Ever since I saw When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers I have been a fan of Billy Crystal. Periodically he would pop up as the #1 fan of the New York Yankees thereby increasing his credibility with me. When I heard he had published a memoir, STILL FOOLIN ‘EM I knew it was a must read, I was not disappointed. Combining his wit, sarcasm, and knowledge of the human condition he has written a poignant autobiography that encompasses subtle political commentary, insights to his family and personality, and thoughts that we all have and usually are afraid to say. His Jewish upbringing, comments about his father, mother, and uncle allow the reader to enter Crystal’s inner world and since I have a similar background I found them funny and deeply personal. His friendships with numerous “show business” personalities lead to many hysterical reminiscences that show the humanity of many of his friends and well known “stars.” His relationship to the New York Yankees reflects well on the Steinbrenner family and the players he speaks of. At times I laughed, at times I shed tears as I read the book as it went by too quickly as I turned each page. If after the government “meltdown” we have just experienced you need a quick entertaining pick me up, Crystal delivers.
Month: February 2014
SASHA AND EMMA by Paul and Karen Avrich
Each day Americans are bombarded with news sound bites dealing with the actions of the National Security Administration and their machinations to keep citizens safe from terrorist attacks. The concept of terrorism has been in existence for centuries and is nothing new, but the new book by Paul and Karen Avrich, SASAH AND EMMA presents a fresh approach by exploring the rise of anarchism in America in the late 19th century. Anarchism is defined as the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary basis without resorting to force. According to Emma Goldman it is defined “as a philosophy of a new social order based on liberty, unrestricted by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence, and therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.” As anarchism developed in the United States part of the debate rested on whether to employ violence as a means to achieve goals, thereby using terrorism as a tactic for the overall good of humanity. In SASHA AND EMMA the reader is presented a dual biography of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman integrated into the context of the rise of anarchist thought and actions in turn-of-the-century America.
“Before his death in 2006, Paul Avrich, a distinguished historian of anarchism, asked his daughter Karen, a writer and editor, to complete this book. The result is an account, at once densely detailed and lively, that traces the pair from their births in what is now Lithuania to their deaths in exile in the shadow of World War II. With generous contemporary accounts and Paul Averich’s interviews with anarchists and their children, as well as Berkman’s and Goldman’s extensive writings, the book draws readers into the lives of its characters.” (New York Times, December 7, 2012, “Anarchy in the U.S.A. by Elsa Dixler) The turning point for Berkman and Goldman was the Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania in 1892 which destroyed unionization of the steel industry until 1936. Berkman, who went by the name Sasha, acted out of emotion and conviction in trying to assassinate Henry Ford Frick who operated the steel complex for Andrew Carnegie in order “to galvanize workers to revolt…..as Frick was seen as the embodiment of the capitalist class.” (57-58) For Sasha it was not an act of violence or terror, but an act to try and liberate the working class. What is apparent throughout Averich’s discussion of the Homestead Strike is how naïve Berkman was at this point in his intellectual development and some might say he was living in what Kurt Vonnegut might describe as “cloud cuckoo land!” Averich does an excellent job in describing in detail the prosecution and imprisonment of Berkman. The description of Berkman’s odyssey in prison reflects the horrendous treatment of prisoners and the utter contempt most prison officials had for their charges. In fact, there seems to have been much in common between American prisons and those of Tsarist Russia. When Berkman is released from prison fourteen years later he emerges as a “thirty-five year thoughtful adult” who has become an exceptional linguist and a master of literature and writing that he would put into good use. (183)
During the time of Berkman’s imprisonment Goldman traveled and became involved in a number of love affairs as she fine tuned her own ideology. In November, 1899 she left for Europe with the intent of attending medical school, but in the end she continued her various flirtations and grounded herself further in her anarchist beliefs. After returning to the United States Goldman was confronted with the assassination of President William McKinley. Avrich presents a thorough description of the assassination and goes on to discuss the prosecution of the “anarchist paranoia” that swept the United States. Of great importance is the author’s analysis was the developing schism that emerged within the anarchist movement as to whether the assassin, Leon Czolgosz’s actions benefited the movement or not. It is interesting to note that Goldman supported the attempt on McKinley’s life and Berkman, still in prison, opposed it. Following the assassination Goldman went by an alias as the government tried to tie her to Czolgosz actions through her writing and speeches. During this period Goldman became involved in a number of vocations apart from her propaganda work running a facial massage parlor, a restaurant, engaging in nursing as well as becoming the publisher of Mother Earth, an anarchist magazine. Goldman’s writing during the time of Berkman’s imprisonment also encompassed the literary world and you could characterize her as a true “renaissance woman!”
Avrich is on sound ground as she describes the affect prison had on Berkman. While incarcerated he had immersed himself in literature and foreign languages and “developed a feel for the written word and discovered his full potential as a writer.” (183) Berkman became the editor of Mother Earth upon his release and at the same timer wrote PRISON MEMOIRS OF AN ANARCHIST which Avrich correctly points out was remarkably successful as it “provided the stimulus for investigations into prisons and the penal system.” (212) The government would do its best to block dissemination of Berkman and Goldman’s work by using the postal system to impede sales of the book as well as Mother Earth. As World War I approached numerous stories of police brutality against labor, anarchists or anyone who spoke out against working conditions became the norm. This culminated in a plot to kill John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who owned a controlling interest in the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Workers went on strike against the company in 1913, a labor action that led to the famous Ludlow Massacre as the Colorado governor called out the National Guard which after weeks of harassing the workers, opened fire on April 20, 1914 killing five miners and a boy. Rockefeller spoke out vehemently in support of the National Guard thus inciting anarchist even further. The ensuing assassination plot failed due to an accidental explosion, but for Berkman who was not directly involved it became the last straw in moving away from peaceful protest to employing violence. The period witnessed numerous explosions and plots across the United States and Berkman whether warranted or not was always implicated.
The author does an exceptional job in detailing Berkman and Goldman’s movements and work throughout World War I. Both spoke out against the war and hoped to convince Washington not to enter the fighting. As the United States entered the war in April 1917 the pair continued to speak out against the fighting and were arrested and charged with violating the 1917 Espionage Act for actions taken to block conscription. Both were tried and convicted and immediately imprisoned. Soon Washington began the process that would result in their deportation. Avrich is correct in arguing that the deportation proceedings against Berkman and Goldman, as well as many others, reflected the violation of civil rights that was endemic to the Wilson presidency both during and after the war. The author provides details to support this conclusion presenting strong evidence in discussing the Palmer Raids and other aspects of the Justice Department’s persecution of those who opposed them.
Avrich’s narrative continues as she does a superb job describing their voyage to the Soviet Union and their travels throughout the country. The author goes on to explore Berkman and Goldman’s views of Bolshevik ideology and the reality of Communist repression. At the outset of their stay in the Soviet Union the pair was willing to make excuses for Bolshevik excesses in the hope of future revolution. This reflected Berkman and Goldman’s idealism, or just plain naiveté when it came to the reality of revolution in their home country for which over the years they maintained a romantic view. After four months in the Soviet Union both became disillusioned as Goldman wrote “there is no health in it….. [The State] has taken away even the little freedom the man has under capitalism and has made him entirely subjected to the whims of the bureaucracy which excuses its tyranny on the ground that all is done for the welfare of the workers.” (305) Goldman was shocked by the treatment of people as they were imprisoned for their ideas. As the pair grew more aware of the torture and murder of political prisoners they turned against the revolution. The Bolshevik massacre and arrests following the Kronstadt Rebellion saw the pair witnessing the purge of anarchists, many of whom were their closest friends. Berkman wrote in his diary, “The Bolshevik myth must be destroyed. I have decided to leave Russia,” (313) they would leave Russia shortly after the rebellion and would begin a period of wandering around Europe and Canada to find a home for the remainder of their lives.
