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The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond
The Terrorism Trap is a powerfully argued analysis of the deeper causes and meaning of September 11. Why did the attacks happen? Who is to blame? Who is taking advantage of the crisis? Who is hurt by all the ensuing events? Why do they hate us? Responding to such questions, Michael Parenti probes the religious zealotry of today, Afghanistan's hidden history, and the course of US-led globalization that has impoverished and angered much of the world. This acute dissection of the political, economic, and religious forces behind the attacks provides historical perspective and insight into how to prevent future terrorism and save democracy.
". . . it is a thorough explanations of [Parenti's] views on the political and economic tangle that has linked US business interest to the kind of animosity that fuels terrorist attacks; an interest that, rather than being squelched or even crippled, has exploited the weaknesses of a national and global economy severely shocked by the attacks." —Corey O'Malley, Friction Magazine
"It should be required reading for anyone who believes in a true democracy rather than a corporate state and/or a security state. Parenti emphasizes the need for a change in U.S. policy as it relates to the world free market, which has become a metaphor for the obscene differences in income for “the haves and have nots.” Driven by a love of democracy and a passion for the truth, Parenti strips naked the secretive machinations of the U.S. government leaders that give little regard to people throughout the world." —Alex Vavoulis, Community Alliance.
Michael Parenti is one of the nation's most astute political analysts. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962 and has taught at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He frequently appears on radio and television talk shows and lectures on college campuses and before community, church, and public interest groups to discuss current issues and ideas. His books are read by both lay readers and scholars, and are used extensively in college courses.
He is the author of many books including History as Mystery, America Besieged, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, Dirty Truths, and Against Empire, all of which have been published by City Lights.
His work has been published in CovertAction Quarterly; Monthly Review; New Political Science; Nature; Z Magazine; Dollars and Sense; The Humanist; The Nation; Journal of Politics; American Political Science Review; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.
". . . it is a thorough explanations of [Parenti's] views on the political and economic tangle that has linked US business interest to the kind of animosity that fuels terrorist attacks; an interest that, rather than being squelched or even crippled, has exploited the weaknesses of a national and global economy severely shocked by the attacks." —Corey O'Malley, Friction Magazine
"It should be required reading for anyone who believes in a true democracy rather than a corporate state and/or a security state. Parenti emphasizes the need for a change in U.S. policy as it relates to the world free market, which has become a metaphor for the obscene differences in income for “the haves and have nots.” Driven by a love of democracy and a passion for the truth, Parenti strips naked the secretive machinations of the U.S. government leaders that give little regard to people throughout the world." —Alex Vavoulis, Community Alliance.
Michael Parenti is one of the nation's most astute political analysts. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962 and has taught at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. He frequently appears on radio and television talk shows and lectures on college campuses and before community, church, and public interest groups to discuss current issues and ideas. His books are read by both lay readers and scholars, and are used extensively in college courses.
He is the author of many books including History as Mystery, America Besieged, Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, Dirty Truths, and Against Empire, all of which have been published by City Lights.
His work has been published in CovertAction Quarterly; Monthly Review; New Political Science; Nature; Z Magazine; Dollars and Sense; The Humanist; The Nation; Journal of Politics; American Political Science Review; The New York Times; Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.
110 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2002
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441 people want to read
About the author
Michael Parenti
54 books1,529 followersMichael John Parenti, Ph.D. (Yale University) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and lectures. He is a notable intellectual of the American Left and he is most known for his criticism of capitalism and American foreign policy.
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November 24, 2017
This is Michael Parenti's entry in thepost-9/11 "why do they hate us?" file. I adore Michael Parenti and am always on the lookout for his books, so I was thrilled to find a title I hadn't read yet.
As a longtime fan there was not a lot of new material for me here. However, at a brisk 100 pages this was not a huge time commitment. For anyone curious about the historical preconditions that led to 9/11 this could be an eye-opening introduction - with lots of context that never gets provided in the mainstream narratives. One detail I had not heard before - as recently as 1999 the US government was paying the salaries for everyone in the Taliban government. I found that surprising and I had never heard it any place else. Parenti is great at finding little details like that.
