About the Book
As Madeline Albright once said, ‘The United States is good. We try to do our best everywhere’. So - as the first chapter in this book asks - Why Do Terrorists Keep Picking on the United States? Some suggest it is envy or ingratitude. Maybe it is simply pure evil? Surely it can have no connection with the 40 foreign governments the US has attempted to overthrow since 1945? Or the crushing of over 30 freedom movements around the world, killing millions and destroying the hope of millions more? This well documented book, updated in response to the unfolding ‘War Against Terrorism’, tells a more believable story about US imperialism than you will obtain from CNN.
Rogue State and its author came to sudden international attention when Osama Bin Laden quoted the book publicly in January 2006, propelling the book to the top of the bestseller charts in a matter of hours. This book is a revised and updated version of the edition Bin Laden referred to in his address.
Commendations
'After reading Rogue State, it is impossible to hang fast to the comforting illusion that the ‘American Way‘ is some kind of enlightenment‘ - Will Self in The New Statesman
‘Rogue State is a book of charges to be tied to a paving stone and thrown at the men in Washington’ - The Independent on Sunday
‘William Blum, once of the US State Department, gives a chilling reminder that while there may be no justification for 11 September, there may be reasons’ - Mavis Cheek in The Observer, Books of the Year 2001
"Bravo! A vivid, well-aimed critique of the evils of US global interventionism, a superb antidote to officialdom‘s lies and propaganda." - Michael Parenti, author of History as Mystery and To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
'Blum demonstrates how US policy, under the banners of freedom and human rights, has led to barbarous criminal acts, how the world‘s ‘force for peace‘ has acted in the most bellicose form. An eye-opener for students of national security policy.' - Saul Landau, Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC.
'Rogue State forcibly reminds us of Vice President Agnew‘s immortal line: "The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country".' - Gore Vidal, author of The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
"Bill Blum came by his book title easily. He simply tested America by the same standards we use to judge other countries. The result is a bill of wrongs - an especially well-documented encyclopaedia of malfeasance, mendacity and mayhem that has been hypocritically carried out in the name of democracy by those whose only true love was power." - Sam Smith, Editor, The Progressive Review, Washington, DC
Contents
Introduction
OURS AND THEIRS: WASHINGTON‘S LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH TERRORISTS AND HUMAN-RIGHTS VIOLATORS
1. Why do terrorists keep picking on the United States?
2. America‘s gift to the world - the Afghan terrorist alumni
3. Assassinations
4. Excerpts from US Army and CIA Training Manuals
5. Torture
6. The unsavories
7. Training new unsavories
8. War criminals: theirs and ours
9. Haven for terrorists
10. Supporting Pol Pot
UNITED STATES USE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
11. Bombings
12. Depleted uranium
13. Cluster bombs
14. Chemical and biological weapons abroad
15. Chemical and biological weapons at home
16. Encouraging the use of CBW by other nations
A ROGUE STATE VERSUS THE WORLD
17. A concise history of US global interventions
18. Perverting elections
19. Trojan horse: the national endowment for democracy
20. The US versus the world at the United Nations
21. Eavesdropping on the planet
22. Kidnapping and looting
23. How the CIA sent Nelson Mandela to prison for 28 years
24. The CIA and drugs: just say ‘Why not?‘
25. Being the world‘s only superpower means never having to say you‘re sorry
26. The US invades, bombs and kills for it…but do Americans really believe in free enterprise?
27. A day in the life of a free country…or…how do the United States get away with it?
Notes
Index
About the author
About the Author
William Blum left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer because of his opposition to what the US was doing in Vietnam. He then became a founder and editor of the Washington Free Press, the first 'alternative' newspaper in the capital. Mr Blum has been a freelance journalist in the US, Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government's 'socialist experiment', and then its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and an even more heightened interest in what his government was doing in various corners of the world. He is the author of Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower.
Academic Adoption Information
This book is used for teaching at the following institutions:
Loughborough University
SOAS - University of London
