Re: [A-List] William Engdahl?

[Ralph Johansen <michele@xxxxxxxx>]

I'm backing up and taking another run at this. I read Engdahl's book "A 
Century of War" a few months ago, thought as did MW that some of it 
seemed unsupported, especially the section of Chapter 8, about eight 
pages of what appeared to be much ill-founded conjecture, on 'The 
Beginnings of America's Internal Rot', and concluded that although I did 
not share much of his conspiracy-laden and in some few areas poorly 
documented perspective, or his politics as I understood him, the book 
was on balance very instructive and otherwise solid.

He has statements that he does not support with any reference at all, 
such as "Wall Street's policy of disinvestments in established U.S. 
industry began to show real effects. Skilled white blue-collar workers 
in northern cities were pitted against increasingly desperate unskilled 
black and hispanic workers for a shrinking number of jobs. Riots were 
deliberately incited in industrial cities like Newark, Boston, Oakland 
and Philadelphia, by government-backed 'insurgents', such as Tom Hayden. 
The goal of this operation was to break the power of established trade 
unions in the northern cities by labeling them racist." Much of post hoc 
ergo propter hoc in that section of the book that seems dubious without 
further development. And when statements like that are made, explication 
is necessary. And the business cited by MW about the CIA experiments in 
LSD spawning, as if by design according to the context, the "Hippie 
Movement" and promotion of anti-scientism.

So to that extent, if only to that extent, I understand why MW would 
question where he's coming from.

I accept what Engdahl says in response: " I am not in any way associated 
today and have not been for years, with Mr. LaRouche. I am not a 
fascist, an anti-semite, a neo-nazi, nor a right-wing conspiracy nut as 
some of the charges flying in cyberspace have imputed. Above all I 
reject any attempts at guilt-by-association. For anyone who has read my 
book, "A Century of War" from Pluto Press through, or has read my other 
public articles and writings, this would be clear."

Engdahl continues to put out insightful comment, for instance, "Ukraine: 
Oil politics and a mockery of democracy" from the January 20 Asia Times, 
posted recently by Michael Keaney, and another recent article that I 
don't have reference to, but that I found well thought out.

On the subject though not related to William Engdahl, as to all the 
conspiracy theory floating around about the questionable circumstances 
surrounding the 9-11 events and administration complicity in them, I 
certainly found Mike Ruppert's book very provocative and 
well-documented, to say the least, credible especially given their 
reckless and ruthless track record; the problem is, what do we do about 
it, if true? Publicize it, and call for more information as Cynthia 
McKinney has done for starters, I suppose, and hammer away at the 
savagery and illegitimacy of their actions. Because they must be hounded 
for their crimes, if given the paucity of present checks and balances 
not for effective exposure now, then certainly in order to keep 
exploration of their outrageous excesses alive for a later time and for 
the historical record.

Ralph

M W wrote:

> Hello Comrades,
>
> Does anyone have any background on William Engdahl? Although much of 
> his recent output has been of great interest, and can usually be 
> backed up with other sources, it seems this guy has had (or has?) some 
> rather dubious associates (I’m thinking of the Fascist Larouches 
> here). It looks as though Engdahl has written for the virulently 
> anti-semitic Executive Intelligence Review as recently as 2001, and 
> has had close associations with the Schiller Institute, a Larouchian 
> front organisation. His recent book (A Century of War, Pluto Press, 
> 2004) is adorned with a glowing recommendation from Dr. Frederick 
> Wills (a Larouchian until his death in 1993) and contains several 
> dubious assertions usually associated with rightist conspiracy 
> theories (e.g. the CIA, though the MK ULTRA programme, *created* the 
> hippie movement). The problem is that he rarely uses references so 
> even if what he says is partially (or even largely) accurate, I am 
> sceptical due to the fact that right-wing conspiracy theorists tend to 
> get their information from the same stagnant pool.
>
> If anyone is able to shed any more light on this chap, who I don’t 
> want to disregard completely at this stage, please share it with us.
>
> Regards,
>
> M
>
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