Book Reviews

We are quickly approaching the 7th anniversary of the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. The presidential race has given some attention to Afghanistan, mostly because both McCain and Obama have pledged to send more US troops and "win the war on terrorism." But, how much do we really know about what is going on in this country and what are the real motives for the ongoing US role in occupying this somewhat forgotten country?

These questions and many others are answered in an excellent book titled Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords and the Propaganda of Silence. Co-authored by James Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar, Bleeding Afghanistan can be a useful tool for those not only wanting to understand the country that got the US into the current war on terror, but it can provide important talking points for the anti-war movement which desperately needs to mature its criticism of US foreign policy.

The book begins by providing a detailed account of US involvement in Afghanistan since the early 1970s, when Afghanistan was seen by the State Department as a strategic country during the Cold War. When the Iranian revolution of 1979 occurred, the US had even bigger concerns with Afghanistan which shares a border with Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan later that year, but not without provocation from US backed factions. After the Reagan administration took office in 1981 the US began funneling billions of dollars through the CIA to the Afghan resistance also known as the Mujahideen. The US support lasted until the Soviet withdrawal in 1990 and then the US abandoned Afghanistan to factional infighting. The authors note that this was a source of much anti-American sentiment, since Afghanistan endured years of fighting and brutality after both global superpowers decided to leave the country.

Eventually, the Taliban came to power in the mid-1990s with diplomatic support from the US early on. The Taliban were an outgrowth of the Mujahideen and embraced a strict Islamic code that was particularly harsh on women. Despite this, the Clinton administration supported the Taliban, in part, because of resource interests from companies like Unocal. What changed the administration's position was the fact that Osama bin Laden was now using Afghanistan as a base for his operations. The Taliban then became somewhat of a target by the US and aid was discontinued during the end of the Clinton years.

Then 9/11 happens and the US decides that since bin Laden is using Afghanistan as a base of operation that the US would begin a military campaign against that country. The Bush administration used the Taliban's treatment of women as a PR tool to gain public support for the aerial bombing of remote areas in Afghanistan to "fight the war on terror." The authors devote an entire chapter on how Afghani women were used as a political tool by the US government, even though the condition of women did not significantly improve with the removal of the Taliban from power.

Another section of the book is devoted to the role that US news media played in the past 30 years in regards to Afghanistan. The authors demonstrate that when Afghanistan served a particular purpose in US foreign policy the news coverage was significant, like in the years of Soviet occupation or right after 9/11. However, once the Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1990, very little coverage was to be found in US media, even though the country was no better off. The same has been the case in more recent years with news coverage of Afghanistan declining rapidly after the Taliban were removed from power in early 2002. Despite new leadership in the country the human rights situation has not improved, opium production is at an all time high and the US/NATO forces continue to commit significant human rights abuses that mirror the detentions, torture and murder in Iraq.

Bleeding Afghanistan concludes with an appeal for Americans to not only support real Afghan democracy movements like RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan) but to call for an end to the US occupation. An important and timely book since Afghanistan is being touted in an election year as the "true focus for winning the war on terror."

Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls, Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, (Seven Stories Press, 2006).

The Bloom Collective--a lending library and infoshop located at 1134 Wealthy St SE in Grand Rapids--has a title called Jews and American Comics. The book traces the history of comic books and comic strips throughout the 20th century.

Surprisingly, (to this reader, at least) the text and illustrations demonstrate the fact that, just as in the Hollywood film industry, the founders-movers-shakers of the comics industry were Jewish immigrants from Europe.

Parallel to the Cohns, Goldwyns,and Zukers of Hollywood, were the names of Milton Caniff ("Terry & the Pirates"), Al Capp ("Lil Abner"), Rube Goldberg (of the eponymous inventions) and many others both those that came earlier as well as contemporary cartoonists.

Coverage starts early in the 20th century; the book's first chapter includes interesting coverage of early Jewish cartoonists' willingness to criticize Jewish as well as Gentile sweatshop taskmasters. Coverage continues throughout the century, and includes the work of 53 cartoonists in all - famous ones such as Robert Crumb, Jules Feiffer and Art Spiegelman, as well as relative unknowns.

The text offers a great deal of gossipy information about the cartoonists and their work, though it does not present an equal amount of analysis (historical, theoretical, aesthetic).

