In a scathing examination of the bloated defense contracting industry, journalist Scheer exposes how the military-industrial complex manufactures and acquires advanced weaponry that has nothing to do with America's defense needs. Not only does the bloated "defense" budget entail untold waste and opportunity cost -- about 60% of each tax dollar goes for "defense," while more easily funded domestic priorities go unaddressed -- but the acquisition of this unnecessary military hardware, originally intended to defeat a Cold War foe that no longer exists, even drives our military and foreign policy decisionmaking. Scheer shows that this waste often takes the form of "pork" that Congress members are loath to relinquish. Scheer has fittingly dedicated this book to a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, whose warnings about the "military-industrial complex" have proven prescient. An excellent, in-depth examination of an important issue that neither party seems to want to tackle.

This book is disappointing for a writer of Robert Scheer's eminence. It is mostly a rehash of newspaper articles. It provides nothing new despite that there is so much new material that could have been used.
Ed Spievack

Give this man a medal. I could not put this book down even though I have read my share of sometimes tepid post 9-11 books. Bob has been bringing us the truth for years and in this book has presented a clear case of the betrayal by those who we have entrusted to lead. His past experience on the political scene has given him a unique ability to weave a unique perspective brimming with clarity.
When Wall Street and K street are the primary architects and beneficiaries of a governmental welfare policy guess who pays for this? Our children and future generations will be paying for this massive rip-off. It is time to close the revolving door of government officials to the military industrial complex and back. Canada has proposed a 5 year freeze on all government top employees to work for private business in the field they were responsible or had policy input for. Some would disagree on such a measure as an infringement of their right to steal from us. Who will be the first candidate to express a truly revolutionary idea such as banning corporate participation and ban all corporate financial input in the electoral process? '' We have met the enemy and he is us'' Walt Kelly never rang truer.

Robert Scheer's The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America, takes as its thesis President Eisenhower's warning against the "military-industrial complex" on his retirement from the presidency and provides succinct analyses of how, particularly in the eight presidential years of Bush II, Eisenhower's worst fears have been realized. Scheer generously acknowledges that Bush, Cheney and the defense hawks may believe otherwise, but he leaves no doubt that America's war in Iraq, like so much of its foreign relations, is motivated not by the nation's defense, the spread of democracy or resistance to tyranny, but by the desire for power and profit.

Scheer has documented how the close relationship between the defense industry and the Defense Department has resulted in many billions of dollars in contracts to build weapons for which there can be no rationale use in a war against terrorist forces that do not control large armies or navies. He spells out how individuals move from high positions in private weapons corporations to high positions in government that contract to buy those weapons, and then move back to higher positions, and back again to the highest government posts, making ever greater profits for the weapons makers and themselves. The Pornography of Power is a frighteningly persuasive account of their success in creating a wartime environment without end and without real war, but at a terrible cost to America's ability to respond to crises in economic opportunity, health care, education, and infrastructure repair, none of which can be confronted as long as literally trillions of dollars are wasted in a false pursuit of national security.

Being a big fan of NPR's Left, Right and Center, this book was something I was quite eager to read. Possibly the biggest compliment I can pay is that despite my political views tending somewhat towards the right of Mr. Scheer, I found the book to be an engaging, thoughtful treatise, one that offers a wide critique on the geopolitical situation instead of just another anti-Bush diatribe. Some of the most pointed barbs are aptly directed at Democrats, including Barbara Boxer. This is not partisan hackery; no one is immune from Scheer's critique. What's more, the book is anything but dry. It's written with an enjoyable, conversational tone, but backed by strong scholarship.

Though I often disagree with Mr. Scheer's positions, I regard this book as the work of a fiercely intelligent thinker, a patriot who clearly believes in this country's ability to do better. A must-read.

I received an advance copy from the publisher.

This is difficult to review objectively. Many facts reported are simply wrong, frequently off by orders of magnitude. I do not know if they have been deliberately misstated - since they are often key to the author's arguments - or if they are the result of an insular group passing around "facts" that grow with the retelling.

