Robert Baer Reviews Hoodwinked Robert Baeris the author of twoNew York Timesbestsellers:Sleeping with the Devil, about the Saudi royal family and its relationship with the United States; andSee No Evil, which recounts Baer’s years as a top CIA operative.See No Evilwas the basis for the acclaimed filmSyriana, which earned George Clooney an Oscar for his portrayal of Baer. Baer has contributed toVanity Fair, theWall Street Journal, and theWashington Post. He is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Middle East. Read his guest review ofHoodwinked: 
I wasn’t twenty pages into Hoodwinked when I realized Perkins nailed it. What got us into the mess we’re in today, the worst recession since the Great Depression, is the same grotesque capitalism cum corruption we shoved down the throat of the Third World since the end of World War II. (Yes, the Third World’s elites were cheerfully corrupted.)
We, and the rest of the West, learned the trick of selling unneeded infrastructure, services, over-sophisticated weapons--stuff that could never benefit anyone other than the people who lined their pockets. And yes, Perkins is right, the international economists and press were handmaidens to the thievery.
It was all fairly routine until 9/11, when the real gorging started. Tell the people their roof is on fire and they’ll give you whatever you ask for. Between 2001 and 2009 the Department of Defense budget increased 74 percent, and ...
