Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts

Saturday, September 17, 2022

A Review of Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist Group

 

Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist GroupTonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist Group by William Rosenau
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I feel badly for what I'm about to write -- largely for the authors as I know how much time, labor, sweat, etc., is invested in writing a book, let alone a book like this. But I've got to be honest. I bought this book in early May 2020  & nearly 2 1/2 years later, having read, stopped, started again much later, stopped, repeat, repeat, I'm now just giving up in massive frustration. And you know, I'm guessing my reaction might not have been so bad if not for the marketing, or more precisely the misleading book title that set me up with massive excitement & lofty expectations only to make me feel -- consistently bored every fu**ing time I read just a paragraph -- that has to be among my top five disappointments ever. Which is saying a lot. It bored me endlessly, almost to the point of begging for physical torture so I could be released from the mental torture, experienced in the constant knowledge that I was experiencing the most UNDERwhelming book of my life! "Explosive Story?" God, I feel cheated. And I resent that. It was so NOT what the title states or promises. Explosive story? Possibly a play on words as some of these women were loosely attached (largely in a support role) to a few Black Panther/BLA bombers. Even then, that would be a lousy trick & not worth crap. But if that title is meant to be literal, that's false advertising if I've ever seen it.
 
Think about it. If we're sticking solely with nonfiction, in no specific order & off the top of my head, I can think of a number of books that both I & probably a number of others would describe as at least as explosive or exciting, if not more. And I'm aware this is subjective, but at the moment I don't have the time to address that. Nonetheless, some options include: 
  • Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
  • Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter
  • (Possibly) The Rape of Nanking by Iris Change
  • The infamous Anarchist Cookbook
  • The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
  • Bernard Fall's Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu
  • God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction by Dan Barker
    • (and by far the most exciting & explosive nonfiction I've ever read...)
  • Ken Follett's On Wings of Eagles
There are so many more I could add but I see little point. Moving on, just sticking with the overall theme & era, there are/were so many groups within the US & globally -- some almost more fringe & unknown than M19 -- that there seems to be an endless supply of resources. But as most would expect, there's a plethora of resources on a number of the usual people or groups, which doesn't make them illegitimate to read about, but does cause the forever curious, like myself, to seek out info on more fringe, unknown, suppressed groups, people and topics, & as this is the only book I've yet come across on M19, I was very excited. One can only read so much increasingly redundant stuff on groups labeled "dissident, militant" & soon "domestic terrorists." Some include the SDS, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, German Red Army Faction (RAF) (which, like many, had ties to Carlos the Jackal, the most notorious terrorist, but one of whom I feel is correct to include despite not working his violence for personal political reasons -- many of his clients WERE), SLA, BLA, American Indian movement, Italy's Red Brigades, etc. But I've known there were others yet some seem to be lacking nearly any resources, info, etc., which is simply served to make me all the more eager to locate nearly any info for the really underground ones. And M19CO (related name) was one of those.

To generalize badly, the smallish group was largely comprised of Jewish college graduates or dropouts, nearly all from mid-to-upper class families, most of whom had gone to elite schools, whether Ivy League or more women-traditional like a Smith or Wellesley, many to most of whom were lesbians (neither here nor there -- just part of the overall description, as were the prep schools, etc., et al), who had caught the revolutionary buzz circulating among both thousands of students (typically of similar backgrounds) or historically oppressed minorities, many of which initially formed as both community defense groups (from the police, such as the Black Panthers) as well as groups that gave out free breakfast to children, set up free medical clinics, preached "black power" in some cases, etc. Some were radical in their speech & ideas while others  became quite dangerous, yet often as many were being literally destroyed by the FBI in Hoover's infamous program you all probably know about. M19 has been attributed with some of the more infamous bombings of the late '70s & early '80s, but even though I read a large section of the book, I can't name a single instance in which they either didn't have massive aid from their BLA friends or were themselves little more than watchers & getaway drivers while the men did the dirty work. I'm under the impression that changed with time, but I was so ticked off at what I viewed as false advertising due to the title, as well as being bored beyond description that I didn't even care anymore. Lesser known groups (& causes) that interested me were the various Puerto Rican "Freedom fighter"/"terrorist" groups fighting a war dating back to the beginning of the century. A war against the US government, trying to earn their freedom as a nation instead of what the people there had been forced to endure as an American trophy obtained via the Spanish-American War and later as a federal territory, though never a state. If you want to read some about some horrors long suppressed in American textbooks, look up info on Puerto Rico since 1900 & its relationship with the US government. (While not recommending any, some options might include Militant Puerto Ricans: Migrants, Armed Struggle & Political Prisoners or War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony.) Anyway, there were many such dissident group in the US at the time, one of the foremost of which was called the Young Lords. One of the least known, least publicized yet most violent ended up, I believe,  bombing more than 120 government & other important commercial locations/buildings than any other was FALN (Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional). Some of their more infamous bombings included Wall Street -- literally -- the Rockefeller Center, courthouses, theaters, New York Life & Metropolitan Life's NY headquarters, as well as attempts against government officials like Carter & Bush, etc. While little known to the public & aside from their leader, virtually unknown to the government, a group of them were captured in Illinois around 1980. So, you want government acknowledgment, let alone details? Do your best looking because basically the only thing the government has ever produced as available to the public and not classified is something I have in many formats, including the actual book produced by Congress. Many of these versions have different titles, but they are all literally the same. The book held in my hand right now is called Clemency For the FALN: A Flawed Decision? Otherwise formally known as a "Hearing Before the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session September 21, 1999, Serial No. 106-44." And it's a copy of the most boring drivel, the actual Congressional hearing so important about this dangerous FALN, that its purpose was to crap all over Clinton for granting clemency to these men who had just spent close to 20 years in prison. Yep, that's it. Now, try to find info, docs, lit BY FALN. There are a couple of books about or including FALN. But it's hard. There's not much there by the group. Two German universities had a couple of documents awhile back. FALN is still around, though, unlike virtually all of these other groups. Leaving them all, like M19, in the dust. (M19's era lasted from the late '70s to slightly beyond 1985.)

