URLs for OPEDs by GOULD&FITZGERALD
—New York Times Strikes Out Again on Afghanistan published 11/6/2017.
—What have they done to our fair sister? An Epitaph published 10/6/2017.
—The Neocon Takeover of America Series published 8/24/2017.
Part 1: Darkness at Noon
Part 2: The West is Disintegrating
Part 3: Engineering Public Perception to the Right for the Right
Part 4: Ceaseless Propaganda, Outright Lies and Distorted Facts
–The Universal Empire Series, an examination of the neocon takeover of American policy that began after World War II, published April, 2017
Part 1: American Imperialism Leads the World Into Dante’s Vision of Hell Part 2: How Neocons Push for War by Cooking the Books Part 3: How the CIA Created a Fake Western Reality for ‘Unconventional Warfare’
Part 4: The Final Stage of the Machiavellian Elites’ Takeover of America
—America, an Empire in Twilight Series published 11/7/2016 Part I: When America Became the Dark Force Part II: How Guilt, Innocence & Facts Have Been Rendered Irrelevant Part III: Neoconizing the Just War Doctrine in the service of American Empire Part IV: The End of Illusion FINALE: The Trump Card is played! Never Underestimate THE FOOL
—Psychological Warfare and the American Mind Series published 9/9/2016 Part I A Campaign Where the Lie Became the Truth and the Truth Became the Enemy of the State Part II Building the Afghan Narrative with Black Propaganda, the People, the Process & the Product Part III A Clockwork Afghanistan Part IV Willie Wonka & the National Security State ——————————————————————————————————-
—America’s Financial Armageddon and Afghanistan analyzes the Cold War effects on today’s economy published on Counterpunch 9/14/2011
—Brzezinski Vision to Lure Soviets into ‘Afghan Trap’ Is Orlando’s Nightmare
published on Sputnik News 6/16/2016
—America Pivots to Brzezinski’s Delusion of Eurasian Conquest , the Essay 10/14/2015
—America Pivots to Brzezinski’s Delusion of Eurasian Conquest published on Sputnik News 6/2/2015
URLs for FILMS on YOUTUBE by GOULD&FITZGERALD
–Afghanistan and Mystical Imperialism: An expose of the esoteric underpinnings of American foreign policy , a 2012 presentation with a Q&A following the talk. Afghanistan bedeviled by ‘Mystical Imperialism , a review from Examiner.com.
Afghanistan Between Three Worlds is on YouTube – A 1981 film from behind Soviet Lines and those first few moments in a conflict that still rocks the world
The Woman in Exile Returns The Sima Wali Story a 2002 film of Sima Wali’s first return to Afghanistan since her exile in 1978.
The Arms Race and the Economy: A Delicate Balance, a documentary with economist John Kenneth Galbraith and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) negotiator Paul Warnke in 1979 that is still relevant today.
About the authors–
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, a husband and wife team, began working together in 1979 co-producing a documentary for Paul’s television show, Watchworks. Called, The Arms Race and the Economy, A Delicate Balance, they found themselves in the midst of a swirling controversy that was to boil over a few months later with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Their acquisition of the first visas to enter Afghanistan granted to an American TV crew in 1981 brought them into the middle of the most heated Cold War controversy since Vietnam. But the pictures and the people inside Soviet occupied Afghanistan told a very different story from the one being broadcast to Americans.
Following their exclusive news story for the CBS Evening News, they produced a documentary (Afghanistan Between Three Worlds) for PBS and in 1983 they returned to Kabul for ABC Nightline with Harvard Negotiation Project director, Roger Fisher. They were told that the Soviets wanted to go home and negotiate their way out. Peace in Afghanistan was more than a possibility, it was a desired option. But the story that President Carter called, “the greatest threat to peace since the second World War” had already been written by America’s policy makers and America’s pundits were not about to change the script.
As the first American journalists to get deeply inside the story they not only got a view of an unseen Afghan life, but a revelatory look at how the U.S. defined itself against the rest of the world under the veil of superpower confrontation. Once the Soviets had crossed the border into Afghanistan, the fate of both nations was sealed. But as Paul and Liz pursued the reasons behind the wall of propaganda that shielded the truth, they found themselves drawn into a story that was growing into mythic dimensions. Big things were brewing in Afghanistan. Old empires were being undone and new ones, hatched. America had launched a Crusade and the ten year war against the Soviet Union was only the first chapter.
It was at the time of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 when Paul and Liz were working on the film version of their experience under contract to Oliver Stone, that they began to piece together the mythic implications of the story. During the research for the screenplay many of the documents preceding the Afghan crisis were declassified. Over the next decade they trailed a labyrinth of clues only to find a profound likeness in Washington’s official policy towards Afghanistan – in the ancient Zoroastrian war of the light against the dark – whose origins began in the region now known as Afghanistan. It is a likeness that has grown visible as America’s entanglement in Afghanistan threatens to backfire once again.
