The Cutting Edge

Praise for 'A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization'

“This is an important book. There has been much discussion already about climate change, peak oil, the cost of food and overpopulation, the global financial crisis busting neoliberal capitalism, the rise of violent extremism, and the containment of the so-called war on terror. But this is the first book to systematically explore their interconnections and place them within a single comprehensive narrative. That makes it a very worthwhile read for policy-makers everywhere.”

Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher MP -

UK Minister of State for the Environment (1997-2003); Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (1975-79); Under-Secretary of State for Industry (1974-75)

“Few thinkers weave as many threads into a tapestry as Nafeez Ahmed has done so superbly in this book. Those of us who seek to operate within the form of capitalism that has evolved today would do well to ask ourselves a very big question. Are we wasting our time? If it is true that only root-to-branch rewriting of the global economic operating manual can save society from an unliveable future, shouldn’t we be putting our weight behind that re-engineering process before it is too late?”

Dr. Jeremy Leggett -

UK Department of Trade & Industry’s Renewables Advisory Board (2002-2006); CEO, Solarcentury, member of UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security; author, Half Gone and The Carbon War

“This is a staggeringly comprehensive bird’s-eye view of the gaping cracks that are appearing in global industrial civilization. Ahmed weaves a context that makes current economic and geopolitical events comprehensible. If you want to understand why the world is coming apart at the seams and what we can do to lay the foundations for a sane, peaceful, and sustainable society, read this book.”

Richard Heinberg -

Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute; author, The Party’s Over, Powerdown and Peak Everything

“This important analysis exposes vital truths and challenges much conventional wisdom. It deserves to be widely read.”

Mark Curtis -

Research Fellow, University of Strathclyde; former Head of Policy, Action Aid and Christian Aid; former Research Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs; author, Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World and Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses

Media


"On the subject ‘How and Why America was Attacked on 11 September, 2001’, the best, most balanced report, thus far, is by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don’t – particularly about what we are up to."

Gore Vidal, The Observer


"A lucid and persuasive account of how our security mandarins talked themselves into believing we could make quiet, backroom deals with terrorists."

Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times


"In his disturbing and clearly evidenced book, The War on Truth, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed traces the unholy games played with Islamist terrorists by the US, and through acquiescence by the UK, flirting with them when it suited and then turning against them."

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent


"Respected terror analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed pulls apart the official narrative of 7/7, pointing out its gaps and contradictions… The authorities seem to be unable to answer many of the most basic questions about the 7/7 bombings ... it has taken a study by an academic outsider, Ahmed, to assess the extent of the bombers’ international terrorist connections."

Editorial, Independent on Sunday


"Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed provides important material to support those survivors of the London bombings who are demanding a proper inquiry into the events of that day."

Paul Donovan, Irish Post


"Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, director of British think-tank the Institute for Policy Research and Development, has written furiously against the 'fundamentally wrong' official narrative in his book The War On Truth. He provides evidence to show the ways that western governments are currently manipulating Al Qaeda 'for strategic aims' in different parts of the world, thus compromising any notion of the war on terror."

The Big Issue


People


"Academically, objectively, this book is about as carefully laid out and sourced as one could want... This book is, in brief, everything the 9/11 Commission was not... Having been a part of the CIA when it was committing high crimes and misdemeanors in Central America... I find the author's argument that the US, the UK, and France, among others, have been actively using terrorists, nurturing terrorists, as part of a geopolitical and economic strategy, and that in their naivete, they nurtured a force they cannot control today, to be completely credible."

Robert D. Steele - former 20-year veteran CIA Case Officer and Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer; founding Deputy Director of US Army Marine Corps Intelligence Command


"Nafeez Ahmed’s understanding of the post 9/11 power game, its lies, illusions and dangers, is no less than brilliant. Everyone should read this wise and powerfully illuminating book."

