7.25.2018
Need To Know, Cleveland - B +
A veteran CIA counter-intelligence analyst, mother of four, develops a program to see into the computer of a Russian who runs sleeper agents in the US. When she clicks on a file with the picture of five spies, she is totally floored when the third one is her husband. That night after they get the kids down, she asks him how long he has been working for the Russians. He replies twenty-two years. The ensuing story is just as unbelievable as Matt and Vivian try and sort out how to keep their family together. There are some fabulous plot twists in a totally enjoyable quick read.
7.23.2018
Ghost Wars: The Secret History Of the CIA, Afghanistan, And Bin Laden, From The Soviet Invasion To September 10, 2001, Coll - B+
This excellent book is a Pulitzer winner from 2005. The title stems from the nature of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet conscripts called their opponents 'dukhi' or ghosts. The enemy in the high mountains was a fleeting and lethal apparition.
The year 1979 saw the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the deposing of the Shah, the assaults on the US embassies in Tehran and Islamabad, the attack on Mecca's Grand Mosque and an anti-communist revolt in Afghanistan. The Soviet trained and supplied regime had been in place only a year and seemed incapable of dealing with the changes sweeping the Islamic world. The Soviets invaded in the waning days of the year. The US response was to support the rebels through Pakistan and make the Soviet occupation as painful as possible. The CIA would supply "mules, money and mortars". The Saudis quickly joined in and began delivering endless amounts of cash to Pakistan to support the fight in Afghanistan. Saudi individuals ready to take up arms soon followed. One wealthy young Saudi who travelled between the peninsula and Pakistan and tirelessly worked for the jihadists fighting the infidel Soviets was named Osama Bin Laden. The US and Saudi funded mujahedin effectively bled the Soviets dry in Afghanistan. It was one of the most successful and effective guerrilla wars in history.
The most capable Afghan rebel was Ahmed Massoud, son of an army general, Islamic student of the great resistance fighters and anti-Soviet genius. He led thousands of fighters in the north of the country and stole almost all of his supplies from the Soviets, who threw their best equipped Spetsnaz units against him to no avail. In the US, Bill Casey initiated a massive escalation of the CIA efforts in 1985. In addition to increasing the supplies of money and arms, the US supported a Pakistani guerrilla warfare (if not terrorism) training center that taught combat skills to thousands of not just Afghans, but mujahedin from all over the Middle East. Money poured in and roads were built along the border to assist the delivery of endless material. The Soviets' success in the mid-80's was met by Stinger missiles that turned the tide and the Politburo in the USSR began to consider withdrawal. The confluence of so many jihadists in the area led to discussions about the future nature of their ambitions, as it was not just the communists, but the Americans and Israelis that they despised. In 1989, the Soviets left behind their ten-year equivalent of Vietnam. They had killed two million Afghanis, destroyed whatever bit of a nation there was, had lost 15,000 of their own men, suffered another 35,000 wounded and had failed in their mission to prop up the local regime.
The Soviets left behind a regime headed by Mohammad Najibullah that everyone expected to fail, and the question in Washington and Pakistan was what would come next. The US wished to see Afghani self-determination and our ally wanted an Islamic regime on their northern border. Thus began a variance in policy between the US and Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI). Concurrently, the Saudis lost influence with the mujahedin for their failure to pursue aggressive Islamism in the country. The alliance that had defeated the Soviets was falling apart. With the death of the USSR, Washington ended all financial aid to the country and left it to the Afghanis to sort things out. Kabul fell to Ahmed Massoud in 1992. In a country that had more weapons per capita than any in the world and was selling vast amounts of opium, the US would go almost a decade without a policy or a presence. Afghanistan quickly devolved into internecine tribal fighting. Concurrent with Afghanistan's chaos, the early-90's also saw the rise of aggressive Islamic extremism that culminated in the Taliban's rise to power in Kandahar in 1994. The Pashtuns in the southern part of the country fell under the leadership of Mullah Omar. The Taliban offered a return of the king and an end to the cycles of violence. The rise of the Taliban was supported by both the ISI and Saudi Intelligence. With a financial assist from the new Afghanistan resident, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban occupied Kabul in late 1996 and effectively took over control of the country. The same year saw bin Laden fax his declaration of jihad against America, Israel and Saudi Arabia to a London newspaper. Two years later, he issued a fatwa in conjunction with Ayman al-Zawahiri calling for assaults on American civilians anywhere in the world. By this time, the US was actively trying to hunt down bin Laden.
