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The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel | 
| Author: Stephen J. Sniegoski
Creators: Paul Findley, Paul Gottfried
Publisher: Ihs Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 52034
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 1932528172
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.7305694
EAN: 9781932528176
ASIN: 1932528172
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
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Product Description
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy, but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives, including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as ready after 9/11 for retaliation.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Best book on neoconservatism to date October 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a gold mine of information. Every page is packed with quotes from reliable mainstream sources. East to read, coherent, and informative, this is by far the best book on neoconservatism that is out there today.
It is more important than ever to understand the motivations behind our current foreign policy, and what forces are driving it. This book lays out in simple terms who the neoconservatives are, how they pushed us into Iraq, why Iran is their next target, and what their motivations are. We cannot understand US foreign policy today without understanding the answers to these questions. This is a must read.
 This book shows the new face of anti-semiticism October 2, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
In this book Stephen Sniegoski, in a nutshell, claims that the neo-conservatives have conspired, either consciously or unconsciously, to bring the U.S. to invade Iraq and take actions in the middle east that would benefit Israel but not necessarily the U.S. This requires a number of assumptions. First and foremost that neo-conservatives (or the movement in general) is predominately Jewish or headed by Jews. Little evidence is provided to this effect.
Another needed assumption is that the neo-conservative movement is strongly aligned with Israel. Sniegoski makes a number of dubious statements in this regard. He states that Betanyahu's "Clean-Break" plan, having the goal of breaking up Israel's neighbors into a much larger number of smaller (and less powerfull states) was writen by many current Bush administration neo-conservatives (i.e. Richard Perle, Wolfowitz). Yet little evidence is provided that this is the case. And this is assuming that this shattering of arab states is also not to the U.S.'s interest (Sniegoski claims that it is not).
Sneigoski also proceeds to smear many high level Jews in the current Bush administration. For example, he claims that Perle was under investigation for leaking classified secrets to Israel. He states that Larry Franklin, an Office of Specail Plans intelligence analyst and (naturally) a memeber of the Jewish faith was passing classified documents to AIPAC and Israeli officials. Although sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for this so-called crime he does not mention Franklin's attorney's argument that Israel was entitled to this information via a U.S. - Israeli information sharing agreement. Dershowitz also provided this as an important and critical piece of defense of Jonathan Pollard (another improperly imprisoned supporter of Israel).
Lastly Sniegoski takes many quotes out of context and attempts to smear leading neo-conservatives with them. For example, he has listed the following quote from Daniel Pipes (head of Campus Watch - an organization that, in cooperation with the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University, is run by Pipes):
"the American Muslim Councel, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Public Affiars Council should be regarded as fellow travelers of the terrorist enemy and treated with appropriate mistrust and disdain by Congress and the executive branch".
Sniegoski obviously includes this quote to allege "intolerance" on the part of Pipes. Further is from the truth. Sniegoski needs to examine his own intolerance.
"Dual loyalties" is an undeserved compliment. September 26, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
THE TRANSPARENT CABAL is the best book yet on the people responsible for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is exhaustively researched and beautifully written. When it arrived one Saturday afternoon, I decided to sit down for a few minutes and glance at it. After a few pages, I was hooked. I finished it around midnight, but could not fall asleep for hours, because the book is profoundly disturbing. It chronicles the hijacking of the American government by a network of Israeli agents and their non-Jewish allies and dupes, with the intent of spending American lives and money to destroy the enemies of Israel.
Those who read this book can only conclude that it is a mistake to accuse Jews like the leaders of the neoconservative movement of "dual loyalties"--loyalty to the US and to Israel. It is a mistake, not because it is a vile "anti-Semitic" libel, as we are constantly told, but because it is an undeserved compliment. The neoconservatives are deeply contemptuous of the United States and the people who founded it. They feel no loyalty to this country whatsoever. Faced with a choice between the interests of the US and Israel, they would not hesitate to choose Israel's interest every time. It beggars the imagination that non-Jewish conservatives have allowed their movement to be hijacked by people who hold them and this nation in contempt.
