Kulliyah of Economics and Management Sciences

Department of Economics

BOOK REVIEW
“OBAMA: The Postmodern Coup”
BY
WEBSTERN GRIFFIN TARPLEY

ECON 6610
ISLAMIC ECONOMIC THOUGHT

LECTURER:
PROF. MUHAMMAD ARIF

PREPARED BY:
SHOCHRUL ROHMATUL AJIJA (G0821336)

SEM 2, 2009/2010

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 BOOK REVIEW
“OBAMA: The Postmodern Coup”
By Webster Griffin Tarpley, 2008. IBSN: 978-967-69-0721-9, 314 pages.
Reviewed by Shochrul Rohmatul Ajija, G0821336

Barack Obama, the current American president became a debatable person, especially
in today‟s crisis of simultaneous wars and economic depression. The vague and vapid
messianic and utopian platitudes, the lemming legions, the personality cult, the
narcissism, the megalomania, the fake polling, the media and intelligence agency
manipulation which are the essence of Obama and his campaign of mass manipulation
are criticized thoroughly. Nevertheless, it always from a standpoint which reaches
back to the Franklin D. Roosevelt New Deal, in many ways the best government that
America has ever known.
Webster Griffin Tarpley (Massachusetts 1946), an intelligence expert and
historian, the author of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992) and 9/11
Synthetic Terror (2005), tries to criticize Obama from the left or his main opponent, in
his book entitled “Obama: The Postmodern Coup”, published in 2008. The book
contains twenty sections including a nine page preface. The objective of this book is
to advance the notion that, especially in our times, historical reality cannot be
considered as axiomatically spontaneous, but must rather be seen as heavily
manipulated by the multi-billion dollar intelligence agencies. Furthermore, he
proposed the term super-determination or surdetermination to express this notion, and
Obama can be seen as in the context of this surdetermination.
In his preface (p.1-9), the author emphasizes that he will use three kinds of
studies about Obama to analyze who actually Obama is. First is analysis from those
who approach their subject with transparent adulation and hero worship. Next are
those, like Shelby Steele or Bill Sammon, who approach Obama from a right-wing or
neocon point of view; and the third are writers who can be generally be reckoned to
the center-left of the Democratic party. In addition, to these valuable critiques, the
author is convinced that there is also much to be gained from an analysis which
proceeds from a New Deal or American System traditionalist perspective.
In the Introduction which is the largest part of this book, entitled Obama: a
CIA People Power Coup, USA, 2008 (p.10-78), Tarpley provides 48 subtitles which