And, unfortunately, while many illustrations are fine, too many are small, cramped on the page, making it difficult to read the copy.

Paul Buhle, ed., Jews and American Comics, (The New Press, 2008).

In 2004, the Rhizome Collective based in Austin, Texas received a grant to rehab an old warehouse building. Today that building offers workshops on radical urban sustainability and houses an Indy Media Center, an infoshop, a community radio station, Bikes Across Borders, Food Not Bombs, and Art and Revolution. Through years of work and organizing, two members of this collective have put together a fabulous book for anyone seeking real sustainability.

The book focuses mostly on practical ways we can all become more sustainable in the area of food, water, waste and energy. However, the book starts off with a brief commentary about the importance of practicing what the authors call "radical sustainability." In an age when phrases like "sustainable development" and "green consumerism" are tossed about, the members of the Rhizome Collective think it is important for us to seriously critique practices that essentially do nothing "to challenge the patterns of over-consumption and excess that have created the environmental crisis."

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living advocates radical sustainability that "recognizes the inseparability of ecological and social issues and the necessity of ensuring the solution to one problem does not create or worsen another." So for instance, the authors argue that instead of just putting up solar panels, which uses materials that are not sustainable, people could find used lumber and construct a windmill.

Another aspect that is central to radical sustainability is the idea of autonomous development. This kind of development provides everyone with the skills to do the necessary work and it gives control over basic resources to those using them. What this means is that there is no reliance on experts and specialists to make your home or community more sustainable.

The book is full of beautiful wood print art and photos of projects the collective has worked on. There are instructions and ideas on everything from raising chickens, catching rain water, using waste water, growing mushrooms, constructing a composting toilet, or producing your own bio-fuels. All of these practical applications have global impact since much of what we consume is not local and therefore is not sustainable. What the Rhizome Collective is really advocating are the creation of autonomous communities - communities that promote egalitarianism and justice. Toolbox for Sustainable City Living is an important contribution in the debate about sustainable living and an excellent resource for those who want to practice living that way.

Scott Kellogg and Stacey Pettigrew, Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, (South End Press, 2008)

"We're not inflicting pain on these fuckers. When people kill us, they should be killed in greater numbers. I believe in killing people who try to hurt you. And I can't believe we're being pushed around by these two-bit pricks."

This statement comes from former President Bill Clinton when referring to the United States' invasion of Somalia in 1993 and is the opening paragraph in Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War--an excellent and timely book by Dennis Perrin.

Many people in liberal or progressive circles tend to equate the Democratic Party with an anti-war platform. Even the news media will often frame Democratic candidates as anti-war or political "doves." However, Perrin's basic thesis is that Democratic presidents have always endorsed war and are not "anti-war." Savage Mules is not a scholarly book, but rather is a populist reading of the historical positions that Democratic presidents have taken in regards to war.

Starting with the founder of the Party, Andrew Jackson, the author presents an overview of every Democratic president and which wars they have started or continued. Jackson, of course, engaged in several brutal military campaigns against Native Americas, most notably the Trail of Tears. The Mexican-American War took place during James Polk's rule of the White House and Woodrow Wilson not only got the US involved in World War I, but his administration invaded and occupied Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

FDR was a Democrat that went to war against Japan, Italy, and Germany and his Democratic successor Harry Truman not only dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but he prosecuted the war in Korea. JFK, the attractive, youthful president was the first president to send troops to Southeast Asia and after his assassination, the Democrat Lyndon Johnson escalated that war on the poor people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Kennedy was also responsible for the initial creation of death squads throughout Latin America with his program, the Alliance for Progress.

Carter supported the Indonesian War against East Timor, backed the Shah of Iran, backed the military regime in South Korea, and backed the Afghan militia that provoked the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Clinton was by no means a pacifist, with his invasion of Somalia, the bombing of Kosovo, and the constant bombing of Iraq throughout the 1990s that accompanied brutal economic sanctions that led to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children.

Recently, there has been much discussion about the failure of the Democratic controlled Congress to stop the ongoing US occupation of Iraq. However, for anyone that reads Savage Mules, it would come as no surprise that the US has not changed its position since the 2006 elections.

Perrin ends the book with a brief discussion on the idea of pragmatism, war, and the Obama campaign. It is the weakest chapter in the book and perhaps he would have been better off by ending with the Democrats' continued backing of the war in Iraq, but beyond this chapter, the book is an important contribution to the discussion of partisan politics and war.