Al Qaeda and Bin Laden struck for the first time against two US embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998, when truck bombs were detonated causing significant American and African casualties. Capturing Bin Laden became an American objective, yet one that was never successful. There were multiple reasons for the failure. Satellite imaging technology in the late 90's was not what it would become a decade later. In Washington, there were a handful of entities tasked with the pursuit, but none had the funding or manpower necessary for the task. There were also endless legalities that the White House and CIA faced regarding fighting terrorists. Additionally, Bin Laden practiced exquisite evasive tradecraft. He was constantly on the move, did not use telephones and only trusted Arab bodyguards. There were no Afghanis close to him who could be bought. And perhaps most importantly, the Pakistanis lied continually and were of absolutely no help in ascertaining his whereabouts. On top of all this, the author pounds home one consistent theme - in the turmoil of the Clinton White House, there was no policy on Afghanistan or Al Qaeda. That is not to say they weren't very concerned, they just never figured out how to go after him. Bin Laden struck a second time on Oct. 12, 2000 when a small skiff blew a hole in the USS Cole while it was docked in Yemen. The US response would now be in the hands of a new administration.
The outgoing Clinton team told the newcomers that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were existential threats and the most important national security issue they would face. It didn't register with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rice. By the spring of 2001, the new administration realized that they needed to go after Al Qaeda, but ran into the same strategic hurdle that Clinton had. Pakistan, with its eye on India, had to have an Islamist neighbor to the north. For the US, keeping the two nuclear-armed south Asian countries at peace and the Pakistan nuclear arsenal safe from radicals always trumped the Bin Laden issue. Around and around the conversation went. By the summer, everyone in American counter-intelligence knew something big was about to happen. On Sept. 4th, the administration initiated a plan that would pursue bin Laden in conjunction with an alliance with Ahmed Massoud, who led the only viable anti-Taliban efforts in Afghanistan from its northern regions. They also concluded that the CIA should prepare to fly armed Predator drones in pursuit of Bin Laden. On Sept. 9th, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Massoud.
This is a superb book. But 584 pages of text and mind-numbing detail on every conceivable issue and individual turned this into a 2 week slog for me. This is only for those with ample time and unlimited patience. The sequel 'Directorate S' has just been published and will be tackled in due course.
The year 1979 saw the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the deposing of the Shah, the assaults on the US embassies in Tehran and Islamabad, the attack on Mecca's Grand Mosque and an anti-communist revolt in Afghanistan. The Soviet trained and supplied regime had been in place only a year and seemed incapable of dealing with the changes sweeping the Islamic world. The Soviets invaded in the waning days of the year. The US response was to support the rebels through Pakistan and make the Soviet occupation as painful as possible. The CIA would supply "mules, money and mortars". The Saudis quickly joined in and began delivering endless amounts of cash to Pakistan to support the fight in Afghanistan. Saudi individuals ready to take up arms soon followed. One wealthy young Saudi who travelled between the peninsula and Pakistan and tirelessly worked for the jihadists fighting the infidel Soviets was named Osama Bin Laden. The US and Saudi funded mujahedin effectively bled the Soviets dry in Afghanistan. It was one of the most successful and effective guerrilla wars in history.
The most capable Afghan rebel was Ahmed Massoud, son of an army general, Islamic student of the great resistance fighters and anti-Soviet genius. He led thousands of fighters in the north of the country and stole almost all of his supplies from the Soviets, who threw their best equipped Spetsnaz units against him to no avail. In the US, Bill Casey initiated a massive escalation of the CIA efforts in 1985. In addition to increasing the supplies of money and arms, the US supported a Pakistani guerrilla warfare (if not terrorism) training center that taught combat skills to thousands of not just Afghans, but mujahedin from all over the Middle East. Money poured in and roads were built along the border to assist the delivery of endless material. The Soviets' success in the mid-80's was met by Stinger missiles that turned the tide and the Politburo in the USSR began to consider withdrawal. The confluence of so many jihadists in the area led to discussions about the future nature of their ambitions, as it was not just the communists, but the Americans and Israelis that they despised. In 1989, the Soviets left behind their ten-year equivalent of Vietnam. They had killed two million Afghanis, destroyed whatever bit of a nation there was, had lost 15,000 of their own men, suffered another 35,000 wounded and had failed in their mission to prop up the local regime.
