books tagged “terrorism”

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  • 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of The Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers
    by Kevin Flynn
    ISBN 0805080325 (0-8050-8032-5)
    Softcover, Henry Holt & Co

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    In 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, New York Times writers Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn vividly recreate the 102-minute span between the moment Flight 11 hit the first Twin Tower on the morning of September 11, 2001, and the moment the second tower collapsed, all from the perspective of those inside the buildings--the 12,000 who escaped, and the 2,749 who did not. It's becoming easier, years later, to forget the profound, visceral responses the Trade Center attacks evoked in the days and weeks following September 11. Using hundreds of interviews, countless transcripts of radio and phone communications, and exhaustive research, Dwyer and Flynn bring that flood of responses back--from heartbreak to bewilderment to fury. The randomness of death and survival is heartbreaking. One man, in the second tower, survived because he bolted from his desk the moment he heard the first plane hit; another, who stayed at his desk on the 97th floor, called his wife in his final moments to tell her to cancel a surprise trip he had planned. In many cases, the deaths of those who survived the initial attacks but were killed by the collapse of the towers were tragically avoidable. Building code exemptions, communication breakdowns between firefighters and police, and policies put in place by building management to keep everyone inside the towers in emergencies led, the authors argue, to the deaths of hundreds who might otherwise have survived. September 11 is by now both familiar and nearly mythological. Dwyer and Flynn's accomplishment is recounting that day's events in a style that is stirring, thorough, and refreshingly understated. --Erica C. Barnett [via]

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  • 9-11
    by Noam Chomsky
    ISBN 1583224890 (1-58322-489-0)
    Softcover, Seven Stories Pr

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    It is always instructive to read American's premier dissident thinker if only simply to get an alternative take on what constitutes our present day "common sense"--an urgent project he undertakes in 9-11. Chomsky, whose recent hugely prolific political output has made him something of an icon of the American left, began his career as a ground-breaking theoretical linguist. And it is his attention to detail and language which continue to make him such a useful guide through the murky world of power politics and particularly to US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. In grappling with 9-11, a date which has become a noun whose very definition has been consciously moulded by the media and the American establishment, Chomsky is taking on one of the biggest challenges of our time. But this is a very slight book in which to do this. A collection of interviews conducted in the month following the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center Chomsky is here keen to stress the urgency of a response to 9-11 that is not simply reactionary warfaring. It behoves us to discover why 9-11 really happened. In the words of the title of another very useful book: Why Do People Hate America?. In such a small, and sometimes rather repetitive, volume Chomsky can only really encourage us to ask better questions and to seek more carefully and widely for better answers. But if questions are beginning to form then readers could do worse than look to this useful and provocative book. --Mark Thwaite [via]

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  • The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
    by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States
    ISBN 0393326713 (0-393-32671-3)
    Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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    The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]

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  • 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Official edition) Including the Executive Summary
    by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9-11 Commission)
    ISBN 1579809677 (1-57980-967-7)
    Softcover, Claitors Pub Div

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    The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]

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  • The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States Official Government Edition
    by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9-11 Commission)
    ISBN 0160723043 (0-16-072304-3)
    Softcover, United States Government Printing

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    The result of months of intensive investigations and inquiries by a specially appointed bipartisan panel, The 9/11 Commission Report is one of the most important historical documents of the modern era. And while that fact alone makes it worth owning, it is also a chilling and valuable piece of nonfiction: a comprehensive and alarming look at one of the biggest intelligence failures in history and the events that led up to it. The commission traces the roots of al-Qaeda's strategies along with the emergence of the 19 hijackers and how they entered the United States and boarded airplanes. It details the missed opportunities of law enforcement officials to avert disaster. Using transcripts of cockpit voice recordings, the report describes events on board the planes along with the chaotic reaction on the ground from nearly every level of government. Going forward, the commission calls for a comprehensive overhaul of what it sees as a deeply flawed and disjointed intelligence-gathering operation. The creation of a post for a single National Security Director is recommended, along with the creation of a National Counterterrorism Center. The report finds fault with the approaches of both the Clinton and Bush administrations but, because they were a bipartisan panel and the problems described are so systemic and far-reaching, they stop short of assigning blame to any particular person or group. Credit must be given to how readable the report is. At more than 500 pages, the writing is clear and forceful and the information is made more accessible since it is fre from election politics and rancor. While the commission notes that future attacks are probably inevitable, a coordinated preventive effort along with a clear plan to respond with efficiency can offer Americans some hope in a post-9/11 world. --John Moe [via]

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  • The 9/11 Report
    by Thomas H. Kean, Lee Hamilton, Nat'L Commission on Terrorist Attacks, New York Times Staff
    ISBN 0312935544 (0-312-93554-4)
    Softcover, St Martins Pr

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    With Reporting and Analysis by the New York Times

    What happened on 9/11 and how? Have we learned any lessons? Are we safer now?
     
    The questions every American wants answered.