The area that Avrich excels at is her discussion of the relationship between Berkman and Goldman. Throughout the book she describes their feelings for each other on an emotional and intellectual level that shows that no one could replace either no matter where their other relationships took them. Even when apart the poignancy of their bond and the fidelity to their cause is always apparent. Throughout the 1920s into the 1930s they lived apart both their feelings for each remained as strong as ever.
Throughout the book Avrich takes the reader on an intellectual journey as she follows Berkman and Goldman as they try to justify their own beliefs and fit them into contemporary social and political events they were exposed to. This is very apparent during the next phase of their lives as they continued to speak out and write about conditions in Russia. Goldman wrote for the public press, i.e.; The New York World and anarchist publications, while Berkman worked on a book that resulted in what can be considered the first expose of the Gulag Archipelago (the title of Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn’s three volume work published in 1973-1975 made the world aware of the camps) entitled LETTERS FROM RUSSIAN PRISONS. The next blow for that struck the core of Berkman and Goldman’s beliefs set was the trial, conviction, and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in the United States. “Nicola Sacco, a shoe worker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, both Italian immigrants and anarchists” were charged with the murder of two men during a robbery at a shoe factory in Massachusetts. (341) To this day the guilt or innocence of the two is open to question, but for Goldman and Berkman it fostered the realization that after years of work they were helpless in preventing the death of their compatriots. It brought back memories of Chicago and Haymarket and left them increasingly depressed.
The last part of the book follows Goldman as she tried to gain entrance into the United States. She still saw America as her home and missed it terribly. She was allowed a speaking tour in February 1934, but the US government refused to extend her visa. Later, she became involved in supporting the communist/anarchist cause during the Spanish Civil War until the Franco emerged victorious. Before her death in 1940 she was able to write her autobiography. Berkman would remain in Europe during the same period but grew increasingly ill after numerous surgeries and he would commit suicide in 1936. Karen Averich has done an amazing job in telling the story Sasha and Emma. She has integrated her father’s work and research into a cogent and personal story which at times reads as a novel. For any reader interested in the odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, their relationship, their comrades, and the time period in which they lived this book offers a fresh interpretation that should foster a large readership.
NEW YORK: A NOVEL by Edward Rutherfurd
Over the years I have grown more impressed with the historical novels of Edward Rutherfurd. Beginning with SARUM years ago to the present novel, NEW YORK: A NOVEL I read the last page of each book with a feeling of satisfaction that I have just completed a remarkable blend of historical license and impeccable research. In his latest effort Rutherford presents another “Michneresque” type journey, this time through the history of New York City from the 17th through the 20th century. What drew me to the book was recently viewing the Martin Scorcese film “Gangs of New York.” The description of the draft riots in New York in 1863 during the Civil War were very poignant, but historically accurate. Through the descendants of the van Dyck and Master families the reader becomes engrossed in the important historical events that are explored in the narrative. Whether the main characters are confronted by the political machinations of Tammany Hall, the disastrous Triangle Shirt Waist Fire or economic catastrophe the reader becomes fully absorbed. Mr. Rutherfurd has become one of my favorite practitioners of historical fiction and I am thrilled that his latest effort, PARIS will be released next month.
MY PROMISED LAND by Ari Shavit
Ari Shavit’s MY PROMISED LAND is the most important book dealing with the Arab-Israeli Conflict to be published since Thomas Friedman’s FROM BERUIT TO JERUSALEM. After digesting Shavit’s work I am confused in trying to categorize it. It is in part a personal memoir, it also contains the historical background of the region, it discusses the political strategies and military actions that have taken place in Palestine since the turn of the twentieth century, but more importantly it seems to be the philosophical and moral ruminations of one of Israel’s most important commentators analyzing contemporary issues and what the future may hold. Shavit’s journey begins with his great grandfather Herbert Bentwich’s decision to forgo his comfortable family life in England and immigrate to Palestine in 1897. From that point on Shavit takes the reader on a wondrous journey that encompasses the early history of Zionism, the uprooting of Jews as they try to escape anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the survival of the Holocaust, and the creation Jewish state, with its many economic, social, and political problems.
Shavit’s approach is a masterful blending of interviews with the actors in this drama, including perceptive historical analysis. At the outset Shavit has what appears to be a dialogue with himself as he wonders what his life would have been if his great grandfather had not gone to Palestine. He correctly points out that his great grandfather, like other Jews before and after him do not see the Palestinian villages as he is motivated not to see them. “He does not see because if he does see, he will have to turn back” because the wonderful possibilities that exist in the valley he witnesses are already spoken for. But the plight of the Jews in Eastern Europe are such that a safe haven is needed where the Jews can develop their Zionist dream and establish a new Jewish identity based on cultivating the land. According to Shavit, “as the plow begins to do their work, the Jews return to history and regain their masculinity: as they take on the physical labor of tilling the earth, they transform themselves from object to subject, from passive to active, from victims to sovereigns.” (35) But in doing so they do not see or solve the problem that the Palestinian Arab presents.
Through Shavit’s interviews and vast knowledge the reader is presented with intimate details of kibbutzniks working the desolate valley that makes up Ein Harod, and the settlement of Rehovot which by 1935 reflect throughout Palestine that the Zionist dream is taking root. The author tells the story of the orange growers in Rehovot as a microcosm of the brewing conflict between Jews and Palestinians that will boil over in 1936. Interweaving events in Nazi Germany and the development of Palestinian nationalism in the north the reader is presented a narrative and analysis of why the Palestinians will revolt in 1936 without the traditional political and ideological arguments that most historians present. The Zionist argument is presented in a local weekly published in Rehovot; “we are returning to our homeland that has awaited for us as wasteland, and we are entering a new country that is not ours….all these riches we bring with us as a gift to our ancient land, and to the people who have settled it while we were away….” (62) But again no reference to the Palestinian. Shavit’s argument throughout is that for the Zionist to be successful he had to be a colonialist and occupy the land that belonged to others and eventually force them out. 1936 is the first watershed year that Shavit speaks about as we witness the onslaught of Arab rage against the Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The violence and a general strike are different than past Arab protests as this is a “collective uprising of a national Arab-Palestinian movement that results in 80 dead and 400 wounded Jews that transforms their collective psyche as “the Jewish national liberation movement had to acknowledge that it was facing an Arab liberation movement that wished to disgorge the Jews from the shores they settled on.” (74) The Arabs could no longer be ignored and the response led to further violence and brutality through 1939 as for the first time the Jews retaliated in kind.
In a wonderful chapter dealing with Masada, Shavit describes his interview with Shmaryahu Gutman who realizes that as 1942 dawned the future of world Jewry rested in the hands of the Soviet army as it tried to stem the Nazi tide on the Eastern Front. At the same time General Erwin Rommel is threatening Cairo and if successful the Jews of Palestine would be decimated. At this point Gutman leads a group of 46 teenagers to climb Masada as part of their leadership training which the author describes in detail. Gutman wants Masada to become the poignant symbol that will substitute for the theology and mythology that Zionism lacks. He wants to create a Jewish ethos of resistance that will override the reputation of Jews who do not fight back. It is an interesting concept that was explored in an earlier book by Jay Gonen, A PSYCHOHISTORY OF ZIONISM which offers the idea that Israel as a nation suffers from a Masada Complex, a type of Adlerian inferiority complex based on Jewish history. Gonen argues that to overcome ones perceived inferiority, one adopts a superiority complex as compensation. If so this offers a useful explanation of Israeli domestic and foreign policy from 1948 onward. The Soviets blunt the Nazi advance and Rommel is stopped at El Alamein and “the Zionist enterprise is not that of drained or of orange groves bearing fruit but that of a lonely desert fortress casting the shadow of awe on an arid land.” (97)
For Shavit the lessons Jews learned concerning lethal historical circumstances are the key to Jewish survival. The author uses the Arab village of Lydda as an example of Israel’s demographic policies during the 1948 War of Independence. Because of its location it must be controlled by Israeli Jews if the new state is to survive. In addition, the area of the eastern Galilee must be Arab free to provide land for survivors of the Holocaust. The new Israeli government under David Ben-Gurion sees the War of Independence as a one time opportunity to solve the Arab problem. Ilan Pappe, another Israeli historian describes in minute detail Operation Dalet in his book THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE, a plan to clear out Arab villages from areas that the new Israeli government wanted for its development. Shavit agrees with Pappe and ruminates on the issue of Israeli occupation and what it has meant for Israel and how it has become an albatross around its neck from 1948 until today. Once these lands were seized in 1948 the issue of the right of Palestinians to return has become one of the major stumbling blocks for any future peace.