As a longtime fan there was not a lot of new material for me here. However, at a brisk 100 pages this was not a huge time commitment. For anyone curious about the historical preconditions that led to 9/11 this could be an eye-opening introduction - with lots of context that never gets provided in the mainstream narratives. One detail I had not heard before - as recently as 1999 the US government was paying the salaries for everyone in the Taliban government. I found that surprising and I had never heard it any place else. Parenti is great at finding little details like that.
May 9, 2020
3 3/4 stars
February 18, 2017
A very superficial glance at the hidden political, economic, and religious agendas the US has engaged in pre-2000. Although alarming, simply left me needing deeper investigation and discussion.
May 31, 2022
Boy I wish I'd read this as a 15 year old when it came out. Parenti does a great job as always punching through the post-9/11 jingoism, and going after those on the "left" who played into it. It's dated at this point, obviously he wrote this booklet relatively quickly for immediate impact, and so hard to really recommend today as so much is now obvious.
September 4, 2025
read face of imperialism instead of this
February 12, 2025
Some extracts from The Terrorism Trap:
As far as we can tell the perpetrators were indeed propelled by the fanatical conviction that that they were operating directly under God’s command. There is an age old relationship between religion and violence. Some observers try to explain away the connection as an aberration, an outside infection by a deviant ideology, a militant extremist strain of religion. But in fact, the histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam are tragically laced with violence and intolerance, a willingness to supress and kill for the glory of God.
[Yet religions are not homogenous, they can have different branches and different sects and even with Buddhism there has been persecution by some Buddhists in Myanmar of the Rohingya Muslim population there in the name of religion https://www.theguardian.com/global-de... ]
[In an interview with Ramzi Kassem on Democracy Now on Jan 08 2025, (https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/8...) we are told that ‘the majority of prisoners at Guantanamo were sold for a bounty of between $5,000-$15,000 that the US government was paying to tribes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for so called Arabs out of place’ and so with this incentive anyone could have been caught and rounded up to claim the reward. And 'Before arriving at Guantánamo, [some] of the men...had been held at secret overseas CIA prisons known as black sites, where torture was common'. But why torture them when 'Over 3760 civilians were killed by the war not including the indirect deaths caused by landmines, hunger, cold and lack of water...the war turned a few million Afghans into refugees.'? ]
The Taliban repeatedly offered to hand over bin Laden if the US would provide evidence of his culpability. Subjected to US bombings of their villages and cities, the Taliban then offered to give bin Laden to a third country to stand trial, this time without seeing any evidence against him. Even this major concession was rejected by the White House.
How wealth for the few creates poverty for the many.
Never do official circles or corporate media acknowledge how for more than half a century, US military forces (or their US supported surrogates) have repeatedly delivered mass destruction upon unarmed civilian populations in Latin America, Asia, Africa, The Middle East, and with the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia- even Europe, pernicious acts of terrorism that go unexamined. No initial discussion is offered regarding who really benefits from such ventures and who is harmed. Nothing is said about how the dominant interests within a small number of industrialised countries, led by the US national security state continue to monopolise more and more of the world’s resources and markets.
To be sure the family and friends of the September 11 victims have had their lives changed drastically and tragically. But on the larger scene very little has actually changed –unfortunately. Five months before the attacks, when the World Trade Centre stood tall, President Bush and the Congress hit us with a huge regressive $1.35 trillion tax cut that favoured wealthy interests over everyone else. Then in the post September 11 world... Bush was at it again, proposing an additional $160 billion in tax cuts mostly for big corporations and the very affluent.
Business profiteering in the name of patriotism has occurred in every war this nation has fought.
Truth is it is not America as such that is to blame... few ordinary Americans ever demanded that US leaders pursue a course of force and violence to advance the global interests of rich investors.
Afghanistan more than 75% of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3%of the rural population –since feudal times.
In 1978 a Marxist coalition of national democratic forces formed a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist.
