The Road to 9/11 Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America [Paperback]

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.

Peter Dale Scottis Professor Emeritus of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author ofCocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America(1993) andDeep Politics and the Death of JFK(1996), both from UC Press.

Scott's brilliantly perceptive account of the underpinnings of American governmental authority should be made required reading. The book vividly depicts the political forces that have pushed this country toward an abyss, threatening constitutional democracy at home and world peace abroad. Its central message can be understood as an urgent wake-up call to everyone concerned with the future of America. Richard Falk, author ofThe Great Terror War

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 9/11further secures his distinction as truth-teller and prophet. He shows us here with painful yet hopeful clarity the clc›