Book Review by Walter
McElligott
February 19, 2007
I had not finished
reading Mr. Lando's complete chronology of Middle Eastern events
when I recognized that his book must rank as a "must read"
among students of history and political policy.
Web
of Deceit is also written for apolitical individuals like
me whose proximity to the war on terrorism began with television
news reports of jetliners smashing into the World Trade Center
and Pentagon as America was attacked for the first time since
the year after I was born.
Soon after our nation
had accounted for the enormous loss of life, the names Osama Bin
Laden and Saddam Hussein were written on our still grieving hearts.
While one terrorist still runs free, many television viewers turned
to what seems to be the farcical, often scripted trial of Iraq's
former dictator. (As to the circus known as Saddam Hussein's trial,
I found this headline after completing this review of Web
of Deceit. "Saddam ejected from court for fourth
time as genocide trial continues [JURIST] Saddam Hussein was again
thrown out of court during his trial on genocide charges Tuesday
after he tried to speak into the microphone during court proceedings...
by Holly Manges Jones on October 10, 2006").
I begin my review of
Mr. Barry M. Lando's Web
of Deceit, The History of Western Complicity In Iraq, from Churchill
to Kennedy to George W. Bush,with a word of thanks to
Mr. Lando's publicist, Terrie Akers. Otherpress.com has kept me
and the Chicago Writers Association (http://www.chicagowrites.org/)
in mind when she distributed advanced copies of this important
book. I hope I can give Mr. Lando's Web
of Deceit the attention it deserves.
For nearly all four
years (2003-?) that the George W. Bush Administration has had
our nation embroiled in a preemptive war in Iraq, we have witnessed
how bookstore shelves have overflowed with author upon author's
rehashing of the reasons for the West's presence in Iraq, or the
absence of such reasons. Now, Barry Lando steps forth to provide
the truth behind the American, British, and European grip on the
Arabian country between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, historically
known as Mesopotamia.
Iraq was a nation nearly
unknown to citizens of the United States before 2001. Thus, the
first thing I wanted to know about Mr. Lando's claim of an all-inclusive
history of Iraq is, what are Mr. Lando's qualifications to state
these facts? For 25 years, Mr. Lando, who now lives in Paris,
was an investigative producer for 60 Minutes.In Web
of Deceit he has created a persuasive claim that the West's
prolonged thirst for oil has contributed to London and Washington's
shameful presence inside Baghdad in the 21st century. He refuses
however, to permit Moscow and Paris to go blame free, although
they refused to follow America's lead into Iraq in 2003. Nor does
he forget Tel Aviv's contribution to the present horror of military
and civilian deaths inside Iraq. Lando explains with more than
fifty pages of end notes, articles, websites, and bibliography
how and why each of these nations bears responsibility for the
current Middle East state of affairs.
Through extensive research,
Barry M. Lando depicts an unparalleled image of what really happened
in Iraq-under Saddam and other brutal despots, some appointed
by the U.S. and Britain. For the Web
of Deceit "details the complicity of the West in
its full and alarming extent…"
In a highlight of how
the CIA worked in Iraq under JFK in 1961, Lando tells how a secret
CIA group sent a "monogrammed, poison handkerchief"
to the then Iraqi president. Of course, the poison hanky functioned
as well as the poison cigars allegedly sent to Cuban dictator
Fidel Castro around the same time.
Lando approaches Iraq
from the point of view of a journalist who was "embedded"
in Iraq before the term was invented for the media when western
troops again entered this oil-rich nation.
Lando discusses Western
complicity in Saddam Hussein's "crimes against humanity"
before the CIA began to constantly air Bush I's call for rebellion
in southern Iraq, which led the Shia to rebel against Saddam Hussein
in February 1991. But, as the Shiite uprising was on the fringe
of triumph, the Western allies rebuffed the needs of Shia rebels.
In fact, the United States military smashed vast weapons supplies
and even stopped rebel attempts to get into Baghdad. As a result,
Saddam may possibly have executed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi
citizens.
Lando speculates in
Web
of Deceit that because of certain restrictions set by
the Special Tribunal now trying Saddam Hussein, the prolonged
and far-reaching responsibility of the West in Saddam's crimes
may never be thoroughly probed.
In conclusion, those
nations that secretly supported the evil tyrant from his rise
to power and his invasions of Iran and Kuwait now condemn Saddam
most vehemently. Furthermore, western nations with the power to
prevent Hussein's use of chemical weapons on his own and Iranian
people, never tried to end their use, long after they had murdered
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
~~~~~~~~
Barry M. Lando's blog
may be found at www.barrylando.com.
God Bless
Walter McElligott
Box 452, Beecher, IL USA 60401,
Member, Chicago Writers Association (http://www.chicagowrites.org/)
Editor (Chicagowrites) CLARION Newsletter,
Publicist Terrie Akers
Otherpress.com, terrie@otherpress.com
Subject: Current Events/Politics
ISBN-13: 9781530512388
ISBN-10: 1-59051-238-3
Release date: January 2007
