Book Reviews

The War over Iraq explains how we (Americans) have arrived to this point in history, detailing the chain of events, motivations, and policies of past Presidential administrations dating back to Reagan (with a couple of references to Truman). If you thought you knew why we went to war in Iraq in 1991 or again in 2003, then think again. I found this book both compelling and enlightening and I didn't put it down until I finished it.

The author does a very good job of presenting the facts surrounding the chain of events without excessive editorializing until the last 20 pages or so. My head swelled with the knowledge that I gained (without his opinions) and served to significantly broaden my view of foreign political landscape. It also helped me more succinctly define my own philosophies toward foreign policy.

My words don't do this book justice. I can't imagine ever having an intelligent conversation about our reasons for those wars without the information presented in this book. My enthusiasm abounds... That's the best way I can put it.

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Losing Bin Laden is a book that chronicles the blunders and miscues of our federal government and its leaders. For those who are still novices about the worlwide terrorist organizations (or completely ignorant), this book will quickly bring you up to speed. It goes back as far as bin Laden's flight from Saudi Arabia, after having been put under house arrest by the Saudi government for his associations with radical Islamic extremists. It goes on to chronicle his fight against the Soviets alongside the Mujahideen and his five "protected" years in Sudan.

More enlightening, however, was how the U.S. State Department, FBI, CIA, and other organizations (including the President, himself) ignored the signs or took the stance of "passive resistance". More specifically, foreign policy was (in my opinion) centered around political expedience and self-serving motivations. While much of the blame for "Porsche 911" has been blamed on the lack of inter-agency cooperation (and by blame, I'm referring to the prevention of the occurrence), the "buck stops here" (i.e. the President) and too often no action was taken. Even after the FBI informed the White House that the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was the work of a terrorist organization (which is easily traced by associations back to Osama bin Laden), there is was a clear denial by the White House to accept these facts and report them as such.

The one take-away point that I would attribute to this book? As I closed the last page, I heard the words "that self-serving son of a bitch" escape my lips...

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Terrorist Hunter is a must buy, gotta have it, super stocker! I am effusive about this book and am not shy about it! It complements the first two books in this review, but goes a step beyond and adds drama, intrigue, and suspense! A Jewish family, born in al-Basra in Iraq, found themselves suddenly persecuted after Saddam's rise to power. Anyone who knows anything about the biography of Saddam Hussein is familiar with the incident where he publicly hung 14 Iraqi suspected of spying, 9 of which were Iraqi Jews (or was it 8...I can't remember for certain). At any rate, the author (who remains anonymous) was a young girl during that period of time and was force to flee Iraq with her family to Israel. There, she grew up, went to school, served in the military, and started a family. Still a leftist, with proclivities to support the establishment of the Palestinian state, she nonetheless, prospered as a Jew in an Israeli coastal town. After her third son, she moved to the United States where she became an employee of a Middle East research institute.

Here's where the story really begins to explode. Through exhaustive research, she began to uncover the roots and origins of religious leaders and charitable organizations operating fronts for terrorists in the United States. To dig deeper into their operations, she posed as an Iraqi Muslim woman, attending conventions and rallies in major metropolitan areas across this country (e.g. Chicago, San Francisco, etc.). One of the most astounding discoveries, in my opinion, was the charitable front in Tucson, Arizona, that was the first and central organization in the U.S. that funded al-Qaida.

The most astounding element of the story and her endeavors was that much of the information was found in the public domain. You or I or anyone else could have discovered (or in this case, verified) the information by simply rooting around through various public domain documents, such as articles of incorporation and federal tax declarations (required for charities). This is a first-rate example of where the bureaucracy of our system actually benefited us citizens.

As I finished this book, I was left with two very poignant realizations. First, the freedoms that we enjoy are enjoyed by all...and I mean ALL ...who come here. Secondly, we, as American citizens, by-in-large don't have the simplest grasp of the magnitude of the foe we are facing. As I read it, images of John Gotti and Al Capone flashed in my head, because the magnitude of the "system" that has been put in place (with regard to the terrorist organizations) is akin to organized crime on a global scale. It was both the most compelling and alarming book (of nonfiction) that I have ever read.