On this past weekend's dash to my niece's wedding in Massachusetts, I was short on reading material for the long flight to Boston. In a San Francisco airport book store, I turned over a new book by James Bamford, author of "The Puzzle Palace" and "Body of Secrets". I was unsure. No glowing reviews printed on the overleaf nor a single blurb. Shocking. I couldn't identify anything else that was more appealing, though, so I grabbed it and jumped on my flight.

_A Pretext for War_ (9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies) is a clearly imperfect book. In the early chapters, I couldn't quite see how it was addressing the implications of its title, and I felt like Bamford and his editor had maybe slapped together some familiar material about the NSA to fill the book..

That being said, the book finally came into its own in later chapters and I now think that this is a great, great book.

Nowhere else, and I mean nowhere else, have I found such a coherent, readable explanation of the history and influence of neoconservatives like Richard Perle and the neocon influence on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nowhere else have I seen anything else that so clearly demonstrates The Magnitude of The Lie with respect to our preemptive invasion of Iraq.

In Bamford's _Body of Secrets_, Bamford's examination of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty was truly eye-opening. I had to wonder "Is he biased?" only to conclude that he was very clear-eyed and frank. In APfW, Bamford once again raises very provocative observations and questions about Israel's role in our foreign policy and about U.S. policy vis-a-vis Israel and the Palestinians, but I find what he has to say very credible and (so far) unchallenged in any substantive way.

Anyhow, my gung-ho Marine Reserve MP nephew couldn't make it to the wedding. He was on his "one weekend a month" while waiting for his unit to get called up for duty in Iraq. Not sure I will be doing him a favor, but I am buying a copy of APfW for him. I am thinking that if you are going to get killed or get your legs blown off, you have the right to know what for.