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Books
The Shell Game by Steve Alten
By Editors
May 18, 2008, 3:53pm

The End of oil.

The Next 9/11

The Deception of a Nation.


This has got to be considered required reading for anyone seeking truth or even just trying to figure out "what's going on". The story is - oil executive pursuing the killing of his wife while entangled with a high level plot to create another 9/11 - this time a low yield nuclear suitcase bomb to be blamed on Iran. But the writing really flows and keeps you interested.

But it's the background that really stokes your interest - the incredible depth of information - facts and analysis of the world situation, oil, politics, political parties, the military and the intelligence (?) community. The mix includes torture, the making of the bomb, betrayal, contract assassins and some good scientists. Of course, the bad guys are pretty bad (and sadly it's us as Pogo would say) - willing to explode a nuclear bomb on the American people in a follow up to 9/11. Most of the story takes place in 2012.

Here is some information from the book:

"This is neither standard fiction nor non fiction. It was written as a cautionary tale, backed by disturbing facts and inconvenient truths that are used to project an all-too-real-scenario down the path we have been lulled into taking."

The story opens in 2007 when two CIA spooks meet with an American Colonel in military intelligence. The war is going badly, and President Bush, who steadfastly refuses to back down, remains unchallenged at home as Democrats and Republicans continue to toss verbal grenades – positioning themselves for the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy will yield enriched uranium within five years -- uranium that can be used to manufacture suitcase nukes.

The United States’ military is too drained to invade Iran, and a preemptive strike is out of the question...unless a nuclear detonation were to occur on in American city -- the enriched uranium traced back to Iran. A U.S. reprisal would strike a death-blow against radical Islam, quell the insurgent violence in Iraq...and yield more oil. Yes, the cost is unthinkable – but if we sit back and do nothing then one day a dozen suitcase bombs could go off in a dozen American cities – bringing with it anarchy and the collapse of Western civilization.

December 2011: Ashley “Ace” Futrell is an oil expert working for PetroConsultants, married to Kelli Doyle, a former National Security Advisor and one of the CIA spooks from the opening scene. When Kelli threatens to expose the plot, Ace finds his existence hurtling down a rabbit’s hole of deceit where the orchestrated lies of the powerful few could lead to the darkest days of human existence... and the death knell for billions.
From here.

Befor each chapter the author has a series of quotes which relate to the background. Here is a sample:

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster."
Nietzsche

"Oil is too improtant to be left to the Arabs."
Henry Kissinger

"If it is desirable to alter the life of an entire people, is there any means more efficient than war?"
Carnegie Endowment for Internatinal Peace 1909

"The main obstacles to investigate Ialamic terrorism were U.S. oil's corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it. All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia."
John O'Neill, FBI sounter-terrorism expert - killed in the world trade center attacks on 9/11.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. The People cannot be safe without information."
Thomas Jefferson

"The nations of the world must develop a plan to reduce global population from nearly 6 billion to about 2 billion."
David and Marcia Pimental
from "Food Energy and Society" 2000

"You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices becasuse of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world."
Osama Bin Laden
"Letter to the American People"

"There are no permanent allies and no permanent enemies-just permanent interests."
Lord Palmerston, Nietennth-century British Leader

"I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, ,militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous."
Robert McNamara - Former secretary of Defense, Foreign Policy Magazine 2005

"The worls's top ten energy companies are failing to find enough crude to replenish their reserves."
Wood Mackenizie, Oil consulatnat 2004

"The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. it wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility."
John Lennon


Get the book and read it and then pass it on to your friends and family. Discuss what you get from it and then take some kind of action. Just Do a little bit, that's a beginning. You owe it to the future and the past. There have been critical times before in our history but none more important than this one. The future and all the futures of human kind are at stake.
You really don't want to have regrets!

Ed Note: This is the second review published on FOL on this book - that's got to be a first. The first one is here and quite good, too. But after reading the book we just had to add our "two cents".

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