    Since September 11, 2001, Americans have wondered how the tragic events of that day could have occurred.  This is the complete report of the circumstances surrounding the attacts, including:

    *Al Qaeda and the organization of the 9/11 attack
    *Intelligence collection, analysis, and management
    *International counterterrorism policy
    *The inner workings of terrorist financing
    *The security of American borders 
    *Law enforcement inside the U.S.
    *Commercial aviation and transportation safety
    * Personal interviews with Presidents Clinton and Bush on their roles

    Supplemented with analysis and reporting by The New York Times, this edition of The 9/11 Report also makes recommendations as to how to prevent terrorist attacks in the future.
    [via]

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  • Acts of Aggression: Policing Rogue States
    by Noam Chomsky, Edward W. Said
    ISBN 1583225463 (1-58322-546-3)
    Softcover, Seven Stories Pr

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    What constitutes the behavior that gets a nation labeled a "rogue state"? If, Noam Chomsky suggests, we consider a state to be acting in an "outlaw" fashion when it refuses to heed the articles and resolutions of the United Nations, then the United States is as much a "rogue state" as Saddam Hussein's Iraq--if not more. Chomsky presents a brief outline of America's attempts--once the cold war was over--to reconstruct Iraq as an enemy after years of turning a blind eye to Saddam's activities and even supplying him with aid. He also considers how the broader "war" on terrorism fits into this post-cold-war strategy. Noted commentator on Middle Eastern affairs Edward Said supplements Chomsky's argument with a consideration of the severity of U.S. sanctions against Iraq and what he views as a growing disregard for the interests of other Arab nations in the region. And Ramsey Clark offers a brief coda on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Chomsky himself delivers a more elaborate consideration of this theme in another book in the Open Media series, The Umbrella of U.S. Power. --Ron Hogan [via]

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  • Against All Enemies: Inside America's War On Terror
    by Richard A. Clarke
    ISBN 0743260457 (0-7432-6045-7)
    Softcover, Free Pr

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    Few political memoirs have made such a dramatic entrance as that by Richard A. Clarke. During the week of the initial publication of Against All Enemies, Clarke was featured on 60 Minutes, testified before the 9/11 commission, and touched off a raging controversy over how the presidential administration handled the threat of terrorism and the post-9/11 geopolitical landscape. Clarke, a veteran Washington insider who had advised presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush, dissects each man's approach to terrorism but levels the harshest criticism at the latter Bush and his advisors who, Clarke asserts, failed to take terrorism and Al-Qaeda seriously. Clarke details how, in light of mounting intelligence of the danger Al-Qaeda presented, his urgent requests to move terrorism up the list of priorities in the early days of the administration were met with apathy and procrastination and how, after the attacks took place, Bush and key figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney turned their attention almost immediately to Iraq, a nation not involved in the attacks. Against All Enemies takes the reader inside the Beltway beginning with the Reagan administration, who failed to retaliate against the 1982 Beirut bombings, fueling the perception around the world that the United States was vulnerable to such attacks. Terrorism becomes a growing but largely ignored threat under the first President Bush, whom Clarke cites for his failure to eliminate Saddam Hussein, thereby necessitating a continued American presence in Saudi Arabia that further inflamed anti-American sentiment. Clinton, according to Clarke, understood the gravity of the situation and became increasingly obsessed with stopping Al-Qaeda. He had developed workable plans but was hamstrung by political infighting and the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But Bush and his advisers, Clarke says, didn't get it before 9/11 and they didn't get it after, taking a unilateral approach that seemed destined to lead to more attacks on Americans and American interests around the world. Clarke's inside accounts of what happens in the corridors of power are fascinating and the book, written in a compelling, highly readable style, at times almost seems like a fiction thriller. But the threat of terrorism and the consequences of Bush's approach to it feel very sobering and very real. --John Moe [via]

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  • The Age of Sacred Terror : Radical Islam's War Against America
    by Daniel K. Benjamin, Steven Simon
    ISBN 0375508597 (0-375-50859-7)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon began working on this book shortly after leaving the National Security Council, where, as director and senior director for counterterrorism, they watched the rise of al-Qaeda and helped coordinate Americas fight against Usama bin Laden and his organization. They warned in articles and interviews about the appearance of a new breed of terrorists who were determined to kill on the grand scale. More than a year before September 11, 2001, they began writing The Age of Sacred Terror to sound the alarm for a nation that had not recognized the gravest threat of our time.

    One of their books original goals has remained: to provide the insights to understand an enemy unlike any seen in living memoryone with an extraordinary ability to detect weakness and exploit it, one with a determination to inflict catastrophic damage, one that will not be deterred. But after September 11, a second, equally crucial goal was added: to understand how America let its defenses down, how warnings went unheeded, and how key parts of the government failed at vital tasks. The Age of Sacred Terror also describes the road ahead, where the terrorists will look to draw strength, and what the United States must do, at home and abroad, to stop them. For a year after the attacks that redefined terrorism and devastated the publics sense of security, America has been searching for answers about those responsible for one of the darkest days in our history and explanations for the glaring gaps in our defenses. The Age of Sacred Terror provides both, with unique authority. It is the book that Americans must read to understand the foremost challenge we face. [via]

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  • Simon, Steven: The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America
    The Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America
    by Steven Simon, Dan Benjamin
    ISBN 0812969847 (0-8129-6984-7)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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  • Al-qaeda: A True Story Of Radical Islam
    by Jason Burke
    ISBN 1850436665 (1-85043-666-5)
    Softcover, I B Tauris & Co Ltd

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    Award-winning reporter Jason Burke shows how the threat from Islamic terrorism comes not from a single criminal mastermind, or even from one group. In this revealing account, he characterizes it is a broad movement with profound roots in the politics, societies and history of the Islamic world. Using hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents, Burke shows how "Al-Qaeda" is a convenient label applied misleadingly to a diverse, disorganized global movement dedicated to fighting a "cosmic battle" with the West. This is the definitive account of the mysterious organization, retelling its story from scratch and challenging many myths that threaten the very foundations of the "War on Terror."
    [via]

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  • Burke, Jason: Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror
    Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror
    by Jason Burke
    ISBN 1850433968 (1-85043-396-8)
    Hardcover, I B Tauris & Co Ltd

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  • Emerson, Steven: American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
    American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us
    by Steven Emerson
    ISBN 0743234359 (0-7432-3435-9)
    Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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    Some have said that the events of September 11 took every American by surprise. That's not true. There were Cassandras among us warning about the dangers of Islamic terrorism--and one of their leaders was American Jihad author Steven Emerson, who must be ranked among the most fearless reporters in the world. As a self-made expert on Islamic terrorism, he has invited the hatred of violent murderers. (At least one group has marked him for assassination; he was offered enrolment in the federal witness protection program, but refused). For more than 10 years, Emerson has soldiered on, studying groups that operate in the United States for the express purpose of funding and managing deadly organisations.