The new government legalised labor unions, set up minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign and programmes that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing and public sanitation. The Taraki government also continued a campaign began by the king to emancipate women from the age old tribal bondage. It provided education for the girls and for the children of various tribes and it moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70% of the world’s opium used to make heroin.
The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers and began developing a major land reform programme... the feudal lords opposed the land reform programme that infringed on its holdings while benefitting poor tenant farmers. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.
Because of its egalitarian economic policies the government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. The Marxists were advocating the kind of equitable distribution of social resources that incurs the hatred and fear of the US ruling class and privileged classes everywhere. Almost immediately... the CIA assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs and opium traffickers.
The Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government.
In 1979...the seriously besieged PDP Afghan government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahadeen (Islamic guerilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries all recruited, financed and well armed by the CIA. The Soviets had already been sending assistance for projects in mining, education, agriculture and public health.
The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to escalate the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad against godless communism. The goal was not only to expel the infidels from Afghanistan but eventually to liberate the Muslim majority areas of the Soviet Union. Over the years the US and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies supplied and trained almost 100,000 radical mujahedeen from 40 Muslim countries... Among those who answered the call was Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
The mujahedeen took over Afghanistan... the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin labs across Afghanistan. ‘Within 2 years of the CIA’s arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of heroin on American streets.
The central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. The US Department of Energy estimates that the Caspian basin holds 110 billion barrels about three times the US own reserves.
How to extract the oil and has discovered in landlocked Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan of which US oil companies acquired the rights to 75% of it. Unocol a US based oil company favoured a pipeline that would cross Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive negotiations that Unocol entered into with the Taliban regime were still unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for the pipeline. Bush’s war against the Taliban rekindled Unocol’s hopes for getting a major piece of the action.
Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such a ‘rogue state’ designation would have made it impossible for a US oil or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
The Taliban were to ensure the safety of the Unocal oil pipeline that was being planned to run through Afghanistan. In 1994 the Pakistan ISI and American CIA funded and advised the Taliban, who enforced the stoning to death of women deemed ‘immoral’, the burying alive of widows guilty of adultery. The cutting off of hands of thieves and execution of murderers and spies.
If anything positive can be said about the Taliban it is that they put a stop to much of the looting, raping and random killings that the mujahedeen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 the Taliban also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout the areas under their control.
Of the 19 terrorists identified as part of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, 7 were identified as Saudi’s, one as an Egyptian and one as from the United Emirates. As far as known none was Taliban and not one had ever visited that country. Yet it was Afghanistan that was targeted for massive bombing, ostensibly because Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda associates were directing their war against the US from there.
Patrick Martin writes that immediately after the attacks, stories in the overseas press asserted that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about impending terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked aeroplanes.
As far as we can tell the perpetrators were indeed propelled by the fanatical conviction that that they were operating directly under God’s command. There is an age old relationship between religion and violence. Some observers try to explain away the connection as an aberration, an outside infection by a deviant ideology, a militant extremist strain of religion. But in fact, the histories of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam are tragically laced with violence and intolerance, a willingness to supress and kill for the glory of God.
[Yet religions are not homogenous, they can have different branches and different sects and even with Buddhism there has been persecution by some Buddhists in Myanmar of the Rohingya Muslim population there in the name of religion https://www.theguardian.com/global-de... ]
[In an interview with Ramzi Kassem on Democracy Now on Jan 08 2025, (https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/8...) we are told that ‘the majority of prisoners at Guantanamo were sold for a bounty of between $5,000-$15,000 that the US government was paying to tribes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for so called Arabs out of place’ and so with this incentive anyone could have been caught and rounded up to claim the reward. And 'Before arriving at Guantánamo, [some] of the men...had been held at secret overseas CIA prisons known as black sites, where torture was common'. But why torture them when 'Over 3760 civilians were killed by the war not including the indirect deaths caused by landmines, hunger, cold and lack of water...the war turned a few million Afghans into refugees.'? ]
The Taliban repeatedly offered to hand over bin Laden if the US would provide evidence of his culpability. Subjected to US bombings of their villages and cities, the Taliban then offered to give bin Laden to a third country to stand trial, this time without seeing any evidence against him. Even this major concession was rejected by the White House.