It is closer to reality than the 9/11 Truther books. If you enjoy and embrace those, you will will find this to be seminal. If you understand economics, government, business and media, you will find it delusional.

This is a brilliant book in so many ways but its premise does not consider that the invasion of Iraq was in the works well before 9/11. In my Playboy article, "Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," [...] I document how Lockheed Martin, with it stock slumping to 16 and in financial distress, set out to capture the GOP and the Bush administration, as its lobbyists and executives mobilized the country for war. Leading up to the invasion, Lockheed saw its stock zoom to 75. The F-35 contract to Lockheed came before the invasion and it was shared with British arms giant, BAE Systems, when it too was in financial distress. Was this a motive for Tony Blair's decision to go to war? As a Lockheed executive at its plant in Marietta, Georgia quipped when asked why the war in Iraq took place, "There weren't enought contrats in Afghanistan." As Kurt Vonnigut wrote, "So it goes."

Yes, it's true, folks -- there is such a thing as a non-fiction, political page-turner, and Scheer has written just that in "The Pornography of Power." This book needed to happen, now, and it's a must-read for everyone worried (or maybe more for everyone NOT worried) about the state of the United States at this point in time.

I have heard from several people that they picked up "Pornography of Power" with a sense of trepidation, expecting to struggle with dense prose and a slew of facts that take time to sift through, as they usually encounter when reading political non-fiction ... and they ended up not being able to put Scheer's book down. It reads like a whodunit, as Scheer skillfully pulls together numerous overlapping threads that you may have heard about as isolated incidents (loose ends) before -- they were just missing the kind of storyteller with the kind of panoramic perspective that this author is, thankfully able to bring together in a feat that lesser writers would know better than to attempt.

Luckily for all of us, Scheer pulls it off. This book combines all the enjoyment of reading other kinds of books with the informative value of the most incisive investigative reporting -- a rare mix, for sure.

I have followed Scheer's writing for 30 years and I've got to say he nails it in "The Pornography of Power." It is a must-read for anyone interested in the hidden forces that threaten this country. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about when I was a little boy is now in full bloom under the guise of "the war on terror". It is sucking up vast resources to line its own pockets and centralize power at the cost of the lives of ordinary Americans. So why isn't Scheer's message on the front page of every newspaper and why aren't McCain and Obama asked to reply? Because, as Scheer so artfully shows, we are all complicit - Democrats and Republicans alike - because this collusion of power, influence, and money, exists in nearly every Congressional district in the US. Maybe we should listen to Ron Paul -at least on how to break its suffocating hold.

Every Spring in recent years seems to bring a plethora of important books on the fast declining socio/political stability of the Western economic powers. This book is without question the most important of this season. While the mendacious Scott McClellan's belated, manicured confessions have received a lot of attention on this site, this masterpiece of investigative journalism has received very little. Typical? Yes, in the current State of Denial. The best McClellan has been able to come up with is that a "culture of deception" is responsible for our woes. O.K. How about an out of control military-industrial junta which employs over 1/3 of America's voters - in projects which, from a comon sense standpoint, generally should never have been seriously considered, much less pursued, in the first place? Like the refrain of an old song: "How long has this been going on?" Too long for the health of the nation, or the world - but at least since the creation of the Dept of 'Defense', a curiously unconstitutional phenomenon, considering the Founders' consensus re: standing armies. The problem is, as the brilliant Sheer delineates in full detail, providing an extensive history, with particular focus on the past decade, the defense industry engenders an ubiquitous and widespread political base - this power structure is the real basis for our reactionary, prodigal, destructive, self-destructive imperialism, seemingly an anomaly in a free society.
Which 'enemy' is nearly as well-armed as we are? If you want to believe the government's 9/11 story, Al Quaeda was armed with box cutters and plastic knives. Yet, as Sheer points out, 9/11 gave the defense contractors, cumulatively, America's largest employer, the opportunity to amp up production to pre-Cold War levels and beyond. And yet, as the nation careens into recession and deeper, expenditures of hard-earned taxpayer money passed by Congress for the F-35, a $300 billion program and the F-22, a $65 billion program go unquestioned. Do we need new fighter planes, with by far the most advanced airpower in the world? Or do we need housing relief? Why we are wasting trillions of dollars on this old-fashioned defense budget as we sink deeper into debt? Why are we paying interest to China in order to build arms for the potential confrontation with them, which seems to lurk in the minds of our military strategists? Cui bono? Who votes? And why?
This quagmire is almost never discussed in public forums - has not been discussed in the presidential campaign - and yet, is at the heart of our trajectory toward a wall which seems inevitable if we continue our current trends toward increased militarization. Ironically, the failure of the imperialistic model does not as much hurt it's beneficiaries, Exxon, Haliburton, Lockeed, Boeing, et al., as you and me. Check out this book. All the reasons are eloquently articulated and comprehensively ennumerated.