    American Jihad summarises what he has learned, and it isn't comforting. Emerson shows how the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has grown an extensive network in the United States, how the group Islamic Jihad set up shop at the University of South Florida, and how an Islamic centre in Tucson helped recruit two of Osama bin Laden's top deputies. He also provides circumstantial evidence that bin Laden himself once applied for an American visa--"even the possibility is tantalizing, and chilling", he concludes. He urges Americans to fight back, but worries that time is short: "We are still vulnerable". This is an important book, and a sobering one. --John Miller, Amazon.com [via]

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  • Bel Canto
    by Ann Patchett
    ISBN 0060838728 (0-06-083872-8)
    Softcover, Perennial

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    In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.

    Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Reuben Iglesias, the diminutive and gracious vice president, quickly gets sideways of the kidnappers, who have no interest in him whatsoever. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator named Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.

    With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity. Her voice is suitably lyrical, melodic, full of warmth and compassion. Hearing opera sung live for the first time, a young priest reflects:

    Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.
    Joined by no common language except music, the 58 international hostages and their captors forge unexpected bonds. Time stands still, priorities rearrange themselves. Ultimately, of course, something has to give, even in a novel so imbued with the rich imaginative potential of magic realism. But in a fractious world, Bel Canto remains a gentle reminder of the transcendence of beauty and love. --Victoria Jenkins [via]

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  • Beyond Fear : Thinking Sensibly about Security in an Uncertain World
    by Bruce Schneier
    ISBN 0387026207 (0-387-02620-7)
    Hardcover, Springer

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    Book summary:

    Many of us, especially since 9/11, have become personally concerned about issues of security, and this is no surprise. Security is near the top of government and corporate agendas around the globe. Security-related stories appear on the front page everyday. How well though, do any of us truly understand what achieving real security involves? In Beyond Fear, Bruce Schneier invites us to take a critical look at not just the threats to our security, but the ways in which we're encouraged to think about security by law enforcement agencies, businesses of all shapes and sizes, and our national governments and militaries. Schneier believes we all can and should be better security consumers, and that the trade-offs we make in the name of security - in terms of cash outlays, taxes, inconvenience, and diminished freedoms - should be part of an ongoing negotiation in our personal, professional, and civic lives, and the subject of an open and informed national discussion. With a well-deserved reputation for original and sometimes iconoclastic thought, Schneier has a lot to say that is provocative, counter-intuitive, and just plain good sense. He explains in detail, for example, why we need to design security systems that don't just work well, but fail well, and why secrecy on the part of government often undermines security. He also believes, for instance, that national ID cards are an exceptionally bad idea: technically unsound, and even destructive of security. And, contrary to a lot of current nay-sayers, he thinks online shopping is fundamentally safe, and that many of the new airline security measure (though by no means all) are actually quite effective. A skeptic of much that's promised by highly touted technologies like biometrics, Schneier is also a refreshingly positive, problem-solving force in the often self-dramatizing and fear-mongering world of security pundits. Schneier helps the reader to understand the issues at stake, and how to best come to one's own conclusions, including the vast infrastructure we already have in place, and the vaster systems--some useful, others useless or worse--that we're being asked to submit to and pay for. Bruce Schneier is the author of seven books, including Applied Cryptography (which Wired called "the one book the National Security Agency wanted never to be published") and Secrets and Lies (described in Fortune as "startlingly lively...¦[a] jewel box of little surprises you can actually use."). He is also Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Counterpane Internet Security, Inc., and publishes Crypto-Gram, one of the most widely read newsletters in the field of online security. [via]

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  • The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror
    by Bernard Lewis
    ISBN 0812967852 (0-8129-6785-2)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    After the terrorist attacks of September 11, many Americans yearned to understand why Muslim extremists felt such passionate animosity toward the Western world, particularly the United States. Since that historic attack there have been many books and discussions about this very question, but few of them offer such a readable and relevant response as this excellent offering by renowned historian Bernard Lewis (What Went Wrong?). For modern Westerners, Islam is an especially foreign religion and culture to understand. For instance, Westerners typically dismiss things as unimportant when using the expression "thats history." But for those raised in Muslim households, historyeven ancient historyis just as important (if not more important) as the present. And to better understand the hostilities rooted in this historyone could start with recognizing the long-standing resentment the Islamic community harbors from having its homelands torn apart and re-packaged into random political states by occupying Europeans (Westerners). Or stretch back in time to the brutality of the Crusades. Or go straight to the U.S. political meddling in the region throughout the latter 20th century.

