The Road to 9/11

Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America

By: Peter Dale Scott

Narrated by: Raymond Todd

This is an ambitious, meticulous examination of how U.S. foreign policy since the 1960s has led to partial or total cover-ups of past domestic criminal acts, including, perhaps, the catastrophe of 9/11.

Peter Dale Scott, whose previous books have investigated CIA involvement in southeast Asia, the drug wars, and the Kennedy assassination, here probes how the policies of presidents since Nixon have augmented the tangled bases for the 2001 terrorist attack. Scott shows how America's expansion into the world since World War II has led to momentous secret decision making at high levels. He demonstrates how these decisions by small cliques are responsive to the agendas of private wealth at the expense of the public, of the democratic state, and of civil society. He shows how, in implementing these agendas, U.S. intelligence agencies have become involved with terrorist groups they once backed and helped create, including al Qaeda.

©2007 Peter Dale Scott (P)2007 University of California Press

Critic reviews

"Peter Dale Scott is one of that tiny and select company of the most brilliantly creative and provocative political-historical writers of the last half century. The Road to 9/11 further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the central issue of our time--America's coming to terms with its behavior in the modern world. As in his past work, Scott's gift is not only recognition and wisdom but also redemption and rescue we simply cannot do without." (Roger Morris, former NSC staffer)

The Road to Greatness is always under Construction

The narrator sounded like a virtual voice, which was fitting since this book droned on and on. Scott is obviously a smart man, and very wordy. This does not necessarily make for a good writer, or a great book. I would say this tome is not.

You can put aside Scott’s left wing politics, and obligatory mention of the “horrors” of Nazi Germany, and how the average good German could fall for the plans of the dastardly Nazis. And the supposed overzealousness of Joe McCarthy. These are meant to be warnings for Americans to pay attention to encroaching fascism. When this book was written nearly 20 years ago, the US was already a fascist country. This warning seems equally ridiculous when one considers Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists to the US after WW2. This operation is never mentioned in this book, though perhaps he does discuss it in his other books.

I enjoyed the segment on Kissinger/Nixon, and the machinations of Brzezinski vis a vis Afghanistan and the Soviets. The Al-Qaeda/bin Laden portion is a whitewash, however. Scott, like other commentators on the “blowback” theory (Ron Paul, Chalmers Johnson) chalk up to incompetence, or misguided policy, that which is more sinister and conspiratorial. It is clear the US created Al-Qaeda and continued to use these fake terrorists throughout the 9/11 false flag. Bin Laden even had a CIA code name, Tim Osman. Never mentioned.

Scott thinks the US has moved to the right politically, but what is his gauge for this? Militarism? Xenophobia? Overseas bases? No, basically because the US has neglected national health care and schools in order to bloat the defense budget. An honest critique, and one not falling into left wing talking points, would call for a reduction in spending in both military and education on the general government level. The problem with leftists is that they can only muster outrage at government spending when it is on something they don’t like.

The book is often repetitive, talking about the same topics time and again. Continuity of government (COG) must have been uttered 1,000 times. And while it is clear the official narrative of 9/11, and the subsequent discussion of differing and inconsistent testimonies from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et all is informative, it is written in such a bland/robotic manner that it’s impact is lessened. And many of the key conspiratorial elements hidden from the public…Israeli involvement, dancing Israelis, WTC 7, elimination of evidence, lies about WMD, Able Danger etc are never brought up, or underreported.

The book concludes with a muddled chapter, where Scott talks about finding common ground across party lines against the deep State. But this is mainly just wishful thinking, without any clear insight on how this can be done. Scott is an intelligent man. The book is full of information, and much of it good and useful. If only he could have found an editor, and someone to help make it flow better.

Full of Interesting Information, Hard to Follow

First of all, I would recommend this book for anyone interested in a point of view on how the U.S. has arrived at its current state of foreign relations.

Having said that, I would have preferred a hard copy so that I could follow its extremely labyrinthine path. I can't recommend against buying the audiobook, because it is very cheap, and in my opinion it is worth it for that reason. However, the book is read at a breakneck pace, and I found it very difficult to keep up.

The overriding thesis seems to be that American foreign policy since World War II has been run by what the author calls "the Deep State", instead of by "the Public State", which should of course be calling the shots in a democracy. The author goes into great (Deep) detail but never gets bogged down in them, and he presents a clearly organized and lucid account of how the CIA and top officials have, both wittingly and unwittingly, steered foreign policy towards disaster and what would end up being 9/11. He also seems to attempt to be relatively unbiased and focus mainly on facts. (I am admittedly no expert in geopolitical matters, so I could be wrong about this. I am speaking about the overall tone of the presentation.)

Now, the narrator is a fine reader. He has a clear voice and does a commendable job wading through the quagmire of foreign names, place names, organizations, etc. But the simple fact is that the reading is far too fast. I am aware that this may be required of him by production restraints, etc. And I believe at least part of it is due to the editing, which splices everything into an unbroken word-fest. So it's not that I didn't like the narrator, it's simply that for whatever reason, the reading was too fast to comprehend.

In order to understand a book like this, with its never-ending intricate webs of secret memorandums, spy rings, military leaders, officials, organizations, and political atmospheres, I would need either a slower reading, or a hard copy.

Masterpiece

read twice. listened to twice. Scott is a genius. best academic treatment of the subject...

Amazing insights

Prof. Scott is an amazing author who has a great ability to synthesize complicated details into coherent narratives...

pseudo intellectual waste of time!

I really learn to live very little of a factual nature from this book. The general conclusion is that 9/11 needs to be reinvestigated. well that's a big help! The other conclusion is that the author knows how to rule the world and he will set everybody straight! The hubris and pseudo intellectual BS perpetrated by this author is completely unworthy of your time! In my humble opinion.