Mark Biskeborn is a writer.
His most recent novel: Mojave Winds
To learn more: www.markbiskeborn.com
How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude
By Robert Baer
Three Rivers Press, CA; 238 pp.; 2004
Reviewed by Mark Biskeborn
Baer delivers an intriguing memoir about his glory days as a CIA operative in the Middle East. He writes in an informal style, telling his operations stories like a thriller novelist while overdosed on those dark-green Turkish espressos.
The premise ties his stories together in one neat package: It’s all about the oil. Obviously, were there no oil in the Saudi Peninsula, the have-nothings would have no reason to resent the billionaire princes. The Royal family pays off the radicals to avoid massive revolts. ’Let them eat cake,’ as Marie Antoinette once said. Without these petrol-dollar pay-offs from Royalty, the extremists would have no money to arm and indoctrinate their young. Without petrol-financing, the fundamentalists would have hardly any means to carry out coordinated operations.
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Tags: Literature · Reviews
Ideas are the source of all actions. Once we adopt ideas they form the basis of how we live and how we support events in our community. “Ideas shape the course of history,†said John Maynard Keynes.
They are things that make us feel great, inspire us, or crush us. We can roll them around, play with them, or hush them up and censor them.
Like businesses, churches and political parties use marketing techniques to promote ideas. In ancient days, Aristotle wrote about rhetoric and set the foundation for modern marketing which shows us how to segment groups by the way people adopt ideas and products. Once we understand these different groups, we can communicate effectively with them and persuade them to buy.
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Tags: Editorials
McCain’s daughter cam cords a friendly barbeque where dad meets with lobbyists and other campaign contributors to discuss what they expect in return for the cash.
SEDONA, Arizona – Relaxing at his sprawling rustic ranch compound this last weekend, Sen. John McCain hosted a barbecue for friends. Only a few months ago, John McCain III, had been left behind as another piece of flattened road kill on the presidential campaign trail. Now, he might cinch the GOP nomination.
I witnessed the event, not as a guest but as bartender, though I sipped more drinks than I mixed. After having responded to a local newspaper ad for busboy, I got a job. A journalist in need of a little extra pocket money, I figured his gig answered my prayers to embed among the rich and famous at McCain’s posh party.
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Tags: Editorials · World news
Fighting Guerrilla Warriors with Conventional Tactics All for the Sake of Godly Profits
“War on terror†coins a sacred phrase in the Iraq crusade. Karl Rove, high priest of spin, led the neocons’ faithful choir through the doctrinal hymns, especially regarding Bush’s military mission.
Now the Sanctified Church of Later Day Neocons has anointed John McCain to take the pulpit for the steadfast congregation, a political party on a mission from God, bowing down to corporate avarice at the detriment of public interests.
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Tags: Editorials · General
The media, TV journalists in particular, continue to leave some important questions lying dormant beneath the dusty cover of “conspiracy theory.†Why did W decide to invade Iraq while 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia? Why is Saudi Arabia a cradle for such terrorists?
Years ago, when W still had some credibility, he and his Roving gang could ridicule anyone who spoke against his actions. Whenever brave souls dared to question the Divine Decider, he and his cronies dismissed the dissenters as nutcase conspiracy theorists. And they continue to do so even after the Iraq War has officially run its miserable course to disastrous guerrilla warfare and our economy whimpers.
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Tags: Editorials · World news
Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War By Evan Wright
As a journalist for Rolling Stone, Wright asked to join a front-line, first-in unit of the Operation Iraqi Freedom during the initial invasion of 2003. He embedded with the Second Platoon of Bravo Company, commanded by Lt. Nathaniel Fick, a 25-year-old Dartmouth graduate. Fick originally joined the Marines in a fit of enthusiastic patriotism. By the end of the invasion, his views change drastically:
“[The Marines] reminded me of gladiators. They had the mysterious quality that allows some men to strap on greaves and a breastplate and wade into the gore. I respected, admired, and emulated them, but I could never be like them. I could kill when killing was called for, and I got hooked on the rush of combat as much as any man did. But I couldn’t make the conscious choice to put myself in that position again and again throughout my professional life.â€Â
Riding with Fick’s platoon, Wright gained the hard earned trust of the Marines and this key opened doors for him to learn firsthand their daily reality in combat.