Afghanistan’s civil war followed America’s Cold War while Washington walked away. A new strain of religious holy warrior called the Taliban arose but at the time few in America cared to look. As the horrors of the Taliban regime began to grab headlines in 1998 Paul and Liz started collaborating with Afghan human rights expert Sima Wali. Along with Wali, they contributed to the Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future book project published by Palgrave Macmillan (2002). In 2002 they filmed Wali’s first return to Kabul since her exile in 1978. The film they produced about Wali’s journey home, The Woman in Exile Returns, gives audiences the chance to discover the message of one of Afghanistan’s most articulate voices and her hopes for her people.
In the years since, much has happened to bring Paul and Liz’s story into sharp focus. Their efforts at combining personal diplomacy with activist journalism are a model for restoring a necessary dialogue to American democracy. Their book, Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story, published by City Lights (2009), lays bare why it was inevitable that the Soviet Union and the U.S. should end up in Afghanistan and what that means to the future of the American empire. Their book, Crossing Zero The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire, published by City Lights (2011), lays out the paralyzing contradictions of America’s AfPak strategy. It clarifies the complex web of interests and individuals surrounding the war and focuses on the little understood importance of the line of demarcation between Afghanistan and Pakistan called the Durand line. Their novel The Voice , first published in 2000, is the esoteric side of their Afghan experience
Gould and Fitzgerald’s articles and blogs have been published in numerous online and print journals and newspapers such as The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune, Huffington Post, The New York Times, GlobalPost World News, Middle East Institute’s Viewpoints, CounterPunch, Sputnik News and OpedNews. They have been interviewed by major media outlets such as MSNBC, RealNews TV, Democracy Now and numerous commercial and PBS radio stations from Boston to LA. They have also made presentations that have aired across the country on C-Span Book TV and the Cambridge Forum (WGBH Forum Network). Their presentation-Afghanistan and Mystical Imperialism: An expose of the esoteric underpinnings of American foreign policy–was filmed by Zev Deans & Jacqueline Castel and is viewable here. A review of the presentation titled Afghanistan bedeviled by ‘Mystical Imperialism’ is available here.
For more information visit their websites at invisiblehistory and grailwerk.
Reviews and Praise for Gould & Fitzgerald’s Books
“Readers with a serious interest in U.S. foreign policy or military strategy will find it helpful… Bob Woodward’s recent Obama’s War focuses on the administration’s AfPak deliberations, but this book provides a wider perspective—Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., NY Library Journal
“Journalists Fitzgerald and Gould do yeoman’s labor in clearing the fog and laying bare American failures in Afghanistan in this deeply researched, cogently argued and enormously important book. “ —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A probing history of the country and a critical evaluation of American involvement in recent decades . . . A fresh perspective on a little-understood nation.” —Kirkus
“The Voice takes its audience on a quest for the real Holy Grail, entwining scientific mythology with geopolitical intrigue in an esoteric thrill-ride Dan Brown couldn’t dream up…” — Michael Hughes Huffpost Books
“Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould have seen the importance of the ‘Great Game’ in Afghanistan since the early 1980s. They have been most courageous in their commitment to telling the truth—and have paid a steep price for it.” —Oliver Stone
“Fitzgerald and Gould have consistently raised the difficult questions and inconvenient truths about western engagement in Afghanistan. While many analysts and observers have attempted to wish a reality on a grim and tragic situation in Afghanistan, Fitzgerald and Gould have systematically dug through the archives and historical record with integrity and foresight to reveal a series of misguided strategies and approaches that have contributed to what has become a tragic quagmire in Afghanistan.” –Professor Thomas Johnson, Department of National Security Affairs and Director, Program for Culture and Conflict Studies, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California
“A ferocious, iron-clad argument about the institutional failure of American foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” — Daniel Ellsberg
“Crossing Zero is much more than a devastating indictment of the folly of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan. Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould demonstrate that the U.S. debacle in Afghanistan is the predictable climax of U.S. imperial overreach on a global scale. Like their earlier work documenting the origins of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan during the Cold War, Crossing Zero deserves the attention of all serious students of U.S. foreign policy.” —Selig S. Harrison, Co-author with Diego Cordovez of Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal
“I loved it. An extraordinary contribution to understanding war and geo-politics in Afghanistan that will shock most Americans by its revelations of official American government complicity in using, shielding, sponsoring and supporting terrorism. A devastating indictment on the behind-the-scenes shenanigans by some of America’s most respected statesmen” —Daniel Estulin, author of The True Story of the Bilderberg Club
“Americans are now beginning to grasp the scope of the mess their leaders made while pursuing misguided military adventures into regions of Central Asia we once called ‘remote.’ How this happened–and what the US can do to extricate itself from its entanglements in Pakistan and Afghanistan–is the story of Crossing Zero. Based on decades of study and research, this book draws lines and connects dots in ways few others do.”—Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men and Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future
“In this penetrating inquiry, based on careful study of an intricate web of political, cultural, and historical factors that lie in the immediate background, and enriched by unique direct observation at crucial moments, Fitzgerald and Gould tell ‘the real story of how they came to be there and what we can expect next.’ Invocation of Armageddon is no mere literary device.” —Noam Chomsky
“A serious, sobering study… illuminates a critical point of view rarely discussed by our media…results of this willful ignorance have been disastrous to our national well-being.” —Oliver Stone