest and hardest working essayist and editor of the post9/11 era, who has kept a steady eye on Washingtons baser intentions since even before the 2003 invasion.

Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service

These are the traits of a TomDispatch essay: unapologetically intellectual, relentlessly original, a little bit dangerous. For many of us, these are the key pieces of analysis that make sense of our post-9/11 world. How odd that many of them have never actually been printed. Until now.

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