Dennis Perrin, Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War, (Verso, 2008).

Much has been written during the Bush years about the Red State/Blue State dichotomy that is the United States of America. This faux-populist analysis of politics is seriously inadequate, but since it fits well into the sound bite news media discussion, it is repeated over and over again. This again is the case as the nation is now less than 100 days from the next presidential election. The campaign strategies and news coverage of the campaign trail continues to be framed in the Red or Blue world.

If you are looking for a different read on this country and not wanting to rely on FOX News pundits or CNN experts, then Red State Rebels might be what you need. Co-editor of the excellent online news site CounterPunch, Jeffrey St. Clair has teamed up with Joshua Frank (the author of Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Re-elect George W. Bush) to bring us a fabulous collection of essays that demolishes the checkerboard world of Red States and Blue States.

The focus of this collection is on the lively grassroots activism that is currently taking place in what are generally deemed Red States, but by no means does this book suggest that this grassroots activism is connected to the Democratic Party. In fact, there are numerous stories shared in Red State Rebels of grassroots resistance in GOP territory that is also in opposition to the Democrats. In one essay by St. Clair entitled "The Origin of Western Greens," the co-editor states that during the Clinton years there was tremendous erosion of environmental standards, including:

"relaxed pesticide standards, weakening regulations for the Endangered Species
Act, a plan for the Everglades tailored to meet the demands of sugar barons and real estate moguls of South Florida; failure to take decisive action to protect Colombia River salmon due to opposition from the Speaker of the House Tom Foley and the aluminum companies; and the political firing of Jim Baca from his position as director of the Bureau of Land Management for his determination to reform grazing practices on federal lands."

It is the disillusion from these kinds of policies that many of the grassroots efforts described in this book are born. These are individuals and groups who, even though they live in what is labeled a Red State and have contempt for the current administration, do not gravitate towards the Democrats.

The essays are arranged by region, such as Midwest, the Rocky Mountain States, the Southwest, the South, and Indian Country. The topics that are addressed are even more diverse. You might be reading about Native people fighting mining companies in the southwest and a few pages later African Americans are taking a stand against the use of the Confederate Flag in South Carolina. People employ all kinds of tactics in these battle stories, tactics that range from banner drops to direct action and civil disobedience. More importantly, what Red State Rebels provides us with is the message that there are plenty of committed and courageous people in this country who do not put their faith in partisan politics. They rely on critical thinking, organizing and action on behalf of justice. An important message that can keep us motivated while the Red State/Blue State madness is upon us.

Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank, eds., Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, (AK Press, 2008).

This is, to the best of my knowledge, the only book about the anti-Vietnam War movement in Japan. (The topic is not virgin territory by any means. There are lots of articles in academic journals. But this is the only full length book that I'm aware of).

Japan was very much involved in the Vietnam War because the bases in Japan and Okinawa were used as launching points for the U.S. army. (Okinawa was not returned to Japan until 1972, and was essentially a US colony until then.) Also Japanese manufacturers were very involved in the business side of the Vietnam War, and doing lots of trade with both the US and South Vietnamese army, and perhaps even supplying the materials for the US napalm bombs.

Despite all this, there was great anxiety on the part of the Japanese people and government about the Vietnam War. At the beginning of the War, when it looked possible that China might get involved, Japan feared they would be drawn right into the middle of another World War if China attacked the US bases in Japan.

Even after the threat of China joining the war diminished however there was concern that Japan's involvement in the Vietnam War violated article 9 (the no-war clause) or their constitution. The nightly news showed images of the War, and many Japanese began to see parallels between the Americans in Vietnam, and their own quagmire in a guerilla war in China 30 years earlier. As the American bombing campaign escalated, the Japanese, who had themselves experienced heavy bombing, began to sympathize with the Vietnamese people even more.

(As Havens points out, more bombs were dropped on Indochina during the Vietnam War than in all the years of World War II combined).

There are a lot of contradictions and ironies concerning Japan's involvement in the Vietnam War. Despite the tremendous opposition to the War at the citizen level, Japan's economy prospered greatly as a result of the increased trade that the War created. Havens writes: "Possibly the greatest long term effect was also the most ironic: halfway through the war Japan replaced the United States as the leading economic power in Southeast Asia, so that one of America's most reluctant allies ended up as the chief beneficiary of the eight-year war to save the Saigon regime."