The Soviets left behind a regime headed by Mohammad Najibullah that everyone expected to fail, and the question in Washington and Pakistan was what would come next. The US wished to see Afghani self-determination and our ally wanted an Islamic regime on their northern border. Thus began a variance in policy between the US and Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (ISI). Concurrently, the Saudis lost influence with the mujahedin for their failure to pursue aggressive Islamism in the country. The alliance that had defeated the Soviets was falling apart. With the death of the USSR, Washington ended all financial aid to the country and left it to the Afghanis to sort things out. Kabul fell to Ahmed Massoud in 1992. In a country that had more weapons per capita than any in the world and was selling vast amounts of opium, the US would go almost a decade without a policy or a presence. Afghanistan quickly devolved into internecine tribal fighting. Concurrent with Afghanistan's chaos, the early-90's also saw the rise of aggressive Islamic extremism that culminated in the Taliban's rise to power in Kandahar in 1994. The Pashtuns in the southern part of the country fell under the leadership of Mullah Omar. The Taliban offered a return of the king and an end to the cycles of violence. The rise of the Taliban was supported by both the ISI and Saudi Intelligence. With a financial assist from the new Afghanistan resident, Osama bin Laden, the Taliban occupied Kabul in late 1996 and effectively took over control of the country. The same year saw bin Laden fax his declaration of jihad against America, Israel and Saudi Arabia to a London newspaper. Two years later, he issued a fatwa in conjunction with Ayman al-Zawahiri calling for assaults on American civilians anywhere in the world. By this time, the US was actively trying to hunt down bin Laden.
Al Qaeda and Bin Laden struck for the first time against two US embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998, when truck bombs were detonated causing significant American and African casualties. Capturing Bin Laden became an American objective, yet one that was never successful. There were multiple reasons for the failure. Satellite imaging technology in the late 90's was not what it would become a decade later. In Washington, there were a handful of entities tasked with the pursuit, but none had the funding or manpower necessary for the task. There were also endless legalities that the White House and CIA faced regarding fighting terrorists. Additionally, Bin Laden practiced exquisite evasive tradecraft. He was constantly on the move, did not use telephones and only trusted Arab bodyguards. There were no Afghanis close to him who could be bought. And perhaps most importantly, the Pakistanis lied continually and were of absolutely no help in ascertaining his whereabouts. On top of all this, the author pounds home one consistent theme - in the turmoil of the Clinton White House, there was no policy on Afghanistan or Al Qaeda. That is not to say they weren't very concerned, they just never figured out how to go after him. Bin Laden struck a second time on Oct. 12, 2000 when a small skiff blew a hole in the USS Cole while it was docked in Yemen. The US response would now be in the hands of a new administration.
The outgoing Clinton team told the newcomers that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were existential threats and the most important national security issue they would face. It didn't register with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rice. By the spring of 2001, the new administration realized that they needed to go after Al Qaeda, but ran into the same strategic hurdle that Clinton had. Pakistan, with its eye on India, had to have an Islamist neighbor to the north. For the US, keeping the two nuclear-armed south Asian countries at peace and the Pakistan nuclear arsenal safe from radicals always trumped the Bin Laden issue. Around and around the conversation went. By the summer, everyone in American counter-intelligence knew something big was about to happen. On Sept. 4th, the administration initiated a plan that would pursue bin Laden in conjunction with an alliance with Ahmed Massoud, who led the only viable anti-Taliban efforts in Afghanistan from its northern regions. They also concluded that the CIA should prepare to fly armed Predator drones in pursuit of Bin Laden. On Sept. 9th, a Taliban suicide bomber killed Massoud.
This is a superb book. But 584 pages of text and mind-numbing detail on every conceivable issue and individual turned this into a 2 week slog for me. This is only for those with ample time and unlimited patience. The sequel 'Directorate S' has just been published and will be tackled in due course.
The Other Woman, Silva - C
The latest Gabriel Allon book has all the things that make this series as welcome as an old friend. There is intrigue, spycraft, fabulous European locations, the usual cast of delightful Israeli operatives and fascinating insights into pieces of the past. But, I fear the author has jumped the shark with the key character the unknown and illegitimate child of a member of the Cambridge Five, alive and well-placed at the upper echelons of a western intelligence service.
7.17.2018
The Triumph Of Christianity: How A Forbidden Religion Swept The World, Ehrman - B
"The ancient triumph of Christianity proved to be the single greatest cultural transformation our world has ever seen." Christianity supplanted religions that had survived for thousands of years, insisting that only the worship of Jesus Christ was allowed. By changing the world and the way people looked at it, Christianity reset the course of history. The concept of dominance of one person over another was replaced with the ideas of equality and service to others. From this flowed societies with a concern for the sick, poor and marginalized. "This effected the history of the West in a way that simply cannot be calculated." The pivotal point in the success of the religion was its adoption by Constantine. "Few events in the history of civilization have proved more transformative than the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the year 312 CE." Thus, Christianity went from being persecuted to enjoying imperial privileges and became the official religion of the empire 80 years later.