    This is not a pity fest for Muslims. Lewis even-handedly explores the sources of Islamic antagonism toward the West while also explaining how a supposedly peace-worshipping religion could be so distorted by violent extremism. He notes that the American way of lifeespecially that of fulfillment through material gain and sexual freedomis a direct threat to Islamic values (which is why night clubsplaces where men and women publicly touch one anotherare targets of bombings). But it is basic Western democracy that especially threatens Islamic extremists, notes Lewis, because within its own community more and more Muslims are coming to value the freedom that political democracy allows. For anyone wanting an intelligent and accessible primer on the Islamic-Western conflict, this is an excellent place to begin. Gail Hudson [via]

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  • Pape, Robert A.: Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
    Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism
    by Robert A. Pape
    ISBN 1400063175 (1-4000-6317-5)
    Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group

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    Includes a new Afterword

    Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award

    One of the worlds foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackersand his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shiite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War IIs Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history.

    Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11.

    Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants.
    Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris

    Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise.
    Henry Schuster, CNN.com

    Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East.
    The Washington Post Book World

    Brilliant.
    Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc. [via]

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  • End of Faith: Religion, Terror, And the Future of Reason
    by Sam Harris
    ISBN 0393327655 (0-393-32765-5)
    Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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    Sam Harris cranks out blunt, hard-hitting chapters to make his case for why faith itself is the most dangerous element of modern life. And if the devil's in the details, then you'll find Satan waiting at the back of the book in the very substantial notes section where Harris saves his more esoteric discussions to avoid sidetracking the urgency of his message.

    Interestingly, Harris is not just focused on debunking religious faith, though he makes his compelling arguments with verve and intellectual clarity. The End of Faith is also a bit of a philosophical Swiss Army knife. Once he has presented his arguments on why, in an age of Weapons of Mass Destruction, belief is now a hazard of great proportions, he focuses on proposing alternate approaches to the mysteries of life. Harris recognizes the truth of the human condition, that we fear death, and we often crave "something more" we cannot easily define, and which is not met by accumulating more material possessions. But by attempting to provide the cure for the ills it defines, the book bites off a bit more than it can comfortably chew in its modest page count (however the rich Bibliography provides more than enough background for an intrigued reader to follow up for months on any particular strand of the author' musings.)

    Harris' heart is not as much in the latter chapters, though, but in presenting his main premise. Simply stated, any belief system that speaks with assurance about the hereafter has the potential to place far less value on the here and now. And thus the corollary -- when death is simply a door translating us from one existence to another, it loses its sting and finality. Harris pointedly asks us to consider that those who do not fear death for themselves, and who also revere ancient scriptures instructing them to mete it out generously to others, may soon have these weapons in their own hands. If thoughts along the same line haunt you, this is your book.--Ed Dobeas [via]

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  • Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
    by Steve Coll
    ISBN 1594200076 (1-59420-007-6)
    Hardcover, Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

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    Book summary:

    Steve Coll's Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 offers revealing details of the CIA's involvement in the evolution of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the years before the September 11 attacks. From the beginning, Coll shows how the CIA's on-again, off-again engagement with Afghanistan after the end of the Soviet war left officials at Langley with inadequate resources and intelligence to appreciate the emerging power of the Taliban. He also demonstrates how Afghanistan became a deadly playing field for international politics where Soviet, Pakistani, and U.S. agents armed and trained a succession of warring factions. At the same time, the book, though opinionated, is not solely a critique of the agency. Coll balances accounts of CIA failures with the success stories, like the capture of Mir Amal Kasi. Coll, managing editor for the Washington Post, covered Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992. He demonstrates unprecedented access to records of White House meetings and to formerly classified material, and his command of Saudi, Pakistani, and Afghani politics is impressive. He also provides a seeming insider's perspective on personalities like George Tenet, William Casey, and anti-terrorism czar, Richard Clarke ("who seemed to wield enormous power precisely because hardly anyone knew who he was or what exactly he did for a living"). Coll manages to weave his research into a narrative that sometimes has the feel of a Tom Clancy novel yet never crosses into excess. While comprehensive, Coll's book may be hard going for those looking for a direct account of the events leading to the 9-11 attacks. The CIA's 1998 engagement with bin Laden as a target for capture begins a full two-thirds of the way into Ghost Wars, only after a lengthy march through developments during the Carter, Reagan, and early Clinton Presidencies. But this is not a critique of Coll's efforts; just a warning that some stamina is required to keep up. Ghost Wars is a complex study of intelligence operations and an invaluable resource for those seeking a nuanced understanding of how a small band of extremists rose to inflict incalculable damage on American soil. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]

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  • Bergen, Peter L.: Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama Bin Laden
    Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden
    by Peter L. Bergen
    ISBN 0743234952 (0-7432-3495-2)
    Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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    Book summary:

    On September 11, 2001, the world in which we live was changed forever. The twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one side of the Pentagon burst into flame, and more than six thousand men, women, and children lost their lives in the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil. As shocking as it was, it had been long in the making: The assault was the most sophisticated and horrifying in a series of operations masterminded by Osama bin Laden and his Jihad group -- an organization that CNN's terrorism analyst Peter Bergen calls Holy War, Inc. One of only a handful of Western journalists to have interviewed the world's most wanted man face to face, Peter Bergen has produced the definitive book on the Jihadist network that operates globally and in secrecy. In the course of four years of investigative reporting, he has interviewed scores of insiders -- from bin Laden associates and family members to Taliban leaders to CIA officials -- and traveled to Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom to learn the truth about bin Laden's al Queda organization and his mission. Immense in scope and unnerving in its findings, "Holy War, Inc." reveals: How bin Laden lives, travels, and communicates with his "cells." How his role in the crushing defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan made him a hero to Muslims all over the world -- and equipped him to endure a long and bloody siege. How the CIA ended up funding -- to the tune of three billion dollars -- radical, anti-American Afghan groups allied to bin Laden. How the attacks that foreshadowed the destruction of the World Trade Center -- among them the bombings of the American embassies in Africaand the warship USS "Cole" in Yemen -- were planned and executed. The dimensions of bin Laden's personal fortune, and why freezing his assets is both futile and nearly impossible. [via]