Shavit tells the stories of Holocaust survivors and Jews who were able to leave Arab countries to come to Palestine and later Israel. Shavit also tells the stories of displaced Arab families who have lived as refugees since 1948. In so doing the reader is presented with a picture that is far from equitable. Between 1945-1951 685,000 people were absorbed by a society of 655,000. This was facilitated in part by reparations paid by the German government. When interviewing Palestinian Arabs, Shavit hears that they would like resettlement and reparations, this time from the Israeli government to a Palestinian one.
The state of Israeli society is a major concern for Shavit and we see it through the eyes of many Israelis. The economic miracle of the 1950s is based upon the denial of Palestinian rights as it “expunged Palestine from its memory and soul.” (160) But this denial Shavit argues from a very personal perspective “was a life-or-death imperative for the nine-year-old nation into which I was born.” (162) Shavit describes the common thread that all immigrants that are highlighted in his interviews. First, travel by ship from a European port to Israel, followed by time in a refugee camp living in a tent for months on end, and finally a small apartment consisting of one and a half room in a town or joining an agricultural kibbutz. The author is sensitive to the difficulties of societal integration, and the ability of families to adapt to their new surroundings.
In developing the narrative Shavit has chosen a number of important dates of which 1948, 1957, and 1967 stand out. The War of Independence and the resettlement of Arabs is obvious, but 1957 is not so. It was during that year that Israel and the France began colluding to develop a nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert. French feelings of guilt because of the events of World War II made it possible for Israel to develop the Dimona Reactor which allowed Israel to develop a nuclear stockpile. From the Israeli perspective Shavit argues that the reactor was a necessity because the expulsion of 1948 meant that the Palestinians would never rest until they recovered what they believed had been stolen from them. He further argues that following the 1956 Suez War, Israel found itself surrounded by Arab armies that would never accept her and though Israel never acknowledged the facility the Arab states believed it existed. The 1967 War brings forth a new concept for Israel, one of preemption, which allowed the success of the Six Day War. That success however created a climate of preemption that will be carried out repeatedly in the future, i.e.; attacking the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, invading Lebanon in 1982, and destroying the Syrian reactor in 2007. The policy of preemption has had mixed results for Israel and as we hear the same rumblings concerning the Iranian nuclear reactor today, we can just hope.
Israel’s actions after 1967 solidified her as an occupier of Arab territory and for a few years Shavit argues that Israel felt secure. However, the early stages of the 1973 War proved a disaster for Israel. Shavit correctly points out that Israel was victorious militarily, but psychologically it was a defeat. The end result was the weakening of the Labour government that had led Israel since 1948 and for the first time Israelis felt doubt about the future. With the weakened government the ultra-orthodox saw it as an opportunity to built settlements in the West Bank which Shavit describes through the eyes of the leadership of Gush Emunim and the resulting splintering of Israeli society. This on top of the already emerging schism between the Oriental Jewish underclass and the Ashkenazi elite reflects a country that Israel was not unified and has not really come together to this day.
Shavit points out what he perceives to be the mistakes that Israel has made since independence. The greatest one being one of occupation as he describes during one of his own army reserve tours in a Gaza prison. But he also reflects as to the choices that Israel has as it is surrounded in a sea of Islamic countries who want to destroy her. Shavit argues that each time Israel gives up territory as in Gaza and Lebanon it winds up with Hezbollah and Hamas. He does not see a war breaking out in the near future but how viable will Israel be in fifty years when their own Arab population is a majority and orthodox Jews will outnumber secular Jews. As far as the peace process is concerned Shavit correctly states that “ what is needed to make peace between the two peoples of this land is probably more than humans can summon. They will not give up their demand for what they see as justice.” (266)
There is much more to this book than I have discussed as Shavit ruminates on the conundrum that is Israel; “if Israel does not retreat from the West Bank, it will be politically and morally doomed, but if she does retreat, it might face an Iranian-backed and Islamic Brotherhood-inspired West Bank regime whose missiles could endanger Israel’s security. The need to end occupation is greater than ever, but so are the risks.” (401) The picture Shavit paints is not a very optimistic one. Whether he writes about the fractures in Israeli society, the weakness of its government, the inability to control the settlement movement, or the hope that its economic strength can continue, the geo-political world it lives in leads him to conclude his analysis by comparing Israel to a film; “we are a ragtag cast in an epic motion picture whose plot we do not understand and cannot grasp. The script writer went mad. The director went away. The producer went bankrupt. But we are still here, on this biblical set. The camera is still rolling. And as the camera pans out and pulls up, it sees us converging on this shore and clinging to this shore and living on this shore. Come what may.” (419)
MANDELA by Martin Meredith
As the world has praised Nelson Mandela over the last few weeks there seems little to add concerning his importance to world history. A man of such magnitude deserved a biography that encompasses his entire life with an author who delves into all aspects of their subject including their flaws. I found two major biographies of Mandela, Anthony Sampson’s MANDELA, and a book of the same title by Martin Meredith. I chose Meredith’s work because Sampson’s was the “authorized biography” and I wanted to read a book that appeared less likely to be hagiography. Meredith who has written a number of books on South African history is both a historian and a journalist and has written a book that is more than a biography of Mandela as a person and what he experienced, but a work that encompasses all major aspects of South African history from the introduction of apartheid through the election of Mandela as president and his term in office. The book itself is very detailed and explores Mandela’s life beginning with his tribal upbringing and education in missionary schools and ending with his retirement from public life in 2007.
As a narrative history Meredith has presented a readable account of his subject, though at times his prose is somewhat wordy and trenchant. However, once the reader becomes used to Meredith’s approach the material is worth exploring as the author provides important historical background to each aspect of his topic, and he is able to weave important analysis into each major subject. The reader is exposed to Mandela’s personal development at the same time Meredith incorporates the history of the African National Congress (ANC) into the narrative. Meredith explores ANC policy as it tries to implement a strategy to deal with apartheid and presents the factions that developed within the party as the “party elites” pursued a more moderate approach when compared to the younger generation that emerged during World War II that wanted to pursue a more violent and radical program. Throughout the book Mandela appears to side with the “elites” and except for a few burst of anger over the course of events he calls for a non-violent course of action.
Meredith provides details of the horrendous conditions that existed for Africans in Afrikaner society. The role of State Security and police in repressing opposition is ever present as violence, torture, and murder are employed to maintain the apartheid system. Meredith presents the evolution of Mandela from a young man pursuing a career in law to an activist who can no longer tolerate what is happening in his country. Meredith reviews the Rivonia Trial using court transcripts that results in Mandela’s twenty-seven year imprisonment, most of which takes place in the notorious Robben Island prison. The evolution of Mandela’s political thinking, his relationship with warders, other prisoners, and the prison hierarchy are revealed in detail. Upon his release we witness what Mandela has become and we follow the course of his career, renewed family life, and attempts to lead South Africa out of its period of darkness. The negotiations between Mandela and the ANC on the one hand, and P.W. Botha and F. W. de Klerk, the two Prime Ministers are presented. The years 1990-1994 are vitally important and provide insights in trying to understand the South African political persona, and why Mandela’s achievement of a bi-racial democracy for South Africa was so important.
