Terrorism and Tyranny
Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"The war on terrorism is the first political growth industry of the new Millennium." So begins Jim Bovard's newest and, in some ways, most provocative book as he casts yet another jaundiced eye on Washington and the motives behind protecting "the homeland" and prosecuting a wildly unpopular war with Iraq. For James Bovard, as always, it all comes down to a trampling of personal liberty and an end to privacy as we know it. From airport security follies that protect no one to increased surveillance of individuals and skyrocketing numbers of detainees, the war on terrorism is taking a toll on individual liberty and no one tells the whole grisly story better than Bovard.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Bovard, who has written for the Wall Street Journal and the American Spectator, among others, looks at the post September 11 policies and actions of the government and finds them sorely lacking. (He also has a lot to say about how the government let the terrorist attacks happen in the first place.) Instead of fighting the terrorist menace, he argues, the Bush administration's cosmetic gestures reward incompetence and establish dangerous legal precedents. While dealing with civil rights issues (the Patriot Act "treats every citizen like a suspected terrorist"), the book casts a wider net, including the intertwining of the wars on drugs and terrorism and the continued bungling of flight security (additional guards at airports "did little more than take up space and consume oxygen"). Meticulously documented from contemporary news accounts, this rant against Bush's "aura of righteousness" may well leave readers as angry as its author.