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Tags: Literature · Reviews
Ancient Highway
By Bret Lott
Random House, New York, NY; 241 pp., 2008
He’d heard it already, the cold and steady promise way off, building after building but still way off, not yet even to the trestle over Rogers Creek. But coming.
In these opening lines, the narrator sets the stage for a story that takes on the road, the ancient highway toward self-realization. Earl is the first character the reader meets. At the age of barely fourteen, Earl runs away from his home in a dusty Texas town. He’s pursuing his happiness. He’s broken away from his family and has already seen several “flickers,†movies in our modern parlance.
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Tags: Literature · Reviews
A Novel
By Michael Connelly
Little Brown and Company, New York, NY; 405 pp., 2008
Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. Everyone in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. 
That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.
These first lines of Michael Connelly’s newest novel, entitled Brass Verdict state the high concept of the story. Most of us probably want to believe that our legal system is based on some concrete logic or steadfast process where only the bad guys go to jail and a higher cause is served.
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Tags: Literature · Reviews
There is a drug in America that is legal, one that can both jack up your persuasive spirits and protect you against any doubts.
Laguna Beach, CA — I admit my thinking becomes intense at times. It’s not my fault. The coffee they serve here at Laguna Beach works wonders. Just the right formula
transforms a regular, stable guy like me into a psychic mess.
I come here to write my next novel. The café’s patrons are an eclectic community. Surfers hardly dressed, listening to iPod songs. Bikers stop here on their hog rides from beach to beach. College co-eds hang out here, wearing their pants below the top of their beautifully tanned bottoms clad in colorful thongs. Even the eternal mermaids come to sip the Nicaraguan Nectar, singing each to each.
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Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
Although The New American Militarism arrived on the market over a year ago, surprisingly few reviews appeared and they do so more as opinion essays based on Bacevich’s work, which only testifies to its influence. His book traces the last few decades of American history focusing on changes in public attitudes and government doctrines regarding the use of military might. Bacevich states his position clearly in the introduction of this seminal work.
“To state the matter bluntly, Americans in our own time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force. To a degree without precedent in U.S. history, Americans have come to define the nation’s strength and well-being in terms of military preparedness, military actions, and the fostering of, or nostalgia for, military ideals.â€Â
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Tags: Literature · Reviews
Sunday was more like Memorial Day. Father’s Day calls my father to mind, but WWII was one of the most defining events in his life.
Just a farm boy from Nebraska, hardly 18-years-old, he served in the Army’s 89th Division and shipped out for the third wave of landings onto the shores of Normandy.
He saw a lot of action. Carrying a high quality German camera, he took a lot of pictures of the war. None of them pretty.
When he returned home, he had a lot of shrapnel embedded in his flesh. Many years later, when he’d started a family, contributing to the baby boom, he had to go to the VA hospital several times to take some of those pieces of metal out from under his skin as they began to resurface.
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Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
Sunday was more like Memorial Day. Father’s Day calls my father to mind, but WWII was one of the most defining events in his life.
Just a farm boy from Nebraska, hardly 18-years-old, he served in the Army’s 89th Division and shipped out for the third wave of landings onto the shores of Normandy.
He saw a lot of action. Carrying a high quality German camera, he took a lot of pictures of the war. None of them pretty.
When he returned home, he had a lot of shrapnel embedded in his flesh. Many years later, when he’d started a family, contributing to the baby boom, he had to go to the VA hospital several times to take some of those pieces of metal out from under his skin as they began to resurface.
[Read more →]
Tags: Editorials · Local Politics