But the neoconservatives are practiced hijackers. First they hijacked the conservative movement, then the Republican party, then US foreign policy. When they have used them up and wrecked them, I wonder what they will do. Will they stick around and try to pick up the pieces and rebuild what they have destroyed? Or will they reinvent themselves again (many neoconservatives were leftists who reinvented themselves) and try to take over and subvert some other movement, party, or nation?
If you find Sniegoski's work valuable, I urge you to read the chapters on "Neonconservatism as a Jewish Movement" and "Neoconservative Portraits" in Kevin MacDonald's Cultural Insurrections: Essays on Western Civilization, Jewish Influence, & Anti-Semitism. MacDonald's work on Jewish intellectual movements provides the necessary historical and sociological context for understanding neoconservatism.
Outstanding background material to understand current Middle East policies of the US government September 23, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel
Stephen Sniegoski does not proceed to simply give us his opinion. He does that, for sure. But he also backs it up with sound reasoning as to why he has come to the conclusions he has and quotes every possible source of information, from speeches and/or books by David Ben Gurion to Ariel Sharon, from Harry Truman to John McCain and from just about every notable military leader, neocon and Israeli/American lobby hawk.
Not an easy read, but it is never the less absolutely fascinating to read in great detail how the American public has been frightened, cajoled and hood-winked into supporting the goals of Israel, at great costs to them and their country. And this in the "Land of the free and the home of the brave"! Not a pretty picture, America.
Should be compulsory reading to anyone wishing to vote, not just in the United States but in any other country as well.
Disgraceful and Disgusting September 10, 2008
7 out of 52 found this review helpful
This book is one of the most venal collection of lies published about the honorable and just Jewish American contribution to American publlic life. How disgusting and fundamentally wrong to question the patriotism and loyalty of Jewish Americans with that old anti-semetic canard about the "dual loyalties." AIPAC and JINSA are honorable organizations which seek to legitimately enhance greater understanding between the US and Israel- Israel, with whom we share unbreakable bonds and values forged across decades of confronting Islamic terror and secular tyranny in the Middle East.
Much of this work seems like nothing more than a 21st century reworking of the Protocols of Zion. Instead of honest debate and criticism about administration policy, and instead of a serious and scholarly engagement with the neoconservative intellectual legacy this book presents a rogues gallary of lies and deceit.
What a truly disgraceful book.
As to Sniegoski- Does anyone of good faith seriously believe the lies and distortions in this man's pseudo academic writings? What is truly disturbing is the willingness of people, some misguided, some dishonest and yet more venal to take seriously the kind of old anti-semitic lies that this book spreads and which boils down to this: A Jewish conspiracy manipulated our government into war with Iraq? What venality lies behind this accusation should be clear to anyone of good faith and honesty. We have seen the dangers of this before in the Dreyfuss affair, and again in the rise of the Third Reich. That is what is at stake here. We should recognize the dangers of allowing such pernicous and dangerous lies to go uncontested in our democracy. The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilence against this kind of writing. Hannah Arendt so eloquently points the way how such lies if not confronted are the seeds of great danger to any democracy.
But the main issue is whether you truly accept the main contention of this work: That the Neoconservatives acted not in the interest of the United States but in the interest of Israel. Anyone who looks at a decade of neoconservative writing could not possbily agree with this contention, it is immoral and dangerous argument of which there is no truth in it at all. We have seen the grave dangers throughout the 20th century of those who would blame Jewish people first, second, and last and accuse them of dark conspiracies and of pulling the strings behind the scenes. It is despairing that we havent learnt from our own history, the dangers that come from this kind of book and allowing its falsehoods and bad faith to become established.
Those of us of good faith should see this argument for the malign sophistry which it is and should defend Israel and Jewish Americans from this kind of attack, that masquardes as scholarly engagement. This disgrace should be revealed for what it truly is: An insidious attack on Jewish Americans that shares all the falsehood and intellectual history of anti-semitism. What a festival of bad faith and bad scholarship.
Israel is one of America's most true and eternal allies and the honourable service and work of Jewish Americans in public service deserve better than this disgraceful effort. Instead of dark fantasties, our deepest national interests and our deepest values come together in the support of Israel and as such this indispensible alliance must be vigorously defended by all people of good conscience.
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