Customer Reviews
"The poor man's air force" - By: Bright Day Of Summer, 11 Apr 2008 
In Buda's Wagon: A brief history of the car bomb, Mike Davis recounts the background of what he calls the "workhorses of urban terrorism".
Often the product of fringe militancy or "clandestine state terrorism", Davis shows that the car bomb has a limitless capacity to create & sustain fear.
This is, he argues, largely because of its low cost & technological accessibility.
He writes, "Vehicle bombs are stealth weapons of surprising power & destructive efficiency."
However, as Davis puts it, "Like even the `smartest' of aerial bombs, car bombs are inherently indiscriminate. `Collateral damage' is virtually inevitable.
"If the logic of an attack is to slaughter innocents & sow panicin the widest circle, to operate a `strategy of tension', or just demoralise a society, car bombs are ideal.
"But they are equally effective at destroying the moral credibility of a cause & alienating its mass base of support, as both the IRA & the ETAin Spain have independently discovered."
Davis steers away from romanticism, keeping tight focus on the indiscriminate violence inflicted upon innocents.
Packed with horrific details, the book goes beyond the statistics to portray the human & moral costs of this gruesome political lever.
He exposes the role of state intelligence agencies - particularly those of the US, Israel, India, & Pakistan -in globalising urban terrorist techniques.
He points out, "Anonymity,in addition, greatly recommends car bombs to those who like to disguise their handiwork, including the CIA, the Israeli Mossad, the Syrian GSD, the Iranian Pasdaran, & the Pakistani ISI - all of whom have caused unspeakable carnage with such devices."
The Zionist Stern Gang brought the car bomb to the Middle East. In the 1950s the CIA brought it to Vietnam.
It was brought to Algeria by far-right French ex army officers trying to destroy the independence struggle. In each case, the weapon produced blowback when adopted by their enemies.
Davis argues at the end of the book, "Since there is little likelihood of socio-economic reforms or concessions to self determination that might lead to the large scale `decommissioning of minds' the car bomb has a brilliant future.
"Every laser-guided missile falling on an apartment housein southern Beirut or mud-walled compoundin Kandahar is a future suicide truck bomb headed for the centre of Tel Aviv or perhaps downtown Los Angeles."
The poor man's airforce - By: Alan Lenton, 16 Mar 2008 Buda's Wagon - A Brief History of the Car Bomb by Mike Davis, Verso
MacArthur fellow Mike Davis has written an absorbing book about the development of what has been called 'the poor man's air force'. Starting with anarchist Mario Buda's horse & cart bombing of J.P. Morgan's buildingin Wall Streetin 1920, Davis leads the reader through the development of increasingly powerful & sophisticated weapons until we get to the use of car bombsin Baghdad today.
But the author is not just interestedin the technical time-line of car bombs, he also looks at the sociology of car bombs,in particular the wayin which car bombs have been increasing used to inflict deliberate civilian casualties, rather than to target specific 'enemy' infrastructure. Davis also charts the risein suicide car bombings & sets the whole storyin a political framework which some people will find uncomfortable.
Just one caveat. Don't take this book to read on a plane. Government security personal are notorious for their inability to understand that people might want to study activities of which they disapprovein order to understand motivation!
Recommended.
