Endless Enemies

by Jonathan Kwitny

Kwitny, a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, argues that U.S. foreign policy has been marked by support for Third World governments that deny their citizens the economic and political freedom we enjoy. He "makes a strong case for the benefits that would accrue if the U.S. government ceased intervening covertly in other nations' affairs,"

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Africa, American History

434 pages, Paperback

Published September 2, 1986

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written and readable book. Written in the early-mid 80s, it has held up well, and is occasionally prescient. Mr. Kwitny has clearly "been there," unlike so many armchair pundits.

While some will see him as a "blame America" liberal, if you read carefully, and stick around to the end, you'll find an impassioned belief in U.S.-style democracy and (regulated) free-market economics. His essential thesis is that our system will prevail, if we ourselves uphold its premises in our international dealings. In the Third World, we are often our own worst enemies.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute Must Read for anyone interested in American foreign policy. Thorough, and sometimes a bit dense, this book will open your eyes to America's role in the world.

[Ensiform · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a globe-trotting foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, deconstructs American foreign policy. His thesis is that the US created its own enemies by seeing everything in a black-white, East-West, Soviet-US framework. He makes a good case in this book, which is vast in scope and painstaking in detail. He tells of CIA overthrows of elected governments, US corporations calling the shots, misunderstandings, lies and violence from Cuba to Zaire.

In the name of battling socialism in places like Africa or Iran where it had little meaning, we placed puppet governments that were unpopular, thereby fomenting anti-US feeling, and pro-Soviet feeling by extension. If that weren't bad enough, Kwitny gives evidence that some of the CIA (and oil company, and banana company, and sugar company)-supported governments were much more socialist than the ones they deposed. And if that weren't bad enough, as we destroy the US reputation and go against all our lofty claimed ideals by setting up puppet dictatorships and socialist governments around the globe, we go ahead and sell weapons of mass destruction to our bitterest foes anyway; and they (Angola, Libya, the worst "Soviet threats" in Africa) sell us oil. So what were we fighting for? Meanwhile the American taxpayer suffered and paid, paid for weapons and paid by being denied a true free market in world goods. This is no anti-capitalist screed, by the way; Kwitny goes to the trouble of arguing at length and in specifics that capitalist countries do better than socialist ones, which seems a bit more than one needs to do. Sometimes Kwitny goes a bit too far in trying to describe revolutionary governments as peaceful and popularly elected, but the principle is the same. In 1984, Reagan was Big Brother, and the US people swallowed all his deceptions.

[Reuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Describes how overly self-interested U.S. foreign policy has made the U.S. many enemies.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I had a fairly good knowledge of mid 20th-century American intervention overseas. This gave me so many more details. And I didn't know about Indonesia... I liked the unobtrusive, and sometimes funny, way the author, who was on the ground in a lot of these countries, inserts himself and his experiences into the book. Interesting to read after all that has happened in the last 4o years.

[Benjamin Brasford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit that due to Kwitny and others, I have fallen in love with Investigative journalism. I love reading those who provide me with their source material. This is a book that isn't easy to get through in a short period of time. Jam packed with information that focuses upon key foreign policy decisions that were implemented in the 80s in Africa, Cuba, etc.

[Lillie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love it but i also reread this fall asleep because it is so boring

[Alice Westmoore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating book (published in 1984) by a former Wall Street Journal reporter examines the disastrous consequences for countries around the globe of meddling by the US, through the CIA, which consistently failed to evaluate the true intentions of China and the USSR. Here read the truth behind what really happened at the Gulf of Tonkin, of Iran, where an effort to keep some oil wealth for the Iranians inspired the US to bring back the shah at the behest of oil companies. The book explores the tragedy of Guatemala where the US torpedoed land reform in favor of corporate interests, of the plundering of Zaire, El Salvador, Indonesia and Nicaragua. One chapter also examines the way in which the mainstream media uncrititically accepted lies from anonymous "informed sources," without doing any further digging. Reagan's military adventure in Grenada is examined at the very end, and one finishes wishing Kwitny could update it with a similar examination of the disastrous US foreign adventures (particularly Iraq) of the past 40 years.

[Tom & Beverly]

Mo Tejani recommended

[Banu Altunbas · Rating 4 out of 5]

very well written book about the idiotic US foreign policies since the 70's