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  • Imperial Hubris: Why The West Is Losing The War On Terror
    by Anonymous, Michael Scheuer
    ISBN 1574888625 (1-57488-862-5)
    Softcover, Potomac Books Inc

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    Book summary:

    Though U.S. leaders try to convince the world of their success in fighting al Qaeda, one anonymous member of the U.S. intelligence community would like to inform the public that we are, in fact, losing the war on terror. Further, until U.S. leaders recognize the errant path they have irresponsibly chosen, he says, our enemies will only grow stronger.

    According to the author, the greatest danger for Americans confronting the Islamist threat is to believeat the urging of U.S. leadersthat Muslims attack us for what we are and what we think rather than for what we do. Blustering political rhetoric informs the public that the Islamists are offended by the Western worlds democratic freedoms, civil liberties, inter-mingling of genders, and separation of church and state. However, although aspects of the modern world may offend conservative Muslims, no Islamist leader has fomented jihad to destroy participatory democracy, for example, the national association of credit unions, or coed universities.

    Instead, a growing segment of the Islamic world strenuously disapproves of specific U.S. policies and their attendant military, political, and economic implications. Capitalizing on growing anti-U.S. animosity, Osama bin Ladens genius lies not simply in calling for jihad, but in articulating a consistent and convincing case that Islam is under attack by America. Al Qaedas public statements condemn Americas protection of corrupt Muslim regimes, unqualified support for Israel, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a further litany of real-world grievances. Bin Ladens supporters thus identify their problem and believe their solution lies in war. Anonymous contends they will go to any length, not to destroy our secular, democratic way of life, but to deter what they view as specific attacks on their lands, their communities, and their religion. Unless U.S. leaders recognize this fact and adjust their policies abroad accordingly, even moderate Muslims will join the bin Laden camp.

    Download the Complete Bibliography for this book.

    [via]

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  • Inside Terrorism
    by Bruce Hoffman
    ISBN 0231126999 (0-231-12699-9)
    Softcover, Columbia Univ Pr

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    Bruce Hoffman describes the changing face of terrorism, probing the new adversaries, new motivations, and new methods that have surfaced in recent years to challenge many of our most fundamental assumptions about terrorists and how they operate. Hoffman dissects terrorism past and present, charting its evolution and predicting where it might be headed in the next century.

    Inside Terrorism traces the history of terrorism from its roots in the Reign of Terror that followed the French Revolution, to Communist movements in Russia, Germany, and Italy, to longstanding nationalist organizations such as the PLO, which emerged on the world stage after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. Despite the ambush and murder of its own members, the PLO became a powerful and notorious terrorist group, and made the cause of a Palestinian homeland well known.

    Turning his attention to recent events, Hoffman argues that our notion of terrorism as a form of limited violence has been shattered by the emergence of more lethal and less predictable terrorist organizations, like the Aum sect in Japan -- responsible for the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack -- fanatical Jewish and Islamic groups in the Middle East, and radical wings of the militia movement in the United States. These fringe groups are built upon -- and react to -- a sense of isolation, and are more likely to use weapons of mass destruction than the nationalist terrorist groups with which we are familiar.

    Hoffman also considers the issue of media coverage and how it relates to political power. Although the media provide a platform for terrorist agendas, terrorists only occasionally achieve their ultimate political goals by exploiting the media, and are often captured as a result of news reports -- as in the Unabomber case. South Africa's African National Congress, which won sympathy for its plight and eventually obtained power in part through terrorist activities, is a rare exception to the rule.

    Carefully researched and filled with up-to-date information, Inside Terrorism presents a sharp and chilling portrait of a phenomenon that poses new and ever deadlier threats to peace and stability around the globe.

    [via]

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  • Demille, Nelson: The Lion's Game
    The Lion's Game
    by Nelson Demille
    ISBN 0446608262 (0-446-60826-2)
    Softcover, Grand Central Pub

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    Book summary:

    John Corey and Asad Khalil have both lived hard-knock lives. As revealed in Nelson DeMille's monster bestseller Plum Island, the gruff, wisecracking NYPD homicide cop Corey stopped a hail of bullets--but he couldn't stop his wife from walking out on him. Asad, raised under Muammar Qaddafi's eye after his dad's murder, lost his surviving family in the 1986 bombing of Libya. He's heard the nasty rumors about his mom and the colonel, but he aims his rage at the infidels. The boy's got such a gift for terrorism he's earned the nickname "the Lion," and Boris, his vodka-sozzled, sex-addicted émigré mentor, knows precisely how to conduct a murder tour of America one step ahead of the police, the FBI, the CIA, and the ATTF (Anti-Terrorist Task Force), which combines members of all three. A pity Boris must die, but hey, he's an infidel too.

    Asad pretends to defect, handcuffed to agents aboard a 747 bound for JFK, and he proves to be a worse seatmate than a siding salesman. Corey and his ATTF colleagues (most conspicuously the FBI's sexy Kate Mayfield, Corey's match in badinage and bad-guy busting) strive to halt Asad's methodical yet unpredictable bloodbath. Skillfully, DeMille alternates chapters told from Asad's and Corey's points of view. DeMille did his authenticity homework: when we're not savoring his gift for wiseacre dialogue in the Corey-Kate chapters, we're sweating alongside Asad on his ghastly, ingenious jihad.