How wealth for the few creates poverty for the many.
Never do official circles or corporate media acknowledge how for more than half a century, US military forces (or their US supported surrogates) have repeatedly delivered mass destruction upon unarmed civilian populations in Latin America, Asia, Africa, The Middle East, and with the 1999 bombings of Yugoslavia- even Europe, pernicious acts of terrorism that go unexamined. No initial discussion is offered regarding who really benefits from such ventures and who is harmed. Nothing is said about how the dominant interests within a small number of industrialised countries, led by the US national security state continue to monopolise more and more of the world’s resources and markets.
To be sure the family and friends of the September 11 victims have had their lives changed drastically and tragically. But on the larger scene very little has actually changed –unfortunately. Five months before the attacks, when the World Trade Centre stood tall, President Bush and the Congress hit us with a huge regressive $1.35 trillion tax cut that favoured wealthy interests over everyone else. Then in the post September 11 world... Bush was at it again, proposing an additional $160 billion in tax cuts mostly for big corporations and the very affluent.
Business profiteering in the name of patriotism has occurred in every war this nation has fought.
Truth is it is not America as such that is to blame... few ordinary Americans ever demanded that US leaders pursue a course of force and violence to advance the global interests of rich investors.
Afghanistan more than 75% of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3%of the rural population –since feudal times.
In 1978 a Marxist coalition of national democratic forces formed a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist.
The new government legalised labor unions, set up minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign and programmes that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing and public sanitation. The Taraki government also continued a campaign began by the king to emancipate women from the age old tribal bondage. It provided education for the girls and for the children of various tribes and it moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70% of the world’s opium used to make heroin.
The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers and began developing a major land reform programme... the feudal lords opposed the land reform programme that infringed on its holdings while benefitting poor tenant farmers. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.
Because of its egalitarian economic policies the government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. The Marxists were advocating the kind of equitable distribution of social resources that incurs the hatred and fear of the US ruling class and privileged classes everywhere. Almost immediately... the CIA assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs and opium traffickers.
The Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government.
In 1979...the seriously besieged PDP Afghan government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahadeen (Islamic guerilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries all recruited, financed and well armed by the CIA. The Soviets had already been sending assistance for projects in mining, education, agriculture and public health.
The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to escalate the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad against godless communism. The goal was not only to expel the infidels from Afghanistan but eventually to liberate the Muslim majority areas of the Soviet Union. Over the years the US and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies supplied and trained almost 100,000 radical mujahedeen from 40 Muslim countries... Among those who answered the call was Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
The mujahedeen took over Afghanistan... the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin labs across Afghanistan. ‘Within 2 years of the CIA’s arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of heroin on American streets.
The central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. The US Department of Energy estimates that the Caspian basin holds 110 billion barrels about three times the US own reserves.
How to extract the oil and has discovered in landlocked Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan of which US oil companies acquired the rights to 75% of it. Unocol a US based oil company favoured a pipeline that would cross Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive negotiations that Unocol entered into with the Taliban regime were still unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for the pipeline. Bush’s war against the Taliban rekindled Unocol’s hopes for getting a major piece of the action.
Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such a ‘rogue state’ designation would have made it impossible for a US oil or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
The Taliban were to ensure the safety of the Unocal oil pipeline that was being planned to run through Afghanistan. In 1994 the Pakistan ISI and American CIA funded and advised the Taliban, who enforced the stoning to death of women deemed ‘immoral’, the burying alive of widows guilty of adultery. The cutting off of hands of thieves and execution of murderers and spies.
If anything positive can be said about the Taliban it is that they put a stop to much of the looting, raping and random killings that the mujahedeen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 the Taliban also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout the areas under their control.
Of the 19 terrorists identified as part of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, 7 were identified as Saudi’s, one as an Egyptian and one as from the United Emirates. As far as known none was Taliban and not one had ever visited that country. Yet it was Afghanistan that was targeted for massive bombing, ostensibly because Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda associates were directing their war against the US from there.