John Pilger


"I wish every American who still believes in the good intentions of our government would read this book. Drawing upon his impressive research into recent history, Nafeez Ahmed skilfully exposes the real motives behind the 'war on terrorism' and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq."

Howard Zinn


"In a worthy sequel to the author’s path-breaking expose of 9/11, this book exposes the real reasons for the War Against Iraq. Ahmed recounts the untold history of how the orchestration of conflict and the conduct of military operations by Anglo-American power in the Middle East since Lawrence of Arabia has led today to a form of worldwide surrogate-imperialism."

Andre Gunder Frank


"Nafeez Ahmed demonstrates brilliantly that the war on freedom is inseparable from the war on truth."

Vandana Shiva


"Nafeez Ahmed provides a valuable service by clearly laying out the facts and analysis people need to make sense of the US attack on Iraq. The reality of US policy in the Middle East isn’t pretty, which makes it all the more important to confront. Thanks to Ahmed for taking on the challenge."

Robert W. Jensen


"The War on Truth is an outstanding book on arguably the most important issue of our times. I hope it receives the widespread attention it so richly deserves."

Robert W. McChesney


Academic Reviews


"This volume tries to understand 21st-century terrorism, not primarily as a replacement for the Cold War Soviet Union, but as a Western disinformation campaign to control raw materials and populations on a global scale.... His contribution is necessary for anyone who wants to write about the Global War on Terror and US preoccupation with terrorism in the 21st century. The book is also important for the understanding of the present war in Afghanistan."

Journal of Peace Research


"An excellent and timely book on the war in Iraq with a heterodox approach to explaining the events leading to the war. It analyses and documents explicitly... that the war on Iraq was part of a larger design to control the Near East and oil flows by the world’s only remaining superpower and its close allies."

Development and Change


"Against the background of exhaustive research, Ahmed accomplishes the most detailed and wide-ranging study to date of the powerful vested interests and intrigues responsible for the collapse of US national security in the years and months leading up to 9/11."

Middle East Journal


"Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed argues intriguingly that US training of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. He delves into Washington’s post-Cold War military training of al-Qaeda members involved in 9/11 to support his claim that they continue to constitute a mercenary force at the disposal of American statecraft. The implications of al-Qaeda as a covert creation of Western intelligence agencies to destabilize Third World states are ignored in the official story of the US War on Terror."

Socialism and Democracy


"Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed [is] one of the most knowledgeable writers about the actualities of Londonistan."

Law and Politics (University of Nis)


"Ahmed offers a devastating critique of the official British government's report... Recommended for public and academic libraries."

Library Journal


"Powerful, meticulously researched and carefully reasoned analysis of the recent history of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden; fallout from the so-called 'war on terrorism'; as well as a harrowing prediction of overly concentrated power in the United States leading to the rise of a new type of governmental fascism at home. Chilling, informative, and thought-provoking, The War On Freedom is very highly recommended reading and a welcome contribution to the growing library of information on contemporary international terrorism."

Midwest Book Review

Deep politics is a term coined by Professor Emeritus Peter Dale Scott of the University of California, Berkeley. It emerged from his earlier term, parapolitics, definining ”a system or practice of politics in which accountability is consciously diminished.” Evolving this concept, Scott’s concept of deep politics “posits that in every culture and society there are facts which tend to be suppressed collectively, because of the social and psychological costs of not doing so.” Thus, deep political analysis entails a specific research methodology aimed at “looking beneath public formulations of policy issues to the bureaucratic, economic, and ultimately covert and criminal activities which underlie them.”

The Cutting Edge engages in deep political analysis in the context of the Crisis of Civilization in which we now find ourselves – the convergence and escalation of environmental degradation, species extinctions, climate change, energy depletion, food crisis, water shortages, economic and financial instability, inequality and poverty, religious and political extremism, moral confusion, mental illness, and finally, philosophical and epistemological vacuity. In the context of these converging crises, Civilization continues to respond largely with denial. The only way to respond to this denial is confrontation with that which has been suppressed.