This is a short book (only 264 pages plus endnotes) but it tries to cover a lot of ground. For example the book deals with the legal issues surrounding Article 9 of the Japanese constitution and its involvement in the war, the diplomatic issues with the United States, the opposition parties in the Japanese Diet and the parliamentary politics played out over the War, the economic side of the Vietnam War in Japan, the issues surrounding the return of Okinawa, the citizen opposition groups, newspaper editorials, Japanese reporters in Vietnam, public opinion and even Japanese pop music related to the anti-War movement. (As a big fan of Japanese oldies, this book tries to answer a question I had been wondering about for years: with massive protests and anti-war sentiment in Japan, why were there no anti-war songs on the pop charts?)

As such, much of the book feels like it is only skimming over broader issues, which in fact it is. It does, however, provide an excellent bird's eye view of the whole conflict.

The style of the book is a bit on the dry side. It reads a bit like an academic paper which someone decided to publish as a book. But the subject material was fascinating enough to keep me interested.

As in many other parts of the world, the 1960s in Japan were a time of conflict between the old established left and the New Left. This is a major theme of Haven's book, as he highlights the ineffectiveness of the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), and contrasts them against new citizens groups like Beheiren (Citizens' Federation for Peace in Vietnam).

Beheiren, organized by Japanese novelist Oda Makoto, was a new kind of group which was based on decentralized, almost anarchist principles, in which any group who agreed to their basic principles could organize events on their behalf. It was based on getting ordinary citizens involved in the political process, and creating a new kind of participatory democracy, but it was unaligned with any political party.
The JSP, and the JCP, which both looked at opposition to the Vietnam War as a way to increase their seats in the Diet and expand their own political power, were very hostile to Beheiren.

Although Haven's book touches on a variety of issues (see above) the story of Beheiren forms the backbone of the narrative. The more radical student protests, that were paralyzing Universities and leading to pitched battles in the streets of Tokyo, are mentioned only in passing. This is partly because Beheiren was a one-issue organization, dedicated to ending the war in Vietnam whereas the student protests in Japan (as in Europe and the US) were not limited solely to Vietnam, but spurred on by an amalgamation of issues including University reform, opposition to tuition increases, and anti-establishment sentiment.

To the extent the student protests are mentioned in Haven's book, it is usually only for the purpose of contrasting them to Beheiren's more peaceful approach.

For example the week long battle between police and student protesters at Tokyo University over Yasuda auditorium, which was broadcast live on Japanese TV and is sometimes referred to as Japan's "Kent State", is only mentioned in one sentence in this book, and that only to contrast with the tactics of Beheiren. (... "the delegates [of Beheiren] thought it would be wise to diversify in light of the campus violence that culminated when the police recaptured Yasuda auditorium at Tokyo University on January 19".)

Beheiren gained international attention when it began hiding deserters from the US army, smuggling out of the country, and arranging their passage to Sweden.

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There is a lot in this book which parallels with the Iraq War, much of which is so obvious it scarcely bares mentioning. Despite the lessons of the Vietnam War or the Japanese in China (not to mention the French in Algeria, the Russians in Afghanistan, and a host of other similar situations) United States has once again involved itself in another foreign policy disaster.

Havens mentions how the Vietnam War destroyed America's image in Japan. Despite the destruction of the Great War, in the years immediately World War II most Japanese people looked upon America as the great liberator and strong house of democracy and freedom. After the Vietnam War, most Japanese had a negative image of America. The parallel of America's tarnished image after the Iraq debacle is, of course, all too obvious.

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I had a bit of a problem tracking down this book. I ordered the new edition off of Amazon, but was kept waiting half a year, and kept getting messages that it was out of stock, or that they couldn't locate a copy for me.

Finally I switched my order to an older edition (used copy) and then immediately had a copy shipped out to me. This book was originally published in 1987, and then later republished after 2000. I'm not sure if I missed any important updates by reading the older edition or not. I'm also not sure if my frustrating experience trying to get a hold of a copy is unique or not. If you're interested in the subject material, however, it is worth the trouble it takes to track down a copy.

Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan by Thomas Havens