The one other conversion just as significant preceded Constantine's by three centuries, and that was of Paul soon after the death of Jesus. Paul believed he was called by God to bring the religion of Jesus to the gentiles of the world. He thus greatly expanded the possibilities of the new religion by bringing it beyond the Jews of the empire. He spread the word from Galilee to Greece and the Balkans. "The death and resurrection of Jesus brought a salvation that was not tied to explicit Jewish identity; ...the salvation of Christ was as efficacious for gentiles as well as Jews; ....pagans who came to believe in Christ did not first have to convert to Judaism". The Jews never could accept Christ because it was beyond their comprehension that a lower class carpenter, a criminal brutally executed by the Romans, could be their messiah. It fell to the former pagans to adopt the new religion in increasing numbers. Paganism itself was a characterization that Christians adopted to refer to the polytheists of the empire who were neither Jews or Christians. The new faith spread because of the evangelistic actions of its new adherents and its requirement of exclusivity meant it would not be absorbed into the polytheistic world by becoming a new add-on. Christian proselytizers raised the concept of an afterlife and effectively used a fear of hell and its very specific forms of eternal punishment to bring newcomers into the fold. From the time of Constantine, when Christianity claimed a small percent of the empire, the faith grew to encompass half of the 60 million people of Rome by 400 CE. When he built Constantinople, Constantine had many of the pagan statues and idols throughout the empire melted down for use in adorning his new city. Later in the century, Theodosius I proscribed animal sacrifice, and pagan cults and proclaimed Christianity the state religion.
"However one evaluates the measure of the case, whether Christianization of the West was a triumph to be treasured or a defeat to be lamented, no one can deny it was the most monumental cultural transformation our world has ever seen,"
The one other conversion just as significant preceded Constantine's by three centuries, and that was of Paul soon after the death of Jesus. Paul believed he was called by God to bring the religion of Jesus to the gentiles of the world. He thus greatly expanded the possibilities of the new religion by bringing it beyond the Jews of the empire. He spread the word from Galilee to Greece and the Balkans. "The death and resurrection of Jesus brought a salvation that was not tied to explicit Jewish identity; ...the salvation of Christ was as efficacious for gentiles as well as Jews; ....pagans who came to believe in Christ did not first have to convert to Judaism". The Jews never could accept Christ because it was beyond their comprehension that a lower class carpenter, a criminal brutally executed by the Romans, could be their messiah. It fell to the former pagans to adopt the new religion in increasing numbers. Paganism itself was a characterization that Christians adopted to refer to the polytheists of the empire who were neither Jews or Christians. The new faith spread because of the evangelistic actions of its new adherents and its requirement of exclusivity meant it would not be absorbed into the polytheistic world by becoming a new add-on. Christian proselytizers raised the concept of an afterlife and effectively used a fear of hell and its very specific forms of eternal punishment to bring newcomers into the fold. From the time of Constantine, when Christianity claimed a small percent of the empire, the faith grew to encompass half of the 60 million people of Rome by 400 CE. When he built Constantinople, Constantine had many of the pagan statues and idols throughout the empire melted down for use in adorning his new city. Later in the century, Theodosius I proscribed animal sacrifice, and pagan cults and proclaimed Christianity the state religion.
"However one evaluates the measure of the case, whether Christianization of the West was a triumph to be treasured or a defeat to be lamented, no one can deny it was the most monumental cultural transformation our world has ever seen,"
The Woman In The Window, Finn - B
This novel is the classic beach read page-turner that can be, and was by me, knocked-off in a day. Dr. Anna Fox suffers from a severe case of agoraphobia and is unable to leave her four- story Harlem townhouse. Like Jimmy Stewart in 'Rear Window', she sits with a long range lens and watches things going on across the street. She watches b +w movies, especially old Hitchcock's, as she pops pills and consumes vast amounts of merlot trying to forget the events that drove her over the edge. She thinks she sees a murder, but then again, who'd believe a woman who can barely remember what day it is. I wouldn't be surprised if this makes it to the silver screen.
A Taste For Vengeance, Walker - B
After a decade as the only policeman in St. Denis, Bruno is promoted to chief for a much larger area and actually, has subordinates for the first time. He also has a confused reporting chain of command, yet rolls with the changes and brilliantly leads the search for some IRA hit-men brought back to action in the south of France. His adroit social skills help a young woman overcome a personal challenge and play for the nation's rugby team. All's well in this thoroughly comfortable and enjoyable series.
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