    The New York Times put DeMille's social satire on a par with Edith Wharton's, and he's great on the colliding folkways of the feuding, mutually doublecrossing crimebuster institutions. Naturally, he's on the side of the regular-guy flatfoots. "Cops sit on their asses and flip through their folders," he writes. "Feds sit on their derrieres and peruse their dossiers." And the CIA gets it in the shorts, satirically speaking. One deplores the mass murderers, but the book's real bad guys wear the priciest suits.

    DeMille reportedly has a $25 million book contract. With fast, funny, absorbing thrillers like The Lion's Game, he's earned it. --Tim Appelo [via]

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  • The Little Drummer Girl
    by John Le Carre
    ISBN 0743464656 (0-7434-6465-6)
    Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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    In this enthralling and thought-provoking novel of Middle Eastern intrigue, Charlie, a brilliant and beautiful young actress, is lured into 'the theatre of the real' by an Israeli intelligence officer. Forced to play her ultimate role, she is plunged into a deceptive and delicate trap set to ensnare an elusive Palestinian terrorist. THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL is a thrilling, deeply moving and courageous novel of our times. [via]

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  • Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11
    by Thomas L. Friedman
    ISBN 0374190666 (0-374-19066-6)
    Hardcover, Farrar Straus & Giroux

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    Book summary:

    America's leading observer of the international scene on the minute-by-minute events of September 11th--before, during and after As the Foreign Affairs columnist for the The New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman is in a unique position to interpret the world for American readers. Twice a week, Friedman's celebrated commentary provides the most trenchant, pithy,and illuminating perspective in journalism.Longitudes and Attitudes contains the columns Friedman has published about the most momentous news story of our time, as well as a diary of his experiences and reactions during this period of crisis. As the author writes, the book is "not meant to be a comprehensive study of September 11 and all the factors that went into it. Rather, my hope is that it will constitute a 'word album' that captures and preserves the raw, unpolished, emotional and analytical responses that illustrate how I, and others, felt as we tried to grapple with September and its aftermath, as they were unfolding."Readers have repeatedly said that Friedman has expressed the essence of their own feelings, helping them not only by explaining who "they" are, but also by reassuring us about who "we" are. More than any other journalist writing, Friedman gives voice to America's awakening sense of its role in a changed world. [via]

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  • Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of Terrorism
    by Thomas L. Friedman
    ISBN 1400031257 (1-4000-3125-7)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    Book summary:

    From the Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times columnist and bestselling author of From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree comes this smart, penetrating, brilliantly informed book that is indispensable for understanding todays radically new world and Americas complex place in it.

    Thomas L. Freidman received his third Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat. In Longitudes and Attitudes he gives us all of the columns he has published about the most momentous news story of our time, as well as a diary of his private experiences and reflections during his postSeptember 11 travels. Updated for this new paperback edition, with over two years worth of Friedmans columns and an expanded version of his diary, Longitudes and Attitudes is a broadly influential work from our most trusted observer of the international scene. [via]

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  • The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
    by Lawrence Wright
    ISBN 1400030846 (1-4000-3084-6)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wrights remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.

    The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBIs counterterrorism chief, John ONeill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal.

    As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . . the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole . . . ONeills heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers . . . Prince Turkis transformation from bin Ladens ally to his enemy . . . the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

    The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; ONeills high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal lifehe was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others existenceand the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence agencies.

    Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information, and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively with the continuing terrorist threat. [via]

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  • The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
    by Ron Suskind
    ISBN 0743271106 (0-7432-7110-6)
    Softcover, Simon & Schuster

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    Book summary:

    Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind takes you deep inside America's real battles with violent, unrelenting terrorists -- a game of kill-or-be-killed, from the Oval Office to the streets of Karachi.

    You may think you know what the "war on terror" is.

    But to know it "truly," you must read this book.

    Suskind has written a riveting work of narrative nonfiction, filled with exclusive, historically significant disclosures that will echo across America and the world.

    What is the guiding principle of the world's most powerful nation as it searches for enemies at home and abroad? The One Percent Doctrine is the deeply secretive core of America's real playbook: a default strategy, designed by Dick Cheney, that separates America from its moorings, and has driven everything -- from war in Afghanistan to war in Iraq to the global search for jihadists.

    The story begins on September 12, 2001, the day America began to gather itself for a response to the unimaginable. Ultimately, that reply would shape the nation's very character.

    Suskind tells us what actually occurred over the next three years, from the inside out, by tracing the steps of the key actors -- the notables, from the President and Vice President to George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, who oversee the "war on terror" and report progress to an anxious nation; and the invisibles, the men and women just below the line of sight, left to improvise plans to defeat a new kind of enemy in an hour-by-hour race against disaster. The internal battles between these two teams -- one, under the hot lights; the other, actually fighting the fight -- reveal everything about what America faces, and whatit has done, in this age of terror.

    Who is actually running U.S. foreign policy? Is there an operational cell, armed with WMDs, inside the United States? Have some of the world's most dangerous terrorists -- including leaders of al Qaeda -- been caught and accidentally released? Can America prevail in this struggle against enemies who are patient, ingenious, certain, and have clear tactical advantage?

    With his unparalleled access to senior officials, past and present, Ron Suskind -- author of" The Price of Loyalty, "the most revealing book yet written on the Bush administration -- finally answers the questions that keep Americans awake at night.

    And in this startling book, he reframes the debates that roil the globe.