Patrick Martin writes that immediately after the attacks, stories in the overseas press asserted that US intelligence agencies had received specific warnings about impending terrorist attacks, including the use of hijacked aeroplanes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2022
Thirteenth book from Parenti.
A short and concise book that talks about how the CIA basically indirectly caused 9 / 11: you really need balls (in the figurative sense obviously) to make such a claim.
But yeah, Parenti describes from the obtuse political plans of Bush to the unjust labour conditions that US airport workers had to endure until the paranoia passed.
Also he gives some interesting insight about Afganistan's history (from the soviet era to how the CIA trained fundamentalists) and how Taraki's marxist government could've avoided all this mess.
My only problem is that in a brief section he proposes that in the USA there also exist christian fundamentalists (and of course, he has a point), but that proposal (and with almost the exact same words) was already made some months before by Slavoj Z. in his book 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real' (if I remember correctly).
A coincidence (perhaps) but I'd have loved to see what Parenti would think of that other book.
A short and concise book that talks about how the CIA basically indirectly caused 9 / 11: you really need balls (in the figurative sense obviously) to make such a claim.
But yeah, Parenti describes from the obtuse political plans of Bush to the unjust labour conditions that US airport workers had to endure until the paranoia passed.
Also he gives some interesting insight about Afganistan's history (from the soviet era to how the CIA trained fundamentalists) and how Taraki's marxist government could've avoided all this mess.
My only problem is that in a brief section he proposes that in the USA there also exist christian fundamentalists (and of course, he has a point), but that proposal (and with almost the exact same words) was already made some months before by Slavoj Z. in his book 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real' (if I remember correctly).
A coincidence (perhaps) but I'd have loved to see what Parenti would think of that other book.
June 20, 2024
Less than 6 months after the attacks this book was published. The country is tensioned like my calf throwing a charlie horse. Parenti saw that and used the moment to slice apart the manipulation of the uber-patriotism caused by the 9/11 attack. As this book has aged and more and more comes out that strengthens the points made in this book. Parenti's media analysis is particularly impactful. Every American should read this, especially if they remember 9/11. As someone who grew up in the shadow of the date, going to school excited because I knew I would get to watch videos about it instead of school work. I needed this political catharsis, maybe there are people now saying the right thing.
October 30, 2024
The terrorist attacks that befell the United States on September 11, 2001— the loss of life, the destruction of American symbols like the World Trade Center— left a serious mark on the future of the world. It could’ve been a moment of reflection, a time to reconsider how America was left vulnerable to such an attack. Instead, it turned into a moment of retribution, with the Bush Administration going headlong into the “War on Terror.” The United States government has since killed Osama Bin Laden (the mastermind of 9/11), launched multiple invasions or interventions in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, greatly limited its citizens’ civil rights, and ballooned its military budgets.
In his book, The Terrorism Trap (2002), Michael Parenti explains how the United States not only didn’t learn from 9/11, but in many ways created the conditions for its eventuality. Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for the attacks, grew out of the Mujahedeen, a group of guerilla fighters backed by the United States who resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Crucially, many reports by U.S. government officials had warned the White House of a potential terrorist attack in the months leading up to 9/11, which were quietly ignored. While it is going too far to say that “Bush did 9/11,” his administration did little to prevent or prepare the country for attacks like 9/11. What they did do was force through congress the PATRIOT Act, which greatly infringed on citizens’ rights, and launched the invasion of Afghanistan.
Parenti argues that the causes of 9/11 come in two forms: the immediate causes and the conditional causes. The immediate causes were, of course, religious fanatics who were motivated to attack the United States. But the conditional cause, which had equal weight, was the decades-long imperialist project of the US, with its backing of anti-democratic governments, support of coups, and unmitigated violence against the third-world.
Parenti’s analysis of the conditional causes of 9/11, including insightful commentaries on the U.S.’s military domination of the world, makes this short volume a critical read in understanding the events of that tragic day.