The areas I found most interesting dealt with the internal debates within the ANC and the different personalities involved. Aside from Mandela, individuals such as Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo emerge as important figures that deserve a great deal of credit for the evolution of ANC policy and resulting successes. Meredith does an exceptional job in discusses Afrikaner politics and policy maneuvering as the different Prime Ministers try and maintain a system that evolves into a worldwide pariah. The fractious nature of South African society is nicely explained as we see how the Indian, Africans, and Afrikaner populations exist within a segregated society. We witness the economic and societal implications of apartheid and the lengths that the white power structure went to maintain it. Throughout the narrative all aspects of the story return to Mandela, a man who is exceptional, but also somewhat flawed.
Meredith delves into Mandela’s personal life and what emerge are an authoritarian father, a poor husband at times, a philanderer, and a person who could be very stubborn and dogmatic. Meredith offers examples to support his conclusions but his overall evaluation of Mandela is an exceptional individual who overcame enormous obstacles. Meredith captures Mandela best as he describes his survival strategy while imprisoned, “he became adept at concealing his emotions behind a mask, rarely letting any sign of anger or bitterness emerge and never betraying doubt or despair before others.” (286) These traits allowed Mandela to develop his own “personality cult” while in prison and later as a politician and became a means for him to survive the personal and political crises that he was confronted with each day.
Mandela’s political naiveté is an important component when dealing with his world view. Meredith is on firm ground as he discusses Mandela’s relationship with his wife Winnie. Mandela’s devotion to her blinded him to the fact that she is almost a sociopath in dealing with her own sense of self. The discussion of the Mandela United Football Club and the violence and murder she was involved with is important as Mandela constantly makes excuses for her actions and repeatedly supports her attempts to secure her own political power base. Meredith nicely documents their marriage, its failure, the court appearances, and the final break up as Mandela finally after making excuses for years comes to the realization of what his wife really is. When dealing with Winnie or negotiations with de Klerk and others Mandela develops rationalizations to justify his positions, it is as if he has tunnel vision when he confronts evidence that does not support his world view. Once Mandela becomes president of South Africa Meredith should be more balanced in describing “a benign patriarch, floating above the political hurly-burly and taking a broad-brush approach to government”(567) because of the problems that ensued after he left office and was replaced by Govan Mbeki. Meredith presents Mandela’s flaws but he is correct in praising his subject in that without him apartheid would have witnessed a much more violent end than transpired under his leadership.
If there is an aspect of the book that might have enhanced the experience for the reader it would have been to use footnotes or endnotes. It is obvious that Meredith is on top of his material but his annotated bibliography designed to create a broad umbrella for citations is not very effective and leaves this reader to question where some of the information originates. Overall this is a work of history that is greatly needed for those who would like to understand what has transpired in South Africa in the twentieth century and gain insights as to where it is heading in the future. The audience for this book might appear narrow from my comments, but it is worth plowing through because of the story it tells.
LINCOLN’S MEN by Daniel Mark Epstein
The book jacket for Daniel Mark Epstein’s LINCOLN’S MEN states that the author explores the role of three remarkable young men who served as Abraham Lincoln’s “private secretaries” during the Civil War. The narrative however does more by delving into the relationship between John Nicolay, William Stoddard, John Hay and the sixteenth president. The reader is invited into the inner workings of the White House, how the war was conducted, the great issues of the day, and the social system that evolved in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. We are presented with three distinctly different men whose diverse strengths ranged from backgrounds as diverse in printing, a poetry, and journalism. The three “private secretaries” offered Lincoln companionship, advice, a sounding board for his ideas, in addition to carrying out intelligence missions and other important functions for the president. Part of Lincoln’s genius was his ability to recognize talent in others and then employ that talent for the benefit of the nation as was the case with all three of these gentlemen. Epstein prepares an integrated biography of all three, but more importantly the reader gains a window into Lincoln’s marriage and its effect on policy, his thought process, and the human emotion engendered by the savagery of war. Epstein mines the important diaries and other primary materials that are important in writing history and fills in a neglected aspect in exploring the conduct of the Civil War.
KILL ANYTHING THAT MOVES by Nick Turse
The author does an excellent job of describing America’s dubious military strategy during the war and the plight of Vietnamese civilians. It places the blame for the inability to win “the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese squarely where it belongs. with the American military and political leadership during the Johnson and Nixon administration. It is thoroughly researched and well documented. A book that all who are concerned about America’s past, current, and future conduct of war should read.
See excellent related article:
Tomgram: Nick Turse, Special Ops Goes Global
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Nick Turse’s New York Times bestselling book Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam is just out in paperback with a new afterword. It’s a must-buy, especially if you haven’t read the hardcover. Jonathan Schell wrote a powerful piece on it at TomDispatch, which you can read by clicking here. Late in the month, TD will be offering signed copies of the paperback in return for donations. Keep it in mind! Tom]
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So consider the actions of the U.S. Special Operations Command flattering indeed to the larger U.S. military. After all, over recent decades the Pentagon has done something that once would have been inconceivable. It has divided the whole globe, just about every inch of it, like a giant pie, into six command slices: U.S. European Command, or EUCOM (for Europe and Russia), U.S. Pacific Command, or PACOM (Asia), U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM (the Greater Middle East and part of North Africa), U.S. Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM (Latin America), and in this century, U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM (the United States, Canada, and Mexico), and starting in 2007, U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM (most of Africa).
The ambitiousness of the creeping decision to bring every inch of the planet under the watchful eyes of U.S. military commanders should take anyone’s breath away. It’s the sort of thing that once might only have been imaginable in movies where some truly malign and evil force planned to “conquer the world” and dominate Planet Earth for an eternity. (And don’t forget that the Pentagon’s ambitions hardly stop at Earth’s boundaries. There are also commands for the heavens, U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, into which the U.S. Space Command was merged, and, most recent of all, the Internet, where U.S. Cyber Command, or CYBERCOM rules.)
Now, unnoticed and unreported, the process is being repeated. Since 9/11, a secret military has been gestating inside the U.S. military. It’s called U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). At TomDispatch, both Nick Turse and Andrew Bacevich have covered its startling growth in these years. Now, in a new post, Turse explores the way that command’s dreams of expansion on a global scale have led it to follow in the footsteps of the larger institution that houses it.
The special ops guys are, it seems, taking their own pie-cutter to the planet and slicing and dicing it into a similar set of commands, including most recently a NORTHCOM-style command for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Once could be an anomaly or a mistake. Twice and you have a pattern, which catches a Washington urge to control planet Earth, an urge that, as the twenty-first century has already shown many times over, can only be frustrated. That this urge is playing out again in what, back in the Cold War days, used to be called “the shadows,” without publicity or attention of any sort, is notable in itself and makes Turse’s latest post all the more important. Tom
America’s Black-Ops Blackout
Unraveling the Secrets of the Military’s Secret Military
By Nick Turse“Dude, I don’t need to play these stupid games. I know what you’re trying to do.” With that, Major Matthew Robert Bockholt hung up on me.
More than a month before, I had called U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) with a series of basic questions: In how many countries were U.S. Special Operations Forces deployed in 2013? Are manpower levels set to expand to 72,000 in 2014? Is SOCOM still aiming for growth rates of 3%-5% per year? How many training exercises did the command carry out in 2013? Basic stuff.
And for more than a month, I waited for answers. I called. I left messages. I emailed. I waited some more. I started to get the feeling that Special Operations Command didn’t want me to know what its Green Berets and Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force commandos — the men who operate in the hottest of hotspots and most remote locales around the world — were doing.
Then, at the last moment, just before my filing deadline, Special Operations Command got back to me with an answer so incongruous, confusing, and contradictory that I was glad I had given up on SOCOM and tried to figure things out for myself.