    [via]

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  • Patriot Games
    by Tom Clancy
    ISBN 0425109720 (0-425-10972-0)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    The bestselling author of Red Storm Rising and The Sum of All Fears brings Jack Ryan back in his to fight his deadliest battle yet.

    From England to Ireland to America, an explosive wave of violence sweeps a CIA analyst and his family into the deadliest game of our time: international terrorism. An ultra-left-wing faction fo the IRA has targeted the CIA man for his act of salvation in an assasination attempt. And now he must pay ... with his life. [via]

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  • Rainbow Six
    by Tom Clancy
    ISBN 0425170349 (0-425-17034-9)
    Softcover, Berkley Pub Group

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    Book summary:

    For many readers, Jack Ryan embodies the essence of the modern American hero. Morally centered, disciplined, humble yet powerful, Ryan (and his onscreen incarnations in Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford) has made Tom Clancy one of the most popular writers in the world. But as Clancy has constructed the Ryan mythology, he has quietly established Ryan's shadow double, John Clark. Appearing in The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Clear and Present Danger, and Without Remorse, Clark has many of Jack Ryan's most appealing traits, but he is also a darker figure embodying the more paranoid sensibilities of the late '90s. As is made clear from the opening pages of Rainbow Six, ex-Navy SEAL Clark and his colleagues believe violent, deadly force to be the best deterrent for terrorism.

    Clark (a.k.a. Rainbow Six) has left the CIA to create an England-based organization code-named "Rainbow." Its mission: deploy an elite squad of American operatives combined with handpicked British, French, and German agents to stop terrorism in its tracks. Rainbow's emergence could not be more timely: in quick succession, the force diffuses three attempted terrorist actions. But Clark becomes suspicious when Russian agents suddenly show interest in Rainbow's work.

    Rainbow Six appeals on all the levels that Clancy fans could hope for. The Rainbow operatives, from Navy SEALs to German mountain-leader school graduates, are rendered to inspire with their physical and mental prowess. The book is infatuated with the latest gadgets for scrambling, transmitting, and decoding secrets. And, in a carefully woven narrative that simultaneously traces the Rainbow team, a former KGB agent named Popov, the Australian Olympic security team, and a sinister group of American scientists, Clancy artfully reveals the mystery of "Shiva" at the center of the novel. How does Clark measure up against Jack Ryan? He may be the perfect hero for a world with hidden villains. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]

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  • Saturday
    by Ian McEwan
    ISBN 1400076196 (1-4000-7619-6)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    From the pen of a master - the #1 bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Atonement - comes an astonishing novel that captures the fine balance of happiness and the unforeseen threats that can destroy it. A brilliant, thrilling page-turner that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Saturday is a masterful novel set within a single day in February 2003. Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and enjoying good relations with his children. Henry wakes to the comfort of his large home in central London on this, his day off. He is as at ease here as he is in the operating room. Outside the hospital, the world is not so easy or predictable. There is an impending war against Iraq, and a general darkening and gathering pessimism since the New York and Washington attacks two years before. On this particular Saturday morning, Perowne's day moves through the ordinary to the extraordinary. After an unusual sighting in the early morning sky, he makes his way to his regular squash game with his anaesthetist, trying to avoid the hundreds of thousands of marchers filling the streets of London, protesting against the war. A minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with a small-time thug. To Perowne's professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man, who in turn believes the surgeon has humiliated him - with savage consequences that will lead Henry Perowne to deploy all his skills to keep his family alive. [via]

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  • Secret Agent
    by Joseph Conrad
    ISBN 159688083X (1-59688-083-X)
    Softcover, Large Print Book Co

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    The Secret Agent (1907) builds a triangle of conspiracy, which is destroyed, by the self-interset of its participants. Mr Verloc, employed by a foreign embassy to incriminate an anarchist group, instead destroys his family, his illusions, and his own life, in a terrorist act gone utterly wrong. Conrad's ironic and troubling novel exposes the futility of political extremism and the strength,andvanity of human illusion. [via]

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  • The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
    by Joseph Conrad
    ISBN 1853260657 (1-85326-065-7)
    Softcover, Wordsworth Editions, Limited

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    One one of the great detective novels of all time, "The Secret Conrad", written in 1903, is a magisterial thriller of terrorists and police in London in the early years of the 20th century. [via]

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  • The Secret Agent and Almayer's Folly
    by Joseph Conrad
    ISBN 055321134X (0-553-21134-X)
    Softcover, Bantam Books

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    In The Secret Agent, Verloc's plans to blow up an English market explode in his face. In Almayer's Folly, a sea trader schemes to amass a fortune in gold before the dark jungle can penetrate his soul. Reprint. [via]

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  • Baer, Robert: See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the Cia's War on Terrorism
    See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
    by Robert Baer
    ISBN 140004684X (1-4000-4684-X)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East. --Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker

    Robert Baer [was] one of the most talented Middle East case officers of the past twenty years. Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Atlantic Monthly

    In See No Evil, one of the CIAs top field officers of the past quarter century recounts his career running agents in the back alleys of the Middle East. In the process, Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides compelling evidence about how Washington politics sabotaged the CIAs efforts to root out the worlds deadliest terrorists.


    On the morning of September 11, 2001, the world witnessed the terrible result of that intelligence failure with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the wake of those attacks, Americans were left wondering how such an obviously long-term, globally coordinated plot could have escaped detection by the CIA and taken the nation by surprise. Robert Baer was not surprised. A twenty-one-year veteran of the CIAs Directorate of Operations who had left the agency in 1997, Baer observed firsthand how an increasingly bureaucratic CIA lost its way in the postcold war world and refused to adequately acknowledge and neutralize the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalist terror in the Middle East and elsewhere.

