Selling US Wars

The real reasons for the war in Iraq-control of oil pricing and policies, expansion of US power, strategic establishment of US bases in the Middle East, defense of Israel-were kept hidden from the American people. Instead, justifications for the illegal war were cloaked in the high-sounding slogans of "fighting the war on terrorism," "keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of rogue states," and finally, "bringing democracy to the Middle East."

Selling US Wars is a valuable, information-filled collection of essays by renowned experts from around the world. It examines the excuses for war that were the basis for this period of the US empire drive-nuclear weapons, terrorism, "failed states," drugs, humanitarian intervention, and democracy-and analyzes the pretexts asserted for the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Washington's aggressive policies elsewhere, including in Colombia, Palestine, and Iran. It gets behind the subterfuges to expose how Washington's spin-doctors worked to present its wars as humane, lawful, and necessary to keep Americans safe-and why the campaigns sometimes succeeded.

The book includes an overview of the economics of empire from Walden Bello, director of Focus on the Global South in the Philippines; a piece on the ideology of empire and the rise of the neo-conservative right-wing by legendary writer Susan George in France; an essay by Mike Marqusee in the UK on American exceptionalism and how that phenomenon helped shape US popular acceptance of these "slogans"; and contributions by Tariq Ali, Achin Vanaik, Phyllis Bennis, David Bewley-Taylor, David Sogge, Mariano Aguirre, Martin Jelsma, and Zia Mian.