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U.S. Special Operations Forces around the world, 2012-2013 (key below article) ©2014 TomDispatch ©GoogleI started with a blank map that quickly turned into a global pincushion. It didn’t take long before every continent but Antarctica was bristling with markers indicating special operations forces’ missions, deployments, and interactions with foreign military forces in 2012-2013. With that, the true size and scope of the U.S. military’s secret military began to come into focus. It was, to say the least, vast.
A review of open source information reveals that in 2012 and 2013, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) were likely deployed to — or training, advising, or operating with the personnel of — more than 100 foreign countries. And that’s probably an undercount. In 2011, then-SOCOM spokesman Colonel Tim Nyetold TomDispatch that Special Operations personnel were annually sent to 120 countries around the world. They were in, that is, about 60% of the nations on the planet. “We’re deployed in a number of locations,” was as specific as Bockholt would ever get when I talked to him in the waning days of 2013. And when SOCOM did finally get back to me with an eleventh hour answer, the number offered made almost no sense.
Despite the lack of official cooperation, an analysis by TomDispatch reveals SOCOM to be a command on the make with an already sprawling reach. As Special Operations Command chief Admiral William McRaven put it in SOCOM 2020, his blueprint for the future, it has ambitious aspirations to create “a Global SOF network of like-minded interagency allies and partners.” In other words, in that future now only six years off, it wants to be everywhere.
The Rise of the Military’s Secret Military
Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran (in which eight U.S. service members died), U.S. Special Operations Command was established in 1987. Made up of units from all the service branches, SOCOM is tasked with carrying out Washington’s most specialized and secret missions, includingassassinations, counterterrorist raids, special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare, psychological operations, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
In the post-9/11 era, the command has grown steadily. With about 33,000 personnel in 2001, it is reportedly on track to reach 72,000 in 2014. (About half this number are called, in the jargon of the trade, “badged operators” — SEALs, Rangers, Special Operations Aviators, Green Berets — while the rest are support personnel.) Funding for the command has also jumped exponentially as SOCOM’s baseline budget tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.9 billion between 2001 and 2013. If you add in supplemental funding, it had actuallymore than quadrupled to $10.4 billion.
Not surprisingly, personnel deployments abroad skyrocketed from 4,900 “man-years” — as the command puts it — in 2001 to 11,500 in 2013. About 11,000 special operators are now working abroad at any one time and on any given day they are in 70 to 80 countries, though the New York Times reported that, according to statistics provided to them by SOCOM, during one week in March 2013 that number reached 92.
The Global SOF Network
Last year, Admiral McRaven, who previously headed the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC — a clandestine sub-command that specializes in tracking and killing suspected terrorists — touted his vision for special ops globalization. In a statement to the House Armed Services Committee, he said:
“USSOCOM is enhancing its global network of SOF to support our interagency and international partners in order to gain expanded situational awareness of emerging threats and opportunities. The network enables small, persistent presence in critical locations, and facilitates engagement where necessary or appropriate…”
In translation this means that SOCOM is weaving a complex web of alliances with government agencies at home and militaries abroad to ensure that it’s at the center of every conceivable global hotspot and power center. In fact, Special Operations Command has turned the planet into a giant battlefield, divided into many discrete fronts: the self-explanatory SOCAFRICA; the sub-unified command of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East SOCCENT; the European contingent SOCEUR; SOCKOR, which is devoted strictly to Korea; SOCPAC, which covers the rest of the Asia-Pacific region; and SOCSOUTH, which conducts special ops missions in Central and South America and the Caribbean, as well as the globe-trotting JSOC.
Since 2002, SOCOM has also been authorized to create its own Joint Task Forces, a prerogative normally limited to larger combatant commands like CENTCOM. These include Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, 500-600 personnel dedicated to supporting counterterrorist operations by Filipino allies against insurgent groups like Abu Sayyaf.
A similar mouthful of an entity is the NATO Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan/Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan, which conducts operations, according to SOCOM, “to enable the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF), and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) to provide the Afghan people a secure and stable environment and to prevent insurgent activities from threatening the authority and sovereignty of GIRoA.” Last year, U.S.-allied Afghan President Hamid Karzai had a different assessment of the “U.S. special force stationed in Wardak province,” which he accused of “harassing, annoying, torturing, and even murdering innocent people.”
According to the latest statistics made available by ISAF, from October 2012 through March 2013, U.S. and allied forces were involved in 1,464 special operations in Afghanistan, including 167 with U.S. or coalition forces in the lead and 85 that were unilateral ISAF operations. U.S. Special Operations forces are also involved in everything from mentoring lightly armed local security forces under the Village Stability Operations initiative to the training of heavily armed and well-equipped elite Afghan forces — one of whose U.S.-trained officers defected to the insurgency in the fall.
In addition to task forces, there are also Special Operations Command Forward (SOC FWD) elements which, according to the military, “shape and coordinate special operations forces security cooperation and engagement in support of theater special operations command, geographic combatant command, and country team goals and objectives.” These light footprint teams — including SOC FWD Pakistan, SOC FWD Yemen, and SOC FWD Lebanon — offer training and support to local elite troops in foreign hotspots. In Lebanon, for instance, this has meant counterterrorism training for Lebanese Special Ops forces, as well as assistance to the Lebanese Special Forces School to develop indigenous trainers to mentor other Lebanese military personnel.
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Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) briefing slide by Col. Joe Osborne, showing SOC FWD elementsSOCOM’s reach and global ambitions go further still. TomDispatch’s analysis of McRaven’s first two full years in command reveals a tremendous number of overseas operations. In places like Somalia and Libya, elite troops have carried out clandestine commando raids. In others, they have used airpower to hunt, target, and kill suspected militants. Elsewhere, they have waged an information war using online propaganda. And almost everywhere they have been at work building up and forging ever-tighter ties with foreign militaries through training missions and exercises.
“A lot of what we will do as we go forward in this force is build partner capacity,” McRaven said at the Ronald Reagan Library in November, noting that NATO partners as well as allies in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America “are absolutely essential to how we’re doing business.”
In March 2013, for example, Navy SEALs conducted joint training exercises with Indonesian frogmen. In April and May, U.S. Special Operations personnel joined members of the Malawi Defense Forces for Exercise Epic Guardian. Over three weeks, 1,000 troops engaged in marksmanship, small unit tactics, close quarters combat training, and other activities across three countries — Djibouti, Malawi, and the Seychelles.
In May, American special operators took part in Spring Storm, the Estonian military’s largest annual training exercise. That same month, members of the Peruvian and U.S. special operations forces engaged in joint training missions aimed at trading tactics and improving their ability to conduct joint operations. In July, Green Berets from the Army’s 20th Special Forces Group spent several weeks in Trinidad and Tobago working with members of that tiny nation’s Special Naval Unit and Special Forces Operation Detachment. That Joint Combined Exchange Training exercise, conducted as part of SOCSOUTH’s Theater Security Cooperation program, saw the Americans and their local counterparts take part in pistol and rifle instruction and small unit tactical exercises.
In September, according to media reports, U.S. Special Operations forces joined elite troops from the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Cambodia — as well as their counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Russia for a US-Indonesian joint-funded counterterrorism exercise held at a training center in Sentul, West Java.
Tactical training was, however, just part of the story. In March 2013, for example, experts from the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School hosted a week-long working group with top planners from the Centro de Adiestramiento de las Fuerzas Especiales — Mexico’s Special Warfare Center — to aid them in developing their own special forces doctrine.
In October, members of the Norwegian Special Operations Forces traveled to SOCOM’s state-of-the-art Wargame Center at its headquarters on MacDill Air Force Base in Florida to refine crisis response procedures for hostage rescue operations. “NORSOF and Norwegian civilian leadership regularly participate in national field training exercises focused on a scenario like this,” said Norwegian Lieutenant Colonel Petter Hellesen. “What was unique about this exercise was that we were able to gather so many of the Norwegian senior leadership and action officers, civilian and military, in one room with their U.S counterparts.”