Yes, I went on too long there but my point is I would prefer to read about any of these other groups rather than M19, or perhaps a different author/publisher might have made or would make a difference. Considering my interest in the subject, let me make clear just how much I do not recommend this book. I'd rather read Sartre's tome Being and Nothingness (and I love his fiction & drama), which has to be the most brain-addling & rather blasé book (or maybe I'd rather read about algorithms?) I've had yet. So, while everyone is different & some have liked this M19 book, I guess it's no surprise to me that it's rating on Goodreads is below a 3.5. Sorry, but never recommended by me.

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Friday, October 22, 2021

Book Review -- Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina

 

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in IndochinaStreet Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard B. Fall
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent. Superb! Everything I had heard about it. If you're a student of, or even just interested in, the French debacle in trying to recolonize Indochina, as well as subsequently the failure of the US, particularly in my opinion, by apparently never conducting any Lessons Learned sessions and thus repeating the very same damn fool mistakes that cost the French everything and allowed the Viet Minh to win before teaching the US a lesson in UW. BTW, most people don't realize this, but third world, underfunded, no-weapons-to-speak-of (initially) "North Vietnam," under the various names given to and used by those led by Ho and Giap, is the only such country I can recall at the moment, and certainly in more modern times, to defeat THREE (3) major, massive, far more advanced global powers (or at least drive the 3 from Vietnam) AND did so in a 30 year time frame. Doubt me? 1) Japan, World War 2. 2) France. 3) United States. I'm sorry, but even as an American and thus a citizen who grew up during the draft, taught to hate and despise the "evil" (North) Vietnamese, over the years with much reading, study and research, I've learned much about the history of the region, dynamics, propaganda, geopolitical implications, proxies, and especially have remained interested in the entire E/SE Asian question of A) Marxism or B) Nationalism (first and foremost), because it's still a matter of great debate, although I formed a pretty firm opinion some decades ago and stand by it. That issue, of course, applies to many other states in the region, from China to Cambodia and more.

Regardless, the author of this book gives an amazing detailed account of the horrors experienced by the French (and their opponents) during a specific period of that conflict, and while the author never would have known or expected it would serve as a history text of sorts and a book that should have been required reading at West Point pre-1960ish, that's the least of what he accomplished in writing this. Of course, even though the US didn't learn from the French debacle -- which was funded by the US -- and got its ass whipped to great mass global humiliation, let alone at the cost of tens of thousands of US lives, tragically, as well as literally millions of Vietnamese lives, apparently some people at the Pentagon finally DID decide doing a few Lessons Learned sessions might be of some value, thus resulting in some UW doctrine, later to split into IW/AW doctrine, the irony being that the DoD is shutting down its AW unit literally as I write this and likely when we need it the most. Bozos! "We'll farm those responsibilities out to other units." Yeah. Worked real well in Nam, didn't it? And Iraq and Afghanistan too. Definitely still need doctrine and committed, structured units dedicated to IW but I fail to understand AT ALL how the same doesn't apply to AW. And since official US military focus is shifting to the Baltics (to justify the massive defense budget, and to guarantee only seriously pissing Putin off more, which will have the opposite of the stated effect and goals in sending SOF units into each of those states and countries). I have so many friends, colleagues and connections at every level and in every type of unit within the US Department of Defense (as well as hundreds of defense contractors), that I kind of feel guilty for what I've written and what I could write, but at the risk of offending some people I value, I've just got to say this is total bullshit, beyond stupid geopolitically and militarily, and in a manner of speaking, I would contend it's another case of the DoD NOT having read Fall's book and others like it, and thus likely to make or repeat predictable, avoidable and potentially devastating mistakes.

I'm sure you didn't expect to get more out of a review of a book from the 1950s, but it still applies directly to current political/military goals, strategies, tactics, doctrine, particularly that of the US. Which I think is tragic. The book? I can't recommend it enough. Very recommended.

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A Review of Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist Group

  Tonight We Bombed the U.S. Capitol: The Explosive Story of M19, America's First Female Terrorist Group by William Rosenau My rating:...