Every Spring in recent years seems to bring a plethora of important books on the fast declining socio/political stability of the Western economic powers. This book is without question the most important of this season. While the mendacious Scott McClellan's belated, manicured confessions have received a lot of attention on this site, this masterpiece of investigative journalism has received very little. Typical? Yes, in the current State of Denial. The best McClellan has been able to come up with is that a "culture of deception" is responsible for our woes. O.K. How about an out of control military-industrial junta which employs over 1/3 of America's voters - in projects which, from a comon sense standpoint, generally should never have been seriously considered, much less pursued, in the first place? Like the refrain of an old song: "How long has this been going on?" Too long for the health of the nation, or the world - but at least since the creation of the Dept of 'Defense', a curiously unconstitutional phenomenon, considering the Founders' consensus re: standing armies. The problem is, as the brilliant Sheer delineates in full detail, providing an extensive history, with particular focus on the past decade, the defense industry engenders an ubiquitous and widespread political base - this power structure is the real basis for our reactionary, prodigal, destructive, self-destructive imperialism, seemingly an anomaly in a free society.
Which 'enemy' is nearly as well-armed as we are? If you want to believe the government's 9/11 story, Al Quaeda was armed with box cutters and platic knives. Yet, as Sheer points out, 9/11 gave the defense contractors, cumulatively, America's largest employer, the opportunity to amp up production to pre-Cold War levels and beyond. And yet, as the nation careens into recession and deeper, expenditures of taxpayer moneies passed by Congress for the F-35, a $300 billion program and the F-22, a $65 billion program go unquestioned. Do we need new fighter planes, with by far the most advanced airpower in the world? Or do we need housing relief? Why we are wasting trillions of dollars on this old-fashioned defense budget as we sink deeper into debt? Why are we paying interest to China in order to build arms for the potential confrontation with them, which seems to lurk in the minds of our military strategists? Cui bono? Who votes? And why?
This quagmire is almost never discussed in public forums - has not been discussed in the presidential campaign - and yet, is at the heart of our trajectory toward a wall which seems inevitable if we continue our current trends toward increased militarization. Ironically, the failure of the imperialistic model does not as much hurt it's beneficiaries, Exxon, Haliburton, Lockeed, Boeing, et al., as you and me. Check out this book. All the reasons are eloquently articulated and comprehensively ennumerated.

Scheer's new book reads like a well-documented lecture against a country that has lost its way. Upon eviscerating the usual suspects of bloated defense budgets - the Pentagon, the neocons and defense equipment companies - Scheer turns to those in Congress, even the darlings of the Democratic Party (Barbara Boxer), and unleashes an exacting critique that demonstrates a problem with our government that goes past individuals, administrations and day-to-day business practices. Scheer exposes a systemic imbalance that gives too much power to corporate and moneyed interests and too little to those who really need it.

From the billions we pour into these industries of death, the elections of military-industrial complex lackeys based on the specter of terrorism and threats to national security, and the overall gross wastes of tax-payer money deserve not just our collective scorn but also calls for immediate action to stop this disaster and prevent it from happening again. With The Pornography of Power we see a laundry list of complaints but never a sign of giving up hope, an unflinchingly optimistic move that those who work to resist empire and corporate dominion must necessarily take note.