Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta (Nation Books) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

We've all heard 9/11 compared to Pearl Harbor, but in one of the essays in this provocative and thoughtful collection, America's great literary dissenter finds deeper links. Both were seemingly inexplicable surprise attacks, but, Vidal argues, the "Cheney/Bush" (in that order, he assures us) "junta" knew 9/11 was coming as surely as FDR knew the Japanese would attack American interests in the Pacific. And just as Pearl Harbor got America into World War II, Cheney and Bush gleefully used 9/11 to begin a long war against enemies who just so happen to live amidst the oil reserves coveted by our executive branch (themselves former oil barons). Vidal backs his argument up with a stunning array of evidence culled from books, scholarly articles, and even the popular media he so despises. The essays on the so-called junta are, in and of themselves, worth the price of admission, but also included here are 10 Vidal articles published over the last decade, which discuss how, in the wake of World War II, America completely abandoned its republic for an imperial police state engaged in perpetual war. Vidal's talent for invigorating his polemics with lively prose and fierce wit (he describes Spiro Agnew as "Vice President to Richard Nixon and bribe-taker to many") shines throughout, and though some of the essays are dated, Vidalian vitriol never seems to go out of style. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"Gore Vidal's pen should be listed as a weapon of mass destruction."

When Gore Vidal's recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender of the American republic. In Dreaming War, Vidal continues this defense by confronting the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America's current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U. S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U. S. consortiums. "

When Gore Vidal's recent New York Times bestseller Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace was published, the Los Angeles Times described Vidal as the last defender of the American republic. In Dreaming War, Vidal continues this defense by confronting the Cheney-Bush junta head on in a series of devastating essays that demolish the lies American Empire lives by, unveiling a counter-history that traces the origins of America's current imperial ambitions to the experience of World War Two and the post-war Truman doctrine. And now, with the Cheney-Bush leading us into permanent war, Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive war? Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was "the unlovely Osama chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan?" After all he was abruptly replaced with Saddam Hussein once the Taliban were overthrown. And while "evidence" is now being invented to connect Saddam with 9/11, the current administration are not helped by "stories in the U. S. press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must- for the sake of the free world- be reassigned to U.

S. consortiums. "

Gore Vidal, geboren 1925, zählt zu den wichtigsten Vertretern der amerikanischen Literatur. Er ist Autor von 22 Romanen, fünf Theaterstücken, vielen Filmdrehbüchern, Kurzgeschichten und über 200 Essays. Für "United States: Essays 1952 - 1992", eine Sammlung seiner Kritiken, erhielt er den National Book Award. Seine Memoiren "Palimpsest" (1996) sind ein bedeutendes Zeitdokument. Der Autor lebt in Ravello und Los Angeles.