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become the central points of this study. This is because the author explains
comprehensively and chronologically based on his direct experiences about who
Obama is. First of all, the author starts to explain Obama from his guru, Zbigniew
Brzezinski, the notorious Dr. Strangelove hawk and warmonger of the Cold War and
an inveterate Russia hater, and of course who had long been infamous for his demonic
role in the tragic foreign policy betrayals of the Carter administration between 1977
and 1981 (p.12).
Furthermore, in p.13-14, Tarpley tries to tackle the similarities between
postmodern coup d‟etat „a la kiev 2004 and the way of Obama‟s campaign. According
to the author, the Obama agitation should not be seen as a political campaign of the
customary type, but rather as a strange hybrid between a political campaign and a
relatively new type of covert operation of the intelligence agencies. The initial thrust
of the Obama campaign was the attempt to achieve nomination by acclamation
through a surprise people power coup or color revolution employing the same
repertoire of techniques which the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), the Soros foundations, the Brzezinski clique, and Gene Sharp‟s Albert
Einstein Institute have carried out recently in such places as Belgrade, Serbia; Tiflis,
Georgia; and Kiev, Ukraine. Something similar is afoot in Tibet and in the rest of
China.
These color revolutions have exhibited common features like a telegenic
demagogue, generous CIA-NED support in cash and narcotics, the cynical gaming of
existing political costumes and party rules, savvy exploitation of the internet, fake
polling, media hysteria, catchy slogans and colors to establish branding, and the
widespread use of rent-a-mobs and dupe-a-mobs of swarming adolescents. For the
first time in many years, the left wing of the CIA-NED-Soros-Ford complex is
assuming center stage inside America. The last time the left-liberal wing of the
intelligence agencies assumed similar importance in domestic affairs was the
catastrophic and abortive Carter administration of 1977-1981, which was controlled
and ruined by some of the same people, notably Brzezinski, who are running Obama
today. In fact, the author extrapolates from the disasters of the Carter years to develop
estimates of the far worse horrors which a future Obama regime would surely bring
(p.76-78).
Interestingly, in the third section (p.79-80), the author wrote in the big bold
font about the dark side of Obama which was published firstly in Manchester, New
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Hampshire on January 7, 2008. This section becomes so important part of this book
because it represents the next 13 sections (p.81-197) about the negativeness of
Obama. In his seven leaflets which are known as the first public exposure of Obama
as a Brzezinski puppet bent on world confrontation after taking power with a
domestic US color revolution, the authors mentioned some critical jargons, i.e.
“Presidential candidate Barack Obama – main announced project so far: BOMB
PAKISTAN”; “Obama‟s main foreign policy guru – Zbigniew Brzezinzki. Main
project:THE DESTRUCTION OF RUSSIA – the surest path to World War III”;
“Mark Brzezinski, son of Zbigniew, former Clinton NSC official and top Obama
advisor. Architect of the 2004 “people power” color revolution/ coup in Ukraine.
Main project: THE DESTRUCTION OF RUSSIA”; “Top Obama advisor and ex
Asst. Secretary of State for African Affairs, Susan Rice. Main project: BOMB
SUDAN. Top Obama terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, former terror czar of the
Clinton and Bush administrations. Main project: originating the official myth of
9/11”; “Obama‟s top Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross, former Middle East
negotiator for Bush and Clinton. Main project: play the Arabs against the Iranians to
perpetuate Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza”; and “RESULT: A
WORLD CATASTROPHE WORSE THAN BUSH”. Finally, Tarpley asserts the
Obama‟s game with the statement “DON‟T BE DUPED BY OBAMA AND HIS
CABINET OF WARMONGERS”.
In section 17 (p.197-202), Tarpley provides a congeries of defeated and
discredited Democratic politicians and party bureaucrats (Dean, Brazil, Leahy and
others). Moreover, he explains a mirror of Obama, i.e. the catastrophic presidency of
trilateral puppet Jimmy carter, 1977-1981 in section 18 (p.203-256). Interestingly, in
one part of this section, the author claims that Obama is a new disaster ala Carter
(p.252), and then explain briefly about the Brzezinski playbook which is hints of the
future under Obama (p.253-256).
Tarpley continues his justification about the dark side of Obama who is come
the orbit of the Ford Foundation in section 19 (257-286) by describing the new Gladio
in action, i.e. swarming adolescents and rebellious hysteria. Tarpley then claims that
much of the coup apparatus is the same that was used in the overthrow of President
Fernando Marcos of the Philippines in 1986, the Tiananmen Square destabilization in
1989, and Vaclav Havel‟s “Velvet revolution” in Czechoslavakia in 1989 (p.258).

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 Finally, Tarpley closes his book by discussing about the project Democracy‟s
program: the Fascist corporate state in the latest section (p.287-314). In my opinion,
Tarpley succeeds to explain very well what really the Fascist is. In addition, he also
provides the future of American political system by quoting some of Samuel
Huntington‟s opinion in his recent book, American Politics (1981).
The approach used by Tarpley in this book is comprehensive because he has
explained chronologically based on his direct experiences in the first parts.
Furthermore, he not only criticizes Obama from his own opinion, but also he
compares and quotes from another scholar such as Samuel Huntington. In addition,
this book has been already reviewed by some people and no American voter can
afford to ignore the lesson contained in this book. Nevertheless, in spite of its
wonderful approach, this book may still have the lacks especially for the readers who
do not familiar with the background of American politic, for example, when Tarpley
wrote about the pretension of Obama to attack Pakistan, the world‟s 6th largest
country, with almost 3 times more pople than Iran, he did not mention why Obama
has that intention.
Lulu (2008) argued that this book actually is a book with a mission: to stave
off the looming world-historical tragedy Tarpley foresees. Yet it is about much more
than “Manchurian candidate” Obama, or even Brzezinski and his earlier puppet,
Jimmy Carter. Historian Tarpley draws on an unparalleled store of erudition, past
precedents and inside knowledge of today‟s political players and distills it in this book
for our up-to-the-minute situation. Therefore, “Obama: Postmodern Coup” is a good
book and I recommend to everyone who wants to know about US and world politics
to read it.

References:
Lulu, 2008. “Philadelphia Press Conference Announcing the Release of New Book:
Obama – The Post Modern Coup”, accessed on February 6, 2010, [available at
httpwww.free-press-release.compdfdownload2008041208349386.pdf]