STEVEN EMERSON'S books about the Middle East and the Attack on America **************** American Jihad Author: Steven Emerson Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade February 2002 >From the Publisher The United States government is actively monitoring terrorist cells affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in eleven cities, from Florida to Boston to Denver to Houston. But al Qaeda is hardly our only threat. Hamas, formed in 1987, was run by top Palestinian officials in America from its earliest days, and has tentacles in Texas, California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Illinois. The University of South Florida was infiltrated by the infamous organization known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- one of its faculty members even left the country to take that group's top leadership role after his predecessor was assassinated. Hizballah has been tied to cells in North Carolina and Michigan, from which it drew funds and attempted to procure military equipment. In short, September 11, 2001, was hardly an isolated or unpredictable event. The United States has become home to hundreds and probably thousands of terrorists, and it has become a central node in their international networks. Steven Emerson, hailed as "the nation's leading expert on Islamist terrorism," has been working full-time since 1993 to track the spread of terrorist networks to our shores, even at great personal risk. In 1995, not long after the release of his PBS documentary "Jihad in America," he was informed by federal officials that a South African Islamist death squad had been dispatched after him, and told that he should leave his home immediately. Since then he has not maintained a home address, though he has continued to write and testify under his own name. With the help of a staff of researchers he has followed the terrorists' monetary sources, monitored their attacks and plans, exposed their ties to charitable foundations, and assisted a variety of government agencies in the battle against them. He has obtained videotaped evidence of terrorist training camps and conferences, and tracked the international connections of American operatives to over a dozen organizations. In American Jihad Emerson reveals the full story that only he knows. This is a frightening and crucial book for anyone who needs to understand the threat within our borders. ****************** The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection Author: Steven Emerson Publisher: Watts Franklin April 1985 Synopsis The author seeks to show "that Saudi petrodollars, or, rather, American greed for Arab oil money, may be outdistancing the voting power of Jewish constituencies in a struggle for influence among corporate, institutional, and individual decision makers in America. Our predilection for making a fast buck, he says, has resulted in Saudi Arabia's status as the sixth largest importer of American goods." (Libr J) Bibliography. Index. >From the Critics >From Samuel McCracken - Commentary {What the author sees as the connection between the U.S. and Saudi Arabiais} set forth with considerable detail and only slight journalistic melodramaby Steven Emerson, who in this book traces with precision the activities of a lobby that is considerably more active and in important ways more effective than the better-known Israeli lobby. {The Israeli and Saudi} lobbies are admittedly identical in their ultimate focus: the survival of Israel. It is just that the one supports it, while the other opposes it. We know all about how the one operates; thanks to Steven Emerson, we may begin to understand the other. >From Hoyt Purvis - The New York Times Book Review The author paints with a very broad brush, suggesting that anyone even remotely connected to the Saudis has somehow become part of a vast network seeking to redirect American foreign policy. Those involved range from such improbables as former Senator Jacob Javits . . . to a long-since bankrupt Arkansas bus manufacturer. . . . Although Mr. Emerson deals with important issues and raises legitimate problems, in effect, he questions the integrity and motives ofnearly everyone who favored the arms sales and/or who supports good relationswith Saudi Arabia. But isn't it just possible that many of those in and out of Government who back such policies genuinely and unselfishly believe that those actions are in the national interests of the United States? >From Saul Friedman - Columbia Journalism Review {The author} has put together a thorough, excellent, even powerful account of the Saudi lobby as it operates here and elsewhere in the world. . . . But Emerson's argument falters when he suggests, as he does throughout the book, that Saudi money and influence are behind the views of those who are critical of Israel or of official U.S. policies toward Israel, or even behind the policies themselves. ************* Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era Author: Steven Emerson Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group April 1988 Synopsis Emerson alleges that the Pentagon, "disgusted at the failure of the 1980 Iran hostage rescue attempt, decided it could no longer trust the capabilities of the CIA and instead set up a 'miniature CIA' within its own walls. With names like Delta, Yellow Fruit, Seaspray, Task Force 160, Quick Reaction Team, the Intelligence Support Activity and the Special Operations Division, {Emerson suggests}, its clandestine units fanned out around the globe, gathering intelligence and conducting undercover operations, often without Congress ever knowing. . . . {According to Emerson, these groups} infiltrated the home of the leader of Panama, flew espionage planes over El Salvador, spied on Soviet officials in Europe, {and} drew up secret plans to invade Nicaragua." (Publisher's note) Glossary. Index. >From the Critics >From Library Journal $17.95. military studies In 1964, David Wise and Thomas B. Ross published The Invisible Government , detailing for the first time the inside doings of the CIA. Since then, Americans have become accustomed to the flood of exposes about the depth of America's secret governmentall in the name of national security and anti-Communism. This timely new book, by an editor at U.S. News & World Report, describes the covert ``black'' operatons carried out by the military, as distinct from the CIA or the Iran-contra NSC gang. Emerson accepts the need for covert action, but his stranger-than-fiction exposure of the Pentagon's underside makes one wonder. On the basis of interviews and unpublished documents, Emerson says the secret government is alive and well. For lay readers and specialists. H. Steck, SUNY Coll. at Cortland >From Thomas Powers - The New York Times Book Review {This} is a reporter's book, full of stories and colorful characters but short on analysis. Mr. Emerson has no quarrel with official insistence that the country 'desperately needs a special operations capacity' but nowhere suggests what the country needs this capacity for. . . . Among the grace notes of Mr. Emerson's fine book are many small, well-told stories, like the one about two members of the Army's supersecret Intelligence Support Activity on a mission in Lebanon. . . . When the two men were stopped at a road checkpoint manned by Syrian Army regulars, . . . they knew they were in the deepest sort of trouble. Their papers identified them as American military men and neither spoke Arabic. But one of them . . . managed to squeak them through by shouting backin {Vietnamese}. . . . There you have it--two American 'secret warriors,' trying to spy out somebody else's country with the wrong language, picked up in the last war, already lost. >From Publisher's Weekly - Publishers Weekly Emerson describes how the Pentagon set up its own clandestine ``mini-CIA'' following the bungled attempt to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1980. A leak in 1983 led to a widespread investigation by certain Army officials and the Justice Department, resulting in secret court-martials and the conviction of several key Army officers who had ``decided they knew what was best for the country.'' More recently, some of the original players participated in a reincarnation of the scheme called ``Enterprise,'' according to Emerson (The American House of Saud). Part business empire, part military-intelligence operation under late CIA director William Casey and National Security Council staffer Oliver North, the Enterprise operation reportedly provided a framework for retired Air Force Gen. Richard Secord and Iranian-born businessman Albert Hakim to control elements of U.S. foreign policy while making huge profits. Emerson focuses on what he sees as the central paradox of covert operations: they are necessary, but they tend to spin out of control. First serial to U.S. News & World Report. (April) ************* Lights out at Doe: How Reagan Has Put America in the Dark about Energy Authors: Judy Green, John Shepard and Steven Emerson Publisher: Public Citizen, Incorporated November 1984 No further info.........
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