MacDill is, in fact, fast becoming a worldwide special ops hub, according to a report by the Tampa Tribune. This past fall, SOCOM quietly started up an International Special Operations Forces Coordination Center that provides long-term residencies for senior-level black ops liaisons from around the world. Already, representatives from 10 nations had joined the command with around 24 more slated to come on board in the next 12-18 months, per McRaven’s global vision.
In the coming years, more and more interactions between U.S. elite forces and their foreign counterparts will undoubtedly take place in Florida, but most will likely still occur — as they do today — overseas. TomDispatch’s analysis of official government documents and news releases as well as press reports indicates that U.S. Special Operations forces were reportedly deployed to or involved with the militaries of 106 nations around the world during 2012-2013.
For years, the command has claimed that divulging the names of these countries would upset foreign allies and endanger U.S. personnel. SOCOM’s Bockholt insisted to me that merely offering the total number would do the same. “You understand that there is information about our military… that is contradictory to reporting,” he told me. “There’s certain things we can’t release to the public for the safety of our service members both at home and abroad. I’m not sure why you’d be interested in reporting that.”
In response, I asked how a mere number could jeopardize the lives of Special Ops personnel, and he responded, “When you work with the partners we work with in the different countries, each country is very particular.” He refused to elaborate further on what this meant or how it pertained to a simple count of countries. Why SOCOM eventually offered me a number, given these supposed dangers, was never explained.
Bringing the War Home
This year, Special Operations Command has plans to make major inroads into yet another country — the United States. The establishment of SOCNORTH in 2014, according to the command, is intended to help “defend North America by outpacing all threats, maintaining faith with our people, and supporting them in their times of greatest need.” Under the auspices of U.S. Northern Command, SOCNORTH will have responsibility for the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and portions of the Caribbean.
While Congressional pushback has thus far thwarted Admiral McRaven’s efforts to create a SOCOM satellite headquarters for the more than 300 special operators working in Washington, D.C. (at the cost of $10 million annually), the command has nonetheless stationed support teams and liaisons all over the capital in a bid to embed itself ever more deeply inside the Beltway. “I have folks in every agency here in Washington, D.C. — from the CIA, to the FBI, to the National Security Agency, to the National Geospatial Agency, to the Defense Intelligence Agency,” McRaven said during a panel discussion at Washington’s Wilson Center in 2013. Referring to the acronyms of the many agencies with which SOCOM has forged ties, McRaven continued: “If there are three letters, and in some cases four, I have a person there. And they have had a reciprocal agreement with us. I have somebody in my headquarters at Tampa.” Speaking at Ronald Reagan Library in November, he put the number of agencies where SOCOM is currently embeddedat 38.
“Given the importance of interagency collaboration, USSOCOM is placing greater emphasis on its presence in the National Capital Region to better support coordination and decision making with interagency partners. Thus, USSOCOM began to consolidate its presence in the NCR [National Capitol Region] in early 2012,” McRaven told the House Armed Services Committee last year.
One unsung SOCOM partner is U.S. AID, the government agency devoted to providing civilian foreign aid to countries around the world whose mandate includes the protection of human rights, the prevention of armed conflicts, the provision of humanitarian assistance, and the fostering of “good will abroad.” At a July 2013 conference, Beth Cole, the director of the Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation at U.S. AID, explained just how her agency was now quietly aiding the military’s secret military.
“In Yemen, for example, our mission director has SVTCs [secure video teleconferences] with SOCOM personnel on a regular basis now. That didn’t occur two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago,” Cole said, according to a transcript of the event. But that was only the start. “My office at U.S. AID supports SOF pre-deployment training in preparation for missions throughout the globe… I’m proud that my office and U.S. AID have been providing training support to several hundred Army, Navy, and Marine Special Operations personnel who have been regularly deploying to Afghanistan, and we will continue to do that.”
Cole noted that, in Afghanistan, U.S. AID personnel were sometimes working hand-in-hand on the Village Stability Operation initiative with Special Ops forces. In certain areas, she said, “we can dual-hat some of our field program officers as LNOs [liaison officers] in those Joint Special Operations task forces and be able to execute the development work that we need to do alongside of the Special Operations Forces.” She even suggested taking a close look at whether this melding of her civilian agency and special ops might prove to be a model for operations elsewhere in the world.
Cole also mentioned that her office would be training “a senior person” working for McRaven, the man about to “head the SOF element Lebanon” — possibly a reference to the shadowy SOC FWD Lebanon. U.S. AID would, she said, serve as a facilitator in that country, making “sure that he has those relationships that he needs to be able to deal with what is a very, very, very serious problem for our government and for the people of that region.”
U.S. AID is also serving as a facilitator closer to home. Cole noted that her agency was sending advisors to SOCOM headquarters in Florida and had “arranged meetings for [special operators] with experts, done roundtables for them, immersed them in the environment that we understand before they go out to the mission area and connect them with people on the ground.” All of this points to another emerging trend: SOCOM’s invasion of the civilian sphere.
In remarks before the House Armed Services Committee, Admiral McRaven noted that his Washington operation, the SOCOM NCR, “conducts outreach to academia, non-governmental organizations, industry, and other private sector organizations to get their perspective on complex issues affecting SOF.” Speaking at the Wilson Center, he was even more blunt: “[W]e also have liaison officers with industry and with academia… We put some of our best and brightest in some of the academic institutions so we can understand what academia is thinking about.”
SOCOM’s Information Warfare
Not content with a global presence in the physical world, SOCOM has also taken to cyberspace where it operates the Trans Regional Web Initiative, a network of 10 propaganda websites that are run by various combatant commands and made to look like legitimate news outlets. These shadowy sites — includingKhabarSouthAsia.com, Magharebia which targets North Africa, an effort aimed at the Middle East known as Al-Shorfa.com, and another targeting Latin America called Infosurhoy.com — state only in fine print that they are “sponsored by” the U.S. military.
Last June, the Senate Armed Services Committee called out the Trans Regional Web Initiative for “excessive” costs while stating that the “effectiveness of the websites is questionable and the performance metrics do not justify the expense.” In November, SOCOM announced that it was nonetheless seeking to identify industry partners who, under the Initiative, could potentially “develop new websites tailored to foreign audiences.”
Just as SOCOM is working to influence audiences abroad, it is also engaged in stringent information control at home — at least when it comes to me. Major Bockholt made it clear that SOCOM objected to a 2011 article of mine about U.S. Special Operations forces. “Some of that stuff was inconsistent with actual facts,” he told me. I asked what exactly was inconsistent. “Some of the stuff you wrote about JSOC… I think I read some information about indiscriminate killing or things like that.”
I knew right away just the quote he was undoubtedly referring to — a mention of the Joint Special Operations Command’s overseas kill/capture campaign as “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.” Bockholt said that it was indeed “one quote of concern.” The only trouble: I didn’t say it. It was, as I stated very plainly in the piece, the assessment given by John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former counterinsurgency adviser to now-retired general and former CIA director David Petraeus.
Bockholt offered no further examples of inconsistencies. I asked if he challenged my characterization of any information from an interview I conducted with then-SOCOM spokesman Colonel Tim Nye. He did not. Instead, he explained that SOCOM had issues with my work in general. “As we look at the characterization of your writing, overall, and I know you’ve had some stuff on Vietnam [an apparent reference to my bestselling book, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam] and things like that — because of your style, we have to be very particular on how we answer your questions because of how you tend to use that information.” Bockholt then asked if I was anti-military. I responded that I hold all subjects that I cover to a high standard.
Bockholt next took a verbal swipe at the website where I’m managing editor,TomDispatch.com. Given Special Operations Command’s penchant for dabbling in dubious news sites, I was struck when he said that TomDispatch — which has published original news, analysis, and commentary for more than a decade andwon the 2013 Utne Media Award for “best political coverage” — was not a “real outlet.” It was, to me, a daring position to take when SOCOM’s shadowy Middle Eastern news site Al-Shorfa.com actually carries a disclaimer that it “cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information provided.”