In his book, The Terrorism Trap (2002), Michael Parenti explains how the United States not only didn’t learn from 9/11, but in many ways created the conditions for its eventuality. Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for the attacks, grew out of the Mujahedeen, a group of guerilla fighters backed by the United States who resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Crucially, many reports by U.S. government officials had warned the White House of a potential terrorist attack in the months leading up to 9/11, which were quietly ignored. While it is going too far to say that “Bush did 9/11,” his administration did little to prevent or prepare the country for attacks like 9/11. What they did do was force through congress the PATRIOT Act, which greatly infringed on citizens’ rights, and launched the invasion of Afghanistan.
Parenti argues that the causes of 9/11 come in two forms: the immediate causes and the conditional causes. The immediate causes were, of course, religious fanatics who were motivated to attack the United States. But the conditional cause, which had equal weight, was the decades-long imperialist project of the US, with its backing of anti-democratic governments, support of coups, and unmitigated violence against the third-world.
Parenti’s analysis of the conditional causes of 9/11, including insightful commentaries on the U.S.’s military domination of the world, makes this short volume a critical read in understanding the events of that tragic day.
September 17, 2020
THE GOAT
January 8, 2021
Chapter 4 on Afghanistan was very disheartening
He goes off on a few tangents here and there but overall very informative.
He goes off on a few tangents here and there but overall very informative.
February 16, 2021
Perfect resume of the US project triggered by 911 and first implemented in Afghanistan.
(read in Bang Nam Chuet, Thailand)
(read in Bang Nam Chuet, Thailand)
December 31, 2022
Very good once he gets moving in the direction of explaining the causes of 9/11 and parallels in US history.
Great quick read.
Great quick read.
August 9, 2024
I wonder, if this book came out like 5 years later, maybe Parenti could have been more “9/11-pilled.”
May 8, 2025
I love the analysis on “why they did it” it’s perfect if you wanna begin your learning more about American imperialism and studying terrorism from a left perspective
July 4, 2010
Not the most neutral of books.
The author claims that the Taliban offered to release Osama Bin Liden to a third party nation, and that the US said no, footnote is provided to give details and the details are another chapter with no followup. This claim may be true, but the book offers no proof of this.
The author goes into rant against the war in Yugoslavia, and equates that war with all other wars the US engaged in. He lumps this war together with all other war efforts. From my view the US and NATO allies were there to protect the muslim minority.
Note: I did not support either war with Iraq.
The author claims that the Taliban offered to release Osama Bin Liden to a third party nation, and that the US said no, footnote is provided to give details and the details are another chapter with no followup. This claim may be true, but the book offers no proof of this.
The author goes into rant against the war in Yugoslavia, and equates that war with all other wars the US engaged in. He lumps this war together with all other war efforts. From my view the US and NATO allies were there to protect the muslim minority.
Note: I did not support either war with Iraq.
September 6, 2019
It's a pity Michael went to print on 911 so early, without taking on board all the contray arguments and evidence adduced by the 911 Truth movement. While Michael, unlike Chomsky, dissents from the official JFK assassination narrative (Warren Commission) The Terrorism Trap seems to me to be framed by the official narrative before the deficiencies of the 911 Commission and NIST Reports were spelt out. I think he should rewrite/review this work and come out, as he does on the findings of the Warren Commission, with an aggressive analysis of the implausibility of the 911 Commission and NIST Reports.
June 24, 2014
an informative, quick read that points readers to valuable sources in order to more fully investigate what Parenti stays fairly politically safe on with regard to events leading up to 9/11. the religion commentary could have done with some more fleshing out but as a guide for thinking about how things operate internationally, it does the job. 3.5
May 9, 2023
Not my favorite Parenti but it still offers a much needed critical perspective on American imperialism which is mostly absent from mainstream analysis.
I would have liked him to explore the conflicts in more detail but it’s a good starting point if you want to learn more about the War on Terror and it’s consequences.
I would have liked him to explore the conflicts in more detail but it’s a good starting point if you want to learn more about the War on Terror and it’s consequences.
February 17, 2015
plausibly associates 'terrorism' contra the US as arising out of US policy. kinda double duh, to be honest, bit author writes with passion.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews