Spicer has done extensive research and thinking and has shown courage in analyzing today's challenges. He spares none in lashing at policies that have only produced conflicts, misery and suffering for millions of human beings. He suggests practical ways to make the world better and fairer for all.

Spicer's main barbs are directed at the US "In recent decades militarism has become an unchallengeable, bankrupting orthodoxy of America's public discourse. Today it virtually defines US foreign policy." But he does not shy away from lashing at the damaging policies of other countries also.

Spicer recalls, for example, that "in every field of the arts, literature, science, technology and even agriculture, Muslims fed and led Western thinkers for centuries ... While many Europeans were running around in animals skins, a Muslim elite in Spain — and in Baghdad — was inventing the modern world, their Arabic works translated into several languages, including Latin and Hebrew."

Compare that with the situation today: "In too many Muslim-majority countries, corruption is rampant, free speech denied, torture common, poverty endemic, education stunted."

Spicer says that Americans learn about the world from journalists, teachers, preachers, entertainers, intellectuals and politicians who try to convince Americans that their country is right even when it's plainly wrong.

Spicer criticizes the "intellectual terrorism" that skews Americans' thinking about the world. It is close to "suicidal in US journalism to report that most of the world, Muslim or not, sees the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine as an aggravating cause of Islamic terrorism throughout the world." He notes that the US-Israeli relationship includes a huge component of US taxpayers' military aid: at least half of the $106 billion of US aid to Israel has gone to military use. "And American military aid for 2013-2018 will amount to an average of $3.15 billion per year."

He asserts that US generals have started to recognize that Americans are dying in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, at least partly because of Israeli behavior in Palestine. But he does not think that the US media will have the courage soon to report more fairly on Israel and Palestine.

Spicer argues that the US. would have to forcefully promote a just peace in the Middle East because the only alternative would be war without end. Hundreds of millions of Muslims "see America as an accomplice of brutal colonialism, because it finances and arms the Israelis unconditionally. Jihadists everywhere — including in the cities of Europe and North America — vow vengeance not just on Israel, not just on America, but on the entire West." He hopes that the Arab Spring would make serious negotiations with the Palestinians more attractive to Israelis.

The Kashmir dispute is another threat to world peace, Spicer argues, in urging the US to seek to bring about a peaceful settlement that takes into consideration the interests of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris. He recognizes that, like the Middle East, this is a complex, festering dispute. But, as in the Middle East, the only alternative to not finding a solution would be a tense peace, perhaps a disastrous war by nuclear-armed countries and, in the meantime, people in both countries will suffer and precious resources will go to oiling war machines. In 2009, the world spent over $1.5 trillion on "defense" while education, health, jobs and basic needs of millions of people everywhere were neglected. He called this situation "not just immoral" but "self-defeating."

The US is being forced to reconsider its policies, Spicer argues. China holds over $900 billion in US Treasury Bills and has begun to replace America as the world's economic master. The US not only faces a recession but also annual over-trillion-dollar deficits at least as far as the next decade.

Spicer does not see an easy way out. But he argues that the status quo is not sustainable. He pleads for the US to push for a just settlement in the Middle East, where its huge aid to Israel gives it considerable clout, in Kashmir and in Afghanistan by seeking a settlement with the participation of all parties that are involved, including neighboring countries.

The US should base its foreign policy on respecting other countries' independence, just aspirations, and culture and assist them by promoting education, human rights, including and particularly for women, freer trade that permits developing countries to export their finished products, economic development and a just social order. This will be a radical departure from the present US militarism. But this is the only way, Spicer argues, to save the US and the world from disaster. It is hard to disagree.
 
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge
 
“Sitting on BAYONETS: America's endless war on terror and the paths to peace”

By Keith Spicer

Published by Createspace

Paperback, 392 pages