With my deadline looming, I was putting the finishing touches on this article when an email arrived from Mike Janssen of SOCOM Public Affairs. It was — finally — a seemingly simple answer to what seemed like an astonishingly straightforward question asked more than a month before: What was the total number of countries in which Special Operations forces were deployed in 2013? Janssen was concise. His answer: 80.
How, I wondered, could that be? In the midst of McRaven’s Global SOF network initiative, could SOCOM have scaled back their deployments from 120 in 2011 to just 80 last year? And if Special Operations forces were deployed in 92 nations during just one week in 2013, according to official statistics provided to theNew York Times, how could they have been present in 12 fewer countries for the entire year? And why, in his March 2013 posture statement to the House Armed Services Committee, would Admiral McRaven mention “annual deployments to over 100 countries?” With minutes to spare, I called Mike Janssen for a clarification. “I don’t have any information on that,” he told me and asked me to submit my question in writing — precisely what I had done more than a month before in an effort to get a timely response to this straightforward and essential question.
Today, Special Operations Command finds itself at a crossroads. It is attempting to influence populations overseas, while at home trying to keep Americans in the dark about its activities; expanding its reach, impact, and influence, while working to remain deep in the shadows; conducting operations all over the globe, while professing only to be operating in “a number of locations”; claiming worldwide deployments have markedly dropped in the last year, when evidence suggestsotherwise.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Bockholt said cryptically before he hung up on me — as if the continuing questions of a reporter trying to get answers to basic information after a month of waiting were beyond the pale. In the meantime, whatever Special Operations Command is trying to do globally and at home, Bockholt and others at SOCOM are working to keep it as secret as possible.
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch.com and a fellow at the Nation Institute. An award-winning journalist, his work has appeared in theNew York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Nation, on the BBC, and regularly atTomDispatch. He is the author most recently of the New York Timesbestseller Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam (just out in paperback). You can catch his conversation with Bill Moyers about that book by clicking here.
Key to the Map of U.S. Special Operations Forces around the world, 2012-2013
Red markers: U.S. Special Operations Forces deployment in 2013.
Blue markers: U.S. Special Operations Forces working with/training/advising/conducting operations with indigenous troops in the U.S. or a third country during 2013.
Purple markers: U.S. Special Operations Forces deployment in 2012.
Yellow markers: U.S. Special Operations Forces working with/training/advising/conducting operations with indigenous troops in the U.S. or a third country during 2012.
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Copyright 2013 Nick Turse
JOHN HAY: GENTLEMAN AS DIPLOMAT by Kenton J. Clymer
The book seems to be an outgrowth of the author’s graduate school Ph.D dissertation. Clymer reviews Hay’s ideological development and comes to the conclusion he was typical of his age as he held strong racial and cultural views that sought to expand Anglo-Saxon influence in the world. In discussing Hay’s career outside of diplomacy the reader is presented with a hard nosed business type who vehemently disliked labor unions, in part because he did not trust the Irish and was an extreme Anglophile. Hay’s role in the diplomatic issues of the period are presented in detail and are somewhat dated as the book was published in 1975. Issues such as Panama, the open door to China, boundary disputes with Canada and others are seen from Hay’s prism and other figures of the period. One of the more interesting chapters deals with Hay’s relationship with Teddy Roosevelt. The author concludes that Hay had one foot in the 19th century and one foot in the 20th, but he tried not to be totally drawn into the bombastic nationalism that afflicted the United States after the Spanish-American War. Since the book is somewhat dated he would direct anyone interested in reading about John Hay to a new biography due out around May 20, 2013 by John Taliaffero.
ISAAC’S ARMY by Matthew Brzezinski
Ten years ago my wife and I visited Poland. Since I had studied the Holocaust for many years I thought I knew what to expect, but after visiting the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz-Birkenau I was wrong. Since many of my relatives were murdered in Auschwitz and part of my journey was to find my father’s village outside of Krakow I had a very sobering and emotional reaction to what I saw. I have read countless books on the Holocaust, but few measure up to Matthew Brzezinski’s ISAAC’s ARMY. The book is not a comprehensive history of the plight of Polish Jews during the Holocaust, but after reading it I had the feeling that it was. What is presented is an eye opening account of Polish Jewry before, during, and after World War II. The author’s main focus is the city of Warsaw which was depopulated and destroyed by the Nazis between 1940 and 1944. By focusing on a select number of Jews who lived, died, and survived the trauma that befell Eastern European Jews the reader is exposed to fresh insights and is taken on a journey like no other.
The author begins by describing the difficulty of imagining Warsaw from the platform of 2012. Today Warsaw is thriving with a modern capitalist economy, but as Brzezinski points out the office buildings, financial centers, hotels and other modern edifices are built on the “holy ground” that was the Warsaw Ghetto. The first chapter provides an insight to the Polish mindset as the German invasion takes place on September 1, 1939. The masses retained the firm belief that this was another Hitler land grab and once he seized Danzig (Gdansk) and some Silesian land he would be satiated and things would return to normal. Though their neighbors seemed confident there was a “collective nervousness” in the Jewish community. Within a few days reality hit home as the Germans entered Warsaw on September 8th.
After his introductory material Brzezinski shifts his attention to Warsaw and the ghetto that the Germans created. His narrative is presented through the eyes of a number of people. By focusing his attention on Isaac Zuckerman, Simha Ratheiser, Mark Edelman, Boruch Spiegel, Zivia Lubetkin, the Osnos and Mortkowicz families, and a number of other important individuals the reader is drawn into their world and their co-religionists struggle for survival. By mid-September the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east making it very difficult to escape. As the narrative develops Brzezinski describes the inability of the Jews in Warsaw to develop a unified response to events. The Nazis created the Judenrat, designed to rule the ghetto and carry out their policy. Within the Jewish community a Zionist faction emerged whose goal was to get as many Jews as possible to immigrate to Palestine, opposing them was the Bund who felt allegiance to Poland and wanted to build up the Jewish community as nationalistic Poles and remain in Poland. A Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) was created and both the Zionists and Bund members could not unify against the Nazis. In addition the Polish gentiles created a Home Army supported by the British.
By October Poland as an independent nation ceased to exist. The Nazis worked ceaselessly to rekindle Polish anti-Semitism that had plagued Polish Jews for centuries but had declined in the early 20th century. Soon a Jewish underground developed to cope with the deteriorating conditions and oppose the Nuremberg Blood Laws which defined the Nazi version of Jewishness, the looting, roundups for slave labor and outright murder carried out by the German command. Through the eyes of Brzezinski’s characters the reader gets a glimpse of Jewish life and culture in pre-war Poland that the Nazis destroyed as they seized Jewish businesses ranging from banks to publishing and industry.
The author weaves the story of the escape of the Osnos family from Poland to Romania by way of Germany to highlight the immigration barriers set up by western countries especially the United States and the machinations of Breckenridge Long, an assistant Secretary of State who created numerous roadblocks to prevent Jews from entering America (see David Wyman’s two volume history of American immigration policy before and during the war towards Jews). The Osnos family escaped Warsaw before the Nazis walled in the ghetto in the fall of 1940 resulting in almost 500,000 people squeezed into 732 acres. (100)
Once the ghetto was created Brzezinski describes the underground smuggling operation that would feed the ghetto for the next three years. The author integrates the important role that children played in the process as families relied on their offspring for survival. Many Jews were rounded up and along with Gentile Poles were sent to perform slave labor in Germany and areas they occupied in the East. Isaac Zuckerman was one of the 1.6 million people who suffered the fate of being a forced laborer and through his eyes we experience what it was like. Overall the Jews in the ghetto suffered from an ethical dilemma, how much should they cooperate with the Nazis. Under the Judenrat, headed by Adam Czerniakow a Jewish Police Force was created to assist in rounding up and policing Jews. Czerniakow’s diary (THE WARSAW DIARY OF ADAM CZERNIAKOW edited by Raul Hilberg) describes his mental state as he presided over the ghetto under the Nazis and the day to day issues that Polish Jews faced. Finally on July 23, 1942, Czerniakow could no longer deal with the situation and committed suicide.