    A throwback to the days when CIA operatives got results by getting their hands dirty and running covert operations, Baer spent his career chasing down leads on suspected terrorists in the worlds most volatile hot spots. As he and his agents risked their lives gathering intelligence, he watched as the CIA reduced drastically its operations overseas, failed to put in place people who knew local languages and customs, and rewarded workers who knew how to play the political games of the agencys suburban Washington headquarters but not how to recruit agents on the ground.

    See No Evil is not only a candid memoir of the education and disillusionment of an intelligence operative but also an unprecedented look at the roots of modern terrorism. Baer reveals some of the disturbing details he uncovered in his work, including:

    * In 1996, Osama bin Laden established a strategic alliance with Iran to coordinate terrorist attacks against the United States.

    * In 1995, the National Security Council intentionally aborted a military coup detat against Saddam Hussein, forgoing the last opportunity to get rid of him.

    * In 1991, the CIA intentionally shut down its operations in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and ignored fundamentalists operating there.

    When Baer left the agency in 1997 he received the Career Intelligence Medal, with a citation that says, He repeatedly put himself in personal danger, working the hardest targets, in service to his country. See No Evil is Baers frank assessment of an agency that forgot that service to country must transcend politics and is a forceful plea for the CIA to return to its original missionthe preservation of our national sovereignty and the American way of life.


    From The Preface
    This book is a memoir of one foot soldiers career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. Its a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we dont need to do business with.

    This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.

    The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see. [via]

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  • The Sum of All Fears
    by Tom Clancy
    ISBN 1560549475 (1-56054-947-5)
    Softcover, Thorndike Pr

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    Once again, Tom Clancy manages to add new twists to the alternate U.S. history he initiated in The Hunt for Red October. In The Sum of All Fears, the center of conflict is the perpetual hot spot the Mideast, where a nuclear weapon falls into the hands of terrorists just as peace seems possible. Clancy realistically paints an almost unthinkable scenario--the bomb is planted on American soil in the midst of an escalation in tension with the Soviet Union; the terrorists hope to rekindle cold war animosity and prevent reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.

    Despite such a dramatic story line, Clancy doesn't neglect the individuals who drive his tale. Jack Ryan's problems are as much domestic as they are part of the international crisis that is the ostensible narrative: National Security Director Elizabeth Elliot has the president's ear, and she has convinced him that Ryan's ethics are questionable. She hints at marital infidelity and an insider-trading scandal. Of course, both accusations are false, but her arguments have enough evidence behind them (e.g. some photographs of an innocent embrace with a friend) to cause a strain in the Ryans' marriage and a flurry of media attention. While "Mr. Clark" tracks the terrorists, he also provides some needed intelligence to heal the Ryan family.

    The Sum of All Fears is the stuff of nightmares but contains enough verisimilitude to terrify sober minds. Ryan has matured into a complex protagonist as Clancy's writing, too, has matured. Ryan is plagued by stress and self-doubts that test even his dauntless moral compass and make him a more interesting subject for readers' attention. Those fascinated by military hardware, from nuclear submarines to atomic weapons, will find almost enough here to start their own army. And Clancy's understanding of international politics seems chillingly correct. --Patrick O'Kelley [via]

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  • Berman, Paul: Terror and Liberalism
    Terror and Liberalism
    by Paul Berman
    ISBN 0393325555 (0-393-32555-5)
    Softcover, W W Norton & Co Inc

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  • Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
    by Mark Juergensmeyer
    ISBN 0520232062 (0-520-23206-2)
    Softcover, Univ of California Pr

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    Book summary:

    Completely revised and updated, this new edition of Terror in the Mind of God incorporates the events of September 11, 2001 into Mark Juergensmeyer's landmark study of religious terrorism. Juergensmeyer explores the 1993 World Trade Center explosion, Hamas suicide bombings, the Tokyo subway nerve gas attack, and the killing of abortion clinic doctors in the United States. His personal interviews with 1993 World Trade Center bomber Mahmud Abouhalima, Christian Right activist Mike Bray, Hamas leaders Sheik Yassin and Abdul Azis Rantisi, and Sikh political leader Simranjit Singh Mann, among others, take us into the mindset of those who perpetrate and support violence in the name of religion.
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  • Terrorism and War
    by Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove
    ISBN 1583224939 (1-58322-493-9)
    Softcover, Seven Stories Pr

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  • Updike, John: Terrorist
    Terrorist
    by John Updike
    ISBN 1585478601 (1-58547-860-1)
    Hardcover, Center Point Pub

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  • Underground
    by Alfred Birnbaum, Haruki Murakami, J. Philip Gabriel, Philip Gabriel
    ISBN 0375725806 (0-375-72580-6)
    Softcover, Random House Inc

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    Book summary:

    From Haruki Murakami, internationally acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Norwegian Wood, a work of literary journalism that is as fascinating as it is necessary, as provocative as it is profound.

    In March of 1995, agents of a Japanese religious cult attacked the Tokyo subway system with sarin, a gas twenty-six times as deadly as cyanide. Attempting to discover why, Murakami conducted hundreds of interviews with the people involved, from the survivors to the perpetrators to the relatives of those who died, and Underground is their story in their own voices. Concerned with the fundamental issues that led to the attack as well as these personal accounts, Underground is a document of what happened in Tokyo as well as a warning of what could happen anywhere. This is an enthralling and unique work of nonfiction that is timely and vital and as wonderfully executed as Murakamis brilliant novels. [via]

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