BuzzFlash Reviews
September 28, 2005
Special Plans: The Blogs On Douglas Feith And The Faulty Intelligence That Led To War (Book)
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Hey,
how can we not recommend a book that quotes us on the back cover: "Special
Plans [The Blogs on Douglas Feith]" offers invaluable insight into
a key figure behind the propaganda campaign that swayed Americans to
support Bush's Iraq War. Douglas Feith didn't get much coverage in the
mainstream press because he was 'just' an undersecretary in the Defense
Department. But this collection of blog entries about Feith reveals that
he was much, much more than that. This book is a testament to the fact
that the new Internet media delivers needed information that the mainstream
press no longer covers in detail."
And the beauty of it is we meant it, too!
What a nifty idea. A small publisher in Oregon decides to do a series of handbooks on Bush administration figures and policies, using material that was originally posted on blogs.
After all, as we noted, in the mainstream media, you rarely ever come across the name of Douglas Feith, an undersecretary in the Department of Defense, who was behind much of the misinformation that was peddled to the American public to convince us of the need to go to war. It was also in Feith's office that the FBI found a staffer accused of leaking classified information to AIPAC, which -- not the misinformation that led to war -- was the final reason Feith was forced to resign.
Like almost the entire Bush Administration that championed the Iraq War, Feith had neither combat of military experience, yet he held a key Defense Department position that created propaganda and crafted key policy for the failed Iraq War.
"The Blogs on Douglas Feith & the Faulty Intelligence That Led to War" is truly "an informed citizen guide." It also is an example of the reality that if you want to know the facts nowadays -- in terms of context and history -- you need to go to the net. Because you won't find this information in almost any newspaper.
No corporately owned print publication wants to rock the boat. The Douglas Feith story would have made a great multi-part New York Times investigative story. But, of course, then Bill Keller would have assigned Judith Miller to write it, and one of her sources -- along with Ahmed Chalabi and John Bolton -- was, no doubt, Douglas Feith. So much for the "newspaper of record."
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