Though Brzezinski concentrates on the Warsaw Ghetto he also describes the pogroms in Vilna and Kovno following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941. As numerous historians have pointed out Hitler did not plan in advance as to how the Jews would be dealt with once Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Decisions and killings would be made on an ad hoc basis until the Final Solution was decided upon at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. Special killing squads were employed by the Nazis in the East and experimental methods were instituted to maximize death until finally the concentration camps were refined to maximize the killing.
On July 22, 1942 the Nazis ordered the Gross Aktion (Great Deportation) to empty the Warsaw Ghetto and settle people in the East. Mark Edelman emerged as a leading figure in the underground and as a hospital orderly he helped smuggle Jews out of the Ghetto. Preference was given to underground members and as Edelman described years later he felt like he was playing God as he chose who he could assist. Soon after this Edelman and his cohorts learned that Jews were not being resettled but were being taken to a new concentration camp, Treblinka. By September 21, 1942 the deportations had ended as over 300,000 Jews had perished at Treblinka.
Throughout the book Brzezinski provides details of the negotiations between the different factions among the Jewish community as to how to deal with Nazi depopulation policy. In addition, the author provides insights concerning discussions with the Polish Home Army to acquire weapons. What emerges are the many obstacles that the Jews faced as they tried to fight the Nazis and just survive. The latent anti-Semitism of the Home Army, the ideological predilections of the different factions, and the many “greasers” (the term used to describe Ukrainian and other ethnic groups that the Nazis used to harass, rob, and murder Jews) all contributed to the inability of thousands of Jews to save themselves. By January, 1943 the Germans began to round up the remaining 50,000 Jews that had escaped the Gross Aktion.
The new German effort to deport Jews to Treblinka led to the ZOB merging with the Bund and a more unified Jewish command. The ZOB took over leadership from the Judenrat and Brzezinski explores how they developed their strategy, bomb making capacity, and acquisition of weapons. Though they did not acquire a great deal from the Home Army they were able to manufacture their own “version” of weaponry. On April 20, 1943 the SS stormed the Ghetto to liquidate it. They were met by roughly 500-750 armed Jews. Receiving little help from the 380,000 member Polish Home Army they shocked the Germans who expected to be met by a few revolvers not bombs. Heinrich Himmler fearing another Stalingrad type situation in Warsaw appointed Jurgen von Stroop his counter insurgency expert to deal with the situation. Von Stroop applied massive artillery to flush out the insurgents as building after building was destroyed. Brzezinski goes into great detail as to how the Jewish defenders survived the onslaught. The remaining Jews were able to escape their harrowing situation by entering the sewer system to reach the Aryan side of the city and seek a path to safety.
On May 16, 1943 von Stroop declared the Ghetto liquidated, but 28,000 Jews remained hiding in the city. The biggest threat were the “greasers” who continued to extort and murder Jews. These “greasers” numbered between 5-10,000 Poles and were on a fee basis from the Gestapo. Brzezinski correctly points out that little research has been done concerning this problem, but he sheds more light on the precarious situation Jewish survivors of the liquidation faced. It is interesting that so much work has been done concerning the role of Righteous Christians, but so little with “greasers.” (See Jan Grabowski’s new book, HUNT FOR JEWS: BETRAYAL AND MURDER IN GERMAN OCCUPIED POLAND)
On August 1, 1944 Warsaw erupted once again as the Home Army led a revolt against the Nazis. The Poles wanted to liberate themselves before the red Army arrived. Brzezinski explores the diplomacy among Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin concerning the future of Poland and it becomes clear by the Tehran and Yalta Conferences that Britain and the United States despite protestations realized that Poland would fall into the Soviet sphere. During the Warsaw uprising Stalin kept 800,000 troops from entering Warsaw and refused the use of Soviet airspace to the British and the United States who sought to assist the Home Army. From Stalin’s perspective the more Poles the Nazis killed the better. The man who was responsible for the Katyn Forest Massacre earlier in the war was just finishing a project to decimate the Polish leadership, politically and militarily as soon as possible. On October 2, 1944 Warsaw capitulated with 200,000 casualties in 63 days. (362) “From a pre war population of 1.35 million, only an estimated five thousand remained hidden in the rubble of October 1944.” (369)
Once Poland was liberated by the Soviet Union and the war was brought to an end the full horror of the Holocaust was brought front and center for the world to witness. For the remaining Jews who survived the war they trickled back to Poland, but their ordeal was not at an end. Over 300,000 Jews returned to Poland and most did not want to remain as most Poles were not happy that so many Jews survived the war. Isaac Zuckerman worked ceaselessly to assist as many as possible to immigrate to Palestine, but the British, now a declining empire refused their admittance for fear of angering the Arabs. For those Jews who wanted to remain in Poland prewar anti-Semitism quickly resurfaced. As Jews tried to regain their homes, businesses, and other property from the prewar years many Poles either owned or occupied them and refused to go back to their prewar status and return them to their rightful owners. Beatings of Jews and robberies and other types of harassment were common in postwar Poland, but none reached the level of the pogrom at Kielce in July, 1946, which resulted in the death of 40 Jews and many more injured. The massacre was carried out by “ordinary Poles; bakers and seamstresses, white collar workers and carpenters, God-fearing Catholics who went to church on Sundays. How, after the tragedy of the Holocaust, something like this could occur in a supposedly civilized society, Isaac could not understand.” (401) For a full description of the events in Kielce and the role of the Polish government consult Jan Gross’ account in his book, FEAR: ANTI-SEMITISM IN POLAND AFTER AUSCHWITZ. The Polish government would then, after asking permission from the Soviet Union, facilitated the immigration of 115,000 Jews to Palestine. (403)
Brzezinski closes his narrative by reintroducing characters that he had interviewed for the book . Some of these survivors lived in Israel and had to deal with the remnants of their experiences. Issues such as post traumatic stress disorder were apparent in most survivors and for Isaac and Zivia death would come at a fairly young age. Mark Edelman returned to Lodz after the war and became one of the Poland’s leading heart surgeons. Many settled in Krakow, while others went to Toronto and New York. As time moves further and the continued building of skyscrapers all physical evidence of the Holocaust in Poland will be extinguished except for a few yards of the ghetto wall which stood as of my visit in 2003. At that time the wall was tended to by an older gentleman. I wondered as I closed Brzezinski’s book if that gentleman was still alive, and if not had someone else taken over the mission of caring for some of the last evidence of the Nazi destruction of such a beautiful city. ISAAC’S ARMY is superb book that reads like fiction, but the trouble for humanity is that it is all based on fact.
IMPEACHED: THE TRIAL OF ANDREW JOHNSON AND THE FIGHT FOR LINCOLN’S LEGACY by David O. Stewart
David O. Stewart has written a well researched book dealing with the attempt to remove Andrew Johnson from the presidency after the Civil War. The author goes through excruciating detail describing the conflict between Radical Republicans and Democrats following the war between the states. The author explores the great personalities involved, ie; Thaddeus Stevens, Andrew Johnson, Ben Wade, U.S. Grant etc. Currently, we are in an age of extreme political partisanship that does not compare to the Reconstruction period the author discusses. Further, the book rebuffs many of the myths associated with the impeachment process in targeting Johnson for being too lenient on the south as the United States attempted to reunite. The pervasiveness of bribery and corruption during the process is shocking and the author offers a number of important documents in an attached appendix. The book is well worth reading for those interested in the post-Civil War politics or those who are drawn to the sinister nature of men whose beliefs are so strong they will stoop to any convoluted argument to achieve their goals.
Doc's Books 